Identity

I have two quotes taped to my computer at work at an accounting firm. Are you surprised that I work at an accounting firm? Me too. It's so different from my "real" life that sometimes I can lose my footing. These words are my reminders.

"Since there is no government of which the concern or the discipline is primarily the health either of households or of the earth, since it is in the nature of any state to be concerned first of all with its own preservation and only second with the cost, the dependable, clear response to man's moral circumstance is not that of law, but that of conscience.

The highest moral behavior is not obedience to law, but obedience to the informed conscience even in spite of law." Wendell Berry

Escape

by D.H. Lawrence

When we get out of the glass bottles of our own ego,

and when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages of our personality,

and get into the forest again,

we shall shiver with cold and fright

but things will happen to us

so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,

and passion will make our bodies taut with power,

we shall stamp our feet with new power

and old things will fall down,

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

How to build a HeART Kaleidoscope

Materials:

1 Glass Circular Tube
1 Glass Triangular Tube to fit snugly inside circular tube
Pictures of your Self
All the pieces of your Heart

Step One: Make sure you've chosen a triangular tube that fits well inside the circular tube. You want one that will hold solidly in place but not so tightly that it will stress the integrity of the circular tube.

Step Two: Slide the triangular tube into place inside the circular tube. Make sure the ends are flush with each other. Seal one end of the tubes so that the spaces between the triangular tube and and the circular are closed but the triangular tube remains open.

Step Three: Stand tubes upright upon the closed end.

Step Four: Loosely fill the spaces between the circular tube and the triangular tube with the pieces of your Heart: that shiny-bell memory of your very first kiss, the jagged edge black obsidian flake of rejection, the seashells and bright copper pennies and laughter, the dead flowers and clogged pipes and loss. Tip them all right in.

Step Five: Seal the second end as the first, leaving the triangular tube open.

Step Six: A magic trick may be called for here unless you know the science required to lessen the gravity in the sealed segments between the circular and triangular tubes. Your goal is to allow the pieces of your Heart to move freely and without being distinguished as "heavy", "light", or "broken". Just let them be. Let them interact with each other without regard to chronological order, preference or classification.

Step Seven: On the outside of the circular tube, using a soft touch with a clear adhesive, attach the pictures of your Self. Images that reflect how you see Who and What you are. Leave space at the edges, don't crowd one image with another but let there be room for each to stand alone.

Step Eight: Let light flow through the triangular tube. Whether it be flame, bulb, sun or moon, flood the inner tube with light. It will stream through all the pieces of your Heart, catching the colors and shapes, bending and refracting on its way out through the channels and valleys left between the pictures of your Self on the outside of the circular tube.

Step Nine: As often as possible, gather with other HeART Kaleidoscopes and watch the incredible patterns made on blank walls and in dark corners.


More kaleidoscope stuff: Brewster Kaleidoscope Society and here's a link to make your own kaleidoscope

Wishing you wild, colorful dreams, Lisa