Standing Like A Tree

This morning I was doing a little chi gong, the rain was beating the glass door behind me - suddenly a penny dropped from a conversation Megan and I had yesterday:

Megan talked about the microcosmos having 'emotional seasons' as well as having seasons of weather. I loved the idea but couldn't quite picture what form it would take. Standing in the chi gong posture I had the strongest image of a tree blown by the wind and, of course, the metaphor became clear - how does the old song go? "Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain..." and even old Albert Camus famously talks about finding within him 'an invincible summer'.

I could see this tree soaking up the weather, nourished by the weather, shaped by the weather, beaten by the weather - but then I remembered something I had written and used many times: "we attach meaning to events, but events happen in the universe and meaning happens in the human heart" - suddenly the image of these individual static microcosms, their visual content unchanging but their sonic and light colouration changing - rang true - I suddenly felt the microcosmos was like looking at 100 people, or a million people - the physical appearance unchanging with each one, but the inner, unseen landscapes nourished and battered by 'invisible seasons'.

I felt a moment of strong clarity about what the microcosmos was, or could be - I felt that a lot of things I'd been feeling for in darkness had revealed themselves in a little light. The 'static' objects in combination with changing light and sound made perfect sense, the perfect way to express and explore 'inwardness' and the way separate inwardnesses relate to and are influenced by one another.

I am excited; I feel a new path has opened up in front of me..... for me, all of a sudden the piece has a language I feel I can explore with a certain amount of insight...