Throughout history humans have desired to elevate their gravity-weighted frames. Transport themselves across spaces. Be like birds.
Long before airplanes and hot air balloons, the magic carpet provided a comfy seat in which legendary nomads could glide the skies.
art by Viktor Vasnetsov
What was that essence of the rug that made it able to defy the laws of physics? Was it about the intricate weave in which the artisan painstakingly looped for days, weeks, years? Was there a power in the patterned story told by thousands of threads? Did that tale give life to an otherwise inanimate object? Give a force so great, through a tradition so long-held, that it simply carried those adventurers via magical flight?
I definitely believe in magic. Though in my case, my grandmother’s carpet traveled thousands of miles through the traditional route – I think…
Boxed, taped and stamped with Delivery Confirmation, it drove as cargo via the US Postal Service to a dock in California where it was to be put on a boat to sail to my little island. With the assistance of modern technology, it was supposed to be able to be tracked along its journey via the internet, trailing each outpost where it stopped, until it finally moved out to sea.
Somewhere in transit it fell off the radar. No tracking information was available and the carpet seemed to have simply vanished. Maybe it was as rebellious as some of my family members. Perhaps it just gave Big Brother the slip. Weeks and weeks went by with no trace of its whereabouts.
And then yesterday it materialized. It now graces the space by my writing desk.
Since my grandmother has passed, the story of this carpet I found in her basement eludes me. There’s something about this rug that compels me to want to know its story. An energy that swirls from within its intricate design that beckons me to know more. Radiating through spun yarn are threads of woven history, unknown. Like the DNA that spirals in my very being, there is ancestral knowledge that lives and breathes through me, yet I know not its story.
Without any known past, I suppose the tale begins now. How this rug traveled over 3000 miles across the sea to me. How it slipped from any cyber-trappings that tried to track its trajectory. And now, how its presence completes the space where I write with welcomed perfection. I guess the story starts here.
That every time I look at this rug I feel happiness. That every time I step upon its softness I sense beauty.
The journey begins here. And so far, I love this ride.
Finding myself writing more privately in my journal than wanting to publicize every thought through WordPress, I’m wondering where to draw the line.
Like do I mention the image I woke with this morning? The one that came as a bird’s-eye view while I sifted in that space just between sleeping and waking.
courtesy of Horia Varlan
It was a big sky place, like Wyoming. Cotton clouds in wide open blue. An ariel view of the back of a pick up truck. Half of the truck bed was stacked with fresh-cut wood. And resting just beside the pile were legs, one bent at the knee, reclining freely in black, fishnet stockings.
This may be more information than anyone needs to know. Freud is dead but I suppose here’s a time where one could conjure his analysis. But let’s forget that.
The beauty of art is to let go of the mind. Play in the realms where nothing makes sense. Tap this source of possibility. Enjoy the mysterious confusion.
art by Leo Fontan
Why not start the day with a picture of infinite sky, a well-stocked supply of wood and beautiful legs naturally taking in the scene?
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