#fromhelsinki

[chemicalresistantgirl]

My newest working tool from Helsinki 😍 #startwork #morningpost #frommetome #moomin #moominpen #fromhelsinki #childinmeishappy #happyfriday (helyszín: Bayern, Germany)

[finland-murdaugh]

  9.8-10  | 

9.11-12  | 

9.13  | 

[finland-murdaugh]

ARTIFACTS | Venice | Receipts

[finland-murdaugh]

Reprise?

I found the building in the site.  I knew that the Earth would split to accommodate it.

Author, process review, 24.7.2012

I will create an awareness of the mythology of perception.  Man defines himself through the search for the nature of existence, the relentless pursuit of a hidden Truth that governs our lives.  It's a motive at the heart of every supplicant and every empiricist.  It's the human condition.  We suspect that the shapes on the wall are merely cast shadows:  The design makes every human a philosopher.  "Across distant time and place," Man has always searched for a higher order of existence, because we intuit that there must be more to the world than that which is presented by our senses.

I should clarify:  I do not intend to literally translate Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  It's not so prosaic.  I'm referencing its imagery in order to convey my own ideas, my own feelings, associated with the site.  I don't even intend to intelligently elaborate upon the Allegory.  It is simply an allusion that offers itself as a mechanism of understanding.

[finland-murdaugh]

Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[finland-murdaugh]

Today’s first bus driver played “Boys of Summer” by the Ataris. I couldn’t tell what music the driver of the second bus favored.

[finland-murdaugh]

Yesterday as I was waiting for the bus at the bus stop (of all places), I heard a banging noise near the trashbin, which was obscured from my view by the advertisement on the side of the bus stop. It happened several times, and I kind of thought that there was a bum rummaging through the trash. After the third time or so, I peeked around the ad and saw that there was no one there; as I watched, I heard the noise again and realized that it was coming from inside the trash can. So I went a little bit closer and peeked at the metal flap of the trashbin, and as I looked, it swung inward, pulled by little paws that gripped the bottom left corner; and a little furry face peeked around the edge. The squirrel locked eyes with me. He was obviously frozen in fear. Somehow hoping to reassure him, I said, "Hey there," and then, "Let me help you." But of course, when I moved to hold the flap for him, he ducked into the bottom of the trash can and refused to come back up.

So I searched the ground for something I could use to prop open the flap so that when at last he overcame his fear, he could timidly escape his prison. I found a moldy black hoodie stuffed beneath the green bench under the plexiglass bus stop and wedged that between the trash can's edge and the bottom of the flap, inviting him to liberate himself.  I watched the trash can until the bus came a few minutes later, but he didn't venture out; I'm sure he was still positive that I was waiting just outside to gobble him up.

Later, when I took the 102 back out to Otaniemi, I rapped on the trash can, which was still propped open, and I heard no movement inside, which makes me think that he escaped. So I feel at peace about it.

[finland-murdaugh]

  I.

  Out of Eden strides the man,

Steward of the Earth,

Sure of nothing but his own will,

Yet doomed never to know himself;

  Forges onward; forges forth;

Spreads across the world

In pursuit of the elusive

Lonely precipice named Truth.

  Across distant time and place,

Man’s fate ever is this:

To believe himself alone

And thrash in loneliness;

  To enter a copse of trees

Shadowed by his might;

To sense in that glowing place

Eternity in the light;

      Yet shout out to the Heavens

And be deaf to the reply.

      II.

  wood

         brother of fire

         brother of iron

quickens the veins of the silent

birches

  thus betrayed by

blood

witnesses they

watch the desecration of

their kind

  transfixed they

observe their transformation from

living kin

into sere objects of the human

hand

  protectors they

sentinels they

gather close that which

is most dear

  in the copse

beside the creeping

corpse

  where grow the exultant

wildflowers

  best-loved sanctuary of dust

motes

steeped in yellow

      green

      III.

  living in the lee of a precarious

stone

  always they ask:

      who are we tomorrow?

        [R.L. Murdaugh, 2012]