on the essence of creating something out of nothing

Archived from a journal entry, September 2020, new moon in virgo

Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness. As dusk approaches in the hinterlands, a traveler ponders shelter for the night. He notices tall rushes growing everywhere, so he bundles an armful together as they stand in the field, and knots them at the top. Presto, a living grass hut. The next morning, before embarking on another day’s journey, the unknots the rushes and presto, the hut de-constructs, disappears, and becomes a virtually indistinguishable part of the larger field of rushes once again. The original wilderness seems to be restored, but minute traces of the shelter remain. A slight twist or bend in the reed here and there. There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler - and in the mind of the reader reading this description. Wabi-sabi, in it’s purest, most idealized form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the borders of nothing.

While the universe destructs, it also constructs. New things merge out of nothingness.

—— Leonard Koren, Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

A question for our current times: While the metaphorical ground beneath us shakes, what are we constructing as a response? How will we contribute to our new reality? Can we begin to make tangible, a reality that we don’t yet see?

IMAGE SOURCE: TANYA PREMINGER, AND TIME TO DISPLACE, 2009