This Too, Shall Pass

21 x 9

THIS TOO, SHALL PASS

still from video-documentation
198 minutes

Heaviness. Fear, pain, grief, guilt, sorrow, shame, anguish ( ________ fill in the blank ) is shown through the image of a stone, weighting more than a human head. For twenty-one day every day in the morning I stand by the sea with the stone on the top of my head for nine minutes. Nine — is the month of my birth and the month when the project begins. Twenty-one day is often being suggested as a "trial time" for a meditation. The sea is one of the best healers I know. Swim. Black dissolves in the sea water. Sun. Wind. Salt. Rain, at some surprising point the pain becomes a friend and a feeling of strong attachment comes along. But in the end one needs to learn how to let go of whatever it is.

The stone is left in / taken by the sea on the last, twenty-first day. What is left — thorough drawings in scale of each side of the stone; rubbings of the surface texture of each side of the stone; photographs of each side of the stone; self-portraits with the stone form the times when it was a part of me. Lightness. The sea.

This might weight a stone. This too, shall pass.

21 video stills from each day

video stills from the letting go scene

documentation of the stone: a photograph, a drawing in scale, a rubbing of each side of the stone