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Building Cairns

By LVA

Smooth rocks with flat backs, stacked one on top of the other.

I enjoy the simplicity of balancing the contrasting colors together to create a tower of evenness where the weight of one side matches the other so they can live in harmony, one on top of the other without toppling over.

Sometimes when you make a cairn you grab rocks that might work together and once you start stacking them you realize it’s not the best fit.

You put them one on the other and feel the imbalance, if you let go the entire structure will fall apart.

Where does the structure begin? Is it in the first rock placed carefully in it’s position, or maybe after many rocks set one upon the other until you find the instability.

At some point laying one rock upon the next become precarious.

The weight of different layers and gravity on the first rock creates a spirited effort to hold the form.

What started with a smooth and brilliant foundation becomes less easy as you add more.

When we add more, we add more.

When we start with what we have and stay there, we stay there.

We want to build our cairns. We want to rise.

We want to move upward.

Perhaps creating our foundation and letting it settle for a bit is a nice idea.

Jenga, Cairns, Stacking, it’s all ambition.

We want to do it so fast. Buildings grow around us at increased speed. Highways are built and re-formed within years. Everyone wants answers to problems at the moment they perceive them.

We are ambitious.

We strive.

We build cairns. Everywhere.

Where do they go? Where do they end?

What if I just let the rocks live where they are on the south shore and didn’t even have a desire to move them because they’re perfect right where they are.

That would be something.

Filed Under: LVA Blog, LVA Essays, LVA Writing

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