"Life is not an exact science, it is an art." - Samuel Butler
I came across Butler's quote last week, and it came to mind again as I watched the sublime documentary Rivers and Tides this morning. In it, viewers journey along with artist Andy Goldsworthy as he creates incredible natural sculptures using stone, wood, leaves, twigs, clay and even, sheep's wool. Through his art, Goldsworthy combines art, engineering, metaphysics, science and architecture to communicate our rootedness to the earth and how transient what those roots produce can really be.
One clip that particularly struck me was a wood sculpture - a hut? a dam? an inverted basket? - Goldsworthy constructed on the banks of a salmon hole in Nova Scotia. As intricate and meticulous as his work was, more important was what happened as the tide came in and began to strip away planks from the edges of the sculpture.
After watching this, I couldn't help but be struck by a comparison with a funeral barge floating out to sea. But, in this case, "the barge" slowly came apart through the force of the water surrounding it, except for the uppermost structure – the core – where the smallest pieces of wood were woven much tighter. I also thought about how much it was like some primitive hut set upon by the tide. In life, we each build our huts – some of wood, some of stone, some of gold – but with death, the superficial, the extraneous gets peeled away and left behind, and all we are left with is the tightly woven core – that work of art – of life – that truly mattered.
And now, we come to the end of another year. We have all been busy building ourselves, our families, our businesses, our political ideals, our educations, our dogmas, and our dreams. But did we build what truly matters? Did we strip away the unnecessary? Did we let go of the superficial? Are we, individually and together, weaving a core that will withstand the changing tides?
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