We Grow By Delay

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play’s all about
Wisława Szymborska .

It is winter in Australia! June 22, 2017, just as we pass the shortest day, felt like the appropriate time to plant some bulbs in this old brick maker. While I wait for Godot I will watch and photograph the gradual transformation!

“Considering the un-lived potentials of our life is reminiscent of an event that took place in the nineteenth century when an ancient Egyptian tomb was opened. In the tomb a portion of a tree was found and imbedded in the wood was a seed. The scientists involved in the expedition planted the seed out of curiosity, merely to see if anything would happen. Behold, after three thousand years the seed grew! It had missed its chance to grow in ancient Egypt, but its strength of life remained intact, dormant, waiting for its next opportunity.

The parallel is clear between the Egyptian seed and those capacities that have remained unloved on the roads not taken in our lives. Because time has passed them by, we assume that the choices we rejected or waived are now dead, and that there is no longer ay potential in them” (Progroff I, 1975, p.125).

While Waiting for Godot is a project that was put on hold for a number of years. It is a later expression of a plan that had been lying relatively dormant. It was a matter of finding an appropriate moment for the potential to begin to be realised. Just as it may take some time for the plants that are lying within the rich soil of the old brick making tool to reach their potential, this is a project which needs time.

This project will record the growth of the bulbs that are planted here and mirror the potential of While Waiting for Godot!

Witnessing Growth by Delay

It is only one day (June 23 2017) since I planted the mixed bulbs in rich potting mix in this old brick maker! Not surprisingly, to the naked eye, there is little evidence of activity today. Yet if it were possible to have one of those cameras, that wild life photographers use to capture the secret lives of some animals, it would all be very different. Just as the bulbs are stirring, preparing to rise from this fertile soil, so my ideas for ‘While Waiting for Godot’ are stirring too. Only yesterday, as we talked about this over lunch, a friend suggested setting up a small table in town and sitting there, with my other outgoing friend, waiting for Godot. My mind raced at the prospect of such fun! The challenge is to let this all grow by delay.

June 26 2017! Although this bulb had been out of the earth for some time it had retained its energy and capacity for expression. It was simply waiting for the right time and the right circumstances to follow its destiny. Following gentle rain and the warmth of the sun shoots emerge from the fertile soil.

July 19th 2017
In less than a months healthy shoots have pushed their way up towards the sunlight. The soil is fertile! There is a greening that is occurring! The Green Woman has been dancing here. She is the vital vegetative force, along with the warm of the sun, that have combined to make it possible for shoots to emerge from the rich composted soil. The Green Woman reminds me to count my blessings and to keep attending to my growing ground. Each day I need to keep it watered and pay attention to what is growing here. She tells me to be, like the bulb, my natural self and to practice my innate magic. This is a time to enhance my skills as a purveyor of creative stimuli and look forward to the harvest that is to come. Sometimes the only action is to wait patiently.

July 25 2017

Time has slipped by and this morning I noted that things are speeding up out in the old brick maker that I filled with potting mix. Just as things are sprouting in the dark, cold earth so things are sprouting in my unconscious. Some of the ideas are fragile and not ready to face the bright sun or the winds of spring. For now I am holding these embryonic hopes and preparing some rituals to assist with the growth.

August 10th 2017

It is no accident that as the bulbs I planted show the first signs of flowers blooming I am in the process of developing an exciting project with a former participant of one of my Travels with a Donkey Course. But as we wait to see flowers so I will wait before revealing more.