clay chronicles

Despite the maximum amount of noise, (1), I hear and feel the gentle murmur of the trickling mixture as I mix clay, sand, gravel, and sedimentary rock. I find myself caught in a seemingly endless flow of work, announced by the early hoot of the factory whistle (2). Every day I repeat the same movements, immersed in the hope that they would free my mind. Experienced and coordinated, like a mantra, I work day by day, yet I don't understand why I'm here. Sometimes I wonder why there is nothing in the feel of the clay itself, in watching the thing grow as hand and mind work together? (3) The more intensely I focus on the repetitive movements, the more insistently my thoughts circulate around me. Shall I abandon this thought when my task is nearly ended? (4) An unpleasant, long beep saturates my thoughts - all at once it brings me back to the factory, back to my disunity. I feel the cold of the damp earth in my rough, work-scarred hands, while a silent suffering clutches my mind. The spell of my thoughts seems inescapable, a merciless battle unfolds between my mind and my body, a battle between the immaterial and the material, the mental and the physical.

Each layer of clay and sand that I gently slide into the formwork leads me deeper into this inner conflict. The cold, heavy clay (6) brick that I create reminds me every morning where I am, even if I have forgotten. From now on I don’t want to be trapped, no longer want to be dominated by incessant thoughts. In my quest for freedom and clarity, and related dreams, I feel the urge to take on the visit of an unknown garden (7). A garden that shows me the way, that illuminates my innermost states, which seem so mysterious to myself. The shuttering is ready to come off, and I return, the clank of the old-fashioned steam engine, the wheeze and screech of the shafts and belting (8) surround me, that saps me and brings me abruptly back to reality. I want to escape, back to the garden of my dreams, in search of the rhythm, because such content is lost (9) in my present life. I continue to carry with me the impulse to escape. The longing for harmony as an account of mind body unity (10) grows unstoppable. Sometimes I forget the reason for my exercises, for my work. Everything seems so meaningless on this earth, while I strive for something higher, for a deeper understanding of my existence.

These are the moments when I close my eyes and see a warm, uniform glow of an orange (11) light in front of my inner eye. I am in the garden of my thoughts. The path of life leads me into an interior, built out of adobe bricks or rammed earth (12) which I produce in the factory. Surrounded by clay that forms the building blocks of my path of life, I suddenly feel a deep harmony. Despite its cold and dampness, it enlaces me like a protective shell (13) that gives me infinite freedom. Here I open myself to higher spheres, to the unspeakable, while I linger during this flight of thought. I am surrounded by an aura of harmony. It seems to me as I am the mediator between earth and heaven (14). Anchored to earth rigidly (15), I feel this inseparable connection towards heaven. Water and wind, plants, and man-made building blocks of nature, they are all present here. They show me what we can create in this world if we learn to think and reason (16) and investigate the world with strength. In this place I can learn to understand my existence and achieve an inner peace. Hope sprouts in the rhythm of life, the realization that our learning never ends, that we must always be open to change, leads me back to the long-lost harmony. Out here, encircled by the splendour of green trees, the buzzing of insects and the gentle murmur of a spring, I experience something completely different. The walls of my inner garden are cold, and yet they radiate an indescribable warmth and security. Here, in this place of change, I recognize the beauty of change - the opportunity for transformation.

My body and mind finally begin to work together, no longer in conflict or antagonism, but instead in continuity and harmony (17). Realization begins to form an understanding of my daily work, of making and stacking adobe bricks. I realize that I am the composition of different states, mental and physical. My body reflects my mind, my work becomes the reflection of my thoughts. By lining up the bricks again and bringing them into a new state, I manifest my inner processes. It appears like that with every brick that I re-row, I set myself into a new state. I am still in the noise of the factory, but this time I am in harmony, with the environment, with the work and above all with my soul. I stack the bricks, I rearrange them, like a mantra that arises in my mind and spreads to my body. I repeat the same movements again, takes new step - return of rhythm with the seeds of the unexpected (18). This mantra leads me back to my inner centre, to a place where I exist, where awareness subsists between birth and death, between work and rest. A place of wandering, of seeking and finding, a place of longing and reality. I leave the factory and enter my consciousness, searching for a deep harmony between my body and my mind. I stack adobe bricks as if this my mantra of knowledge and inner peace.

(1) Mumford, The Culture of Cities, (2) Mumford, The Culture of Cities, (3) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology, (4) Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (5) Mumford, The Culture of Cities, (6) Evans, The Projective Cast Architecture and Its Three Geometries, (7) Clement, The Planetary Garden and Other Writings, (8) Mumford, The Culture of Cities, (9) Schaeffer, In Search of A Concrete Music, (10) Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, (11) Seneca, Complete Works, (12) Simitch Warke, The Language of Architecture, (13) Calasso, Ardor, (14) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815, (15) Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968, (16) Wollstonecraft, The Vindications The Rights of Men and The Rights of Woman, (17) Campanella, The Book and the Body of Nature, (18) Serres, The Five Senses