I am obsessed with Time. The endless march of it. What it gives you and what it takes away. How it is controlled by the space it inhabits. How it stretches out endlessly corralling all it owns in the vast reaches of space. It is simultaneous. All the Masters tell us All That Is, is simultaneous. It exists, and not, always.
I will never be able to lose sight of the idea, the images, and the stories of those who left the Twin Towers high up in the air before they fell. In my mind they will be forever caught up. I believe they left before their bodies were thrust out of the buildings. I believe they were all caught up, those who stayed inside and those who leapt. I believe that God caught them up, protected them, brought them home. They flew out long before the shell of their bodies ever returned to Earth.
My favorite images of the Twin Towers are from when I would lay down at the base of one of them. Laying down on the pavement, my head up against the foot of the building and then looking skyward at the enormous length of it. The immensity of the Tower running out of the full scope of my vision closest to me and trailing away as if only an idea from my sightline into the sky. The distance incomprehensible even though it is easily measured. 110 stories.
When the Towers were built their future was designed into them. They existed before they were built and will exist forever after. Their creation and construction is a part of what they were to become even though no one knew the outcome of their story. They are simultaneously linked to what they are, what they contained, and what happened. They are a parable for all of our lives. We each contain the story of our outcome within us, even though we don't know what that is, it is also simultaneous. Our memory provides us with the long look back. Our future towers beyond us but is also here right now, corralled by Time and only lays out before us. Closest to our field of vision taking up all that space and then trailing away into the great distance out from us into the beyond. As if you could lay your head at the base of your Life and look up into your future. You know where you are, what you are made of, where you have been, where you are grounded. You know all that came before you in your Life because you experienced it, but what about that long trail that shimmers into the sky? That endless, beautiful ribbon? The part you might have notions of, and the part that is measurable at the end but at this moment is enormous and incomprehensible. The painful beauty of it astounds because our attachments and emotional lives are so intertwined with our experiences but when all is said and done will still come crashing down around us. A ribbon collapsed. A chain un-taut. The DNA of us, of our Life. All that made us up, who we are, were, became, did and died. Simultaneously existing beyond Time and her space, beyond her reach. Caught up by God, protected and held close. All That Is.
These ideas were at the time beyond my comprehension. I was so pained by those who leapt from the Towers, ejected by the force of the heat, the smoke, all of it. I still am. It is enormous and beyond my measure. So I painted them and waited patiently for time to pass which would allow me to gauge them, and understand what they contained, were made of, and meant. We may never knew the entire story of the Twin Towers, 9/11, what they were and what was lost. We have them collected into our consciousness and Time will slowly reveal their story as she marches on, trailing like a ribbon all they contain for their full expression. What will never be revealed are the people in her story. They were caught up by God. Out of Time's reach. They left before their great collapse and went Home, but are simultaneously linked forever into our memory of what happened. As painful and difficult as that may be, but part of it, and expressed powerfully.
Caught Up
Oil on Canvas
24" x 40"
2003
Deus ex Machina
Oil on Canvas
8' x 6'
2003
Lambda
Oil on Canvas
7' x 5'
2003
Pi
Oil on Canvas
7' x 5'
2003
