Natural Target

Dolby Chadwick Gallery 2020

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Look towards the Moon and then past it, past the Sun, the stars, and all that opaque space and imagine a galaxy shaped like a sombrero, a flying wide brim, only it’s 50 million light years wide. And then tell me that there’s no Santa Claus.

 

I can’t see past the Sun. It’s hurting my eyes. I can’t see, you say.

 

Close your eyes. Are you worried about something? Everything?

 

Don’t be. Trust me. 
 

We are in the middle of something, not the end.

 

When I accepted the fact that there are some things that we simply don’t know I had to accept that it is wholly possible that what we do know is an infinitesimally tiny fraction, negligible really, of what there is to know. Anything and everything is possible. 4-D. Entire planes of infinite reality existing in the narrows. Yes, fairies, flying acorns, mechanical elves. Ghosts. 5-D. 9-D. Why the fuck not? What do we know?

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I’m no scientist but I have to believe that as we look outward to the furthest reaches of the universe into vacuums expanding into infinity - infinity in every direction!?! - there yet has to be an end somewhere. Because as a human being, the entirety of my life points to an end.

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At the same time, as I look inward to the cellular, then atomic and subatomic, and then even smaller things that I don’t know the names of, when I close my eyes I can picture that stuff looking almost exactly the same as those huge galaxies that look like unicorns and the fires of hell and heavenly glow. Then everything is black black black everywhere, and then stars again… except all of this is very micro. The inward journey also goes to infinity in every direction because we can always go deeper. And yet again, I cling to the idea that there has to be an end somewhere.

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So if there is an end inward and an end outward where does that leave us?

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We are left with the cold comforting reality that we are just a small sliver of time trying to hold on to a verdant rock that we just happen to be lucky enough to catch in all its colorful glory, full of hawks, leaf tailed geckos, Lucky Charms, and us. But is it just luck? A scientist would say no, we are only here as we are - intelligent, fragile beings with consciousness and questions, love and hate - precisely because the Earth is at this rare fertile state of being now and it only could have made us like this at this time. But as I said, I’m no scientist.

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With infinity everywhere and so little understanding is it any wonder that there is so much wonder? And what about Chaos? It’s a limp word. Now Magic, that is something I can get behind. When I was a boy, long before I knew any of these things and knew that I knew nothing for certain, I used to pull rabbits out of a hat for compliments. Now I am the hat. The unknown void unavoidable.

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All I do know is that when someone figures out how to make energy out of shit instead of tandoori, the sky’s the limit. Aim High.

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Hunt Rettig (08/2019)