Sunday, April 25, 2010

Apprehension




This is the 'hand check' at the end of a day of working with stone. Most of the fourteen tons of limestone material brought in for this workshop has been already carefully sorted and moved and lifted into place, as we spend the day creating a small circular fire pit sitting area. Many irregular chunks have to be chiseled and shaped by hand. So it's good to count to see if you have all your fingers at the end of the day.

It's good too, to look at your hands and appreciate what amazing appendages they are. Can we grasp the latent potential remaining in our collective grip even at the end of a hard day of work. It is inspiring, almost unfathomable. There is so much more constructive creativity contained in these hands. They will go on tomorrow, and the next day and the next, constantly being used to create things, with what ever it is they are given to work with. The hands have a boundless propensity for accomplishing. They will over come.

Prehensility is the quality of an appendage or organ that has adapted for grasping or holding. The hand is a prehensile multi-fingered body part. Prehension is the act of grasping.

Apprehension is consciousness. If something is full of apprehension it is 'grasped' by something. We have grasped a lot of stone today. Randomness and disorder better look out. The elements of chaos may well be apprehensive at the creative grip that our hands have on things. It may cause anxiety, worry, unease, nervousness, misgivings, disquiet, concern, tension, trepidation,perturbation, consternation, angst, dread, alarm, fear, foreboding, butterflies, jitters, the willies, the creeps, the shivers, the heebie-jeebies to anything that stands in the way of improvement.