Add Lightness
As a little boy, I had Matchbox cars. Being a little boy in England, I had a Lotus AND a BRM -- British Racing Motors. Having a toy, a race car, with my initials on the bottom was the coolest. As the years went by and my brain and horizons grew, my body didn't so much. I wrestled in tenth grade in the 105 pound class. Small, powerful things were my avatars. Freddy Patek. Cheetahs. Wizards. The British racing company founded by Colin Chapman -- Lotus Motorcars -- stood car design on its head, working out of old stables behind a railway hotel just north of London. As Ferrari and Mercedes were busy making ever more powerful track machines, Lotus made ultra-light cars. Chapman said, " Adding power makes cars faster on the straights, subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere." That was my kind of philosophy. Innes Ireland, who was a driver for Lotus claimed, "It should win the race and, as it crossed the finish line, it should collapse in a heap of bits". Efficiency at its purest. The revolutionary Lotus 49 was less than eight feet long, weighed 1,100 pounds, made 400 horsepower and dominated racing for years. Light and fast, Lotus won 79 Grand Prix races.
On Christmas Eve, just a few days ago, the Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to our local star, completing a mission that was launched in 2018. The craft is moving 430,000 miles an hour (120 miles a second) and traveling three times faster than the previous fastest object made on earth. It's small, about seven feet by ten feet by three feet and weighs only 1,200 pounds. A hexagonal solar shield hides all the instrumentation from the searing 2,500 Fahrenheit heat and the radiation that is 475 times more fierce than a satellite orbiting the earth experiences. Some instruments are peeking out from behind the shield and collecting data about the sun's magnetic field and plasma bursts and the inner heliosphere. They are operating at nearly 3000 degrees as they were engineered. At the conclusion of the mission in around four months, the craft will rotate and incinerate all the instrumentation on board. The slab of carbon foam and foil reflector will continue orbiting the sun for millions of years.
The lotus is an aquatic plant, a water lily. In Sanskrit it is known as Padma or Kamala. Growing in flood plains or slow moving water, it is a perennial with seeds that can become dormant and survive extreme and prolonged drought. Researchers have sprouted seeds that are 1,500 years old, which explains why in Chinese culture, the lotus is a symbol for longevity. The edible seeds have been cultivated for over 3000 years, and they can be dried and used as prayer beads. The roots can be fried or pickled or made into tea or eaten as a potato-like vegetable; the stems appear in salads, curries and soups. All parts of the plant are used in folk medicines. The lotus flower is the national flower of Vietnam and India.
Nearly two billion people worldwide view the lotus as a sacred symbol of heaven. In Hinduism and Buddhism the flower signifies the path to spiritual awakening -- the rising above the decay and darkness beneath the surface of the water to blossom in the purity of the light above. The Sanskrit word "moksha" refers to freedom from ignorance and the development of a state of self-knowledge and enlightenment. This, in Hindu traditions, is the aim of human life. It is a state of perfection, symbolized by delicate white blossoms emerging from the mud. "No mud, no lotus" is a phrase at the heart of a book by Thich Nhat Hahn examining the human condition from the perspective that suffering is an essential aspect of the human experience. Mud is required. Darkness is half the day. You want to orbit the sun, spend six years getting up to speed. You want to build a race car, start in a stable. When I flew back from England at six years old, I left my cars in a little bag under the seat in the airplane. I was crushed.
Tadao Ando is an architect I have followed for decades. Six months ago I got to walk around an opus work of his, the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, completed in 2002. His mediums are concrete and light, essentially sculpted planes of grey stone and sunlight often incorporating water in his designs for reflection and glimmer. He joins this missive because of his Water Temple built in 1991 on the Japanese Island of Awaji. I remember when this opened. Most dramatic buildings require ascending steps to a lofty construction, (cathedral, capitol, domes, soaring arches, sky scraping monoliths). This space, the Hompuki Temple, is entered by descending a narrow, concrete staircase into a large, oval pond of lotus blossoms. The path to enlightenment can require descending too.
When your mission is done, all the speedy stuff of life, you will cross a finish line and collapse in a heap of parts. Or pivot and incinerate in the sun's blast. Or descend the stairs into the flowers. In the meantime, accept the mud. Get new toys. Survive the drought. Move your body. Add lightness.
The lotus blooms pristine and perfect from the muck.
And of course, buy art. It helps with focus to have a reminder in the house that light and brilliance are right HERE. Personally, I'll skip the lotus root tea. I like lattes with my enlightenment. Maybe I'll title the next piece "Caffeine".
Peace out,
b mac
P.S. I am fully aware that this is a speed dial into an immersive topic, cold plunge followed by lava bath. Racecars, flowers, spacecraft and, by the by, spiritual enlightenment... We will expand on this. In the meantime, the days are getting longer and the sunlight strengthens. Slingshot the sun. Pick up the tempo.
