Heather Martin at Elixir
Labyrinths of Time

Labyrinths of Time

I've known Heather Martin for nearly 20 years. She first tracked me down to do a feng shui consultation for her and her family on the Western edge of the Tiburon Peninsula. I became fascinated and impressed with her art at that time. My interest in her work has grown ever since.

My conversations with Heather over the years have usually focused on feng shui, and how far can feng shui really go to influence our lives. So it was no surprise to either of us when I started Elixir's Studies in the Feng Shui of Time that she wanted to be involved.

My idea was for Heather to do an installation related to the feng shui of time. Her response was to begin a process where she creates a sketch/painting every day for a year. At the end of that year, Heather is going to create a labyrinth of all these works for the community to walk.

She began this project on the Summer Solstice of 2009.

It's really inspiring to witness Heather's installation at Elixir as it unfolds. She puts up a new segment each Monday morning, so it's there when I get to work for the week. I can sense how it sets a certain mood in the space that we play out and interact with over the course of the week.

I would say that our community is walking Heather's Labyrinths of Time already. Whatever is happening with this process, people are getting caught up in it. They find their favorites, identify with certain aspects of Heather's evolution in this form and make connections over time.

What more could I ask for? It's perfect.

You can view each of these works in Elixir's Feng Shui Gallery as they arrive one week at a time. There's space for Heather to comment on her work, for me to comment as well, and also for your insights and observations in our community discussion. We can all get involved as it unfolds.

At first I wanted to give a brief description of the feng shui qualities for each day just to kick things off. I want to see what of these qualities, if any, come across in Heather's sketch/painting for the day.

After thinking it over for awhile, I've decided to take a different position. I'm going reserve my comments for now to a minimum, because I don't want my opinions to bias Heather's process. This uncharacteristically silent position will end when Heather completes her work.

That's when my work will begin. When Heather is done with her year-long process, I want to do a feng shui analysis of her entire work. This will include contrasting the sketch/paintings for different days across a variety of time filters from the feng shui calendar. I will consider connections and look for similarities, affinities and differences. Above all, I will look for evidence of and/or lack of classical qualities that such an analysis must include according to factors such as color, shape, overall mood and motion.

You'll be able to explore these connections and make your own comments as you explore the wormholes and meridians that I reveal through Labyrinths of Time.

The initial stages of this process appear to be linear because they arrive one step at a time. As this work progresses toward its completion, its true integrated, non-linear body will stand revealed. These moments will no longer float alone in isolation. They will unite into a single moment, and we'll be able to savor that moment in an infinity of ways forever.

I believe Heather's process is an excellent model for a process we're all involved in:

- All we have is our experience.

- This experience is comprised of many factors and influences both personal and impersonal.

- How do we sift through what we're generating and projecting into the world?

- How do we distinguish these factors from events and influences that are occurring outside of us?

- What is the self that experiences these events?

- How do we know who that self is and what it wants?

- How much of self is in this moment and how much of self is bound by legacy?

- How do we discern a path of right action among these influences?

Enough of my ramblings. We're probably all better off absorbing what Heather has to say about this installation herself.

John Mini, M.S.C.M./ L.Ac.