#excavate

9000 year old Neolithic Spirit Masks, the World’s Oldest Masks.

These masks were unearthed in the Judean desert around Jerusalem and were sculpted by some of our earliest ancestors who decided to give up the hunter gatherer lifestyle to instead settle in the Judean hills, beginning a farming lifestyle.

It is thought that this change in existence sparked more organised religious beliefs and a worship of ancestors, prompting a necessity for artifacts such as these.

Numerous masks like these have been found in the region. Sometimes, they are found as a result of an archaeological excavation in areas with thousands of other objects. Things such as rope baskets, beads, shells, flint knives, bone figurines and decorated human skulls. Some of these stone masks even had hair attached as beards and moustaches.

“Several species of bird will nest in cavities that they find or excavate from trees in the wild. Our pair of bearded barbets will nest in this type of space, so to accommodate their needs, we provide them with a tall box packed with sheets of natural cork, so that they can excavate “soft, rotten wood” from a “tree”. They will then settle down in the bottom of the cavity they’ve created and will incubate eggs and raise chicks in this space.”

The past is a treasure worth preserving to help guide the future.

The more I uncover

something inside me stares back -

I recognize the Other.

she’s been sitting in Shadow

veiled in dust

living beside her are dreams we have lost

How far is the fall from the height of happiness ?

How sharp and steep the steps

from Failure?

When digging through the memories

orphaned by my mind

water pouring,

down drowning the sound

of my slips, my stumbles.

I remember a forgotten time ...

I hollow out again this place of pain

So there will be Void to break

and light to scream

Making force and fulcrum shake

Fathom the rumble

of our ruins

echo resounding in lost remains

Reverberating each vertebrae -

as if unbreaking time,

cracking,

upheaving,

weaving,

and light streaming

My blue shadow form her magenta veins creating the violet

Grab my window, shed my shadows, excavate my pain