Freeform Celtic Knots - 2025 02 19

 

Graphite, pen, ink on notebook paper - 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"

The celtic knot has captured my imagination in this time of partriarchal extinction burst and climate change. The two cannot be unrelated. 

When we look at the larger timeline of human existence, our human experiments with agriculture, government, warfare and patriarchy is a small percentage of overall time. Let’s say, 450,000 years of human existence, 440,000 years of hunter / gatherer societies, 10,000 years of agriculture, government, warfare, patriarchy. It means our human existence in the social organization that we know today is only .02 % of the overall timeline of human existence. For 440,000 years, humanity managed to evolve and grow and co-exist. 

It is possible the extinction burst we are enduring at this time is bigger than the downfall of patriarchy. It is possible that we are also experiencing an extinction burst of warfare, government and even agriculture. It is possible that we are in a state of collapse of human social organization that will result in a return to hunter / gatherer societies. 

It is as if we were able to make all the technological advancements of the last two thousand years because of our proximity to each other, human consciousness and imagination concentrated in cities with life sustaining infrastructure to allow for more sophisticated technological and material innovations. However, it appears that we have never evolved our mental, emotional and psychological capacities to manage these changes. Our promixity to each other, our daily work encounters, our family organization structures, our social and cultural emergence, these internal capacities and capabilities have not made the same kinds of advancements. It is almost as if we are unable to sustain the social cohesion that is necessary for humanity to survive humanities’ own instincts and frailties.

Our technological and material advancements have enriched, empowered and enabled our capacity and capability for learning, they have also amplified our arrested development in terms of the commensurate intellectual, emotional, and spiritual advancement. Our undeveloped worldviews, mindsets, and communication skills have also been enriched, empowered and enabled, to the great risk of human existence surviving our greatest weaknesses.

This freeform celtic knot is an expression of the great advancements we have made in our capacities and our capabilities, but also the uncertainty and variability of life on life’s terms. We are human. We are not super-human. We are not superior to any other form of life on earth. We are endowed with consciousness, but that consciousness has always been a double edged sword. We could use the sword to hunt and gather, but we could also use it to kill a friend in a jealous rage.

Now is a time for thoughtful contemplation of what it means to be human and what it means to rise to the challenge of our own technological and material advancements. What does it mean to be a human living on earth today?

The celtic knot design is as ancient as the human ability to make art and decorate important objects and artefacts. We can understand our humanity, its complexity and inter-connectedness as we trace the lines of intersection and continuity in the infinite variety of knots to be drawn.