Dormancy

This blog has been dormant for a while which I'm sorry about and because of my lack of activity, the coming of spring and other events (which have caused the blog silence) I have been thinking about dormant volcanoes coming to life. The next zine is going to be on the themes of eruption and dormancy so hopefully I will have lots of material. But I think that the important thing about dormancy is that is an unknown state and what we can immediately see may differ from what is happening under the surface. Just because something seems lifeless it may just be gathering energy and waiting for the right conditions to spring into action. With scientific advances we know more and more about these states of inactivity, for example volcanoes are closely monitored and we can predict when we think a volcano is about to erupt. There are so many examples in nature of things lying in a state of complete dormancy before returning to life such as resurrection plants, arctic caterpillars and if you haven't realised this is basically a big coma metaphor. So I think what I'm getting at is that what we can see and what we're told can be deceptive; people in Pompeii didn't even know about the existence of volcanoes until Vesuvius erupted so was it dormant or just unknown? Fuji one of my favcanoes hasn't erupted in about 400 years but is classed as active so these states of dormancy are not absolute, a bit like comas, scientists like to define things but really it's impossible as they are too many variables and in-between states. A volcano is dormant until it erupts but you need the comparison to show this, it's like the really bad joke 'I'm on a diet until my next meal' (I'm not sure that is an established joke). A resurrection plant can look like a ball of dead twigs and never believe doctors when they tell you someone will die. I really do find it very important that I can link everything in my life back to volcanoes.

The Dormant Taranki and the living cows

Resurrection Selaginella

This is the painting of a dormant volcano that I did for Isaac birthday almost exactly a year ago- how fitting, I'll do him an active one this year.

I'll write a post this weekend that is actually about volcanoes, lots has been happening in the world of volcanoes.