An Axial Moment: Passage of Health Care Reform Legislation

Last night's historic passage of Health Care Reform legislation struck me as a spectacular example of an "axial moment," as described the past two days in posts about the play Out of the Blue by Archipelago Theatre. Poet George Quasha, author of Axial Stones: an Art of Precarious Balance (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2006) writes: "Sooner or later everything turns...when the axis is open or released, things turn freely, moving in and out of balance."  

The moment even had its crows, crowds of protesters outside the Capitol, and the rather bizarre shout of "Baby Killer!" cawed-out at anti-abortion Democrat Representative Bart Stupak. Congressmen John Lewis and Barney Frank were also harassed during the past few days, with vile and profane insults. Safe and civil discourse appeared to be precariously out of balance. (Joan Walsh has a good opinion piece on this topic over at Salon.)

Passage of the bill required compromise and suspended animation regarding one dimension of women's rights. A morning story on NPR by Andrea Seabrook, called "Health Care  Passage Hinged on Abortion Language" describes the drama (and the irony) well.

The "bipartisan in content, but not in context" Health Care Reform bill made me want to take a look at Quasha's website for examples of Axial Stones (he is adding more each week).

Here is what Carter Ratcliff has to say in the forward to the book, about  situations of precarious alignment:

Gathered into one another’s company, George Quasha’s axial stones establish a zone of riveting stillness. Yet each was brought to that shared state by a history—a tempo of events—entirely its own. It is the work of an instant to spot a likely stone, but it may take the artist days or years to see how two stones fit together to form a single piece. The fitting itself can be quick or slow. In any case, the process follows strict rules: one stone must be balanced on another, at a narrow point of contact, and no adhesive is permissible nor may either stone be modified in any way. The results are astonishing.

Click here for more axial art including a video of the axial stones in process.