Do you speak STICK?

Reflections of angled sticks create a story that's, well, complicated.

MARCH is a complicated month.  

"Indoors or out, no one relaxes.  In March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear.  The taxes last us all the year.                                      ---Ogden Nash

Leisurely, the Canadian Goose almost seems to be swimming
in the house reflected in the neighborhood entrance pond.

Have you seen the movie, "Arrival?"

One of the main characters, played by Amy Adams, is an expert translator and linguist called upon to assist an elite team to decipher the intent of aliens on a mysterious spacecraft that resembles an egg shell and hovers over a green valley in Montana, (which was really shot in a meadow near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada.)

Grass reflects below pond scum.

It's a complicated story. 

Or, maybe it's a simple story that I'm making more complicated because I don't completely understand it--even though I've now seen it twice.

What I do understand and
appreciate...
is the beautiful and mysterious language shared by the aliens, a.k.a. Abbot and Costello, with our clever and persistent academic heroine.

What am I really seeing with new reflected dimensions?

It is a language defined by intricate inky circles, about 100 of them, that disappear soon after being ejected by the heptapods.

It is a swirly timeless language that supposedly unlocks the ability to see into the future.  

Reflections create a new language?

I was thinking about language this morning as I walked along the Poudre River Trail when I suddenly realized that I was looking at my own alien communication!

I have named it the Language of Sticks.

Simple elements aid in recognition.

How appropriate that I, an artist who loves to work with sticks, especially those shaped by wind and water, would be the one to recognize this ancient LANGUAGE OF STICKS.
  
I realize that much further study is required, but clearly the elements are there for visual recognition.  

It is obviously a language based on symbols, also timeless and complex.  Perhaps it more resembles art, but uses both straight and curved lines rather than just circular logograms.

Just like the complex language of the Arrival Aliens, shape is important as are the tiny details that add more information to the original thought.

Also similar to the logogram, STICKS convey meaning in the weight:  a thicker shape might indicate a sense of urgency; a thinner one suggesting a quieter tone.  Perhaps a detail like a hook might make it a question.  Or smooth sticks might indicate a statement.  What repeats?  What is unusual?  What connects one to another?

Do the symbols connect?

Is it a spoken language?

Do these sticks SPEAK? 

Having created art with sticks, I know personally that many sticks communicate with me, like if it wants to leave the riverbank to become art or if it would rather stay near the river.  

I have often heard sticks tell me, as I'm visualizing how to create a work, how it wants to fit and where. 

I suppose I have taken for granted that I must be some sort of 
Stick Whisperer without realizing that there was a corresponding written language that was invisible to me before today.

Where does the water end and the element begin?

Now I'm curious as to what the symbols actually say-- like looking at Chinese characters, so intricate and graceful, yet requiring years of patient study and practice to execute properly.  

I can appreciate these symbols as the ART they are but remain uninformed about meaning as I cannot read Chinese.

I'm feeling much the same with the LANGUAGE OF STICKS.

What story, brimming with mystery and wonder, is revealed in this combination of symbols?

 What a discovery!  

I suspect Canadian Geese are fluent in the LANGUAGE OF STICKS.

Now that I am aware of all the symbols that surround me daily, I can't wait to embark on the journey of further understanding and study.

This EARTH BORN language is as old as the planet and holds the same mystery and beauty of any alien language arriving from the depths of space.  

It is time to EXPLORE.