I have a small collection of minerals. If you’ve had the misfortune of listening to my “I went to Calgary and got to visit 3 BIG MINERAL STORES and also SCRABBLE IN THE DIRT FOR FOSSILS” speech, then you might be wondering what’s wrong with this adult man.
One of the themes and joys of this mineral collection is the Permadance.
The “Permadance” happens when something temporary becomes permanent. Soft becomes hard. Something cold and sturdy becomes warm and wobbly. Dissolving. Re-forming. Hardening. Transforming.
This constant transformation – this ongoing dance – makes me feel awe and wonder. And my mineral collection is a way to tap into that feeling.
The Permadance is a sea snail turning into metal
A hunk of cinnabar sweating out its deadly contents
It is a Neanderthal inside your bathroom tile
The Permadance is 4 square-miles of ancient rainforest inside a coal mine.
I think about these miners – down there with headlamps, in the heat and damp of the mine. Backs wet with sweat. Flimsy fabric sticking to the skin. Booming down the mine tunnels in their squat jeep, rushing to where digging machine meets coal-face. No time to think about the roof two feet above. No time to think about roots and leaves and acorns and giant tree fern trunks protruding through the walls. We have work to do. Busy busy busy.
Bodies surrounded. Enshrouded. Enveloped by a rainforest.
One day, a great granddaughter of mine will think about me. Sitting at my second-hand Aeron chair. Shirt sticking to my clammy back. Eyes unwavering. Focused on the screen two feet in front. Too busy busy busy thinking about Fail to retrieve sObject 00QMm000007ASqDMAW, this sObject could have been deleted or a permission setting is preventing sync user to read this record to notice the world transformation taking place around me. She will marvel at this moron, oblivious to the events of an era. Enveloping him. Enshrouding him.
The Permadance is the living figures of silver wires, dendritic copper and leafy gold
It is ancient water trapped inside quartz crystal
It’s malachite like moss
Your loved one’s hair turned into jewellery
It is T-Rex turds
Wood transfigured to stone
5,000 year old footprints appearing on the beach. Man, woman, child. Then an aurochs.
The Permadance is Victorian varmints
Shopping bags becoming geological strata
Bones, teeth and pinecones becoming precious opal
Crystals growing. Then dissolving, replaced by an impostor that looks not-quite-right
Permadance is the oldest being on Earth. Still alive to teach you what the Earth was like when the Pyramids were built
Warning – the links below show pictures of human corpses
The PermaDance is Man becomes beef jerky
Man embedded in a statue
Man in a lake of mercury
Bodies like jewels
Brain glass
It is Girl on a mountain