The Song of the Barren Soil

Inspired by Genesis 2:7

“then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

Life is a musical score, with the grandest of all conductors directing the performance. The Great Conductor has woven a score that’s ultimate beauty is not dependent upon the perfection of a single note, for none of the notes are perfect. Yet with the Conductor’s arrangement, the notes live and breathe within a new spiritual symphony, a heavenly score for us even now unfathomable.

Song of the Barren Soil

(a free verse poem)

Stop for a moment and look…

Escape the mediocrity of your usual greenery and predictable scenery.

Witness for yourself…

what you are made of and what you will return to.

The Song of the Barren Soil is for all those who are not afraid to stare at it.

God breathed into us the breath of life….

and we became living souls.

We are souls from the soil.

Sing… Sing… Sing…

Behind the Scenes

There are over 1,600 musical notes spread across the field. Once I got them all in, the task remained to adjust them into a good organized random.
I also played around with having dirt and dust on top of the notes. I thought, given the environment they are in surely some dust would make it all look more natural. I ended up settling for very little.
I do like this image. For me it reminds that we are all dust from the ground, enabled for a short time to sing. To sing something that outlives the event of our lives. Something that we can be glad we sang.

This is a version I did as a submission to a local hospital. They were remodeling their chapel and having an art contest to attract local art for the new space. This version has much more dirt on the notes themselves and a “zoomed in” perspective. They did not choose my submission. But a very large version of this hangs above my keyboard in my living room.

Ancient Lake Lahontan at Mason Valley, Nevada

Ancient Lake Lahontan at Dayton, Nevada