The Innovation in its finished state:
Here’s a long shot:
Cat is not integral to The Innovation.
Anyway, I laid out the rest of the top half of the path:
I stopped on that outer outline; I’ve decided to build up the ground there so that the whole thing is more level. Ginny of course is appalled that nothing lines up and that it’s not as smooth as a parterre.
And finally, I used what remained of the stones to begin laying out the northeast quadrant:
You can see where I’ve scratched out a successive approximation of the rest of the course in the dirt. You can also see a couple of double-decker stones; that’s where I’m going to have to cut stones in order to make them fit into the curve. Still no solution for that.
And here is more Cat:
So, having used up all my stones, I will now wait patiently until the next pallet is delivered on Friday. Yes, class, this is what a ton and a half of stone looks like.
Favorite part of post: “Cat is not integral to The Innovation.”
“Finish what he started? He doesn’t have the stones!”
::rimshot::
You can thank me later for the straight line.
I wish the cat were integral to The Innovation. THAT would be impressive.
Does The Innovation have something to do with the Zen-like inclusion of a Gordian Knot-like “straight path?”
A container-contained paradox? Indiana Jones just shooting the scimitar-weilding bedouin?
Points to Ravenclaw!
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. It is the Straight Path: there, but inacessible to us. The Tolkien reference is to the Path to the West, which used to be straight but which was bent when the men of Numenor sailed west to the Undying Lands against the Ban of the Valar. (Too many proper nouns in that sentence, leaving aside the appalling geekiness.)
The idea came to me one morning as I was waking up. I cannot recall ever having seen anything similar in any other modern labyrinth.
The night that I made it, I allowed myself one traversal of the Path (yes, barefoot), then covered it the next day. It has been a very outside-of-self experience to do all this.
Thank you, Marc.
It’s a surprisingly touching conceit.