Emily
Zeller

The Law of Laws

As a child, I collected snakeskins and talked to trees. I felt badly when I was tasked with pulling up weeds, or accidentally cut a worm in half with a spade. This empathy still pervades my life as I’ve grown, and when I go on walks I can’t help but listen for the old guards of the forest groaning their secrets in the wind.

In this work, I can almost feel them watching me, towering above me as I explore their world, trying to reconnect in a way that goes beyond wires or wifi. Through the purity of play I’m able to move through ideas, ignoring the practical and allowing the alchemical to prevail. The inevitabilities of life are explored; one day I will be like the motionless bee. One day I will be eaten by worms. Dizzying facts are easier to accept when you’re able to steady yourself against the ground, breathe in the scent of the dirt, and feel the worms against your face.

I am finding my place in the greater timeline, negotiating this law of laws, allowing my stained hands to implicate myself in earth’s destruction while contemplating my own. My efforts to help won’t be enough, just as my character’s attempts at connection are futile--of course the roots won’t take hold; the tentacles won’t come back to life. But I have to let myself try, to experience this ritual, to keep the hope that somehow I can transcend the obvious and inevitable if just for a second.