"The vibratory impulse is the heart of the matter. It causes the sand to arranges itself in a corresponding rhythmical order. First in other words the vibratory impulse, the will or need for living action, then the transformation into a material event and lastly the visible expression in the form of newly arranged material." Paul Klee Notebooks, the Nature of Nature.
Klee was steeped in music. Theme and variation, rhythm and proportion. The Chladni plates which prompted this passage must have fascinated him- the visualization of the vibratory impulse.
Klee continues, "We are the bow, we represent the expressive impulse, mediated by the substance, with the sand figures as the final formal result. ... It is though matter were being fertilized and became invested under this dictate with a kind of life of its own."
Last month I saw sand arranged in forms aimed at stilling or at least distilling the mind's vibrations. Here are some examples. First at Tenryu ji Temple in Arashiyama then at Ginkasu ji Temple in Kyoto.
