Michael Grab – Finding the Still Point

Michael Grab creates extraordinary stone sculptures that use gravity and balance to hold their form. Grab views the process of creating these beautiful structures as a form of meditation. What follows is an extract from Grab’s website Gravity Glue and a fabulous video of him in action where the seemingly impossible takes shape:

I began balancing rocks through somewhat of a whim in the Summer of 2008 while exploring Boulder Creek in Boulder, CO, USA. Since then, simple curiosity has evolved into a prolific creative passion, and daily meditative practice. I quickly noticed the unique effect that my creations had on myself and others, often inspiring a sense of magic and peace; a sense that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

I am constantly in awe at the stillness, let alone possibility, of such precarious formations, amidst sometimes very turbulent conditions. For me this reflects our own potential to maintain a still-point amidst the variety of challenges we each face throughout our lives. Further, I wish to highlight the idea that WE ARE creators of our own reality, rather than mere recipients. Consciousness affects reality. This practice allows one to freely create, manifesting their own particular vibration into a 3D world.

Balance requires a minimum of THREE contact points. Luckily, every rock is covered in a variety of tiny to large indentations that can act as a NATURAL TRIPOD for the rock to stand upright, or in most orientations you can think of with other rocks. By paying close attention to the vibrations of the rocks, you will start to feel even the smallest “clicks” as the notches of the rocks are moving over one another. In the finest “point-balances”, these clicks can be felt on a scale smaller than millimeters, and in rare cases can even go undetected, in which case intuition and experience become quite useful. Some point-balances will give the illusion of weightlessness as the rocks look to be barely touching. But if you look very close, you may be able to see the tiny notches in which the rocks rest.

Woven through the physical element of finding tripods, the most fundamental non-physical element is likened to meditation; finding a zero point or silence within myself. Some balances can apply significant pressure on the rational mind and patience. One of the great challenges is to overcome any doubt that may arise. To consider that seemingly impossible things may just be possible. Sometimes I don’t even feel the vertices of the finest “tripods” or balance points until I’ve spent enough time slowing down to the related threshold of vibrations.