手勢令, じゃんけん, Rochambeaux

Ice and stones speak a strange language that we somehow understand.

Stone. Water.
Fire.Water.
Fire. Paper.

Acts of Resistance: nothing remains undefeated, capstones shift, everything can be trumped, every order overturned; what was "low" may be "high," that which was more solid than a mountain can, in an instant, pass away, and become a cloud again.

Stone.
For age upon age you patiently wait. A perfection that is closed-in upon itself, supremely self-contained, self-centred. Created for black sleep. A fierce inwardness, an unremitting asceticism, binds together a thousand forms so that they never take shape and then displaces the shell of imagination with abstractions. Without the will to live and die you are sunk into a grey nothingness, a mind alone in the universe vaguely remembering the colours. Yours is the strength of the boundary.

Paper.
Nothing defeats stone, unless it is weightless.Pascal, after all those dark days, finally comes to understand. It comes to him with the clarity of Revelation, and is at first blindingly obvious. It is, after all, the simplest of things. He writes it down and, lest he forget, sews it into his clothes. This great, irreducible truth, is a different type of strength. But life is not a formula, or a series of golden rules. There is always the blue unknown. Our skin ages, sags, creases. The flush of youth fades. Our bodies change; they grow and decay, and wound easily. He unfolds the paper and,as if looking back at a rather pleasant dream or a forgotten lover, wonders why it made so much sense to him then. Is there a truth beyond words, an understanding that is adequate to the senses? We want to see and feel the stars.

Fire.
You break up the intelligence of the mind and all that is solid. Some say you are life itself, the vividness of the gold in the green, the glint of light that bounces of chestnut trees. Blue and the Red. Mournful silence, exuberant spontaneity. The shape of the world is moulded by your hand. Giver of light and warmth: solar generosity. Pure excess and unconquered flame. Even 'the Fire' is called a "friend". Always changing, and yet always the same. And even though there is anarchy in your heart there is still a spacious order of the sun: volo ut sis. You help the dead across the boundary, and transmute all forms. Are you time itself?

Water.
Only what is elemental, less complex than fire can defeat it. The great redeemer, giver of second chances. The true origin. Like a stream that joins the sea, who is to say where you begin and where you end? Without you: no journeys and no longing.