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In Fragments is an exploration of Life Art
Created by Jonathan Jennings Harris
    Ritual 20
    A ritual to install a new “energy grid” using a network of “lightning transformers”
    • Essay
    • Reflection
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    • Music
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    View film (6:50)
    “The sensation of nature waking up, and human beings helping to wake it up was luminous, like a hum.”
    — Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order

    In 2015, a Tibetan Buddhist “lama“ planted a special object known as a “treasure vase” here at High Acres Farm, in the center of our land.

    The practice is said to have originated back in the eighth century, with the tantric master, Padmasambhava — and involves a small ceramic vessel filled with crystals, gems, shells, relics, and other sacred objects, to which monks and nuns say prayers and mantras over time. Once a treasure vase is ready, it can be deployed as a powerful healing force into a particular place — said to bring wisdom, abundance, protection, and many other blessings to the area where it is planted.

    The planting of the treasure vase here occurred just as this series of rituals was beginning. Now, six years later, with the series approaching completion, it felt important to anchor the new and transformed energies of High Acres Farm with a consciously created (and not merely inherited) “energy grid” of our own.

    Early sketches for “Electric Webb” — June 2019

    My great-grandmother, Electra Havemeyer Webb, was a prominent collector of early American Folk Art — and helped to establish High Acres Farm.

    • A portrait of Electra Havemeyer Webb hanging in her bedroom at the “Brick House”

    In 1947, she established a local museum to share her eccentric collections with the public. Her Shelburne Museum itself is a collection of buildings — twenty-five of which were moved to Shelburne from around the State of Vermont, each building housing a collection of a particular kind of item, all impeccably organized.

    • An etching showing the campus of Electra’s Shelburne Museum (early 1970s)

    Electra was especially attracted to early American quilts, whose handmade beauty she felt embodied a quintessentially “American” aesthetic. She was among the first to exhibit these handmade bedcoverings as works of art in a museum setting.

    American quilts collected by Electra Havemeyer Webb
    Courtesy of Shelburne Museum

    Inspired by Electra’s collection of quilts (each quilt a “whole” made of many “fragments”), I began to explore the geometry of interlocking triangles — going beyond the familiar Star of Bethlehem found in so many textiles, into more complex Islamic mosaics and Hindu yantras such as the Sri Yantra, with its central bindu point, which is said to anchor the “cosmic totality.”

    I eventually designed a geometry using nine equilateral triangles — forming a star-shaped pattern with eighteen outer vertices and nine inner vertices (twenty-seven in all), leaving a central nonagon (or enneagram) as a nine-sided void or empty space within.

    • Star of Bethlehem
    • “Electric Webb”
    • Sri Yantra

    This new geometry offered a kind of halfway point between eastern and western aesthetics — nodding to the complexities of mandalas, mosaics, and yantras, while also anchored in the tradition of Americana, with its staid equilateral triangles — while yet also resonating with my own longstanding interest in the number 27.

    • The network takes shape — April 2021

    Using satellite imagery and GPS, this geometry was then carefully overlaid on the High Acres Farm landscape, encompassing around forty acres of land — so that the twenty-seven vertices fall on precise latitude and longitude locations, and the resulting edges run across certain key places where rituals and other important events have occurred. The empty nonagon in the middle encircles the various buildings (barn, stables, office, shed) where we imagine that future cultural and educational activities will largely be rooted.

    • The “Electric Webb” at High Acres Farm — encompassing around 40 acres of land

    The geometry not only creates a kind of “Magic Circle” for High Acres Farm, but also, through its star-shaped structure, radiates outward into the surrounding area, connecting with other key locations on Earth, casting invisible blessings beyond the bounds of this place — and through reciprocity, receiving blessings in return.

    Fabrication

    To bring this “Electric Webb” pattern to life, a set of twenty-seven mirrored “lightning transformers” are fabricated with a group of local craftsmen over the summer of 2021 — based on a simple design sketch that I supplied.

    • Design sketch for “lightning signs” — June 2021

    We begin with twenty-seven glass mirrors — each seven inches square.

    Cutting the twenty-seven mirrors at Desabrais Glass in Middlebury, Vermont

    Each mirror is laser-engraved with a map of the overall star-shaped “Electric Webb” network, with a single node circled, indicating that mirror’s relative location in the network — as well as a single evocative word, unique to each location.

    Laser engraving the twenty-seven mirrors at ExactBuilt in Underhill, Vermont

    Each laser-engraved mirror is then encased in a sturdy steel frame, cut to size with a water jet cutter. Each frame is welded to a matching steel pole, with a set of custom eyehole screws welded to the pole at nine-inch intervals, and a threaded 5/8" steel “boss” welded to the center back of each frame.

    Cutting and welding the steel frames and poles at Rennline Manufacturing in Milton, Vermont

    The resulting frames and poles are then sandblasted and powder-coated with special black paint, then baked in an oven — to protect against rust over time.

    Sandblasting and powder coating the frames and poles at Vermont Coatings in Colchester, Vermont

    Finally, bare copper points are lathed into a specific bullet-like shape using a programmable CNC lathe.

    Shaping the copper points at Rennline Manufacturing in Milton, Vermont

    The resulting eased copper points will function as “Air Terminals,” otherwise known as Lightning Rods — to power the “Electric Webb” energy grid.

    • Design guide for copper points
    • A finished copper point

    Assembly

    Back at High Acres Farm, the various fabricated components are laid out on the maple slab table that held the glass ingredients in Phase Change.

    Awaiting assembly

    Eight-gauge bare copper wire from Green Mountain Electric Supply is cut to size and threaded through the eyehole screws running up the back of each pole.

    Threading the wire

    The laser-engraved mirrors are sandwiched in the steel frames and fastened into place with Torx 27 bolts, tightened with a pair of steel wrenches and a Torx bit.

    Securing the mirrors

    The bare copper wire is fished through a hole in the back of the frame, wrapped tightly twice around the frame’s perimeter, and pulled back through that hole with a little extra slack.

    Fishing the wire

    The copper points are screwed into the bosses welded to the back of each frame, and the loose copper wire is fastened to the points with brass acorn clamps — completing the conductive circuit.

    Adding the points

    The resulting instruments function as “lightning transformers” — attracting lightning during summer storms, and transmuting the raw power of the electricity through the words engraved on each mirror, which add those particular qualities to the energy as it passes from the sky, through the transformer, and into the Earth.

    Lightning transformers

    Installation

    With all twenty-seven lightning transformers assembled, it is time to install them in the ground at High Acres Farm.

    Awaiting installation

    I begin by gathering several buckets of lake water.

    Gathering water

    Before taking each transformer into the landscape, I dip its copper point into the glass cup from Phase Change, now filled with rainwater from a summer storm — as a way of acquainting the points with the sky, and as a way of uniting, as in the Parsifal myth, the “chalice” and the “spear.”

    The rod and the cup

    For each transformer, I fill a small cotton pouch with three significant objects: a chunk of Cheshire Quartzite (i.e. Silica) from Apprenticeship, a clear glass marble from Process of Elimination, and a linestone from Linestone — the elements of transformation endemic to this project and place.

    Elements of transformation — linestones, silica, marbles

    During installation, these three elements are planted at the bottom of each two-foot hole that is dug to hold the base of each transformer.

    To activate the Quikcrete that anchors each pole, the gathered lake water is poured from the buckets into the ground — uniting the lake with the land (and later, through lightning, the sky).

    One by one, the lightning transformers are installed at each precise location.

    Installing “Awe”
    Installing “Dreams”

    To install the final transformer, I return to the frame that was shattered six years before in Equidistant to make space for the many changes that unfolded thereafter.

    • Equidistant — 2015
    • Electric Webb — 2021

    The final transformer is “Peace” — planted on the lawn just to the west of the old Main House, where the wooden altar once stood in Give Up the Ghost.

    Installing “Peace”

    At the center point of the network, I bury a handful of soil from Walter De Maria’s “New York Earth Room“ — as a way of connecting the power grid of lightning transformers with De Maria’s “The Lightning Field,“ a major inspiration.

    • Soil from Walter De Maria’s “New York Earth Room“

    Activation

    To initiate the network of lightning transformers, my mother’s Smith-Corona Electra 110 electric typewriter is placed in the hayloft of the High Acres Farm barn — flanked by two 1920s gold doré candelabras from Tiffany Studios.

    The “Electra” with two candelabras

    The typewriter is the same machine that typed the various quotes seen in the previous films. Certain keys are carefully considered:

    • “CLEAR”
    • “SHIFT”
    • “POWER SPACE”

    With lightning bugs flashing outside, the machine is switched on, and a raging lightning storm overtakes the landscape.

    From above

    As the storm subsides, the twenty-seven transformers are left in its powerful wake.

    “AWE”
    “LOVE”
    “BEAUTY”
    • “GRATITUDE”
    Any many more

    Towards the end of the film, from a bird’s eye view of High Acres Farm, the network’s geometry is fully revealed — a kind of energetic “quilt” woven through the fabric of the landscape, an invisible mandala made of intentions.

    Because each node in the network is a lightning transformer, and because all twenty-seven mirrors face inwards to a common center point, when any one transformer is struck, the event is instantly reflected to the rest of the network — flashing all the other nodes at once with a sudden burst of light that charges the land with the twenty-seven particular qualities etched on the mirrors:

    Adventure, Awe, Beauty, Blessings, Communion, Connection, Creativity, Dreams, Fertility, Flow, Grace, Gratitude, Imagination, Inspiration, Joy, Kindness, Love, Magic, Mystery, Passion, Peace, Possibility, Power, Protection, Vitality, Wildness, Wisdom

    The mirrors not only reflect one another, but also bounce their energy out beyond the bounds of High Acres Farm — radiating those same twenty-seven qualities into the surrounding landscape, reaching out into the larger world.

    • Radiating outwards

    As the film concludes, the music subsides, and only the “Schumann Resonance” remains — droning the underlying tone of the Earth.

    As Carl Jung writes in Man and His Symbols:

    The mandala serves a conservative purpose — namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique. The process is that of the ascending spiral, which grows upward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point.

    Performed in 2021
    View film (6:50)
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    • Electric Webb
      On working with energy
      Published Jun 6, 2022

    Nine equilateral triangles overlap to create eighteen outer and nine inner vertices (twenty-seven in all), leaving a nine-sided empty space within.

    • Black Frames
      In 1 ritual
    • Black Paint
      In 1 ritual
    • Blue Blade
      In 1 ritual
    • Blue Boots
      In 4 rituals
    • Blue Clothes
      In 4 rituals
    • Blue Pliers
      In 2 rituals
    • Brass Clamp
      In 1 ritual
    • Camera Kit 1
      In 21 rituals
    • Camera Kit 3
      In 3 rituals
    • Clear Marbles
      In 3 rituals
    • Copper Point
      In 1 ritual
    • Copper Shavings
      In 1 ritual
    • Copper Wire
      In 1 ritual
    • Earth Room Earth
      In 1 ritual
    • Glass Cup
      In 4 rituals
    • Glass Mirror
      In 1 ritual
    • Glass Sheets
      In 22 rituals
    • Glass Stand
      In 22 rituals
    • Gold Candelabras
      In 1 ritual
    • Google Maps
      In 1 ritual
    • Iphone
      In 1 ritual
    • Lake Water
      In 11 rituals
    • Linestones
      In 8 rituals
    • Paper Quotes
      In 8 rituals
    • Paper Stationery
      In 9 rituals
    • Quikcrete
      In 1 ritual
    • Quilts
      In 1 ritual
    • Red Level
      In 1 ritual
    • Red Spade
      In 1 ritual
    • Silica
      In 4 rituals
    • Steel Bit
      In 1 ritual
    • Steel Bolts
      In 1 ritual
    • Steel Bucket
      In 5 rituals
    • Steel Digger
      In 1 ritual
    • Steel Grip
      In 1 ritual
    • Steel Rake
      In 1 ritual
    • Steel Shovel
      In 3 rituals
    • Steel Tamper
      In 1 ritual
    • Steel Wrench
      In 1 ritual
    • Tape Measure
      In 1 ritual
    • Typewriter
      In 2 rituals
    • Wheelbarrow
      In 3 rituals
    • White Paint Pen
      In 22 rituals
    • Yellow Gloves
      In 2 rituals
    • Electra Havemeyer Webb
      In 3 rituals
    • Frank Galipeau
      In 2 rituals
    • Jonathan Jennings Harris
      In 23 rituals
    • High Acres Farm
      In 24 rituals
    • The Barn
      In 6 rituals
    • The Fields
      In 7 rituals
    • The Hills
      In 5 rituals
    • The Main House
      In 6 rituals
    • The Office
      In 1 ritual
    • The Shed
      In 4 rituals
    • The Stables
      In 7 rituals
    • The Trophy Room
      In 2 rituals
    • The Woods
      In 6 rituals
    • Electric Webb
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      Download all stills from “Electric Webb” (34 MB)

    • Created by
      Jonathan Jennings Harris
    • Edited with
      Scott Thrift
    • Original music by
      Julio Monterrey
    • Filmed at
      High Acres Farm
      • Quilt images courtesy of
        • Shelburne Museum
      • Lightning transformers by
        • Rennline Manufacturing, Milton, VT
        • Vermont Coatings, Colchester, VT
      • Laser engraving by
        • ExactBuilt, Underhill, VT
      • Copper materials by
        • Gordon Electric Supply, Mokena, IL
        • Green Mountain Electric Supply, Colchester, VT
      • Drone photography
        • Jeff Herzberger
      • Power grid animation
        • Eric Epstein
    Next
    • Essay 21
      In Fragments
      A ritual to conjure a creation myth using lake water and “linestones”
    In Fragments is an exploration of Life Art.
    • Intro
    • FAQ
    • Genealogy
    • Images
    • Music
    • Credits
    • Contact
    In Fragments is an exploration of Life Art
    Created by Jonathan Jennings Harris