The Hearth - more faerie lights in the forest

The 4th installation of the North Forest Lights

Alexx Hart

Nov 07, 2023

In the nighttime forest, LED lights dance: pale blue marbles in a turquoise mist, golden light bars amidst leaves a-fire, a myriad moons in the branches of an ancient tree — Crystal Grove, Forest Frequencies, Whispering Tree

A 5 piece outdoor winter extravaganza of LED lights, music & nature at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR, created by Moment Factory.1 It is my favorite art exhibit EVER.
Crystal Grove - the 1st installation
Forest Frequencies - the 2nd installation
Whispering Tree - the 3rd installation

The Hearth: Inspired by the majesty of the clearing, this installation creates a gathering place around a nest-like structure of woven branches. It recalls the timeless power of the bonfire, a place to share the warmth of community and the spectacle of stories and songs. A palette of rich color intertwines with an instrumental soundscape to evoke the beating heart of nature, while a gospel choir resonates throughout this forest chapel. Moment Factory

December 22, 2021

The Hearth begins in near darkness with only a heartbeat.

I always hear it as my mother’s heartbeat.

A hint of mist plays about the top of the great wicker cage as a blue light pulses in time with the heartbeat. Tonight, the moon beams down upon the whole affair, calling to mind the bit of lunacy that always strikes the women in my family when Selene shines Her full face upon us. Solstices and equinoxes do similar things to us. I think the Blue Fae Wild Hunt over in the Crystal Grove might have been right about me...

They whisper to me that I am one of them, and I believe.

When the Hearth ignites, all I can see is Her heart. All I can hear is Her song. My mother’s. My own. My grandmother’s and her great-great-grandmother’s and my aunt's sister's grandmother-in-law and that lady over there who looks nothing like me and that little girl on the other side who does. The innumerable fibers of He intertwine these threads as intimately as what's woven around the heart-basket until there is no He and there is no She.

In the end, there is only We.

Now it is our heart, our song, woven generation after generation into a harvest-gathering voice of the one Who dominates this blacktop altar amidst another clearing in the trees.

But instead of flickering faerie lights or the chase of laser bars among the skeletal winter boughs, a quartet of white spotlights pierces the apex of space carved out between the treetops. A gospel choir calls down from on high like pagan strains of Hallelujah and Om with Glory Be and Yes woven from branch to root.

As the pitch of the chorus descends, so do the beams. They cross and shoot out into the stars. They plummet slowly, kissing the trunks of the trees on their way down. They sweep across the ground and go still.

Darkness, but for the pulsating red heart.

And then one white beam shines straight at me.

Gone.

Another blinding white beam.

Gone.

The spotlights alternate to the double-down dance of musical surges. They shine and shift as though mirroring the four chambers of that heart in the woven basket. Then they soar up in arcs from the ground to the heavens and back. They make brilliant ballyhoo in the night, over and yonder and around and again, singing praises to the darkness and to the fierce, ruddy light that refuses to be put out by the blanket of shadow. All the while, the steaming hearth smolders and sparks, pulses and breathes until the whoosh of sound as the lights shoot off into the cosmos.

Gone.

Only the ever-burning embers reignite within the tapestry of wicker. The fire is orange now, tinged with violet. Spent and satisfied, eyes close and even the embers vanish, leaving only faint moonlight shining against the tops of the trees. In the darkness and silence, the even darker silhouettes of the audience move on.

I don’t. I stay until the mist creeps up and the hearth-light beats blue once more. Across the way, so does another couple, and one little family to my left.

Unfortunately, my phone’s battery flashes at me in warning. It has just gone onto power-saving mode. Curses! Knowing that this exhibit is never to return once it closes in a few weeks, I had ached for a good recording of this soul-healing music without crowds of people blabbing and laughing and snarking over the top of it. Y’all know me, sometimes I’m all about the blabbing, laughing and snarking.

Not this night. I have my own heart to heal and I have some embers to tend. I'm not up for poking them into conflagration in that group party atmosphere, so I frequently pause to let blabbers pass by me, glance, enjoy, and move on.

I need deep immersion with every one of these pieces, so I've stayed with them for multiple rounds, only moving on after bidding a reluctant farewell, alight with my gratitude.

I promise the Hearth that I'll be back to commune without a focus on recording the sounds or snapping photos—to just BE like I'd been with the others. Then I dart off as quickly as I can to the final installation so I can capture the audio I want before my phone dies. That will leave me the rest of the time to spend with the last two elements.

Which is exactly what I do.