The container or holder of special jewels and treasured items has always held a sense of intrigue, secrecy, the sacred and a dose of nostalgia for me.
It’s like a tiny doorway into another time that I briefly crack open with the creak of a hinge as the velvet (or whatever it is made of) brushes my fingertips. Of course, not all containers hold this particular dose of sensations. Some objects once I’ve rediscovered them, actually shock me that I have held onto them because honestly not being a traditionalist, I would never wear them. Some I never have. It is that sense of sentimentality or loyalty to the ones that gifted me the pieces certainly, along with that magpie jeweller in me that believes one day I may re-purpose these undesirable objects into something appealing or clever enough for me to actually wear.
But there is something else that interests me that I have been contemplating. It’s the ritual, the experience, the sense of anticipation as that piece or objects that have been kept hidden away for some time, are unlocked and unleashed temporarily into the world to be beheld or worn.
It’s also those rare moments when someone bestows a small (and perhaps valuable) token upon you, shrouded in a box or encased in a hand. The anticipation, curiosity, excitement, all of it is enveloped into this fleeting moment.
I’ve examined the idea from multiple angles, as another point of intrigue is that the container is also a metaphor for our own very mortal human vessel. Where are the edges? What is really deep inside if you take away our thoughts and emotions? Will we always identify our vessel as ‘us’? What about those moments when we forget or lose awareness of our vessles/bodies? The certain practices that seem to unlock us into a state of ‘beingness’ where the body seems to dissolve away…