Dung Series, Piece 2: Sickly Cephalopod - The Broken Universe

In all beauty, lies ugliness. Imagine the Universe as a large, sickened cephalopod. His tentacles reach out; but he has been weakened by the dying off of the coral reefs, which are being battered by human-made heat and synthetic waste. He tries to feed on shrimp, his natural food; instead, shrimp are feeding on his decaying body. His inadequate dung is as ephemeral and beautiful as decaying old lace. If the Universe becomes unbalanced, then death and decay will overcome the life-giving process.
In this series on Dung, I play with the beauty that lies behind the seeming ugliness of dung. In actuality, dung plays a universally central and beautiful role in the foods that keep all creatures healthy. Eating produces dung and, as gardeners know, dung is an essential food for growing robust gardens. Many cultures have recognized the importance of recycling excrement, often equating ugly feces with the beautiful, naturally balanced processes of death and decay, which feed life.