your mindspace is the only thing you can truly own. it is actual space, territory, sovereign land with a populace, government, natural resources, creatures and trees.
many of us are living on mindspace reservations -- as permanent or part-time residents. we left our sacred mindspaces--our spiritual edens--long ago, though we may not remember. while we were gone, our mindspace was sold to the highest--sometimes the lowest--bidder. a fence was built. trespassers will be prosecuted.
for the past year, my neighbor's home security system has emitted a loud BEEP every 45 seconds. at first, the noise was unbearable. i would get into my mindspace--writing, reading, being--and then this beep would send my internal decibel soundbar skyrocketing at regular intervals.
the beep made my heart beat faster -- the combined affect of simmering rage that my neighbors could be so inconsiderate and apparently deaf -- and a desperate struggle to constantly regain the integrity of my mindspace.
BEEP like a fork in my toaster
BEEP like pine needles pricking my skull
BEEP my heart dilated with cartoon flames in the background, a knife through the top, a crown at the hilt. rage.
so much for security. i'd welcome any axe-murdering serial killer in for tea and a manicure before i'd agree to rig up my homespace with such insipid interruption. but it wasn't my security that this thing squeaked about every 45 seconds. it was theirs. my corner of the house remained utterly insecure--no safer than a portly calf in a field of ravenous wolves.
so many feverish nights, black paper chains of profane promises to render that security system useless with a flaming molotov cocktail through the kitchen nook window with a nasty note..so many dreams punctuated with subsconsciously explained BEEPS ...that might have taken a more melodious course sans BEEP?
one verdant summer's day, i had the audacity to ask one of my neighbors if the BEEP was something she planned to stop in the near future -- also a test to see just how much she valued her life.
oh, there's nothing we can do about it.
i bought it. i shuffled back to my cave and buried all hope of having a silent homeland, or of creating a no-fly-zone over my precious mindspace. instead of fighting for my right to think and breathe without an audial version of chinese water torture, i moved out of my mindspace and settled on a mindspace reservation.
this mindspace reservation had a list of rules. if something bothers you, there's something wrong with you. be tolerant.
if you can't think, stop trying. chances are you're paranoid and thinking in ape-like loops -- swinging from one branch to another until the bough breaks.
if you ask a question and get an answer that doesn't make sense, you've come to the right place -- this mindspace reservation. no further questions.
when i asked her if the BEEP could be remedied and she said no, why didn't that strike a chord in my Department of Ridiculous and Unacceptable Answers to Very Simple Questions? of course there was something that could be done. but i didn't press it. why? i'm not afraid to make waves, i believe in direct conversation and open communication. but i just took this answer and told myself to stop being so sensitive. deal with it. every. 45. seconds.
months later, i had a guest. within minutes of entering my homespace, he asked how i managed to live with that insufferable beeping. i realized, then, that i had forfeited my mindspace integrity -- my ability to access my mindspace, to prevent invasion, guard against intruders, and expel pollutants.
i called the "home security" company. yes, hello. my neighbors have exactly one hour to live unless you can tell put a swift and permanent end to the BEEP.
after some diplomatic words about the level of frustration i had experienced thanks to the BEEP, this very helpful agent explained that the BEEPing was caused by a lack of signal being sent from the keypad to the security center since 2010. all this time: the beeping, the swearing, the praying for hellfire to melt that hateful keypad into oblivion...how could they be so obsessed with security, but unable to recognize an obvious malfunction?
i called the neighbors.
once it could be proved that the beep was not a sign that the safety box was doing its job but rather, a symbol of dangerous vulnerability, i got results. the beep stopped the very next day.
homespace security -- much like homeLAND security -- generally takes precedence over mindspace integrity. how often do we forfeit mindspace integrity for the appearance of security, for the constant illusion of being safe? if more of us had access to our mindspace, would the need for illusive physical security be exposed as the malfunctioning annoyance that it is?
why did i resign myself to living on a mindspace reservation for months? maybe i identified with the importance of physical security (though apparently not my own) and the fact that most people believe that preventing home invasion is more important than preventing mindspace invasion. maybe mindspace is a foreign concept entirely. maybe mindspace is a dark and haunted forest for some people, or their exiled status hasn't even occurred to them.
some people have identified the value of mindspace and found ways to commodify or control it. they are hoping that most people will never ask for their mindspace back and that they will continue to live on mindspace reservations, forget where they came from, lose their compass, and become lost. and they'll agree to do it in exchange for what looks like physical security.
the beep reminded me: your neighbors, like most people, value symbolic physical security AND believe they are not safe without it. this belief is strong enough to make people pay for a sense of security and live with an incessant beep.
i imagine that for my neighbors, the beep was far from annoying -- it was an anodyne promise of safety from the threat of intruders. each beep inspired a knowing smile, ahhh....i am safe. carry on.
homespace is a portal for mindspace. when it came under attack by tech-challenged neighbors, i didn't defend. i sold to the lowest bidder, packed a toothbrush and surrendered.
never again.
pay attention to the things that prevent you from accessing your mindspace. it's the only vestige of personal property or true value on earth, the only thing you can truly own or cultivate. it is incredibly valuable -- a vibrant human mindspace is a pre-requisite for coup d'etats, revolutions, renaissance, sistine chapels, cures, concertos, macchu picchus and moon landings. it is hard to control millions of high octane human mindspaces. much easier to corral them into mindspace reservations.
build a moat around your mindspace. fill it with ferocious crocodiles, loch ness monsters, fanged mermaids. it's yours and it's not for sale. visit it often.
shut out the noise. every word, headline, and squawking lunatic on CNN. every advertisement that disrupts your flow, every flashing billboard, every pop-up, every ding! from your phone or gchat is like a barrel of nuclear waste burying itself in your mindspace. dig it up, return to sender.
have we decided that mindspace pollution -- like CO2 and other noxious particles -- is unavoidable? even if we keep it out of our own backyard, will we always be downwind of the exiled minds who do not know they are living in an arid wasteland, the ones who either can't hear the beep anymore, or who need to hear it in order to feel safe?
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
rainbow picture
i write because i need evidence that i can still think for myself. even then, what i see after i'm done typing furiously is a zombie in a necktie. nothing of mine, nothing alive, just a flat reflection of the debris in my mind. i call it conditioning.
i remember having elaborate mental images when i was little, and being so frustrated with my inability to express on paper what i could see so clearly in my mind. one picture i drew over and over again was that of a castle on the left, a knight on the ground atop a white horse, a princess waving to him from her window, a rainbow and a token half sunshine in the corner of the page. i had seen this drawn by classmates, my sister, and also on a scented markers commercial. it seemed to be the only acceptable thing to draw. i had other things in mind. monsters, medusas, landscapes, gnarled trees from dreams. i shut them out, and continued to draw this castle scene like a mad woman in a sanitarium. drawing it each time, as if for the first time, always annoyed at the insipid, babyish rendition of the award-winning masterpiece that i wanted it to be. always garnering praise in sticker form for drawing the same damn thing, day in and day out.
21 years of school taught me to come up with an idea, doubt it because it was my own, alter it to look more like all the ideas that had come before, then build a case for it using "research" or, take a look at everyone else's rainbow pictures and do my best to imitate. i wrote a paper in 4th grade about bees. i described the black bees as regular bees that looked like they'd fallen in an ink well. my teacher red lined it, and told me it didn't belong in a research paper. in graduate school, i wanted to write about a global return to existentialism, to religion, but not as it was traditionally understood. i wanted to write about the irony of an "advanced" civilization returning to a less secular, commercial, divided by nationalism world via interconnection and necessity. it was shot down. i ended up writing about modernist movements in the middle east, far off the mark that was my original idea. the idea itself was not as clear as the rainbow picture, but the feeling of it was.
and that's what i wanted to create. the energetic address for the ideas that i wanted to explore was a clear coordinate. the affect, the approach, the final product -- i didn't want it to look like a patchwork quilt of soggy ideas gleaned from the shelves of a moldy library. i wanted it to border on science fiction. i wanted to point out that we will need more ideas that are not and cannot be based on what has come before, because where we're going, we don't need roads.
the idea that nothing is new under the sun rings true. at its root, nothing is perfectly original or unprecedented. lady gaga: a trailblazer. but musical talent paired with shock value and a penchant for self-reinvention is nothing novel. it only seems new because baseline ideas are shuffled like a deck of cards, and when our favorite cards resurface in a flashy color, we subconsciously appreciate the familiarity, thinking we're admiring novelty. so it's true, nothing can be truly original, but as long as originality is kept on the bottom of the deck in school, we are doomed to recycle anemic themes and impotent thought. in short, certain corners of society (read:education) are in dire need of a dust rag.
imitation. writing term papers or articles for web posts etc. in school (especially graduate school) started to feel like looking into a kaleidescope. my peer's papers, my papers, were all unique in the same way--with their own combination of words and conclusions. all told, it was the same sand and glass in random formation. everyone was looking through the same hole, marveling at their view as if they had any hand in creating it.
regurgitating old information and using it as a yardstick for a convoluted thesis is the academic equivalent of a pyramid scheme. why not encourage students, people, to smash the kaleidescope open. look through a different hole. expand the scope of possibilities outside random sampling of designs generated by a narrow hall of mirrors.
are kaleidescopes predictable? no two formations are exactly the same. many kaleidescopes distort the light and colors of its surroundings, some use beads, liquid, marbles, sand, glass all of which can never replicate a design. so each twist, then, could be an original, something fresh and unprecedented. but the mode and medium never change, and the person peering through the kaleidescope is not the artist, but the observer. this is what "school" often teaches students to become -- not the innovator, artist, mold breaker or galileo -- but the imitator, twister, guardian of the status quo observer of creations built on other kaleidescopic creations, cities built on cities, brilliance traced on tissue paper. the result is a diluted rendering of cannibalised information. in other words, a rainbow picture.
“The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life problem.”
—Albert Einstein --- From Address, October 15, 1936 – Reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, 60.
i remember having elaborate mental images when i was little, and being so frustrated with my inability to express on paper what i could see so clearly in my mind. one picture i drew over and over again was that of a castle on the left, a knight on the ground atop a white horse, a princess waving to him from her window, a rainbow and a token half sunshine in the corner of the page. i had seen this drawn by classmates, my sister, and also on a scented markers commercial. it seemed to be the only acceptable thing to draw. i had other things in mind. monsters, medusas, landscapes, gnarled trees from dreams. i shut them out, and continued to draw this castle scene like a mad woman in a sanitarium. drawing it each time, as if for the first time, always annoyed at the insipid, babyish rendition of the award-winning masterpiece that i wanted it to be. always garnering praise in sticker form for drawing the same damn thing, day in and day out.
21 years of school taught me to come up with an idea, doubt it because it was my own, alter it to look more like all the ideas that had come before, then build a case for it using "research" or, take a look at everyone else's rainbow pictures and do my best to imitate. i wrote a paper in 4th grade about bees. i described the black bees as regular bees that looked like they'd fallen in an ink well. my teacher red lined it, and told me it didn't belong in a research paper. in graduate school, i wanted to write about a global return to existentialism, to religion, but not as it was traditionally understood. i wanted to write about the irony of an "advanced" civilization returning to a less secular, commercial, divided by nationalism world via interconnection and necessity. it was shot down. i ended up writing about modernist movements in the middle east, far off the mark that was my original idea. the idea itself was not as clear as the rainbow picture, but the feeling of it was.
and that's what i wanted to create. the energetic address for the ideas that i wanted to explore was a clear coordinate. the affect, the approach, the final product -- i didn't want it to look like a patchwork quilt of soggy ideas gleaned from the shelves of a moldy library. i wanted it to border on science fiction. i wanted to point out that we will need more ideas that are not and cannot be based on what has come before, because where we're going, we don't need roads.
the idea that nothing is new under the sun rings true. at its root, nothing is perfectly original or unprecedented. lady gaga: a trailblazer. but musical talent paired with shock value and a penchant for self-reinvention is nothing novel. it only seems new because baseline ideas are shuffled like a deck of cards, and when our favorite cards resurface in a flashy color, we subconsciously appreciate the familiarity, thinking we're admiring novelty. so it's true, nothing can be truly original, but as long as originality is kept on the bottom of the deck in school, we are doomed to recycle anemic themes and impotent thought. in short, certain corners of society (read:education) are in dire need of a dust rag.
imitation. writing term papers or articles for web posts etc. in school (especially graduate school) started to feel like looking into a kaleidescope. my peer's papers, my papers, were all unique in the same way--with their own combination of words and conclusions. all told, it was the same sand and glass in random formation. everyone was looking through the same hole, marveling at their view as if they had any hand in creating it.
regurgitating old information and using it as a yardstick for a convoluted thesis is the academic equivalent of a pyramid scheme. why not encourage students, people, to smash the kaleidescope open. look through a different hole. expand the scope of possibilities outside random sampling of designs generated by a narrow hall of mirrors.
are kaleidescopes predictable? no two formations are exactly the same. many kaleidescopes distort the light and colors of its surroundings, some use beads, liquid, marbles, sand, glass all of which can never replicate a design. so each twist, then, could be an original, something fresh and unprecedented. but the mode and medium never change, and the person peering through the kaleidescope is not the artist, but the observer. this is what "school" often teaches students to become -- not the innovator, artist, mold breaker or galileo -- but the imitator, twister, guardian of the status quo observer of creations built on other kaleidescopic creations, cities built on cities, brilliance traced on tissue paper. the result is a diluted rendering of cannibalised information. in other words, a rainbow picture.
“The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life problem.”
—Albert Einstein --- From Address, October 15, 1936 – Reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, 60.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
heathen values
wake up on a december morning, the sky is still a dust cloud after weeks of pollution, dust, parts per million becoming parts of the millions living in this bowl. blue skies are sponged out by gray haze, the sun is a nebulous orb, a goopy-eyed spectre. it looks a storybook english morning -- a modern moor sans clotted cream, charming garden gates on rusted hinges leading to winter gardens with ragged, edible roots in handbaskets. in this faux mist -- quaint as a fog machine in a homespun spook alley -- little hints of the past catch glints of muted light. christmas lights are more sporadic this year, and less meticulously placed. nails might be missing, husbands might be missing, ladders not tall enough, or being used to earn money for bread. hope hangs at crooked angles in gingerbread colors, jewel-themed ovals, white or neon icicles still tangled up from their cardboard coffins. wires are not as taut as years past, plugs and outlets are in plain sight, wreaths or gold stars are pinned in solitary confinement, shielded by storm doors. most are just trifles of the holiday -- a public nod to the number on the calendar, to tradition for what it used to mean, or maybe a decree that despair has not consumed this household -- at least not entirely.
december is the darkest month of the year, with the shortest sun-lit hours in the northern hemisphere -- the sun having migrated south for the winter. people go crazy. they spend time away from their families to buy things for their families or work longer hours to be able to buy things for their families, often missing the irony. it is a schizophrenic time, crowds of people are in wind-up mode, doing the opposite of what they think they're doing, and doing it frantically.
it's dark and people get winter blues: seasonal blues, family-induced anxiety, financials-induced melancholia. we suffer an end-of-year crisis when we take stock of our storehouses and ask why it's not overflowing or if it is, why our love chalices are empty or why a void of one kind or another has the audacity to poke a hole in our personal flotation device. a moroccan woman in rabat once told me that moroccans experience seasonal blues during their winter, just like americans. the difference, she said, is that it's accepted as a normal and communal event that everyone talks about the way americans discuss football. it isn't personalized in language either. one would not ask another, "how is your depression?" but rather, "how is the depression?" it's this burden carried by everyone who feels it, and is therefore, a much lighter load. it is also understood that once the season ends, so will the depression.
to stave off the seasonal blues in the darkest parts of europe, heathen folk would drag enormous logs into their villages and light them on fire. the flames would drive out the darkness, the heat would burn up the cold, and people would dance and eat and play music. it was called yule. yule was an all-nighter pagan rave that celebrated the holiness of mothers, of human origin, of the divine feminine. it was about plenty, abundance, and light in the darkness. these celebrations climaxed on december 25th, in a soul-mother celebration called módraniht -- mother's night. as a matter of convenience, the romans decided to co-opt december 25 for christmas purposes. if people were already celebrating that day, they wouldn't mind forgetting why and adopting a completely random, government-endorsed reason for the season.
since we seem to have lost the well-meaning battle to return the meaning of christmas to the roman catholic concept of christmas, perhaps it should be a time of year when we embrace our heathen roots. december is a month of darkness, depression, people have known this for thousands of years. even in the sunny isles of greece, they made up a story to explain the darker days of winter -- it commemorated the abduction of demeter's daughter persephone, who was dragged down to a gloomy underworld by the god of death, hades. electricity and zoloft seem to have rendered our memories quite thin. romans had saturnalia (before christianity presented itself as a convenient form of government that would literally regulate humans in this life and the next). they partied. they lit torches. they did things that cannot be depicted in textbooks. they gathered in halls, huts, yurts, they huddled around blazing fires -- anything to drive out the cold with literal light and flame, coupled with human interaction and a belligerent enjoyment of abundance, rebirth, life and light in a season of scarcity, death, and darkness. it used to be natural response to the season, also an act of resilience inspired by threatening conditions. we seem to have had that down thousands of years ago, but years of catholic reconditioning, puritan ranting, and commercial brainwashing have left us dancing in the mud, not really sure why we still bother.
instead of making christmas all about jesus, why not celebrate his birthday and death day when it actually happened -- in the spring? christmas, or yule, inspires the human instinct for survival. as they did in the yuletide days, people still come together, laugh together, share food and shelter against the brutality of winter. and what happened when people with animal instincts got together under one thatched roof? eating, drinking, merry making. and it didn't revolve around the birth of one man. it revolved around birth in general, our own births, a divine mother, origin, and the promise of rebirth -- because the idea of living in winter indefinitely was unpalatable, even for the burly germanic tribes and norse folk. it was a collective agreement to respond to "the depression" with flippant festivity, praying for redemption in the spring (during rome's newly-designated "month of purification" now known as february -- deliberately the shortest month of the year).
celebration revolved around natural, observable phenomena, like the winter solstice. lunar and solar activity dictated life long before we adhered to a calendar arbitrarily designed by supserstitious roman rulers. imagine if we still observed the activity of the sun and moon as often as we consult a smart phone or a microwave clock. imagine if the effects of the tide, the strength of the sun, the position of the moon, mattered now as it did then. our realities have changed drastically, but have humans really changed? our heathen side reigns supreme -- especially in times when nature has us up against a wall. most people don't stop to ponder on the miracle of a baby born of immaculate conception in the middle east. what if we celebrated mothers from sun down to sun up in a wild, debaucherous saturnalia with raging flames on fallen logs and plenty of figgy pudding (drenched in cognac)? as if to say:
"we are human. we have heathen roots that are sometimes at odds with our divine origin or [we hope] destination. we used to be ruled by the sun, moon, stars. we used to celebrate women as sacred generators of life. we used to drive away the winter cold with unapologetic heathen rituals that had nothing to do with jesus. for one day, or one season, we will give up all pretense of synthetic religion and instead, embrace the unifying truths that apply to all humans struggling to survive. we throw down our weapons, grievances, bad blood, because survival is interdependent. in this season, the will to survive outweighs the need to be right."
heathen values recognize the human condition that christian values implicitly dismissed as a temporary pit stop before we reach the promised kitchen with fresh pie in the sky. in a time of mass identity crises and people waking up from money comas, being human has lost its sanitized, monetized, religionized patina. we are all vulnerable--some of us are realizing that for the first time--and this life might be all we've got to live for.
we need other humans to survive, emotionally and physically. we get sad, especially when it gets dark. we provide light by dragging large logs into our shelters and lighting them on fire. we have mothers, we can all believe in that, just like we can believe in the existence of the sun, the moon, and the likelihood of a vernal equinox. it's not a denial of christianity or trend toward secularism -- it's a return to humanity. it's an acknowledgment of our unique condition and cosmic realities in the universe, which are just as heavenly as the story of a child born in bethlehem + sent to save the world. would we find greater occasion to agree with eachother, love eachother, gather together to share nothing more than warmth, shelter and food if we centered such an occasion on the heathen principles of sun, season, and mothers? would we have any reason for conflict, consumption, war or wal-mart?
december is the darkest month of the year, with the shortest sun-lit hours in the northern hemisphere -- the sun having migrated south for the winter. people go crazy. they spend time away from their families to buy things for their families or work longer hours to be able to buy things for their families, often missing the irony. it is a schizophrenic time, crowds of people are in wind-up mode, doing the opposite of what they think they're doing, and doing it frantically.
it's dark and people get winter blues: seasonal blues, family-induced anxiety, financials-induced melancholia. we suffer an end-of-year crisis when we take stock of our storehouses and ask why it's not overflowing or if it is, why our love chalices are empty or why a void of one kind or another has the audacity to poke a hole in our personal flotation device. a moroccan woman in rabat once told me that moroccans experience seasonal blues during their winter, just like americans. the difference, she said, is that it's accepted as a normal and communal event that everyone talks about the way americans discuss football. it isn't personalized in language either. one would not ask another, "how is your depression?" but rather, "how is the depression?" it's this burden carried by everyone who feels it, and is therefore, a much lighter load. it is also understood that once the season ends, so will the depression.
to stave off the seasonal blues in the darkest parts of europe, heathen folk would drag enormous logs into their villages and light them on fire. the flames would drive out the darkness, the heat would burn up the cold, and people would dance and eat and play music. it was called yule. yule was an all-nighter pagan rave that celebrated the holiness of mothers, of human origin, of the divine feminine. it was about plenty, abundance, and light in the darkness. these celebrations climaxed on december 25th, in a soul-mother celebration called módraniht -- mother's night. as a matter of convenience, the romans decided to co-opt december 25 for christmas purposes. if people were already celebrating that day, they wouldn't mind forgetting why and adopting a completely random, government-endorsed reason for the season.
since we seem to have lost the well-meaning battle to return the meaning of christmas to the roman catholic concept of christmas, perhaps it should be a time of year when we embrace our heathen roots. december is a month of darkness, depression, people have known this for thousands of years. even in the sunny isles of greece, they made up a story to explain the darker days of winter -- it commemorated the abduction of demeter's daughter persephone, who was dragged down to a gloomy underworld by the god of death, hades. electricity and zoloft seem to have rendered our memories quite thin. romans had saturnalia (before christianity presented itself as a convenient form of government that would literally regulate humans in this life and the next). they partied. they lit torches. they did things that cannot be depicted in textbooks. they gathered in halls, huts, yurts, they huddled around blazing fires -- anything to drive out the cold with literal light and flame, coupled with human interaction and a belligerent enjoyment of abundance, rebirth, life and light in a season of scarcity, death, and darkness. it used to be natural response to the season, also an act of resilience inspired by threatening conditions. we seem to have had that down thousands of years ago, but years of catholic reconditioning, puritan ranting, and commercial brainwashing have left us dancing in the mud, not really sure why we still bother.
instead of making christmas all about jesus, why not celebrate his birthday and death day when it actually happened -- in the spring? christmas, or yule, inspires the human instinct for survival. as they did in the yuletide days, people still come together, laugh together, share food and shelter against the brutality of winter. and what happened when people with animal instincts got together under one thatched roof? eating, drinking, merry making. and it didn't revolve around the birth of one man. it revolved around birth in general, our own births, a divine mother, origin, and the promise of rebirth -- because the idea of living in winter indefinitely was unpalatable, even for the burly germanic tribes and norse folk. it was a collective agreement to respond to "the depression" with flippant festivity, praying for redemption in the spring (during rome's newly-designated "month of purification" now known as february -- deliberately the shortest month of the year).
celebration revolved around natural, observable phenomena, like the winter solstice. lunar and solar activity dictated life long before we adhered to a calendar arbitrarily designed by supserstitious roman rulers. imagine if we still observed the activity of the sun and moon as often as we consult a smart phone or a microwave clock. imagine if the effects of the tide, the strength of the sun, the position of the moon, mattered now as it did then. our realities have changed drastically, but have humans really changed? our heathen side reigns supreme -- especially in times when nature has us up against a wall. most people don't stop to ponder on the miracle of a baby born of immaculate conception in the middle east. what if we celebrated mothers from sun down to sun up in a wild, debaucherous saturnalia with raging flames on fallen logs and plenty of figgy pudding (drenched in cognac)? as if to say:
"we are human. we have heathen roots that are sometimes at odds with our divine origin or [we hope] destination. we used to be ruled by the sun, moon, stars. we used to celebrate women as sacred generators of life. we used to drive away the winter cold with unapologetic heathen rituals that had nothing to do with jesus. for one day, or one season, we will give up all pretense of synthetic religion and instead, embrace the unifying truths that apply to all humans struggling to survive. we throw down our weapons, grievances, bad blood, because survival is interdependent. in this season, the will to survive outweighs the need to be right."
heathen values recognize the human condition that christian values implicitly dismissed as a temporary pit stop before we reach the promised kitchen with fresh pie in the sky. in a time of mass identity crises and people waking up from money comas, being human has lost its sanitized, monetized, religionized patina. we are all vulnerable--some of us are realizing that for the first time--and this life might be all we've got to live for.
we need other humans to survive, emotionally and physically. we get sad, especially when it gets dark. we provide light by dragging large logs into our shelters and lighting them on fire. we have mothers, we can all believe in that, just like we can believe in the existence of the sun, the moon, and the likelihood of a vernal equinox. it's not a denial of christianity or trend toward secularism -- it's a return to humanity. it's an acknowledgment of our unique condition and cosmic realities in the universe, which are just as heavenly as the story of a child born in bethlehem + sent to save the world. would we find greater occasion to agree with eachother, love eachother, gather together to share nothing more than warmth, shelter and food if we centered such an occasion on the heathen principles of sun, season, and mothers? would we have any reason for conflict, consumption, war or wal-mart?
Thursday, December 8, 2011
india
i have never been to india. mental index-->search-->india-->go: it's a place that is hot, overwhelming, crowded, and magical. there are elephants, spices, rugs, snakes, men who wriggle up telephone poles either for work or for tourists' entertainment -- also work. i imagine myself on the back of a mo-ped, marinating in filthy exhaust, putting through congested highways, my hair three shades lighter from the soot. i imagine myself wearing a white linen shirt, because it's the most romantic and the least practical in a country where clothes are washed in the same river that entombs the dead. i imagine true green saris, with gold and magenta accents. i imagine necklaces, lengthy strands, entire dance halls adorned in bright orange marigolds. i see nose rings, brown lace henna designs on hands and feet, and i hear thick women shouting down dusty alleys -- lovers quarrels, arranged marriage quarrels, what do you want for dinner? it doesn't matter we're having X.
i smell curry. i see black mustaches, stiff as push brooms, shit-eating grins and interesting dentistry. i see food stalls, street vendors, reptiles in hats, scarlet bindis. i'm wandering, walking through revolving pockets of stench and journeying scents, reminders of being not in kansas anymore. i see tragedy, wonder, nothing i can relate to, everything that i am. it's hot, water is...bottled? water is precarious. water is warm. water is cheap, or expensive. cups are copper, lightweight, made in china.
i wear a money belt, also an indigo woven purse that i bought in morocco. looks unassuming. i can be canadian. would it matter, would i be convincing as something i know little about? why pretend.
i consult my flashcards, lint on india -- yoga, hindu gods, lamb curry combo from curry in a hurry, vishnu, ramayana, diwali, chakras, all seen with my third eye from lonely planets, know-before-you-go's, juju beads and crystal balls. it's imagination. it's probably ignorant, politically incorrect, racist, stereotypical, prejudiced and all of the above. but what draws a traveler to a new chunk of the earth's crust, one where her parents have never set foot, nor their parents or their great greats? it's that innocent wonder, the kind you're not supposed to talk about if you are educated. but it doesnt matter how much you study before embarking on an exotic tour of the silk road, of macchu picchu, or the great wall. it's the fairytale aspect that stirs the heart in anticipation -- and into a billowing boil when imagination meets reality. it makes the hard parts bearable -- the fairytales have teeth, it turns out, claws and a black magic built right into the dirt. we have it too, but we're less familiar with it because it's not our own. feeling at home in a new place comes with understanding its black magic rooted deep in the soil, the trees, the hearts -- and approaching it like a riptide: beautiful from the shore, so picturesque and powerful...but up close, inside the barrels, it is deadly and disorienting. that razor within the cupcake is what gives a place its full-bodied flavor, even if it makes you bleed. bite down hard, to really get the full effect of frosting on an open wound.
i imagine "place" before i go, whether it's wichita, vancouver, santiago or mumbai. and i let myself revel in the orientalist romanticist -isticisms of each. when i arrive, i find the maps helpful but no amount of frommer's can teach you how to navigate the black magic as it intertwines with the friendly teas, curious "third world" inventiveness, kodak moments...the oddity of people as spectacle, as facebook fodder, as photo ops to rival nat geo classics. humanity, staggering, adjusting to a turbulence of its own making, can be felt like a ripple across the ancient lake of time and space.
whether it's tipped berets in paris, cohibas in havana, or flying carpets in riyadh, cliche has its place in rough drafting adventure.
i smell curry. i see black mustaches, stiff as push brooms, shit-eating grins and interesting dentistry. i see food stalls, street vendors, reptiles in hats, scarlet bindis. i'm wandering, walking through revolving pockets of stench and journeying scents, reminders of being not in kansas anymore. i see tragedy, wonder, nothing i can relate to, everything that i am. it's hot, water is...bottled? water is precarious. water is warm. water is cheap, or expensive. cups are copper, lightweight, made in china.
i wear a money belt, also an indigo woven purse that i bought in morocco. looks unassuming. i can be canadian. would it matter, would i be convincing as something i know little about? why pretend.
i consult my flashcards, lint on india -- yoga, hindu gods, lamb curry combo from curry in a hurry, vishnu, ramayana, diwali, chakras, all seen with my third eye from lonely planets, know-before-you-go's, juju beads and crystal balls. it's imagination. it's probably ignorant, politically incorrect, racist, stereotypical, prejudiced and all of the above. but what draws a traveler to a new chunk of the earth's crust, one where her parents have never set foot, nor their parents or their great greats? it's that innocent wonder, the kind you're not supposed to talk about if you are educated. but it doesnt matter how much you study before embarking on an exotic tour of the silk road, of macchu picchu, or the great wall. it's the fairytale aspect that stirs the heart in anticipation -- and into a billowing boil when imagination meets reality. it makes the hard parts bearable -- the fairytales have teeth, it turns out, claws and a black magic built right into the dirt. we have it too, but we're less familiar with it because it's not our own. feeling at home in a new place comes with understanding its black magic rooted deep in the soil, the trees, the hearts -- and approaching it like a riptide: beautiful from the shore, so picturesque and powerful...but up close, inside the barrels, it is deadly and disorienting. that razor within the cupcake is what gives a place its full-bodied flavor, even if it makes you bleed. bite down hard, to really get the full effect of frosting on an open wound.
i imagine "place" before i go, whether it's wichita, vancouver, santiago or mumbai. and i let myself revel in the orientalist romanticist -isticisms of each. when i arrive, i find the maps helpful but no amount of frommer's can teach you how to navigate the black magic as it intertwines with the friendly teas, curious "third world" inventiveness, kodak moments...the oddity of people as spectacle, as facebook fodder, as photo ops to rival nat geo classics. humanity, staggering, adjusting to a turbulence of its own making, can be felt like a ripple across the ancient lake of time and space.
whether it's tipped berets in paris, cohibas in havana, or flying carpets in riyadh, cliche has its place in rough drafting adventure.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
jack + butterflies
jack lived in the basement of our house on laird avenue, where i arrived in a pink cocoon in september 1984. jack had long black hair -- long because it was longer than dad's and he combed it forward, slicked vertically across his forehead and all around his head like black seaweed.
jack collected butterflies. he pinned them into shadow boxes that he never hung on his wall, he just stacked them like clay soldiers against the baseboards of his living room. four, five, six deep. my sister and i discovered this one day when we turned the knob of his front door and pushed. he was gone, mom was watching soap operas and eating grapefruit with sugar and a green serrated spoon. we were supposed to be on our yellow plastic swing behind the garage, next to the cherry tree. we saw the butterflies, some the size of quarters, others the size of our 4-year-old hands, and then the saucer-sized, iridescent blue ones -- too bright to be real, or dead. i saw them suspended inside the box -- sewing pins pierced through their candystriped bodies. their eyes were wide open, i thought perhaps they could still fly if only the pins were taken out. we pried one of the boxes open. i felt a kind of stewardship over butterflies ever since my mom told me that my name meant butterfly (shorthand explanation for genus of butterfly). i took that as a sacred calling to free the butterflies, to never stomp on a crisp fall leaf (what if a butterfly was hiding on the underside?) and to always help a butterfly in distress without touching their wings (special butterfly dust that human hands can destroy).
we pulled the pins out of the first butterfly. it didn't move. it didn't slip and fall, didn't flutter awake and escape jack's butterfly prison. jack was evil. jack made dinner at the same time every night, and it smelled terrible. what was he cooking? one morning my mom decided to cut my hair. she combed my dark wet hair down to my chin, over my ears, down the back of my head. i saw my reflection through the vines of my dark brown curls, and realized that my hair looked exactly like the evil butterfly murdering crappy cook neighbor himself...jack. i was horrified, my mom was trying to fashion me after my mortal enemy: the man in the basement. i protested wildly. she explained that it was only a part of the hair-cutting process, that my unruly mass of curls would return once she finished. i took her word for it. she turned out to be right, and i took to combing my hair down the front of my face after my bath as a matter of routine comedy -- something that made my sister laugh and gave me a sense of vengeance taken, on the man who killed butterflies.
i later studied butterflies in more detail as a kindergartener in ms. hansen's class in half moon bay, california. we collected fat green caterpillars with sticky yellow feet and placed them in clear plastic, aerated lunchboxes with red handles on the lid. We colored, labeled, cut and pasted depictions of metamorphosis, cocoons, larva, milkweed, the voracious eating habits of a caterpillar approaching its time for chrysalis. i remembered the butterflies jack had killed. thought about how long it took to transform into a butterfly-- how much work was involved in being a caterpillar-- the effort to complete such an astonishing task. how did they know when it was time? would they sometimes forget and remain fat green slugs devouring milkweed in a sunny field at the base of a copper mine? either way, my contempt for jack was elevated as my caterpillar progressed from one day to the next.
when the day came to watch the butterflies break out of their cocoons, i saw an entirely new creature emerge from its papery shell. new legs, long black and slender tucked into crumpled orange peel wings with black webbing. they were dripping with butterfly blood, so we let them dry out on the classroom ledge -- the sun pouring through their wings like silky stained glass windows. i was immensely proud of my butterfly. i watched it intently, made sure that no one crowded it or threatened to jostle it while it rested and got acquainted with its new life as winged creature.
our butterflies became spry and curious about the corners of their plastic lunchboxes, baffled by the illusive limits of a clear plastic box. parents were invited to the school for release day -- the day that we would all set our butterflies free to tell other butterflies, other caterpillars, about their most unusual experience as subjects in a montessori classroom.
we stepped outside the playground fence to an open space where parents were flashing pleased smiles and complimenting us on our butterflies, like we had just painted them ourselves, adorned them with the perfection we could not comprehend let alone draw with a crayon.
butterflies clambored out of their boxes and escaped hastily without so much as a fond farewell to us, their noble captors. one girl panicked as her butterfly stepped onto the edge of the box with three spindle legs. noooooooooooo! she slammed the lid back into place and severed the butterfly in half. wails ensued. horrified parents hid their shock behind looks of concern. the dismantled insect was collected, in pieces, and buried next to buttercup -- the late guinea pig. i thought about jack. pushing pins through thoraxes in the dark tomb where a girl named butterfly lived upstairs. i thought about the fragility of the butterflies when they're alive, their brilliant colors in life and death -- was that what made people want to keep them in one place, to pin them down in collections?
jack collected butterflies. he pinned them into shadow boxes that he never hung on his wall, he just stacked them like clay soldiers against the baseboards of his living room. four, five, six deep. my sister and i discovered this one day when we turned the knob of his front door and pushed. he was gone, mom was watching soap operas and eating grapefruit with sugar and a green serrated spoon. we were supposed to be on our yellow plastic swing behind the garage, next to the cherry tree. we saw the butterflies, some the size of quarters, others the size of our 4-year-old hands, and then the saucer-sized, iridescent blue ones -- too bright to be real, or dead. i saw them suspended inside the box -- sewing pins pierced through their candystriped bodies. their eyes were wide open, i thought perhaps they could still fly if only the pins were taken out. we pried one of the boxes open. i felt a kind of stewardship over butterflies ever since my mom told me that my name meant butterfly (shorthand explanation for genus of butterfly). i took that as a sacred calling to free the butterflies, to never stomp on a crisp fall leaf (what if a butterfly was hiding on the underside?) and to always help a butterfly in distress without touching their wings (special butterfly dust that human hands can destroy).
we pulled the pins out of the first butterfly. it didn't move. it didn't slip and fall, didn't flutter awake and escape jack's butterfly prison. jack was evil. jack made dinner at the same time every night, and it smelled terrible. what was he cooking? one morning my mom decided to cut my hair. she combed my dark wet hair down to my chin, over my ears, down the back of my head. i saw my reflection through the vines of my dark brown curls, and realized that my hair looked exactly like the evil butterfly murdering crappy cook neighbor himself...jack. i was horrified, my mom was trying to fashion me after my mortal enemy: the man in the basement. i protested wildly. she explained that it was only a part of the hair-cutting process, that my unruly mass of curls would return once she finished. i took her word for it. she turned out to be right, and i took to combing my hair down the front of my face after my bath as a matter of routine comedy -- something that made my sister laugh and gave me a sense of vengeance taken, on the man who killed butterflies.
i later studied butterflies in more detail as a kindergartener in ms. hansen's class in half moon bay, california. we collected fat green caterpillars with sticky yellow feet and placed them in clear plastic, aerated lunchboxes with red handles on the lid. We colored, labeled, cut and pasted depictions of metamorphosis, cocoons, larva, milkweed, the voracious eating habits of a caterpillar approaching its time for chrysalis. i remembered the butterflies jack had killed. thought about how long it took to transform into a butterfly-- how much work was involved in being a caterpillar-- the effort to complete such an astonishing task. how did they know when it was time? would they sometimes forget and remain fat green slugs devouring milkweed in a sunny field at the base of a copper mine? either way, my contempt for jack was elevated as my caterpillar progressed from one day to the next.
when the day came to watch the butterflies break out of their cocoons, i saw an entirely new creature emerge from its papery shell. new legs, long black and slender tucked into crumpled orange peel wings with black webbing. they were dripping with butterfly blood, so we let them dry out on the classroom ledge -- the sun pouring through their wings like silky stained glass windows. i was immensely proud of my butterfly. i watched it intently, made sure that no one crowded it or threatened to jostle it while it rested and got acquainted with its new life as winged creature.
our butterflies became spry and curious about the corners of their plastic lunchboxes, baffled by the illusive limits of a clear plastic box. parents were invited to the school for release day -- the day that we would all set our butterflies free to tell other butterflies, other caterpillars, about their most unusual experience as subjects in a montessori classroom.
we stepped outside the playground fence to an open space where parents were flashing pleased smiles and complimenting us on our butterflies, like we had just painted them ourselves, adorned them with the perfection we could not comprehend let alone draw with a crayon.
butterflies clambored out of their boxes and escaped hastily without so much as a fond farewell to us, their noble captors. one girl panicked as her butterfly stepped onto the edge of the box with three spindle legs. noooooooooooo! she slammed the lid back into place and severed the butterfly in half. wails ensued. horrified parents hid their shock behind looks of concern. the dismantled insect was collected, in pieces, and buried next to buttercup -- the late guinea pig. i thought about jack. pushing pins through thoraxes in the dark tomb where a girl named butterfly lived upstairs. i thought about the fragility of the butterflies when they're alive, their brilliant colors in life and death -- was that what made people want to keep them in one place, to pin them down in collections?
Sunday, December 4, 2011
kəˈri(ə)r
certain words carry a kind of musk that lingers and offends. words like "abeyance", "fornicate", "irregardless","negligence" and "career" illicit a mournful shudder not unlike a mouthful of gangrenous beef tartare. today we'll look at career, since i just discovered that i've had one all along:
to review:
ca·reer/kəˈri(ə)r/Noun: An occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress.
verb: Move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction: "the car careered across the road and went through a hedge".
Synonyms: noun. profession - occupation
verb. rush - run - speed - gallop
until today, i never realized that i have a long and illustrious career in careering. while the prospect of a career (of the noun variety) has often proved elusive and uninspiring, it turns out careering is as simple as pairing martinis and car keys. i've been careering since i can remember -- careering head first down a flight of blue carpeted stairs before i could speak, careering from police after my sister's 18th birthday party, careering smartly, rat-like, through the underground tunnels of the new york city subway, careering recklessly down cherry street on a pinewood sled-on-wheels. i've built a shining career in careering long before i knew how to spell the word.
to review:
ca·reer/kəˈri(ə)r/Noun: An occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress.
verb: Move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction: "the car careered across the road and went through a hedge".
Synonyms: noun. profession - occupation
verb. rush - run - speed - gallop
until today, i never realized that i have a long and illustrious career in careering. while the prospect of a career (of the noun variety) has often proved elusive and uninspiring, it turns out careering is as simple as pairing martinis and car keys. i've been careering since i can remember -- careering head first down a flight of blue carpeted stairs before i could speak, careering from police after my sister's 18th birthday party, careering smartly, rat-like, through the underground tunnels of the new york city subway, careering recklessly down cherry street on a pinewood sled-on-wheels. i've built a shining career in careering long before i knew how to spell the word.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
split
"According to Seinfeld, schizoid individuals frequently act out with substance and alcohol abuse and other addictions which serve as substitutes for human relationships. The substitute of a nonhuman for a human object serves as a schizoid defense. Providing examples of how the schizoid individual creates a personal relation with the drug, Seinfeld tells how "one addict called heroin his 'soothing white pet.' Another referred to crack as his 'bad mama.' I knew a female addict who termed crack her 'boyfriend.' Not all addicts name their drug, but there often is the trace of a personal feeling about the relationship." The object relations view emphasizes that the drug use and alcoholism reinforce the fantasy of union with an internal object, while enabling the addict to be indifferent to the external object world. Addiction is therefore viewed as a schizoid and symbiotic defense.
S. C. Ekleberry suggests that marijuana "may be the single most egosyntonic drug for individuals with SPD because it allows a detached state of fantasy and distance from others, provides a richer internal experience than these individuals can normally create, and reduces an internal sense of emptiness and failure to participate in life. Also, alcohol, readily available and safe to obtain, is another obvious drug of choice for these individuals. Some will use both marijuana and alcohol and see little point in giving up either. They are likely to use in isolation for the effect on internal processes."
According to Gunderson, people with SPD "feel lost" without the people they are normally around because they require a sense of security and stability. However, when the patient's personal space is violated, they feel suffocated and feel the need to free themselves and be independent. People who have SPD tend to be happiest when they are in a relationship in which the partner places few emotional or intimate demands on them; it is not people as such that they want to avoid, but both negative and positive emotions, emotional intimacy, and self disclosure.
It is possible for schizoid individuals to form relationships with others based on intellectual, physical, familial, occupational, or recreational activities as long as these modes of relating do not require or force the need for emotional intimacy, which the affected individual will reject.
Donald Winnicott summarizes the schizoid need to modulate emotional interaction with others with his comment that schizoid individuals "prefer to make relationships on their own terms and not in terms of the impulses of other people," and failing to attain that, they prefer isolation."
S. C. Ekleberry suggests that marijuana "may be the single most egosyntonic drug for individuals with SPD because it allows a detached state of fantasy and distance from others, provides a richer internal experience than these individuals can normally create, and reduces an internal sense of emptiness and failure to participate in life. Also, alcohol, readily available and safe to obtain, is another obvious drug of choice for these individuals. Some will use both marijuana and alcohol and see little point in giving up either. They are likely to use in isolation for the effect on internal processes."
According to Gunderson, people with SPD "feel lost" without the people they are normally around because they require a sense of security and stability. However, when the patient's personal space is violated, they feel suffocated and feel the need to free themselves and be independent. People who have SPD tend to be happiest when they are in a relationship in which the partner places few emotional or intimate demands on them; it is not people as such that they want to avoid, but both negative and positive emotions, emotional intimacy, and self disclosure.
It is possible for schizoid individuals to form relationships with others based on intellectual, physical, familial, occupational, or recreational activities as long as these modes of relating do not require or force the need for emotional intimacy, which the affected individual will reject.
Donald Winnicott summarizes the schizoid need to modulate emotional interaction with others with his comment that schizoid individuals "prefer to make relationships on their own terms and not in terms of the impulses of other people," and failing to attain that, they prefer isolation."
Monday, November 28, 2011
elsewhere
one day, will wild earth be a fable? will bits of it be roped off for observation and visiting hours? will it be wild if we know where it is, if we know what it looks like, if we charge admission? even if we move to a "resource-based economy", where money does not exist, can we eradicate human nature? are all of our grand plans at odds with who we really are and what we really want? how can we save ourselves and stop destroying our planet without losing individuality? what makes anyone believe we can outsmart our own inextricable dark side that got us here in the first place?
is sustainability at odds with the necessity of destructive cycles? is it our fate to eventually be peeled away from our little planet and returned to the dust that we came from? is it a collective naiivete or natural drive that makes us think we can and should reverse this fate?
best case scenario: if we were all to become equal, united, striving for a utopian society where sickness, filth, and greed are obsolete, what on earth would we talk about? how can we cure our addiction to drama, to competition, to solitude? a utopian society is an open one, where privacy is also obsolete because what, in a perfect society, would anyone have to hide?
and what would we wear? without class stratification and with advertisements, department stores, credit cards and cosmetics relegated to the ash heap of history, will we have any reason or right to care how we look? we are no longer competing for resources, so how will we compete for optimal mates? how can we outwardly distinguish ourselves from all of the other mating options if wealth is no longer a substitute for biological disadvantage? when sexy is no longer tied to wealthy, and no single occupation or person holds more power than another, what will the new biological/reproductive competitive edge be?
are people afraid of this type of society because who you are will matter more than what you have or do? are people afraid that they can't change who they are, but they can change their status or appearance or monetary value with enough determination in a money = value society? if, in this new world, money = nothing, and you have a lot of money, you have a lot of nothing. if who you are as a person--your values, morals, charisma, intelligence, kindness, curiosity, brilliance and vices--determines your value to society where collective survival trumps individual greed--there is a possibility for people to be inherently valuable or disposable to society at large. that must be a frightening proposition. no amount of scheming, plotting, or conspiracy can alter individual, in-born nature and aptitude. an artificial invention like money makes it possible for most people to avoid asking themselves or proving to others their fundamental value to society. moreover,there seems to be a negative correlation between individual (and "corporations" as individuals) wealth and the health of the earth which is directly linked to human survival. so when the tides turn and humans are finally faced with the imminent possibility of extinction, survival will take the place of money to create a survival = value society. and perhaps the reason why those who were good at being valuable in the old system (our current system) resist the idea of this new system because they're afraid of discovering that they offer zero value to society or worse, are deemed destructive. maybe there are people who genuinely do not wish to be a truly valuable member of society, when broader social values don't match their personal values. what will we do with these people in the new world? exile them to an industrial, polluted, greed-ridden island/planet/outpost of isolated moral depravity? will that become the new prison system?
when all of this happens, will we know what to do with ourselves and the part of us that still longs for tradition and simplicity? will people still paint, dance, or open galleries? will we go to church if we've found a way to synthesize our own salvation? will MBA programs disappear? will universities disappear? will we scrap entire cities for materials to build new ones? will human culture become totally homogenized as we melt the past in order to forge a future?
isn't this ultimately what the greenpeacers, occupiers, dreamers and idealists want? a new society that centers on equality, sustainability, and a more humane application of technology? do they realize that it may mean taming every vestige of wilderness on earth--when resources become the new global currency that belongs, in principle, to all humans who live here? every bit of it will become inventory, controlled and distributed by a computerized, algorithmic and egalitarian government. it will be sustainable, green, and earth-friendly. but will we feel at home on our own planet? what parts of ourselves will we lose in order to survive? and how will that change the definition or motivation for survival?
in this new world, what would you live for? what would you die for? what would you kill for?
Thursday, November 3, 2011
grace
grace.
an om on the pathway to a public promise.
when i was seven
on tiptoe
through a marble maze.
a gothic castle, i dropped a lily on the runway
we took off for a new place
spice, india love melody, divine rubies.
my very own elephant, high on a hill.
two brass doors, the last supper gleaming in city sun.
rings on my fingers, bells on my toes.
do you want to go to the seaside?
a mark of permanence, prominence, forever exalted.
revisiting the rose of my beginning
where i learned who i was + scattered scarlet petals,
before i handed it over, my pearl,
like a purse full of lottery tickets.
one structure
thousands of mirrors
a monument to determination
a shrine to opulence
a tomb for Then.
grace: my dear, i am unbroken.
cracking bones, we are just dust.
i let you shatter my palace
but i sleep in the pieces of your small.
i dream in the wake of your design.
Monday, October 31, 2011
prophecy
THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
lentils
today the sazzle stopped
when i asked it to
and the lilt of west africa landed on my lap.
exquisite joy and lidless relief
came with a walk through the headstones
emma, nannette, elizabeth, john.
after lucky lentils on lunes.
now martes
a golden spark
sets me alight
honey on my tongue.
there, that sandstone bench
floating in a galaxy of city lights,
the wind shook the trees
and we left the earth below us.
when i asked it to
and the lilt of west africa landed on my lap.
exquisite joy and lidless relief
came with a walk through the headstones
emma, nannette, elizabeth, john.
after lucky lentils on lunes.
now martes
a golden spark
sets me alight
honey on my tongue.
there, that sandstone bench
floating in a galaxy of city lights,
the wind shook the trees
and we left the earth below us.
Monday, October 24, 2011
the jeweler
If a naive and desperate man
Brings a precious stone
To the only jeweler in town
Wanting to sell it
The jeweler's eyes
Will begin to play a game,
Like most eyes in the world when they look at you.
The jeweler's face will stay calm.
He will not want to reveal the stone's true value,
But to hold the man captive to fear and greed
While he calculates
The value of the transaction.
But one moment with me, my dear,
Will show you
That there is nothing,
Nothing
Hafiz wants from you.
When you sit before a Master like me,
Even if you are a drooling mess,
My eyes sing with Excitement
I see your Divine Worth.
~hafiz
Brings a precious stone
To the only jeweler in town
Wanting to sell it
The jeweler's eyes
Will begin to play a game,
Like most eyes in the world when they look at you.
The jeweler's face will stay calm.
He will not want to reveal the stone's true value,
But to hold the man captive to fear and greed
While he calculates
The value of the transaction.
But one moment with me, my dear,
Will show you
That there is nothing,
Nothing
Hafiz wants from you.
When you sit before a Master like me,
Even if you are a drooling mess,
My eyes sing with Excitement
I see your Divine Worth.
~hafiz
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
diamond
i don't know
i found a watch and let it go
i don't know
i found a diamond, watched it glow
but i don't know
so it slipped through
i'm high
i'm dry
and left with snow.
the snow, it's warm, it keeps me up.
with nothing else to fill my cup,
the stone beneath is enough for me
to keep on living obliviously.
i dance and kick, i stand alone,
it's something i learned long ago.
it keeps me vacant, ready to load,
revolver turns, my brain explodes.
puppet me, i relish the pain,
my painted blood, that reddish stain,
i hid from her -- her moon, her good,
but i don't know, i never could.
i found a watch and let it go
i don't know
i found a diamond, watched it glow
but i don't know
so it slipped through
i'm high
i'm dry
and left with snow.
the snow, it's warm, it keeps me up.
with nothing else to fill my cup,
the stone beneath is enough for me
to keep on living obliviously.
i dance and kick, i stand alone,
it's something i learned long ago.
it keeps me vacant, ready to load,
revolver turns, my brain explodes.
puppet me, i relish the pain,
my painted blood, that reddish stain,
i hid from her -- her moon, her good,
but i don't know, i never could.
Friday, October 14, 2011
prayer
I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and the fire
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares
-loreena mckennitt
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and the fire
Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares
-loreena mckennitt
Friday, October 7, 2011
respite
*respite -- an earned relief from the stunning grind--a grind which, in itself, isn't all bad...it has its lights, its glittering sensations, a half smile in the dark.
but then, the cracks begin to show.
and when it's over, and you're holding a paper flower, you can see: it is the evening of our own day.
some seem to hold
the memory of a black market love,
remind me.
photo by nic dunn
Monday, October 3, 2011
found, cut, glittered, pasted, torn apart and sewn.
leave the past behind,
just walk away.
without a dream in her heart.
hello, is there anybody out there?
and the cracks begin to show.
shipmates
Irony is an old man with pepperoni nipples living in the passenger seat of a nameless silver sedan. This is listener-supported NPR …cautionary tales about the wrath of Mother Nature—that wicked queen and her plans to spank us all, to bake us in her vengeful oven—was muffled but distinguishable even with the windows rolled up and the engine on. Goodmorning, he thought, it’s 2:13 pm and Starbucks will be giving away yesterday’s burnt and moldy – now where is my shirt? Life: oh you jagged edge, rusty razor, when did my tipsy tip toe-ing knock me off your crooked ridge? Turbines turning, CO2 cranking out the back, sending the vipor vapor back to its mean origins – he knew he had to return the favor. Hair brush? Was it lost in the gray wizardly grizzardly beard? Had the handle broken off, had he forgotten to retrieve it from the trunk after last Saturday’s mishap? No matter, Bed Bath and Beyond was the emporium of possibility, of hygienic reminiscence.
Routine is the key to a sane and productive life, he knew that much. First, the men’s room to shine a light on the monsters and keep the haunted woods organized, patrolled— no room or time for intruders. Then on to PetsMart to inform the albino mice – eyes as poppable as pomegranate seeds —that they were on thin fucking ice, as far as he was concerned. Visiting hour with the rotten-finned betas, the overgrown and missed-his-bus ferret, the apathetic newt, the under-stimulated Rose tarantula, was just the shot of Wild Turkey he needed to wash down the day’s metaphorical peas.
Shopping for roommates (he preferred shipmates, since the living space was mobile and practically sailed when steered correctly) wasn’t easy. The others would have to approve – he knew that much. If what they said was true, and the earth really was melting—that useless shitty gumball of a planet—he might consider something a little more expedient than stuffing them in pockets and smuggling them one by one.
No one was looking, the moment was ripe. Now, which one of you brown beauties would like to trade the tank and pellet life for a cozy mobile home and all-you-can-eat Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes?
Routine is the key to a sane and productive life, he knew that much. First, the men’s room to shine a light on the monsters and keep the haunted woods organized, patrolled— no room or time for intruders. Then on to PetsMart to inform the albino mice – eyes as poppable as pomegranate seeds —that they were on thin fucking ice, as far as he was concerned. Visiting hour with the rotten-finned betas, the overgrown and missed-his-bus ferret, the apathetic newt, the under-stimulated Rose tarantula, was just the shot of Wild Turkey he needed to wash down the day’s metaphorical peas.
Shopping for roommates (he preferred shipmates, since the living space was mobile and practically sailed when steered correctly) wasn’t easy. The others would have to approve – he knew that much. If what they said was true, and the earth really was melting—that useless shitty gumball of a planet—he might consider something a little more expedient than stuffing them in pockets and smuggling them one by one.
No one was looking, the moment was ripe. Now, which one of you brown beauties would like to trade the tank and pellet life for a cozy mobile home and all-you-can-eat Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes?
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
limp doll
this bright white box is like a question at the dinner table directed suddenly at you, your mouth is full of broccoli, and your table mates aren't related to you -- in fact you've just met, and you want them to like you.
writing about writing. off limits. grasping for the politically correct, throwing it out, for the birds. crumpled up answers, capping the impulse to make an unrecognizable sound and slide like a limp doll to the floor, writhe about, and eventually be excused. instead, i'll maintain composure, even if if it is if it is if it is ordinary.
lamplight. hot metal cage holds flammable bulb -- restrains it from getting any ideas, from aspirations to swallow up the entire room with its self-important glow. shake shake shake, wake, shake shake shake. we are laughing, just breaking up the waves.
turn it over, warm hay in the sand, perfect day for baking bricks. forgot that bag on the train, sent it to berlin with a note to please return. while we waited, i tried my first wienerschnitzel, and eavesdropped on an accented conversation that twisted my imagination like a plastic top from a happy meal. happy red plastic in a plastic bag, whirling wildly, what could it all mean?
then we went back to the train station...how robbed had i become? absentminded travelers, yes, we have you covered. come to our dark bunker, it doesn't even smell the way you'd expect it to. no food, no beverage, nothing to indicate the omnipresent switchboard conductors and shiny button pushers weaned from the benefits of sunlight.
we all start out speaking nonsense. we tack words together idiotically, but when you're small, toothless and bald, it's cute. so starting out, learning how (again) it is much the same. we abuse chopsticks on accident, stabbing the meat in frustration. we stack books to reach glass collectibles on high shelves, we tip toe on linoleum to swig ant killer undiscovered, we smash weenies with piggy fists and toss them to the floor -- someone is there to clean it up later. we fall asleep face down in our spaghetti...our logic is simple: i'm tired. i sleep.
dipping into memory before memory pushed record...we got away with so much more. we were small -- unpoliced -- short enough to weave through crowds unrestrained, stomp on toes, pilfer candy, and be perfectly inadequate. whatever we produced was great, perfect, we got stickers. we used to fib when convenient, truth tell when it was inappropriate, and wonder if the moon was a girl or a boy. we used to decorate our hair with chewing gum, run when we were supposed to walk, and eat fat boys by the box.
then our bodies got bigger, and our brains outgrew their bloomers.
writing about writing. off limits. grasping for the politically correct, throwing it out, for the birds. crumpled up answers, capping the impulse to make an unrecognizable sound and slide like a limp doll to the floor, writhe about, and eventually be excused. instead, i'll maintain composure, even if if it is if it is if it is ordinary.
lamplight. hot metal cage holds flammable bulb -- restrains it from getting any ideas, from aspirations to swallow up the entire room with its self-important glow. shake shake shake, wake, shake shake shake. we are laughing, just breaking up the waves.
turn it over, warm hay in the sand, perfect day for baking bricks. forgot that bag on the train, sent it to berlin with a note to please return. while we waited, i tried my first wienerschnitzel, and eavesdropped on an accented conversation that twisted my imagination like a plastic top from a happy meal. happy red plastic in a plastic bag, whirling wildly, what could it all mean?
then we went back to the train station...how robbed had i become? absentminded travelers, yes, we have you covered. come to our dark bunker, it doesn't even smell the way you'd expect it to. no food, no beverage, nothing to indicate the omnipresent switchboard conductors and shiny button pushers weaned from the benefits of sunlight.
we all start out speaking nonsense. we tack words together idiotically, but when you're small, toothless and bald, it's cute. so starting out, learning how (again) it is much the same. we abuse chopsticks on accident, stabbing the meat in frustration. we stack books to reach glass collectibles on high shelves, we tip toe on linoleum to swig ant killer undiscovered, we smash weenies with piggy fists and toss them to the floor -- someone is there to clean it up later. we fall asleep face down in our spaghetti...our logic is simple: i'm tired. i sleep.
dipping into memory before memory pushed record...we got away with so much more. we were small -- unpoliced -- short enough to weave through crowds unrestrained, stomp on toes, pilfer candy, and be perfectly inadequate. whatever we produced was great, perfect, we got stickers. we used to fib when convenient, truth tell when it was inappropriate, and wonder if the moon was a girl or a boy. we used to decorate our hair with chewing gum, run when we were supposed to walk, and eat fat boys by the box.
then our bodies got bigger, and our brains outgrew their bloomers.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
speedball rabbit
alternative methods for keeping track of time --
time is not linear, matter is not solid, humans are fabricated with the same dust that makes up the stars. instead of traveling on a fixed rail like the speedball rabbit at the races, time is more like a rock tumbler -- perfect for those just getting started. dilating, making room for more subjects, time sprinkles out its contents--spilling guts like a mexican party favor and exploding when enough force is applied.
the earth spins faster now. i write -- impulsively -- 10 when we're only in 8. I forecast 12 thinking of 3. at times the only indication of progress is decay, a shock to senses and a warning bell as we linger in the hallway, pasting pictures of hoped-fors on the rusted insides of lockers. time has passed, more quickly than your mind can travel, convinced we are invincible. hoped-fors are buried under daffodils.
internet passwords and the evolution of such phrases, numbers, and memorized fields, can be a small-hand ticking dutifully around a numerical pie. edging closer to the eleventh hour, the large hand points to what was once anticipated and so quickly became a yellowed program tucked in a dusty chest.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
sweet darkness
this morning i took a yoga class. i brought my new "thirsty" mat--part of my christmas spoils--to a not-yet-explored studio.
yoga reminds me of church. you walk into the building, and you can feel a sense of belonging along with a longing to belong. it is often a room full of women chatting quietly, asking about children, pets, injuries, relationships. veterans and newcomers are clearly distinguishable.
the mats were crammed into the u-shaped room. it was possible to sit in the same room and not be able to see three quarters of the people sharing the same space. the teacher roved freely, stepping on and across mats, encouraging people by name. she could have said, "good job margaret, very nice tara" and few people would have known whether there actually was a tara or a margaret in the room. but the personal touch was enticing--you want her to learn your name and pair it with praise for your mermaid, your camel, or your pigeon pose.
"smile in downward dog", she suggested, "it's aesthetically pleasing". the room erupted in unstifleable laughter and snorts. i couldn't muster one: chortles of approval are not my forte.
"do not identify with your tight hamstrings. you are not your tight hamstrings". what a relief.
the philosophy of self-acceptance in yoga still surprises me. in a standing split, i remembered ballet: the contrasting black swan to the sunny freedom flight of yoga. self-love is alien in that world of stiff tulle, bloody toes, and forced frontiers. i know because i marinated in it for a good ten years. in yoga, i am still surprised to be told not to push myself, to lower my leg, to relax my face, to let go. i might have better harnessed my mind/body connection as a dancer had someone reminded me to breathe.
"send the breath to the place that hurts"
this is like chasing a drop of oil in a pan of water. when you summon the breath like a legion of mercenaries, the pain will split into two, multiply and be fruitful. it will vacate the space visited by the breath, only to dilate in another part of the body. in essence, you are chasing pain with the breath. and each time you catch it before it retreats, the mind meets a new sensation.
meeting the pain or discomfort is empowering.
left to float undetected in the body, pain is like an intruder hiding in a dark house, waiting to strike before you flip on the lights. yoga is like tearing back the shower curtain to see what lurks behind. and often, it's nothing more than the mind's expectation of danger, aka fear. i could actually see the pain as i sent my breath to alleviate it. it looked like a bright yellow comic word balloon. the edges were jagged, sometimes they glowed red or orange. then it was like an amoeba the size of my hand.
our yogic tour guide had an air of cool indifference. her posture, instructive tone and arbitrary laughter at things unfunny suggested how little she gave a shit about what anybody thought. i am not your friend. i am your teacher. i will leave you in an excruciating position for thirty more breaths and lose count along the way. got it.
her toenails were a dusty pinot noir. her forename is spiked with an apostraphe, suggesting that she is "of" or "from" a land called ana. i imagine she was visiting for the day, from a narnia-like place, tolerating mortals for a living. she put me out to pasture for three minutes at the end of class (my favorite position, the death pose, shavasana) before dinging her sacred bell three times. each ding grappled with my overwhelming urge to take a very long nap.
she seemed to appear and disappear in different corners of the room. post shavasana, she was at my ten o'clock, perched in the corner and consuming minimal space. it was time for a poem. it came from a collection called "house of belonging" by david whyte. title and flesh as follows:
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
~ David Whyte ~
yoga reminds me of church. you walk into the building, and you can feel a sense of belonging along with a longing to belong. it is often a room full of women chatting quietly, asking about children, pets, injuries, relationships. veterans and newcomers are clearly distinguishable.
the mats were crammed into the u-shaped room. it was possible to sit in the same room and not be able to see three quarters of the people sharing the same space. the teacher roved freely, stepping on and across mats, encouraging people by name. she could have said, "good job margaret, very nice tara" and few people would have known whether there actually was a tara or a margaret in the room. but the personal touch was enticing--you want her to learn your name and pair it with praise for your mermaid, your camel, or your pigeon pose.
"smile in downward dog", she suggested, "it's aesthetically pleasing". the room erupted in unstifleable laughter and snorts. i couldn't muster one: chortles of approval are not my forte.
"do not identify with your tight hamstrings. you are not your tight hamstrings". what a relief.
the philosophy of self-acceptance in yoga still surprises me. in a standing split, i remembered ballet: the contrasting black swan to the sunny freedom flight of yoga. self-love is alien in that world of stiff tulle, bloody toes, and forced frontiers. i know because i marinated in it for a good ten years. in yoga, i am still surprised to be told not to push myself, to lower my leg, to relax my face, to let go. i might have better harnessed my mind/body connection as a dancer had someone reminded me to breathe.
"send the breath to the place that hurts"
this is like chasing a drop of oil in a pan of water. when you summon the breath like a legion of mercenaries, the pain will split into two, multiply and be fruitful. it will vacate the space visited by the breath, only to dilate in another part of the body. in essence, you are chasing pain with the breath. and each time you catch it before it retreats, the mind meets a new sensation.
meeting the pain or discomfort is empowering.
left to float undetected in the body, pain is like an intruder hiding in a dark house, waiting to strike before you flip on the lights. yoga is like tearing back the shower curtain to see what lurks behind. and often, it's nothing more than the mind's expectation of danger, aka fear. i could actually see the pain as i sent my breath to alleviate it. it looked like a bright yellow comic word balloon. the edges were jagged, sometimes they glowed red or orange. then it was like an amoeba the size of my hand.
our yogic tour guide had an air of cool indifference. her posture, instructive tone and arbitrary laughter at things unfunny suggested how little she gave a shit about what anybody thought. i am not your friend. i am your teacher. i will leave you in an excruciating position for thirty more breaths and lose count along the way. got it.
her toenails were a dusty pinot noir. her forename is spiked with an apostraphe, suggesting that she is "of" or "from" a land called ana. i imagine she was visiting for the day, from a narnia-like place, tolerating mortals for a living. she put me out to pasture for three minutes at the end of class (my favorite position, the death pose, shavasana) before dinging her sacred bell three times. each ding grappled with my overwhelming urge to take a very long nap.
she seemed to appear and disappear in different corners of the room. post shavasana, she was at my ten o'clock, perched in the corner and consuming minimal space. it was time for a poem. it came from a collection called "house of belonging" by david whyte. title and flesh as follows:
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
~ David Whyte ~
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