Why am I picking on poor old Modern Dance? I wonder. But it just drives me nuts. I guess it can all be summed up by my friend Chris who observed: "Why are they always cracking out of eggs?" Don't pretend like you haven't seen this routine - a body compressed, perhaps squatting, receives some musical cue of "life force" and proceeds to unfold, rise, stretching and extending limbs into space ... and always with a particular quality of movement, ugh, that quality of movement is the worst. How to describe? "Sensual" (or gross) ... graceful, flowing, light or syrupy ... urging, questing, yearning ... and acutely "beautiful". There is an arrogance to the movement quality of modern dance that disturbs and bores me, in this premature assumption of "beauty" and the way "beauty" can really stifle an art form. Case in point: "always cracking out of eggs" - can we, as artists, strive for a little more in our expression than basic life processes?
Now of course the disclaimer is that radical concepts can be and are applied to dance on a regular basis - certainly folks out there are doing revolting, compelling, chilling and otherwise unusual things with their body medium. Of COURSE this happens, thank goodness. But there is a common form that is a plague among us, which thrives basically as a veiled Erotica Lite, an excuse to view young bodies in various extremes of pushing, pulling, straining ... whirling, leaping ... and always a slave to this unique Standard of Beauty, where all movement flows, strides, bursts, and whirls with smooth suppleness. This diatribe isn't against erotica, but the mundane Playboy-style erotica that "modern dance" mirrors - an endless repetition of the most inviting, the most presentational, the embodiments of Ideal which pretends seduction as it imposes arrogant distance. For the price of a ticket we are afforded a view of the human woodland animal of time immemorial, muscular, svelte, powerful, pendulous, with pointed toes and fluted fingers. Each of us is afforded a body, but only the dancer's body is allowed to approach a pure ideal of Body Beauty, apparently, and we are intended to be awestruck by the grace of their exertions. Well, I'm not buying it. I
watch these arrogant young people put on their arrogant young dances
and vampirically feed from the envious and awe-ful gaze of the cramped,
the withered, the limping, the cubicle bound. I find this effort to whitewash the body pretty distasteful and rude.
How about the Modern Dancer's portrayal of emotion? This is where dance painfully crawls out of the realm of theater. They could have stopped at pantomime, but someone had to turn on the music ... egad, the choices of music ... suddenly the actions of the everyday are translated BIG, grand, arms are FLUNG, heads are WHIPPED, hands are clasped over chests that swell as the dancer inhales, deeply, attempting to communicate the pleasure or pain of human experience through body medium; body responding to "life" as represented by "music". Well, the whole thing is just embarrassing! Really! I mean I can't be the only one acutely embarrassed, cringing and shrinking in my seat, can I? Please tell me you, too, have seen "confusion" or "anguish" conveyed by some fingers to the temples, eyes closed, head rhythmically tearing back and forth ... and just gritted your own teeth and held your own breath until it ended.
You know, the fault lies probably not with the dancers or the choreographers or the medium or the art form, but probably with audiences that don't really ask for too much. I mean Playboy is a big seller, you know? They wanna see good looking people do good looking things, and they want it to be neat - like, over and above the everyday world, but "nice", too: glorious, masterful, positive and essentially escapist. This modern dance I am railing against is the equivalent of Hollywood endings, reggae festivals, ice skating - slutty "art forms" that demand little and offer lots of soothing salve and mind escaping. Just let our bodies prance across your vision and stir your "soul" - you relax and take a load off. But why do I care? I must, myself, gravitate to art that I "like" - though it may be uncommon and slightly abrasive, it probably turns out that my soul is getting stirred in a very similar mindless way that humans enjoy or even require from their culture. I just come from a different planet, so I like different things. FINE - but not fine!
Because: dance is pretty awesome. Bodies are pretty great. But there is a whole heck of a whole fuck of a lot of shit that you can do with a body in front of an audience of bodies for the purposes of entertainment and communication and expression that are not this form of "modern dance" that I find so embarrassing, limited, and moronic. There is so much potential to a body in space being observed by other bodies in space - why resort to boring old grace and beauty? Much like my extreme disappointment with the dance form "Contact Improv" - which sure sounds like infinite possibility, but actually ends up being a fairly limited format - I am impatient for all of these "modern dancers" to finally get fed up with being so goddamn graceful and exquisite and really start to use the medium for something more than an ego trip. Ahem.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
In Defense of Superstition
Superstition does get knocked a lot. What is the critique? That it is not rational enough? Certainly there is a hand-me-down field of superstition that warrants the criticism. Friday the 13th, for example - how many know the origins of this, why we are instructed to feel ominous because of it? Many real energetic centers of doom-feeling have lost their power and relevance over time, but hang on symbolically in human being "irrationally" enough (without knowing why) that thus entertaining any particular paranoia regarding invisible connections to dark forces seems dumb.
But what about superstitions that are superrational?
Here I am defining superstition as: the belief in persistent dark or evil forces that seek to progress one's own undoing through some chain of events. I guess a lot of folks get stuck on the word "belief", but we cannot deny the perpetual presence of chaos, decay, collapse, death that are endemic in time and space. These are the "dark forces" that any human not otherwise charmed senses from time to time, creating our very understanding of the external reality existing beyond personal control. But to impart that forces could exert intent or consciousness is of further difficulty in any "defense" here - such is the struggle in describing the invisible, metaphysical realm, and that is the disbelievers' eternal edge.
Belief itself exists. Do you believe in belief? Not necessary. What we call "Belief" stems from a valuable human power and ability of attention. That ability forms the cord by why which certain dominating forces (for lack of a better word; often economic in nature) can grab our attention and manipulate us like marionettes. It is the same cord that the faithless depress in perpetual drunkenness and which the faith-deniers sever, losing their connection to the vast and rich invisible world around us. O! Invisible All.
But what if our belief could fashioned scientifically? With rigorous observation we could watch the patterns of life and death and all in between around us, as Shakespeare. You would have to exercise your belief first - again, belief being itself established and not requiring "mere belief" to exist, unless you were interested in chasing some rabid fractal down through a realm of mirrors. Fine for a sunday afternoon, but we have to get to work here. First you would have to believe in the possibility of some relatively subjective (ie pertaining to you, the ultimate subject) cause-and-effect chain. I think that science can and absolutely should exist with total acceptance of subjectivity and quit this charade of objectivity, but that is another essay. The point is that you are an infinitely small viewfinder in the scope of All, so you are only ever going to get little scraps and bits of information that only you, in all your glorious tiny subjectivity and infinite variety, are afforded. Comparing subjectivities is eventually encouraged, but the first step requires a certain amount of faith in the things that are being revealed to you, in the order in which they happen. A well developed belief-ability is observing not for the purpose of matching up just any old concepts, but to actually perceive or detect a kind of actuality (truth) and likeness in the natures of coinciding objects, weather, and human circumstance, and potential connection among these things. Following clues, if you will. Putting attention to suspicions.
This incoherent map of intent reveals an eventual destination, which is the manifestation of the power of belief, which is "it works". Any active user of belief can tell you about the presence and function of belief in their life. Again, in this process, subjective testimony is not to be doubted. It is actually all we got. What we need to be rigorous about is To What End. A human can represent utter subjectivity, but when faced with The Other, needs to be kind of vigilant and ruthless about accurately reading externals - especially in present age, which is just loaded with seduction and facile suggestions that require the borrowed human energetic attention to thrive (often the machinations of mere men). Truth must be decoded, and then thus the only trustable source is your own code, inasmuch as you are trained to be attentive and demanding your truth.
Certainly this power-known-as-belief can be harnessed and utilized. In the realm of superstition, we can have legitimate fears and paranoias. We can foretell them by antecedents, as if we are reading the sky for weather ... We can observe the old mysteries of black cats and cemeteries with a light mind, feeling the accurate prickle... We can notice objects, symbols, names that tend to creep out at the worst time, keep an eye out for their recurrence, and be cautious in calling their attention. It is right and natural to bristle, because as a human body you are utterly fallible to the forces of chaos and disaster, and hopefully have retained at least a shred of the instinct to self-preservation. But we need not be frightened or crippled by fear - we can take an active involvement in our own superstition.
Develop your own superstition today!
But what about superstitions that are superrational?
Here I am defining superstition as: the belief in persistent dark or evil forces that seek to progress one's own undoing through some chain of events. I guess a lot of folks get stuck on the word "belief", but we cannot deny the perpetual presence of chaos, decay, collapse, death that are endemic in time and space. These are the "dark forces" that any human not otherwise charmed senses from time to time, creating our very understanding of the external reality existing beyond personal control. But to impart that forces could exert intent or consciousness is of further difficulty in any "defense" here - such is the struggle in describing the invisible, metaphysical realm, and that is the disbelievers' eternal edge.
Belief itself exists. Do you believe in belief? Not necessary. What we call "Belief" stems from a valuable human power and ability of attention. That ability forms the cord by why which certain dominating forces (for lack of a better word; often economic in nature) can grab our attention and manipulate us like marionettes. It is the same cord that the faithless depress in perpetual drunkenness and which the faith-deniers sever, losing their connection to the vast and rich invisible world around us. O! Invisible All.
But what if our belief could fashioned scientifically? With rigorous observation we could watch the patterns of life and death and all in between around us, as Shakespeare. You would have to exercise your belief first - again, belief being itself established and not requiring "mere belief" to exist, unless you were interested in chasing some rabid fractal down through a realm of mirrors. Fine for a sunday afternoon, but we have to get to work here. First you would have to believe in the possibility of some relatively subjective (ie pertaining to you, the ultimate subject) cause-and-effect chain. I think that science can and absolutely should exist with total acceptance of subjectivity and quit this charade of objectivity, but that is another essay. The point is that you are an infinitely small viewfinder in the scope of All, so you are only ever going to get little scraps and bits of information that only you, in all your glorious tiny subjectivity and infinite variety, are afforded. Comparing subjectivities is eventually encouraged, but the first step requires a certain amount of faith in the things that are being revealed to you, in the order in which they happen. A well developed belief-ability is observing not for the purpose of matching up just any old concepts, but to actually perceive or detect a kind of actuality (truth) and likeness in the natures of coinciding objects, weather, and human circumstance, and potential connection among these things. Following clues, if you will. Putting attention to suspicions.
This incoherent map of intent reveals an eventual destination, which is the manifestation of the power of belief, which is "it works". Any active user of belief can tell you about the presence and function of belief in their life. Again, in this process, subjective testimony is not to be doubted. It is actually all we got. What we need to be rigorous about is To What End. A human can represent utter subjectivity, but when faced with The Other, needs to be kind of vigilant and ruthless about accurately reading externals - especially in present age, which is just loaded with seduction and facile suggestions that require the borrowed human energetic attention to thrive (often the machinations of mere men). Truth must be decoded, and then thus the only trustable source is your own code, inasmuch as you are trained to be attentive and demanding your truth.
Certainly this power-known-as-belief can be harnessed and utilized. In the realm of superstition, we can have legitimate fears and paranoias. We can foretell them by antecedents, as if we are reading the sky for weather ... We can observe the old mysteries of black cats and cemeteries with a light mind, feeling the accurate prickle... We can notice objects, symbols, names that tend to creep out at the worst time, keep an eye out for their recurrence, and be cautious in calling their attention. It is right and natural to bristle, because as a human body you are utterly fallible to the forces of chaos and disaster, and hopefully have retained at least a shred of the instinct to self-preservation. But we need not be frightened or crippled by fear - we can take an active involvement in our own superstition.
Develop your own superstition today!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Personal Pain
Sometimes when I am courting excess drug use and party atmosphere, I fall into a kind of "spiritual exhaustion". It feels like a wet, uncertain sliver opening up in my breastbone. I find it difficult to feel confident - a slippery nervousness that gets jostled with every breath. Usually it will close after a good amount of sleep, or after a relatively sober time passes. It is undesirable state, of course.
But recently I had opportunity to more deeply explore this feeling. The circumstances and influences were manifold: a bit of drug use, but also premenstrual tendency toward weepiness, a ripening moon, and mounting sleep deprivation. All this mired in the middle of 24 hour Twin Peaks marathon, and exacerbated by intense interpersonal social scenario.
Possibly the most important factor here is the Marathon. Twin Peaks is a serious piece for me, and I developed this event - open to the public, put on at a community center - primarily because I had a desire to ... realize the series as a complete work in time, a whole. What would that be like? Though I've viewed it a dozen times, I have never dedicated that full chunk of time ... it was an experiment of sorts. ... I would do it differently in the future. The series is simply too uneven to be consistently compelling, with the extreme dramatic climax happening midway and losing steam afterward. But that climax ... with all its horrific, overwrought, poignant sorrows ...
With the progression of episodes happening in succession, it was easy to let the terror and despair compound upon themselves. And I was feeling emotionally unstable. AND there was the aforementioned "intense interpersonal social scenario". I can't be too specific there - suffice it to say that I was perceiving, experiencing, what (in my paranoid state) amounted to a complex but thorough rejection - personal insult - through a group of people whom I had found myself growing complicatedly closer to over the last month. All my delusions of blossoming friendship ran up against this cold wall - I felt so disrespected - and yet - what was my behavior? I could not resist - I got closer. I sat myself in a chair right outside the knot of this group of people. The feelings of betrayal that their chatter inspired in me blossomed ... the sliver of nervous exhaustion grew! To a full, round disk of raw, wounded insult. I would realize this intense sensation in moments, blinking on with each burst of their laughter, and I was fascinated by how huge it was in my body. It had grown from a sliver to command my entire chest, from shoulder to shoulder.
Finally, I took control of this feeling of emotional wounding, and sustained focus on it. When it rose like a tide, I seized it and held it in place. ... My entire chest felt ripped, trembling, agonized from this absolutely pure Rejection, and somehow, I began to savor this feeling. It made so much sense - the deeply horrifying murders on the screen, the portrayal of extreme and devastating loss, and my own sudden ability to really, truly experience Intense Personal Pain, to hold the horror in a ravaged body, to feel the depths of something so terrible. This concept of garmonbozia - pain and suffering - established in the TP universe guided me, no doubt. Having achieved some kind of revelation in my being, suddenly the offending social circumstances - still quite present - sunk into the background. It was all no less insulting, but being trapped in this vibration of something so Wrong, so Awful, brought a detaching transcendence, a grievous personal suffering crystallized in a perfect, unstable, degraded physical sensation.
I have always felt quite tenderly towards grief, and been comfortable in the presence of depressed individuals - I mean I don't try to create depression or grief. These things naturally occur and I guess I "enjoy" the subdued feeling they create in others, and my inclination is to help find some measure of relief for that person. I suppose it amounts to something more than hanging out, when depression is present - there is a goal, there is emotional work, there is the opportunity to change and shape circumstances and response. But this was my first experience of "crystalline, transcendent grief". I don't know why this should be a positive experience for me, but I can return to the memory with fondness. The recently cultivated feeling still echoes in my chest, and I am proud of it. Why would this be?
But recently I had opportunity to more deeply explore this feeling. The circumstances and influences were manifold: a bit of drug use, but also premenstrual tendency toward weepiness, a ripening moon, and mounting sleep deprivation. All this mired in the middle of 24 hour Twin Peaks marathon, and exacerbated by intense interpersonal social scenario.
Possibly the most important factor here is the Marathon. Twin Peaks is a serious piece for me, and I developed this event - open to the public, put on at a community center - primarily because I had a desire to ... realize the series as a complete work in time, a whole. What would that be like? Though I've viewed it a dozen times, I have never dedicated that full chunk of time ... it was an experiment of sorts. ... I would do it differently in the future. The series is simply too uneven to be consistently compelling, with the extreme dramatic climax happening midway and losing steam afterward. But that climax ... with all its horrific, overwrought, poignant sorrows ...
With the progression of episodes happening in succession, it was easy to let the terror and despair compound upon themselves. And I was feeling emotionally unstable. AND there was the aforementioned "intense interpersonal social scenario". I can't be too specific there - suffice it to say that I was perceiving, experiencing, what (in my paranoid state) amounted to a complex but thorough rejection - personal insult - through a group of people whom I had found myself growing complicatedly closer to over the last month. All my delusions of blossoming friendship ran up against this cold wall - I felt so disrespected - and yet - what was my behavior? I could not resist - I got closer. I sat myself in a chair right outside the knot of this group of people. The feelings of betrayal that their chatter inspired in me blossomed ... the sliver of nervous exhaustion grew! To a full, round disk of raw, wounded insult. I would realize this intense sensation in moments, blinking on with each burst of their laughter, and I was fascinated by how huge it was in my body. It had grown from a sliver to command my entire chest, from shoulder to shoulder.
Finally, I took control of this feeling of emotional wounding, and sustained focus on it. When it rose like a tide, I seized it and held it in place. ... My entire chest felt ripped, trembling, agonized from this absolutely pure Rejection, and somehow, I began to savor this feeling. It made so much sense - the deeply horrifying murders on the screen, the portrayal of extreme and devastating loss, and my own sudden ability to really, truly experience Intense Personal Pain, to hold the horror in a ravaged body, to feel the depths of something so terrible. This concept of garmonbozia - pain and suffering - established in the TP universe guided me, no doubt. Having achieved some kind of revelation in my being, suddenly the offending social circumstances - still quite present - sunk into the background. It was all no less insulting, but being trapped in this vibration of something so Wrong, so Awful, brought a detaching transcendence, a grievous personal suffering crystallized in a perfect, unstable, degraded physical sensation.
I have always felt quite tenderly towards grief, and been comfortable in the presence of depressed individuals - I mean I don't try to create depression or grief. These things naturally occur and I guess I "enjoy" the subdued feeling they create in others, and my inclination is to help find some measure of relief for that person. I suppose it amounts to something more than hanging out, when depression is present - there is a goal, there is emotional work, there is the opportunity to change and shape circumstances and response. But this was my first experience of "crystalline, transcendent grief". I don't know why this should be a positive experience for me, but I can return to the memory with fondness. The recently cultivated feeling still echoes in my chest, and I am proud of it. Why would this be?
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Steps
Hey there.
The problem is the existence of belief. I am certain that it is a false construct, or a minor tendency inflated by ... what force? The survival instinct of men alone? Or some dark insidious force that has no problem understanding "humanity" as a mass of energy that can be manipulated for its own benefit? Are they the same thing? Are there others inside us?
I often think about the actual makeup of the human body, as opposed to what we give credence to. I am not interested in arguing, and perhaps that makes me boring. But arguing - who needs it? It betters us as it hones our individuality, our ability to "know ourself" ... but what about all these other forces and energy centers located right with in our skin, sharing our internal space - really, the only property any of us can own (and how briefly). What is this "Actual Makeup"? Well, we house a lot of living things that work within us, machining this body as we machine the earth. General health is determined by how well we can balance our relationships with these little invaders and homesteaders through a daily intake of air, food (nutrient, matter), water (and, perhaps, spirits). And more - who knows how more subliminal intakes steer us? - The scenes that pass over our eyes, words drunk in, sounds and textures.
Another thing I am certain of is that the brain is a major organ, but that we have done an enormous disservice to humanity by disregarding the sophisticated and mysterious ways of our other organs, all operating under the deep cover of permanent blackness, should you be so lucky to never split your skin. Surely strong light permeates and cells drink that vitamin d directly, but always the shadow of the skin. This shadow contains a mighty force, as all shadows do. Maybe shadow is not quite the right word. It is a sealed shadow, a complete shadow, a shadow that contains and protects an unknown quantity. Or maybe it is more like a little self contained ocean.
Anyway - we are only here to navigate the mystery, and that requires admitting that there is a big mystery afoot. The tactics of science are often accurate but contain just as much folly in application as techniques of mystics, magicians, simpletons and guessers alike. Any path can be chosen and executed. Generally the thing to say at this juncture is that true result is gotten foremost by the whims and accuracy of the heart or gut, not the mind - but I don't want to relegate this chunk of words to the new age bin. However, I do stand by it. What is the other conclusion to draw here? Aren't I just poised upon my own preaching pinnacle? This is just some stuff I need to get off my chest. As they say.
The problem is the existence of belief. I am certain that it is a false construct, or a minor tendency inflated by ... what force? The survival instinct of men alone? Or some dark insidious force that has no problem understanding "humanity" as a mass of energy that can be manipulated for its own benefit? Are they the same thing? Are there others inside us?
I often think about the actual makeup of the human body, as opposed to what we give credence to. I am not interested in arguing, and perhaps that makes me boring. But arguing - who needs it? It betters us as it hones our individuality, our ability to "know ourself" ... but what about all these other forces and energy centers located right with in our skin, sharing our internal space - really, the only property any of us can own (and how briefly). What is this "Actual Makeup"? Well, we house a lot of living things that work within us, machining this body as we machine the earth. General health is determined by how well we can balance our relationships with these little invaders and homesteaders through a daily intake of air, food (nutrient, matter), water (and, perhaps, spirits). And more - who knows how more subliminal intakes steer us? - The scenes that pass over our eyes, words drunk in, sounds and textures.
Another thing I am certain of is that the brain is a major organ, but that we have done an enormous disservice to humanity by disregarding the sophisticated and mysterious ways of our other organs, all operating under the deep cover of permanent blackness, should you be so lucky to never split your skin. Surely strong light permeates and cells drink that vitamin d directly, but always the shadow of the skin. This shadow contains a mighty force, as all shadows do. Maybe shadow is not quite the right word. It is a sealed shadow, a complete shadow, a shadow that contains and protects an unknown quantity. Or maybe it is more like a little self contained ocean.
Anyway - we are only here to navigate the mystery, and that requires admitting that there is a big mystery afoot. The tactics of science are often accurate but contain just as much folly in application as techniques of mystics, magicians, simpletons and guessers alike. Any path can be chosen and executed. Generally the thing to say at this juncture is that true result is gotten foremost by the whims and accuracy of the heart or gut, not the mind - but I don't want to relegate this chunk of words to the new age bin. However, I do stand by it. What is the other conclusion to draw here? Aren't I just poised upon my own preaching pinnacle? This is just some stuff I need to get off my chest. As they say.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Minor Holidays within Santanalia Season
Black Friday
This day is the feast day of Economicus, celebrated by masses of people BUY BUY BUY.
Day of the New Direction (Dill-Day)
This is the first functional day after the New Year. This is preceded by meditation on the Previous Year (new name?). We may notice trends in attempts and failures, emerging concerns, loose ends to solve. Then we may assess potential goals and make plans to court their development. This mental exercise necessarily occurs in the latter days of the Previous Year.
Dill is the herb of the Page of Swords, according to the herbal tarot. The Sword is the suit of mental function and currently/regionally phallic in its symbolism. The phallus may be embraced in the spirit of celebration for its qualities of Active Intent. The page is the youngest of the Hierarchical cards and stands at the fore of all cyclic states. The page is prepubescent, in a graced, genderless state.
Women and men alike are encouraged to initiate the day with a Dildo or Nude Erection, at one’s discretion.
Certainalia
This is an unspecified date in the shopping season of the previous year, in which an individual turns acquisitive efforts towards one’s own needs.
Slothanalia
This set of days occurs at the close of Xmas celebrations. During this time, there is absence of the attempt to produce.
Genitalia
This is December 24th, commemorating the day Santa was conceived.
Solstice
As the darkest stage in the entire year, an unsettling quality is likely to beset. Let this be the culmination of the past year’s miseries, weaknesses, accidents, faults, and pangs as they come to you. This is often experienced as a difficult time when impeded by the popular tradition of Last-Minute Shopping, which tends to intensify anxieties as we consider and procure the proper token to express our relationships with various people.
This stretch naturally comes to a close on December 25th.
This day is the feast day of Economicus, celebrated by masses of people BUY BUY BUY.
Day of the New Direction (Dill-Day)
This is the first functional day after the New Year. This is preceded by meditation on the Previous Year (new name?). We may notice trends in attempts and failures, emerging concerns, loose ends to solve. Then we may assess potential goals and make plans to court their development. This mental exercise necessarily occurs in the latter days of the Previous Year.
Dill is the herb of the Page of Swords, according to the herbal tarot. The Sword is the suit of mental function and currently/regionally phallic in its symbolism. The phallus may be embraced in the spirit of celebration for its qualities of Active Intent. The page is the youngest of the Hierarchical cards and stands at the fore of all cyclic states. The page is prepubescent, in a graced, genderless state.
Women and men alike are encouraged to initiate the day with a Dildo or Nude Erection, at one’s discretion.
Certainalia
This is an unspecified date in the shopping season of the previous year, in which an individual turns acquisitive efforts towards one’s own needs.
Slothanalia
This set of days occurs at the close of Xmas celebrations. During this time, there is absence of the attempt to produce.
Genitalia
This is December 24th, commemorating the day Santa was conceived.
Solstice
As the darkest stage in the entire year, an unsettling quality is likely to beset. Let this be the culmination of the past year’s miseries, weaknesses, accidents, faults, and pangs as they come to you. This is often experienced as a difficult time when impeded by the popular tradition of Last-Minute Shopping, which tends to intensify anxieties as we consider and procure the proper token to express our relationships with various people.
This stretch naturally comes to a close on December 25th.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Call to spirit
SO
I am trying to figure out how to talk about "spirituality". Mostly when I make a stab at one of these bloggys here I am expressing frustration about the way "spiritual" topics have become an object of derision, scorn, neglect, or outright dismissal. It is not strange - it is a cultural phenomena. Sometimes I blame "science", though I am in fact not an enemy of scientific ideals. In fact, many occult (re: New Age) pursuits have sprung out of a thirst to scientifically test, pursue, explore the unseen world. On the other hand, we have "religion", which has become popularly synonymous with "spirituality", providing reams of (sometimes contradictory) dogma, yet excluding whole chunks and fields of possibilities and curiosities.
So we are basically a culture trapped in our own spiritual ignorance. Let us see the range of topics that could fall under "Spirituality", including but not limited to what we might find filed under "New Age" in the bookstore, to try and understand how inadequate and broad our culture is in seriously addressing invisible (occult) experiences.
Afterlife: ghosts, ancestors
Psychic phenomena: Extrasensory perception
Acknowledgment of Consciousness of objects, plants, animals, place, weather, planets &c
Hypnosis
Divination techniques
Healing techniques (the body energetic)
Prayer and Communion
Meditation and Astral Travel (concentration toward spiritual advancement)
Morality
Personified entirety: God(s), Universe
Historical Pantheons
Aliens
Channeling
Contemplative Astronomy based on observation of heavens
Coincidence
Apocalypse
Christian Charity, Love, and cult societies
(Religious Dogmas and Conspiracy Theory)
Occult Study and Practice
Ritual
Magic Powers and Will Working
Miracles
Dreaming
Drugs: (Intoxication), Revelation
Meaning of Life
Creative endeavors, Imagination
Megalithic mysteries
Darkness to Nothingness (the unnameable)
Conjunctions and agreements among world myths
Angels, Fairies, Allies, Demons, Shadows
Contemplation of Inner Earth
Systems of personality inspection and deconstruction
Self-denial and ego abandonment
the Holy, surrender
Virtue
Visions
Vibrations
Pursuits of individuals like Reich, Jodorowsky, &c
Commentary and some philosophical consideration
Whew! I will try to organize this list a little better as time goes on.
Problem #1: "Belief" This is the first block to surpass when trying to forge a dialogue about spirituality. I speculate that EVERY HUMAN has a positive association or conviction with AT LEAST one item on the above list ... but also a bristling irritation with other items, for a variety of reasons. Religion has imposed this false requirement of belief and Science has made it possible to opt out of belief through the finely honed technique of skepticism. So we are left at a crossroads where we are allowed to dismiss and reject anything that is not convincing enough. But here we lose! The invisible world is not here to convince us - the invisible world is perpetually at our fingertips, available for observation.
I am here to say that it is NOT my belief but my real Feeling and my record of experience that causes me to regard all of these topics with a credulous, curious, and open apprehension. I feel it is possible to be credulous without being gullible. I do not blame the derisive spirit that denounces Spirituality on the basis of observed abuses in the name of spirituality - frauds often operate by claiming spiritual facility or authority. But I do struggle against the cumulative result: a "too cool for school" attitude of nihilistic resignation, and a death-averse culture emphasizing "jobs", structures of entrapment and glowing rectangles.
And I do have a suspicion: that the disconnection between humans and their own spiritual potential is no mistake, but an insidious plot meant to distract a man from her own personal power, ability to self-heal, create, and participate in community, for the purpose of providing a pliable work force for corporate interests. I do believe in an enemy, in the soul-suckers, in a zombie apocalypse that is at close range on a daily basis. I don't want this bastard health care of symptom suppression, I don't want this fear of age, of death, of neighbor, this vast programming of self-doubt and face painting. I cannot name the true face of this vast Soul Suck, but I feel it - so pervasive and so contrary to the experience I am having as a human that I imagine it must be in some way conscious, imposed, not accidental. To attempt to name this "conspiracy" plunges us into the world of doubt, disbelief, argument and derision all over again - it is best to stay out of it, looking under rocks of better promise.
More later.
I am trying to figure out how to talk about "spirituality". Mostly when I make a stab at one of these bloggys here I am expressing frustration about the way "spiritual" topics have become an object of derision, scorn, neglect, or outright dismissal. It is not strange - it is a cultural phenomena. Sometimes I blame "science", though I am in fact not an enemy of scientific ideals. In fact, many occult (re: New Age) pursuits have sprung out of a thirst to scientifically test, pursue, explore the unseen world. On the other hand, we have "religion", which has become popularly synonymous with "spirituality", providing reams of (sometimes contradictory) dogma, yet excluding whole chunks and fields of possibilities and curiosities.
So we are basically a culture trapped in our own spiritual ignorance. Let us see the range of topics that could fall under "Spirituality", including but not limited to what we might find filed under "New Age" in the bookstore, to try and understand how inadequate and broad our culture is in seriously addressing invisible (occult) experiences.
Afterlife: ghosts, ancestors
Psychic phenomena: Extrasensory perception
Acknowledgment of Consciousness of objects, plants, animals, place, weather, planets &c
Hypnosis
Divination techniques
Healing techniques (the body energetic)
Prayer and Communion
Meditation and Astral Travel (concentration toward spiritual advancement)
Morality
Personified entirety: God(s), Universe
Historical Pantheons
Aliens
Channeling
Contemplative Astronomy based on observation of heavens
Coincidence
Apocalypse
Christian Charity, Love, and cult societies
(Religious Dogmas and Conspiracy Theory)
Occult Study and Practice
Ritual
Magic Powers and Will Working
Miracles
Dreaming
Drugs: (Intoxication), Revelation
Meaning of Life
Creative endeavors, Imagination
Megalithic mysteries
Darkness to Nothingness (the unnameable)
Conjunctions and agreements among world myths
Angels, Fairies, Allies, Demons, Shadows
Contemplation of Inner Earth
Systems of personality inspection and deconstruction
Self-denial and ego abandonment
the Holy, surrender
Virtue
Visions
Vibrations
Pursuits of individuals like Reich, Jodorowsky, &c
Commentary and some philosophical consideration
Whew! I will try to organize this list a little better as time goes on.
Problem #1: "Belief" This is the first block to surpass when trying to forge a dialogue about spirituality. I speculate that EVERY HUMAN has a positive association or conviction with AT LEAST one item on the above list ... but also a bristling irritation with other items, for a variety of reasons. Religion has imposed this false requirement of belief and Science has made it possible to opt out of belief through the finely honed technique of skepticism. So we are left at a crossroads where we are allowed to dismiss and reject anything that is not convincing enough. But here we lose! The invisible world is not here to convince us - the invisible world is perpetually at our fingertips, available for observation.
I am here to say that it is NOT my belief but my real Feeling and my record of experience that causes me to regard all of these topics with a credulous, curious, and open apprehension. I feel it is possible to be credulous without being gullible. I do not blame the derisive spirit that denounces Spirituality on the basis of observed abuses in the name of spirituality - frauds often operate by claiming spiritual facility or authority. But I do struggle against the cumulative result: a "too cool for school" attitude of nihilistic resignation, and a death-averse culture emphasizing "jobs", structures of entrapment and glowing rectangles.
And I do have a suspicion: that the disconnection between humans and their own spiritual potential is no mistake, but an insidious plot meant to distract a man from her own personal power, ability to self-heal, create, and participate in community, for the purpose of providing a pliable work force for corporate interests. I do believe in an enemy, in the soul-suckers, in a zombie apocalypse that is at close range on a daily basis. I don't want this bastard health care of symptom suppression, I don't want this fear of age, of death, of neighbor, this vast programming of self-doubt and face painting. I cannot name the true face of this vast Soul Suck, but I feel it - so pervasive and so contrary to the experience I am having as a human that I imagine it must be in some way conscious, imposed, not accidental. To attempt to name this "conspiracy" plunges us into the world of doubt, disbelief, argument and derision all over again - it is best to stay out of it, looking under rocks of better promise.
More later.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Dude It Gets Old
I want to talk about cynicism. I am a lady of certain age, a dude from a time, and that time is the 90's - one of the most disillusioned, skeptical, jaded generations there is. Many of my contemporaries are aging out. I mean, you can always find a '76er out there somewhere, but the field of dudes just gets younger and younger.
Youth is fine - there is a time for everything. But recently I turned a certain age and it came heavy upon me. There is a magical book in my possession called "Seven Gothic Tales", and in the story "The Old Chevalier" I read this:
"I was so young then that I could no more than other young people give up the deep faith in my own star, in a power that loved me and looked after me in preference to all other human beings. ... It is when this faith begins to wear out, and when you conceive the possibility of being in the same position as other people, that youth is really over."
This book is magical in my life because it is so often timely, and no less here: I had known exactly the privilege of youth and the arrogance that comes with it ... but right around my birthday, I started to know collapse, failure, vulnerability ... in some ways more definite than others, but in general a pervasive feeling of doom, of a universe that had stopped smiling down on me, fallen from grace, retracted blessing. It is beyond attitude - sudden body failure is an intimate revolt, this thing that you are on the earth in sudden disagreement with the self that resides inside it. It is a hard time to maintain a positive attitude.
But more than "getting older" - cynicism has been a part of me at every stage. High school, duh. First college year, my closest friend and I promoted and exemplified such dismal qualities that it spawned the acronym SCEB - we made a temple to Sarcasm, Cynicism, Exaggeration, and Bitterness. In later years I had to consciously work to discover more positive attitudes, less hate, simply to start functioning in the world, instead of just making fun of it all the time, dwelling in psychic drag. But the tendency is hardwired.
So it is interesting to me to note a very real generational difference. The young ones of these days seem often shot through with pervasive positivity, diy ingenuity, a seriousness and sense of self-importance. Is it the very real result of guidance counselors hammering "You can do anything!" into young brains? In some ways it is difficult to tell which qualities belong to the generation, and which are only borrowed from youth, time will tell ... but I feel oddly positioned, in contrast. I focus on complaints not because nothing is ever good enough but because things can be improved if problems are openly recognized. But to express my critical observations in these youth pools casts me as an outsider, an adult, or just some kind of jerk unable to enjoy the gifts of nature and bent on disturbing everyone else's experience too. Even on a casual level - a contemporary encountering them noted "They don't have jokes." My running commentary is incisive, cutting, rarely cruel but consistently irreverent, it jabs and produces a particular kind of laughter - yes, "jokes".
Well, I like it! I mean, recent exposure to the reality of aging hasn't been totally pleasant, but that's just a thing, planets passing, and I needed a change anyway. I enjoy grappling with the intimate difficulties and personal transformation. And part of that is the creation of a relationship to positivity, which I think I maintain, though outwardly it may appear not so. The positivism associated with the New Age is often a disgusting distortion, but the initial principle of intention is real and powerful. I love that I have been able to encounter this principle on my own terms, as a balance to more negative forces, and I am incredibly skeptical of those who are hardwired with this assumption. Who I am must critique who they are - not just the youth but any consumers of wholesale feelgood philosophies - holiness is not so simple, and dabbling in all that light encourages blindness.
And poor culture! getting all gobbed up with earnest, mediocre efforts about personal transformation. "Why are they always hatching from eggs?" Inspired by the graces, it is celebration of life processes and self-absorbed obsession with personal experience - seemingly reasonable subjects for "art", except that the world we live in is so densely complicated with ambiguities and darkness and mystery that I begin to curse this diy movement, these energized fanatics trying to cram us with "beauty".
To all my aging brothers and sisters, I have never lost reverence for aged or the elderly. But in youth I imagined the trick to lifetime well-being was to maintain that grace of youth through the passing years. Now that I have crossed a time line that sentiment sounds like denial. In the real scenario, there is struggle, and it can be liked! I am positive of that!
Youth is fine - there is a time for everything. But recently I turned a certain age and it came heavy upon me. There is a magical book in my possession called "Seven Gothic Tales", and in the story "The Old Chevalier" I read this:
"I was so young then that I could no more than other young people give up the deep faith in my own star, in a power that loved me and looked after me in preference to all other human beings. ... It is when this faith begins to wear out, and when you conceive the possibility of being in the same position as other people, that youth is really over."
This book is magical in my life because it is so often timely, and no less here: I had known exactly the privilege of youth and the arrogance that comes with it ... but right around my birthday, I started to know collapse, failure, vulnerability ... in some ways more definite than others, but in general a pervasive feeling of doom, of a universe that had stopped smiling down on me, fallen from grace, retracted blessing. It is beyond attitude - sudden body failure is an intimate revolt, this thing that you are on the earth in sudden disagreement with the self that resides inside it. It is a hard time to maintain a positive attitude.
But more than "getting older" - cynicism has been a part of me at every stage. High school, duh. First college year, my closest friend and I promoted and exemplified such dismal qualities that it spawned the acronym SCEB - we made a temple to Sarcasm, Cynicism, Exaggeration, and Bitterness. In later years I had to consciously work to discover more positive attitudes, less hate, simply to start functioning in the world, instead of just making fun of it all the time, dwelling in psychic drag. But the tendency is hardwired.
So it is interesting to me to note a very real generational difference. The young ones of these days seem often shot through with pervasive positivity, diy ingenuity, a seriousness and sense of self-importance. Is it the very real result of guidance counselors hammering "You can do anything!" into young brains? In some ways it is difficult to tell which qualities belong to the generation, and which are only borrowed from youth, time will tell ... but I feel oddly positioned, in contrast. I focus on complaints not because nothing is ever good enough but because things can be improved if problems are openly recognized. But to express my critical observations in these youth pools casts me as an outsider, an adult, or just some kind of jerk unable to enjoy the gifts of nature and bent on disturbing everyone else's experience too. Even on a casual level - a contemporary encountering them noted "They don't have jokes." My running commentary is incisive, cutting, rarely cruel but consistently irreverent, it jabs and produces a particular kind of laughter - yes, "jokes".
Well, I like it! I mean, recent exposure to the reality of aging hasn't been totally pleasant, but that's just a thing, planets passing, and I needed a change anyway. I enjoy grappling with the intimate difficulties and personal transformation. And part of that is the creation of a relationship to positivity, which I think I maintain, though outwardly it may appear not so. The positivism associated with the New Age is often a disgusting distortion, but the initial principle of intention is real and powerful. I love that I have been able to encounter this principle on my own terms, as a balance to more negative forces, and I am incredibly skeptical of those who are hardwired with this assumption. Who I am must critique who they are - not just the youth but any consumers of wholesale feelgood philosophies - holiness is not so simple, and dabbling in all that light encourages blindness.
And poor culture! getting all gobbed up with earnest, mediocre efforts about personal transformation. "Why are they always hatching from eggs?" Inspired by the graces, it is celebration of life processes and self-absorbed obsession with personal experience - seemingly reasonable subjects for "art", except that the world we live in is so densely complicated with ambiguities and darkness and mystery that I begin to curse this diy movement, these energized fanatics trying to cram us with "beauty".
To all my aging brothers and sisters, I have never lost reverence for aged or the elderly. But in youth I imagined the trick to lifetime well-being was to maintain that grace of youth through the passing years. Now that I have crossed a time line that sentiment sounds like denial. In the real scenario, there is struggle, and it can be liked! I am positive of that!
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