"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein
"through rows of bowing hissing Birch
they dreamt
the sun smoldering
beyond
each exclamation of star
a trail
of cosmos
the hanging
of breaths
winding around intervals
as they search the moment
it pries, them loose"
( Excerpt from The Paper Mistress, by, Amy Marina Denes )
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How does a tree feel?
& how does gender feel?
& inveritably almost any circumstance- to access & be the other/s.
What is the significance of the roles we play & act out?
Self?
What is it to define?
Decode?
See?
To be local, universal.
Hegemonic.
How does it feel to think? To process, weigh & react. To doubt, to be solvent..
We are in a time where we finally have the tools to do much more elaborate & conscious work on testing & expanding our awareness of the origins of everything, exactly where- everything (food, clothing, shelter, the human psyche, origins of psychology, 'the spirit', the natural world, energy, art & creativity, ideas- etc ad infinitum) comes from & especially as of late, where war- comes from, how it is created & produced, what war is for- & why- we have wars..
But still, we are failing to ask ourselves where- all our functioning ideas, the materials & systems we depend on & perpetuate originate from.. We fail to go against convention, in order to create & found a new & far more sustainable system of ethics & 'morality'...
We need to further encourage & examine the free & creative dissemination of our ideas, perceptions & concepts, our understanding of the natural world on which we depend.
Are we so sure of the constructs of reality we create & act upon?
These are complicated evolving questions, with equally complicated & diverse answers- & possibilities,
& they always will be. Evolution predicates the process of the discovery, organization & realization of ideas & acts.
At our disposal, is the beauty of focus & observation & at times a panopticon of focus' & observations.
One might assume that trust (a most vital- human need) is an emphasis on the known, the given, the consistent & understood-. An engaging & evolving reciprocity & fruition of trust-.
There might be some program- for human understanding, there.
Individuality is born in the group.. (&, the reader to this journal must know- that I am grouped & allied with some truly- extraordinary & inspiring individuals.. Il bocca al lupo to you..)
So, why do we often go against understanding- ( & new understanding ) & towards any other amorphous & superficial re- definition which simply leads us back to the same arbitrary & exhausted questions?
What is it to ask who- someone is as an individual?
For an example- let's say Dostoevsky's 'Idiot' "in a world obsessed with money, power, and sexual conquest, a sanatorium is the only place for a saint." No individual is an island, well, maybe J.D Salinger, but he had some- reasons...
A 'saint'.. - An island... Hmm..
&, what are the reasons why we struggle with & against being
& in fleshing out the life of an individual, self & identity?
What is it to define oneself outside of the expectations & limiting perimeters of society?
Politics?
Gender-. Etc.
What about believing & solely trusting in all one's ever known? - (or being forced to -.)
Really..
What is it to look 'inside' oneself if it's possible. Inside of our complex, mental, emotional, creative & destructive origins & places of human drive- motive- desire-..
To seriously examine & take a look inside of our own motives as individuals, our influence upon others & the world..
To hold this psychological mirror up, & as Habermas says- "to be more or less reasonable, to give answers to the questions- why did you say that, why did you do that"..
The ability to reflect on ones drivers & ones need to engage.
Perhaps, a lot of our 'problems' (life is a problem) stem from our inability, or lack of desire in facing or answering these questions, as if it's somehow futile, painful or impossible for us to find a 'destination' or a 'destiny' in individuation.
A calling of the human spirit, freedom of the psyche & the will of the self.
A willingness to attempt to understand & confront individuation as the ultimate drive....
?
At present, I think we can agree that self confrontation (self- analysis, skepticism) is not- a popular activity.
It's expected then to suppress these powerful hidden drives. Perhaps, throw them into a cloud of repressed assumptions, desire & shame, further our self deception.
Yes. & how absurd is that?
Self, other, & origin- as taboo.-
& to then choose- to live out the design of a proudly hardening, inaccessible, limited & artless self.
Yet, if these drives for love & individuation are there, then what is their use?
What do these drives mean?
How can one speak for the human experience, attempt to know it & appeal to it, if one is not actually living the 'human' experience?
Why is this a very real dilemma?
Is the discovery of, creation from & release of- these expressions too much mental & emotional work for the average individual?
Is there a program to be followed....
Or does everything really just come down to survival, a self absorption that seeks to thrive in a vicious Darwinian sense, or is there something more?
When anyone- is forced into the margins, (yet again)
in front of us, is that great & ever looming desire to individuate, to organize-.. Make sense. Originate.
Within every individual (& many would say every living thing & space itself), are these desires, ever ready to organize..
(Jorn Asger painting, Paris by night, 1959. Defiguration.)
But for what?
An often hidden prime, is- to relate to & create from this drive for individuation..
To arrive.
Now, love as individuation's engine would be far too limiting, or cliche- or- is it.. ?
This noble & nurturing force ironically drives our self limiting needs, what is 'popular & fashionable' or 'politically correct or incorrect', blah- blah- etc, etc. Seemingly relegated to forever be attached to a lonely & speechless wet nurse to care for, quiet & soothe our lucid, dramatic & profound emotional & mental complexities.
Love seems to be a quality & energy, that by 'cultural, commercial, social & political standards & laws'- finds itself incessantly abused, always escaping us & inevitably, defeated.(Marcuse, One Dimensional Man)...
& what of a humanist universal love, a desire to understand & nurture the human condition, to leave ourselves open & vulnerable enough- to fully, rationally, completely & willingly, register with & learn from others & the world in any way possible. To courageously ally with reality & risk.
To be fallible & culpable. To face, realize & account for the effects of our own irrationality, error & cruelty.
Why has love for anything-, especially others, become an obligatory & over romanticized terror? Or an act of tiring & inconsequential labor- & work?
Is it really only such a personal, rare, ephemeral, illusory & coincidental feeling?
An aimless, forbidden & dispossessed universal guide?
Who taught us that this is 'true'?
Interestingly, love is also a form which often separates us when we have not the courage to realize it.
Unrealizable? Love has countless- nurturing forms & potentials - whether it's a mother breast feeding her infant, a boy carefully folding a paper plane, a surgeon performing heart surgery on her patient, a student thoughtfully finishing his thesis paper, an artist's hand on a thriving & symbolic painting, in the completion of a sustainable farm in South America. Or most importantly- the way life just erupts out of the earth & falls from the sky to give us something miraculous & tangible to experience.
One could go on & on. Love affirms, unites & allies us. It is a dwelling, a place. A uniting human understanding which is outside of the realms of exclusivity.
Love is the quite useful & stimulating, emotional & mental ecstatics that come with being realizable.
How could we ever- take this great power for granted?
Am I really being presumptuous in observing our lack? It's battle?
It's attack?
Love for humanity & others as a rational, vital, sophisticated & elegant force, has it's work, artists & audiences, yes- absolutely,
but such small & disconnected groups... However robust we are always somehow outnumbered..
We have seen this drive enter & escape us like an erratic, desperate dance & pattern, with countless hopeful incarnations, possibilities & failures, in the story of human history.
& then we long to just sit on our 'supposed' laurels?
Is it about success then.
Is that it.
Success, as some ability (conspiring) to prove that we each may have some kind of authority over each other.
"I successfully rule over you, in some way..." (Hah??)- Isn't this a condition much more worthy of disbelieving?
Can't we distinguish ourselves more often- with awareness, skepticism & empathy instead of, expectation, paranoia & 'status'?
Is it a weakness then...-
For.. ?
Mechanically liberated, I suppose- ........., from the empathy (reason) we secretly strive to discover & work from.
All of us painfully await a chance to emit, our sounds, nature, being. To join with something true- & greater than ourselves. Unite.
Emerge & become. BE. Be as in being to be with others & fully of self.
No one can accomplish anything- entirely alone. There is no 'moment' for all moments are future & this requires that the future be now. That awareness, be now.
We all seem to wait & wait to visit & actually face the broken & seeping life heart of the Gulf of Mexico (& The Yellow Sea ) & think- & actually do something about the impossible misery we- create & have created.
We put off falling out of war- to grow to despise human fear & hatred. To stop, to just stop killing- as a way to solve our problems.
We ruminate endlessly on the possibility of starting to attempt to effect change in ours & others lives in great & small ways, by recycling, volunteering, taking long walks, visiting elderly neighbors with news, spending one's free time writing a book, etc.
Human beings have a repressed passion, a yearning inherent in their natures & in their mental & emotional lives to find, experience & incite the love of humanity into a greater way of being..
To be led into a greater possibility of being.
To question self & being.
To love, is to invite- inquisition. Originate.
It's this simple... - I had a 60 or 70 year old or so, healthy & towering, moss green pine outside my front bay windows & some angry & disgruntled asshole- literally wasted money in order to chop down, grind up & throw away this pine in order to 'groom & beautify the courtyard'- ( yesterday ).
Understand- this pine was not diseased, sick or dying, it was not overgrown, its roots were no problem, it never grew into the windows, it was simply a gentle & beautiful pine.
It had consistently kept me company through many summers & winters.
It was life & held life, bird & squirrel nests, it also held my meditations through early morning sun rays & cups of tea... I watched it withstand pelting summer storms & every winter it would become cloaked in fresh & lofty glittering boughs of snow...
Year round it was pure & green & there was always life in its boughs which brought me comfort & respite in times of stress & in the long winter months.
It perfumed my home, it brought me a consistent, uncommon, mysterious, & graceful companionship.
On clear nights, like an angel, it pointed towards the stars, & moon.
It was reduced to something considered useless, out of place & unwanted, removed & done away with, as if it had never been. & as if it never should have been.
I'll tell you- when I saw a robin & other small birds & squirrels which used to live in this pine's nurturing branches return to it's former dominion,
hopping & scrambling in the dirt in confusion at its absence-, I was so moved that I started to cry.
I cried so hard. It was a stendhal effect & much more.. I did not expect to feel as confused as the pine's inhabitants, but I felt a hole in my life & my heart & that hole is still there, embedded in my history.
& it means something-.
& I felt an even deeper urge to realize all the needlessness in the world, & an even deeper urge to understand my love & my belonging to other living things & my relationships with all that surrounds me on this short, mysterious & delicate plane of existence.
For better or worse, love & it's transformative powers is a willingness to find- solidarity (& self) among all things. It just, is.
It's not the known that discloses us, it's the unknown- that discloses us. It is all the happening of life that dwells beneath all our surfaces which rises up into experience, & truth.
To destroy the possibility of discovering & understanding the unknown, is a cosmic crime. It's unoriginal & unintelligible, a perversion of possibility, reality & the truth,
it's vacant & loveless.
& anything loveless & needless is just brutally & predictably banal.
& will probably, die that way.
Journal by, Amy Marina Denes
( Asger Jorn, Poussin,1962. Defiguration.)
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( For the 'earth shaman', my pine, thank you. )( CLICK )
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The RACH
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"But deconstructionism tells us that each time we see the quilt (or encounter some similar object that can be seen in more than one way) then the other pattern is obscured from our sight. "
From: Derrida's 'differAnce'
All Kind of Flowers -
Yegelle Tezeta - & BACH
