Endless copies of my psyche
are imprinted on paper.
I dream of great audience
and have nothing to say.
Instead I demonstrate
with latent power suddenly surging
through my blood, spine, sinuses.
Levitation and exhilaration
spreads through hyper-dimensional beings
with four-dimensional consciousnesses.
God does not exist
but I do.
I borrow unordained titles,
believers gasp in my presence;
sceptics pick my nose;
human beings share my eyes.
I refine my chosen lie
while time pretends to pass.
I possess no hope,
only myths to perpetuate.
Showing posts with label dream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dream. Show all posts
2011-02-09
That day
Inspired by Terence McKenna's Novelty Theory. After watching a YouTube video of McKenna with Lauren in 2008 I wrote this from my notes in 2009.
"...And on that day..."
His voice trailed off because no mind could know but only speculate
and speculation is as rain thrashing against and dripping down a window pane.
Truth in the desired form was inconceivable
and therefore useless to these brain worshippers;
but in regards the past, comprehension could be achieved with great difficulty.
The year begins in confusion and apprehension,
fear continues to rise as the institutions of government and economy crumble into chaos.
Fear becomes anger and anger becomes hatred and hatred becomes violence in the utmost throes of fear,
and soon the the cracked streets are strewn with bodies;
the survivors are those who stare death in the face and do not blink.
After this mass bloodshed there can be no mourning
because the world merely took a long overdue shower and washed away her musty stink.
A new day is declared and the refreshing scent of global peace drifts idly through the air like pollen in early spring
and life continues and beauty gives birth to itself exponentially;
and the illusion of perfect is so strong that peace is complete and perfection approximated;
and all the love of all life on Earth combines to transform their planet into a glowing orb of beauty incomprehensible and indescribable.
The Earth rises, glowing more brightly than the sun and illuminating the whole barren universe
and the entire universe glows with the illumination of the love of all life on Earth
and water breaks forth from the depths of the most desolate planets and life and love spread throughout an infinite universe
and the sun and all his fellow stars grow extra bright to accommodate this new life
and as the stars grow brighter so does the light of love intensify and this beauty that can never again be corrupted by fear becomes a throbbing intensifying mass emanating light and love to every corner of the universe
and soon the stars, in their utter folly, grow so hot, and the planets around them in unison,
that matter cannot sustain what it has developed.
For those who experienced this event it felt merely like an exponential brightening of a light that climaxed as a blinding glare that permeated every atom and obliterated the entire physical universe in one painless moment
and it was as pleasant and unconscious as a drift into sleep
and the night of this sleep was long and images appeared and shifted
and all life experienced differently old images and emotions they thought had been forever lost
and all that had died returned
and no one thought it strange.
In fact no one though much at all, they merely glided through their images and emotions, briefly touching each other and drifting away, as if in a dream;
and at one moment, in the midst of dream, a single entity realised that this is a dream and we are all asleep together forever
and from this entity, like the ripples in a pool of water, this awareness spread through everything
and it was a dream and therefore they could do anything and so they took to the air and flew their fill
and then they embraced
and all life embraced all life
and it was a dream and matter did not exist
and form entered form and love possessed love fully and equally
and love was generosity and abundance
and universal harmony focussed and condensed and compressed to one tiny pinprick of consciousness
and this point became smaller and denser until all existence was so intensely focussed in on itself that it imploded once, with such ferocity that all the surrounding nothingness was sucked into a void
and for a moment there was stillness and silence.
But there was a big bang from the depths of the void
and that big bang let there be light
and there was light.
"...And on that day..."
His voice trailed off because no mind could know but only speculate
and speculation is as rain thrashing against and dripping down a window pane.
Truth in the desired form was inconceivable
and therefore useless to these brain worshippers;
but in regards the past, comprehension could be achieved with great difficulty.
The year begins in confusion and apprehension,
fear continues to rise as the institutions of government and economy crumble into chaos.
Fear becomes anger and anger becomes hatred and hatred becomes violence in the utmost throes of fear,
and soon the the cracked streets are strewn with bodies;
the survivors are those who stare death in the face and do not blink.
After this mass bloodshed there can be no mourning
because the world merely took a long overdue shower and washed away her musty stink.
A new day is declared and the refreshing scent of global peace drifts idly through the air like pollen in early spring
and life continues and beauty gives birth to itself exponentially;
and the illusion of perfect is so strong that peace is complete and perfection approximated;
and all the love of all life on Earth combines to transform their planet into a glowing orb of beauty incomprehensible and indescribable.
The Earth rises, glowing more brightly than the sun and illuminating the whole barren universe
and the entire universe glows with the illumination of the love of all life on Earth
and water breaks forth from the depths of the most desolate planets and life and love spread throughout an infinite universe
and the sun and all his fellow stars grow extra bright to accommodate this new life
and as the stars grow brighter so does the light of love intensify and this beauty that can never again be corrupted by fear becomes a throbbing intensifying mass emanating light and love to every corner of the universe
and soon the stars, in their utter folly, grow so hot, and the planets around them in unison,
that matter cannot sustain what it has developed.
For those who experienced this event it felt merely like an exponential brightening of a light that climaxed as a blinding glare that permeated every atom and obliterated the entire physical universe in one painless moment
and it was as pleasant and unconscious as a drift into sleep
and the night of this sleep was long and images appeared and shifted
and all life experienced differently old images and emotions they thought had been forever lost
and all that had died returned
and no one thought it strange.
In fact no one though much at all, they merely glided through their images and emotions, briefly touching each other and drifting away, as if in a dream;
and at one moment, in the midst of dream, a single entity realised that this is a dream and we are all asleep together forever
and from this entity, like the ripples in a pool of water, this awareness spread through everything
and it was a dream and therefore they could do anything and so they took to the air and flew their fill
and then they embraced
and all life embraced all life
and it was a dream and matter did not exist
and form entered form and love possessed love fully and equally
and love was generosity and abundance
and universal harmony focussed and condensed and compressed to one tiny pinprick of consciousness
and this point became smaller and denser until all existence was so intensely focussed in on itself that it imploded once, with such ferocity that all the surrounding nothingness was sucked into a void
and for a moment there was stillness and silence.
But there was a big bang from the depths of the void
and that big bang let there be light
and there was light.
2010-12-03
Melt [part II]
"Our lives are always interrupted by some thing or another," the man reminds her. "It's as if we don't have any control." She allows the words to settle on her, although she does not understand them. "It doesn't matter anyway, where the information comes from. We can be certain it is there. That's what matters. That certainty."
She feels like walking and so walks across to the other side of the room. Not that there are any rooms in this world, just one big vast open space. But she moves anyway, just for a change of environment and to exercise her legs slightly, they haven't been exercised in a few minutes and she instinctively knows they are becoming slightly cramped.
She does remember that in that dream world she was totally inactive for large portions of the day and she never even noticed that her body was crying out to her as a result. She can't imagine now what would have distracted her so sufficiently that she was able to ignore the pleas of her body for so long. But now it doesn't matter. It was just a dream and already the memory of it is feeling far-fetched and distant from the reality of her existence.
It was an intense dream though. She wants to think about it for a while as she walks through the endless landscape of crunchy fresh snow. She remembers in the dream being unbearably cold. But then she can't imagine a world any colder than the world she is walking through. Maybe in the dream her clothing was insufficient. She remembers being unbearably wet too, as though the rain was a curse. She hated the rain in this dream. No, she remembers, everyone in this strange world hated the rain. They would all curse the rain and then the rain would make them wet and the wet would hang on them, their clothes would smell and they would feel much pain as a result.
The overwhelming message of the dream, she was beginning to deduct, was this tendency to ignore the body and persist in the face of pain. The pain would hang all over her body like those wet clothes and she would never take them off. In this world she loves getting her clothes wet and feeling that cold sting on her skin and then taking the clothes off and feeling the wind all over her naked body and running in that feeling and howling in that feeling and then entering the sauna and feeling the heat and then coming back out into the intense cold and continuing until nothing else mattered.
But right now she is walking and continuing to ponder this pervasive pain everywhere in the dream world. There were other people in that dream world who also had wet clothes of pain hanging all over their bodies all the time. They say that every person in your dream is really you and this is probably true but she remembers feeling very alienated from all the people in the dream, as if they were always just looking at her with detachment. She would look at them too, with fascination but no love; the same detachment.
As she walks though the snow a person passes her, seemingly pondering some dream as she is. They exchange no words but look deeply into each others' eyes. Like her, this other person wears a purple scarf and walks slowly with her hands in her pockets and with her face mostly pointing up to the calm powerful sky, rather than watching where she is going. They say many things with their eyes and feel the deep warmth of love and then quickly forget each other as they return to the bitter excitement of the unreality of their dreams.
In the dream world the people couldn't take off their clothes because they were the clothes. She couldn't take off the shirt and exchange it for the shirt of another person because the shirt was hers and the other's shirt was his and this carried some sort of importance that she now finds curious. She decides it must have something to do with the pain. In that world, she considers, if I took off my shirt my pain would go away. I would be free. In the cold world of home she knows exactly how long she can run around naked in the snow before it is time to go into the sauna and warm up. In the dream world there was the threat of death.
Another strange consideration is suddenly remembered. In the dream everyone was always afraid of dying. That's why they never took their clothes off. Even though the clothes were heavy and wet and caused great pain and sometimes hypothermia, all the people were worried that if they took them off they would be too cold and die. People did die in that world, she remembers, but they always resisted it, focusing on the pain rather than the transformation of death.
Pain. There was a lot of pain in that world. She had been obsessed with pain in the dream. She loved to hate the pain and wrote stories about the pain and felt the intensity of the pain without actually listening to the pain and what it was saying. She tries to imagine what was so special about the pain in that dream world but cannot. Pain is simply not interesting to her and she can't imagine why she or anyone in that world would dedicate their lives to it. It seems, she considers, that in that world we all needed a certain amount of pain and we would stand there and wait until we had it all. It was like waiting for our pay at the end of the day. We all knew how much pain we were owed and we weren't going to leave until we had it all. And when we had all that pain grasped tightly in our hands we would put it in the safest pocket on the inside of our jacket and we would do up the zip and walk away from each other certain that we had all our pain, all the pain we deserved, and that no one would take it away from us. There was a little bit of fear that someone would attack us and take our carefully folded wad of pain from our pocket for themselves, but this fear was just a little bonus for a hard day's work. Nothing to be afraid of.
She shudders at the strangeness of this dream world and notices the feelings of this world fall off her body and soak into the earth. She has finished reliving them and now she integrates the experience into herself with a laugh that tilts her head back with her face facing the sky. She can't wait to tell him about this dream. She always tells him her dreams and he always listens to her and not to the dream. Last time he told her that he forgets her dreams instantly but never forgets her face as she tells them. This is enough for her. First she experiences the dream, then she returns and remembers, then she laughs, then she recalls the dream to him. This fourth stage is when the dream becomes a story and after she has told the story she writes it in the book and closes the book for another day. One day all the little children will open the book with curiosity and read all the dream stories, visualise all the dream worlds and marvel at their strangeness before closing the book and running to play.
"A world of pain," she announces because he is standing in front of her. They both laugh at this because she is more dramatic than seems appropriate for the telling of the story. Their bodies convulse with the hysterical laughter of what so far is only the title of her story. "This world is serious," she pleads in a moment without laughter and he holds her hand to the heart in his chest and laughs a gentle restrained laugh. The dream world feels so different that it's hard to tell it's story in her world of lightness and laughter. There's an abstraction to it that she can't relate to anymore. Even the sense she has just made of the world is fading away fast. This would be another one of those dreams forgotten. But she doesn't mind because when she looks at him she sees that he knows. He can see her so clearly and he sees the fading dream and that her moment of reliving it is passing and that she doesn't mind. Soon they will be completely present together.
"There it goes," he announces quietly as the final residue of dream leaves her body. She looks at him as if discovering her love for him for the first time. "I had so much to tell you about this world," she smiles into his eyes. "Now I don't remember a thing." "You'll have to sleep again tonight then," he responds. "There are plenty of dreams around." He pretends to pluck one from the sky and hold it in his hand like a trapped fly. They both carefully stare at his closed hand and pull closer together as he slowly opens it and lets the imaginary dream float away again.
She stares at his empty hand a moment after the dream has gone and draws the gentle hand to her face where it rests in a tangible comfort and intimacy. She feels the intensity of his presence all over her body and enjoys the overwhelming emptiness of no dream and no thought, just him and her standing together in the snow. Their mutual body heat keeps them both warm for an eternal moment until again they are moving, silently and together, along the plain but not towards or away from anything.
She feels like walking and so walks across to the other side of the room. Not that there are any rooms in this world, just one big vast open space. But she moves anyway, just for a change of environment and to exercise her legs slightly, they haven't been exercised in a few minutes and she instinctively knows they are becoming slightly cramped.
She does remember that in that dream world she was totally inactive for large portions of the day and she never even noticed that her body was crying out to her as a result. She can't imagine now what would have distracted her so sufficiently that she was able to ignore the pleas of her body for so long. But now it doesn't matter. It was just a dream and already the memory of it is feeling far-fetched and distant from the reality of her existence.
It was an intense dream though. She wants to think about it for a while as she walks through the endless landscape of crunchy fresh snow. She remembers in the dream being unbearably cold. But then she can't imagine a world any colder than the world she is walking through. Maybe in the dream her clothing was insufficient. She remembers being unbearably wet too, as though the rain was a curse. She hated the rain in this dream. No, she remembers, everyone in this strange world hated the rain. They would all curse the rain and then the rain would make them wet and the wet would hang on them, their clothes would smell and they would feel much pain as a result.
The overwhelming message of the dream, she was beginning to deduct, was this tendency to ignore the body and persist in the face of pain. The pain would hang all over her body like those wet clothes and she would never take them off. In this world she loves getting her clothes wet and feeling that cold sting on her skin and then taking the clothes off and feeling the wind all over her naked body and running in that feeling and howling in that feeling and then entering the sauna and feeling the heat and then coming back out into the intense cold and continuing until nothing else mattered.
But right now she is walking and continuing to ponder this pervasive pain everywhere in the dream world. There were other people in that dream world who also had wet clothes of pain hanging all over their bodies all the time. They say that every person in your dream is really you and this is probably true but she remembers feeling very alienated from all the people in the dream, as if they were always just looking at her with detachment. She would look at them too, with fascination but no love; the same detachment.
As she walks though the snow a person passes her, seemingly pondering some dream as she is. They exchange no words but look deeply into each others' eyes. Like her, this other person wears a purple scarf and walks slowly with her hands in her pockets and with her face mostly pointing up to the calm powerful sky, rather than watching where she is going. They say many things with their eyes and feel the deep warmth of love and then quickly forget each other as they return to the bitter excitement of the unreality of their dreams.
In the dream world the people couldn't take off their clothes because they were the clothes. She couldn't take off the shirt and exchange it for the shirt of another person because the shirt was hers and the other's shirt was his and this carried some sort of importance that she now finds curious. She decides it must have something to do with the pain. In that world, she considers, if I took off my shirt my pain would go away. I would be free. In the cold world of home she knows exactly how long she can run around naked in the snow before it is time to go into the sauna and warm up. In the dream world there was the threat of death.
Another strange consideration is suddenly remembered. In the dream everyone was always afraid of dying. That's why they never took their clothes off. Even though the clothes were heavy and wet and caused great pain and sometimes hypothermia, all the people were worried that if they took them off they would be too cold and die. People did die in that world, she remembers, but they always resisted it, focusing on the pain rather than the transformation of death.
Pain. There was a lot of pain in that world. She had been obsessed with pain in the dream. She loved to hate the pain and wrote stories about the pain and felt the intensity of the pain without actually listening to the pain and what it was saying. She tries to imagine what was so special about the pain in that dream world but cannot. Pain is simply not interesting to her and she can't imagine why she or anyone in that world would dedicate their lives to it. It seems, she considers, that in that world we all needed a certain amount of pain and we would stand there and wait until we had it all. It was like waiting for our pay at the end of the day. We all knew how much pain we were owed and we weren't going to leave until we had it all. And when we had all that pain grasped tightly in our hands we would put it in the safest pocket on the inside of our jacket and we would do up the zip and walk away from each other certain that we had all our pain, all the pain we deserved, and that no one would take it away from us. There was a little bit of fear that someone would attack us and take our carefully folded wad of pain from our pocket for themselves, but this fear was just a little bonus for a hard day's work. Nothing to be afraid of.
She shudders at the strangeness of this dream world and notices the feelings of this world fall off her body and soak into the earth. She has finished reliving them and now she integrates the experience into herself with a laugh that tilts her head back with her face facing the sky. She can't wait to tell him about this dream. She always tells him her dreams and he always listens to her and not to the dream. Last time he told her that he forgets her dreams instantly but never forgets her face as she tells them. This is enough for her. First she experiences the dream, then she returns and remembers, then she laughs, then she recalls the dream to him. This fourth stage is when the dream becomes a story and after she has told the story she writes it in the book and closes the book for another day. One day all the little children will open the book with curiosity and read all the dream stories, visualise all the dream worlds and marvel at their strangeness before closing the book and running to play.
"A world of pain," she announces because he is standing in front of her. They both laugh at this because she is more dramatic than seems appropriate for the telling of the story. Their bodies convulse with the hysterical laughter of what so far is only the title of her story. "This world is serious," she pleads in a moment without laughter and he holds her hand to the heart in his chest and laughs a gentle restrained laugh. The dream world feels so different that it's hard to tell it's story in her world of lightness and laughter. There's an abstraction to it that she can't relate to anymore. Even the sense she has just made of the world is fading away fast. This would be another one of those dreams forgotten. But she doesn't mind because when she looks at him she sees that he knows. He can see her so clearly and he sees the fading dream and that her moment of reliving it is passing and that she doesn't mind. Soon they will be completely present together.
"There it goes," he announces quietly as the final residue of dream leaves her body. She looks at him as if discovering her love for him for the first time. "I had so much to tell you about this world," she smiles into his eyes. "Now I don't remember a thing." "You'll have to sleep again tonight then," he responds. "There are plenty of dreams around." He pretends to pluck one from the sky and hold it in his hand like a trapped fly. They both carefully stare at his closed hand and pull closer together as he slowly opens it and lets the imaginary dream float away again.
She stares at his empty hand a moment after the dream has gone and draws the gentle hand to her face where it rests in a tangible comfort and intimacy. She feels the intensity of his presence all over her body and enjoys the overwhelming emptiness of no dream and no thought, just him and her standing together in the snow. Their mutual body heat keeps them both warm for an eternal moment until again they are moving, silently and together, along the plain but not towards or away from anything.
2010-11-12
Melt [part I]
She knew nothing would happen. It was stupid really. She was old enough to have a computer when the Y2K paranoia had gripped the world. As soon as she heard about it she changed the date and time on her computer to 31 December 1999 and 11.59 and watched it tick over to the new millennium as if it was any one minute ticking over to any other minute. She knew people were stupid and needed something to fear and let them have their fear, she does not need it.
It's a dark winter morning and she is feeling claustrophobic inside the house. She knows it's cold outside but she wants to go for a walk. Snow is not going to stop her and paranoia certainly isn't. She puts on as many clothes as possible and steps out into the crunchy snow. She loves this time of year, the quiet days of Christmas when everyone goes off to their families and leaves her with the gift of some peaceful solitude. She can't help thinking about all those years, all those myths and all that anticipation leading up to right about now. Some of her friends were obsessed with these myths and talked about them constantly so she couldn't help thinking about them herself.
As she walks she enjoys the quiet and the solitude and the effect it has on her. She feels a peace and a nice balance between her thoughts and her simple observations of the frozen winter forest she calls home. The world isn't going to Hell so fast because she is able to live in the city and take a walk through the forest only minutes from her apartment. The world is certainly an increasingly weird place of course, that's undeniable. She doesn't follow any media but her friends are always telling her about the new Abstract Economy desperately trying to maintain capitalism and Character Politics and its attempt to retain people's interest in politicians. This latter has apparently resulted in the election of someone calling himself Jesus Christ as US President, who promises 1000 years of peace.
The craziness doesn't usually make it into the forest though, a bit of rubbish sometimes, but she can simply pick that up and put it somewhere more appropriate. Most people come here to visit her cos they want what she wants for a little while; a bit of peace and sanity. She loves her friends so she accepts that they come for temporary peace from these crazy lives and then for some reason want to return to their crazy lives after having a wonderful time here with her. There is change here in the forest too, but it's a change that need not be understood. It makes sense without needing to know anything about it. It is chaotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and this is natural. It is good.
Today is the day the world is supposed to end yet here in the forest it's just another perfect day. The world is frozen, but life continues.
She steps off the path to where the trees are thicker and notices the snow has melted here. She turns behind her and sees thick white snow covering everything and yet here in front of her it's melted and the ground is slushy and wet. She trudges through the thick slosh of mud and dead leaves and pine needles. She looks down at her feet at where she is walking and suddenly feels a direct warmth like a hot ray of sun breaking through directly onto the skin of her face. She looks up and sees not the bright yellow light of the sun but some white dull light that is somehow unbearably intense and can't be looked at. It's all white up there in the sky, overcast, and yet she can't be sure cos suddenly it's so bright she can't direct her gaze in that direction. She can't look at the snow because this intense light reflects off that too. The light even glares through the gaps in the trees. It is so bright the trees seem to be melting. They even bend over like soft candles. Slightly disoriented she leans her hand against a tree trunk to steady herself; it is soft and her hand leaves a five-fingered indentation.
She is a calm person and doesn't panic, but she does not understand what is happening cos she can't even think about it. It doesn't confuse her even because there is no reference point to reality or at least what she usually refers to as reality. She continues to walk, neither looking at nor avoiding the intense light and unusual physical phenomena. It is not just the mud and half-rotten vegetation that is mushy beneath her feet, everything seems to be getting softer, losing its density but not really changing form, just bending a bit. This doesn't seem as unusual as it should and she laughs at the thought that it could easily be a dream. "What difference does it make?" she wonders. "If this is the reality I find myself in, what difference does it make if I call it a dream of a wake?"
Reality continues to melt and she continues to walk. She considers her friend, the one constantly speculating with excitement about what would happen at the appointed time when everyone knew something would inevitably happen. He had some good ideas and she told him many times to write a novel but he claimed he wouldn't be able to complete it and get it published in time and so there is no point. She pulls apart two close trees like a curtain and he is standing in front of her smiling. "I told you," he grinned. "You never predicted this," she looks around. They hug and their bodies coalesce without losing their own form. They move in and out of each others' form with casual amused curiosity. She sees her friend's skin seems to be glowing and he appears so much more beautiful to her than he ever has before. She touches his face and feels a wave of intense love for him that feels like sadness but a good sadness. The feeling is reflected in his face and they don't even need to smile at each other anymore.
She remembers that he is supposed to be on the other side of the planet, far away in some other country. She doesn't know how he got here but can't even remember what country he's supposed to come from anyway. She thinks she should know more, but can't even remember his name or how she knows him. But she loves him so much and must've known him her whole life. She can't imagine not knowing him. Even the idea of her country and his country sound a bit silly and she wonders where she got this idea from. The whole universe is here, it is them and this sphere of tangible environment around them. Nothing else needs to exist and these types of thoughts start to fade anyway.
She notices the differentiation around her slowly disappearing. The tree tops and the sky begin to look similar. She can no longer tell the difference between snow and mud. She looks at him and he seems to be observing the slow changes with the same detached curiosity as her. They make eye contact and their silent expressionless faces communicate something. It is like the bright white light is continuing to brighten but the glare is no longer harsh on the eyes and there is no associated heat, just a pleasant warmth, just like she is cozy in her warm winter clothes. It's like she's drifting into sleep.
It's a dark winter morning and she is feeling claustrophobic inside the house. She knows it's cold outside but she wants to go for a walk. Snow is not going to stop her and paranoia certainly isn't. She puts on as many clothes as possible and steps out into the crunchy snow. She loves this time of year, the quiet days of Christmas when everyone goes off to their families and leaves her with the gift of some peaceful solitude. She can't help thinking about all those years, all those myths and all that anticipation leading up to right about now. Some of her friends were obsessed with these myths and talked about them constantly so she couldn't help thinking about them herself.
As she walks she enjoys the quiet and the solitude and the effect it has on her. She feels a peace and a nice balance between her thoughts and her simple observations of the frozen winter forest she calls home. The world isn't going to Hell so fast because she is able to live in the city and take a walk through the forest only minutes from her apartment. The world is certainly an increasingly weird place of course, that's undeniable. She doesn't follow any media but her friends are always telling her about the new Abstract Economy desperately trying to maintain capitalism and Character Politics and its attempt to retain people's interest in politicians. This latter has apparently resulted in the election of someone calling himself Jesus Christ as US President, who promises 1000 years of peace.
The craziness doesn't usually make it into the forest though, a bit of rubbish sometimes, but she can simply pick that up and put it somewhere more appropriate. Most people come here to visit her cos they want what she wants for a little while; a bit of peace and sanity. She loves her friends so she accepts that they come for temporary peace from these crazy lives and then for some reason want to return to their crazy lives after having a wonderful time here with her. There is change here in the forest too, but it's a change that need not be understood. It makes sense without needing to know anything about it. It is chaotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and this is natural. It is good.
Today is the day the world is supposed to end yet here in the forest it's just another perfect day. The world is frozen, but life continues.
She steps off the path to where the trees are thicker and notices the snow has melted here. She turns behind her and sees thick white snow covering everything and yet here in front of her it's melted and the ground is slushy and wet. She trudges through the thick slosh of mud and dead leaves and pine needles. She looks down at her feet at where she is walking and suddenly feels a direct warmth like a hot ray of sun breaking through directly onto the skin of her face. She looks up and sees not the bright yellow light of the sun but some white dull light that is somehow unbearably intense and can't be looked at. It's all white up there in the sky, overcast, and yet she can't be sure cos suddenly it's so bright she can't direct her gaze in that direction. She can't look at the snow because this intense light reflects off that too. The light even glares through the gaps in the trees. It is so bright the trees seem to be melting. They even bend over like soft candles. Slightly disoriented she leans her hand against a tree trunk to steady herself; it is soft and her hand leaves a five-fingered indentation.
She is a calm person and doesn't panic, but she does not understand what is happening cos she can't even think about it. It doesn't confuse her even because there is no reference point to reality or at least what she usually refers to as reality. She continues to walk, neither looking at nor avoiding the intense light and unusual physical phenomena. It is not just the mud and half-rotten vegetation that is mushy beneath her feet, everything seems to be getting softer, losing its density but not really changing form, just bending a bit. This doesn't seem as unusual as it should and she laughs at the thought that it could easily be a dream. "What difference does it make?" she wonders. "If this is the reality I find myself in, what difference does it make if I call it a dream of a wake?"
Reality continues to melt and she continues to walk. She considers her friend, the one constantly speculating with excitement about what would happen at the appointed time when everyone knew something would inevitably happen. He had some good ideas and she told him many times to write a novel but he claimed he wouldn't be able to complete it and get it published in time and so there is no point. She pulls apart two close trees like a curtain and he is standing in front of her smiling. "I told you," he grinned. "You never predicted this," she looks around. They hug and their bodies coalesce without losing their own form. They move in and out of each others' form with casual amused curiosity. She sees her friend's skin seems to be glowing and he appears so much more beautiful to her than he ever has before. She touches his face and feels a wave of intense love for him that feels like sadness but a good sadness. The feeling is reflected in his face and they don't even need to smile at each other anymore.
She remembers that he is supposed to be on the other side of the planet, far away in some other country. She doesn't know how he got here but can't even remember what country he's supposed to come from anyway. She thinks she should know more, but can't even remember his name or how she knows him. But she loves him so much and must've known him her whole life. She can't imagine not knowing him. Even the idea of her country and his country sound a bit silly and she wonders where she got this idea from. The whole universe is here, it is them and this sphere of tangible environment around them. Nothing else needs to exist and these types of thoughts start to fade anyway.
She notices the differentiation around her slowly disappearing. The tree tops and the sky begin to look similar. She can no longer tell the difference between snow and mud. She looks at him and he seems to be observing the slow changes with the same detached curiosity as her. They make eye contact and their silent expressionless faces communicate something. It is like the bright white light is continuing to brighten but the glare is no longer harsh on the eyes and there is no associated heat, just a pleasant warmth, just like she is cozy in her warm winter clothes. It's like she's drifting into sleep.
2010-11-10
The night the poem died
I wrote a poem once, I can't even remember when. It was more of a story than a poem really; or even a prophesy; but a mythical prophesy, not a literal prophesy. I do think it's going to happen, but not like that. When it happens it will be wonderful. The poem was called Armageddon and I didn't know why I wrote it. I thought it was nothing and yet like everything I write I stored it safely on my computer where I rediscovered it two years later to my great delight. I had no memory of writing it and had no idea what inspired or provoked it. I simply uncovered this ancient artifact buried deep within the memory of my five-year-old laptop. I read it out loud to myself and I liked it. I made a few small changes and I liked it a lot. It had an alarmingly effective rhythm that got me every time and yet I did not understand what it was saying to me. I knew precisely because I was so challenged and fascinated with this piece myself I couldn't possibly read it to an unsuspecting audience. At least not until I finally found an audience who I knew could not only handle it but appreciate it; an audience in front of which I would feel comfortable to let myself go somewhere of which I was uncertain.
There was one night late around the fire when I got a specific request to read something from my manuscript that I carried around with me everywhere, in case of the likely possibility that someone would ask me to read or perform. With such a diverse manuscript in my hands I am able to choose something specifically for the situation. The energy around the fire that night was an intense calm, an unusual but beautiful combination. Many people were smoking marijuana, expanding or shriveling their minds, and so I decided to read the piece that I dared not read before. I sat cross-legged a meter away from the fire, facing my audience of less than ten people. An audience that quickly expanded to everyone standing in the vicinity and everyone sitting around the fire. I didn't mind that there were certain parts of the poem that were particularly confrontational or unexplainable because I would simply start reading and once I started I was inevitably reading the entire thing. In fact once I start I cease to exist for the duration of the poem and the poem itself indeed takes over my body. Even as I read I was passed a joint of bush buds and I took drags as I read about the impending eschaton. Sometimes I am present for the performance of my writing, sometimes I am absent and this time as my body sat cross-legged on the grass reading Armageddon I listened along with everyone else and for the first time, after reading it so many times I had almost memorised it, I finally understood certain aspects of it that I could not possibly explain now because they were caught up in the context of the poem and the context of the moment. It all made perfect profound sense for one alarmingly intense sacred moment. Of course it's not just sacred poetry that creates these situations, it also takes sacred people willing to create a sacred moment in a sacred environment and in this case we combined all four briefly.
I realised when I returned to my body following the coda of the poem that this poem was written especially for this moment; the creation of this moment is the reason I wrote, edited and carried around this shamefully brilliant poem for so many years. As we all sat in the heavy wake of this performance, something without an English word thick in the air, I experienced a strange mix of shame and pride and curiosity about the response of the others. They all stared at me with awe and love as if I am from another planet. (Am I from another planet?) The intensity I felt throughout my body was almost unbearable. I felt something moving through me and I became immeasurably cold. I climbed to my knees and held out my arms and asked to be held. I was in the right place and two beautiful humans held me. The long hug was intense as the three of us shared this unexplainable surging energy. The woman closed her eyes and took a far journey through dream into another dimension and in only a few seconds of clock time she returned exhilarated and exhausted. Maybe she projected onto me the amazement she felt that the world is a much bigger place than we have been taught. Maybe she understands now that our experience is as big or small as we want it to be. We can live an entire lifetime in one closed-eyed marijuana-stoned post-Apocalyptic hug moment.
I am told that Armageddon is a place in Israel, but I write about an Armageddon that is deeply embedded in our collective unconscious and in the form of myth is increasingly frequently manifesting into consciousness. What do I do with this poem I love and fear to perform now that the moment it was born for has passed and I am certain anybody with a career would never publish it? We all know the end is coming soon and we constantly create myths to manifest our understandings and share them, to express the little deaths that are happening every day and anticipate the big death that will so soon annihilate all our illusions. And so this precious powerful moment we created that night is not gone but still remains in our flesh through the sound vibrations created with its recital. Everybody who experienced this sound vibration, and anybody who comes into contact with its diminishing aftereffects will possess within the memory of their flesh a powerful myth for the end of the world as we know it. Perhaps we will all be a little more prepared and a little less scared when the time comes for us to accept the reality of death and live in a world where we have no choice but to love and honour each other and every form of life we share our environment with in all the dimensions we call home.
There was one night late around the fire when I got a specific request to read something from my manuscript that I carried around with me everywhere, in case of the likely possibility that someone would ask me to read or perform. With such a diverse manuscript in my hands I am able to choose something specifically for the situation. The energy around the fire that night was an intense calm, an unusual but beautiful combination. Many people were smoking marijuana, expanding or shriveling their minds, and so I decided to read the piece that I dared not read before. I sat cross-legged a meter away from the fire, facing my audience of less than ten people. An audience that quickly expanded to everyone standing in the vicinity and everyone sitting around the fire. I didn't mind that there were certain parts of the poem that were particularly confrontational or unexplainable because I would simply start reading and once I started I was inevitably reading the entire thing. In fact once I start I cease to exist for the duration of the poem and the poem itself indeed takes over my body. Even as I read I was passed a joint of bush buds and I took drags as I read about the impending eschaton. Sometimes I am present for the performance of my writing, sometimes I am absent and this time as my body sat cross-legged on the grass reading Armageddon I listened along with everyone else and for the first time, after reading it so many times I had almost memorised it, I finally understood certain aspects of it that I could not possibly explain now because they were caught up in the context of the poem and the context of the moment. It all made perfect profound sense for one alarmingly intense sacred moment. Of course it's not just sacred poetry that creates these situations, it also takes sacred people willing to create a sacred moment in a sacred environment and in this case we combined all four briefly.
I realised when I returned to my body following the coda of the poem that this poem was written especially for this moment; the creation of this moment is the reason I wrote, edited and carried around this shamefully brilliant poem for so many years. As we all sat in the heavy wake of this performance, something without an English word thick in the air, I experienced a strange mix of shame and pride and curiosity about the response of the others. They all stared at me with awe and love as if I am from another planet. (Am I from another planet?) The intensity I felt throughout my body was almost unbearable. I felt something moving through me and I became immeasurably cold. I climbed to my knees and held out my arms and asked to be held. I was in the right place and two beautiful humans held me. The long hug was intense as the three of us shared this unexplainable surging energy. The woman closed her eyes and took a far journey through dream into another dimension and in only a few seconds of clock time she returned exhilarated and exhausted. Maybe she projected onto me the amazement she felt that the world is a much bigger place than we have been taught. Maybe she understands now that our experience is as big or small as we want it to be. We can live an entire lifetime in one closed-eyed marijuana-stoned post-Apocalyptic hug moment.
I am told that Armageddon is a place in Israel, but I write about an Armageddon that is deeply embedded in our collective unconscious and in the form of myth is increasingly frequently manifesting into consciousness. What do I do with this poem I love and fear to perform now that the moment it was born for has passed and I am certain anybody with a career would never publish it? We all know the end is coming soon and we constantly create myths to manifest our understandings and share them, to express the little deaths that are happening every day and anticipate the big death that will so soon annihilate all our illusions. And so this precious powerful moment we created that night is not gone but still remains in our flesh through the sound vibrations created with its recital. Everybody who experienced this sound vibration, and anybody who comes into contact with its diminishing aftereffects will possess within the memory of their flesh a powerful myth for the end of the world as we know it. Perhaps we will all be a little more prepared and a little less scared when the time comes for us to accept the reality of death and live in a world where we have no choice but to love and honour each other and every form of life we share our environment with in all the dimensions we call home.
2010-03-09
The hero of my life
- I dreamed of being an actor, being famous, making an impact on the world. As I've grown older I've changed my thoughts about how I could best impact the world. Somewhere along the way I lost the lot. I lost that burden, the expectation and hope, the pain and the confidence, that drive for success and the certainty of belief. I lost everything but the memory of my dream and the abstract idea that perhaps the unfulfillment of this remembered dream is an indication of failure. But I'm 25 years old, how can I be a failure? I haven't hurt too many people; I'm happy. There's a gap where my ambition grew for years. There's a translucent, ethereal form in its place, more of a potentiality than a passion. It looks a little different and as I said it isn't quite manifest, but maybe it could be. Can I be bothered pursuing this dream, now that I've got all this peace and happiness? Perhaps I've got to do something with my life; I'm likely to last another 60 years with all this new-found healthiness. What do I do with it?
- Some believe the world will end on 2012-12-21, some believe Jesus Christ Himself could emerge from the clouds at any moment, specifically when no one's looking. Some believe we'll destroy the world ourselves with aggression or carbon. Some think China will shoot all our satellites out of the sky or the computers won't know what day it is and thus our complex network of technology will collapse, leading to chaos and desolation. Some believe reptilian aliens have already taken over our planet and imprisoned us mentally into a routine of production and consumption. Whatever happens, however the world may or may not or has ended, I don't mind. I won't regret anything, I won't feel fear any more than my body requires to protect me. I won't hide from the potential of a change that will revolutionise life as we know it and may unlock the power I hold in reserve within the depths of my illusory individuality. I don't regret life, nor do I resent reality. I am prepared for anything, even that which I may not be strong enough to survive.
- I've found desire to be very painful. What is more palpable and present than another human being? What is more beautiful and intense than desire for the entirety of another person? How can any achievement or possession compare to the desire for profound communion with that one specific other human being for whom your desire is focused? And when the desired person is finally in your arms, what comes after that? Perhaps this desired other human being must become an achievement or a possession. Perhaps there is some way of merging these two entities into a single organism. Perhaps it's too painful to stare into the eyes of the other and not coalesce. Perhaps separation is the only subsequent possibility. This suggests that perhaps there was another less painful way of accepting, incorporating and releasing this desire, a way without so much confusion and frustration, without banging heads into walls or collapsing in inebriation. Perhaps we're contained within the structure of our bodies until the next life, and then anything could happen.
- I have found a place from which anything is possible and anywhere is accessible. It is a new feeling, to know that the world is reachable, that no more than a day off the ground would take us anywhere. What do you do when you get to the point where you realise that internally and externally you are capable of anything you desire? With the simple requirement of actually wanting to do it, you can. There's no way of failing in this sense, because the achievement and the benefit is bound merely in the first step, in the attempt. Surely there can be no fear or apprehension beyond that first step; surely regret or failure are illusory once the foot has stepped, despite uncertainty and apathy. Surely the only worthwhile action in life is to risk. How can there be anything that's not worth the risk when we all know for certain that at any moment we could die, at some moment we will, and that we can't take anything with us into the complete unknown? I won't linger on the risks I face every day merely stepping outside.
2010-03-04
A dream forgotten
Sometimes I wake up with so many little dreams that I almost remember. Sometimes I dream that I wake up and am about to get out of bed when my boyfriend wakes up also and I tell him what I dreamed and so am able to safely forget it and then I wake up again, this time, I assume, for real, and I remember the last time I woke up and that it obviously must have been a dream, and I remember telling my boyfriend about my more interesting dream that I now cannot remember and so cannot write down in my notebook to remember for all time. I feel rather rested, so it's not a night's sleep wasted, but all those dreams I have spent the last eight hours going through 90 minute sleep cycles to get through no longer seem to be stored in an accessible area of my brain. What a fucking waste.
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