Archive for July, 2010

God, the All, and Us

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

I have had a strong or recurring belief that whatever divine spark exists in the cosmos, exists within and throughout it. This is a much more natural and powerful idea for me than that of an external, anthropomorphic creator being. The concept of God only carries the weight it connotes and makes sense to me if nothing exists beyond it. A superhero type being that gets jealous, has chosen people, excludes those with other spiritual faiths, metes out eternal punishments and rewards, and that kind of thing, hardly seems worthy, for my tastes, of the status of God. My idea of God is much bigger, all encompassing, nothing would be outside it, it would be woven all through reality and the cosmos. Everyone would be a piece of this sacredness. Every animal and plant, and the Earth from which we all spring. The biosphere. All the processes of nature. Evolution and Chaos and all the unimaginable stuff that exists out there. All of this is God, and everything else too.

This idea is nothing new. It’s called Pantheism, and it’s the original Old Time Religion. Maybe people couldn’t deal with it because of the responsibility it requires. To accept it you have to accept that we are all, each and every one of us, sacred. There would be no justification for sexism, racism, or classism. People wouldn’t accept witch-burning, genocidal movements, or persecution of non-heterosexuals. Patriotic Nationalism would never have acquired all the overblown militaristic puffiness that it has; and, we couldn’t have decimated the raft of species or the aspects of the planet that we have so thoughtlessly done. We would have been obliged to have gotten along, to have found ways to respect each other even when we disagreed, even when we were different from one another. It’s easier, I guess, to have personal, cultural gods so that we can justify our hatred of one another, the ravaging of our planet, and hope for (or even believe in) a heavenly plane where we can appear our idealized best for all eternity. Well, not all of us have Fallen for that one. I can see having a slew of local, personal gods, entities that are associated with various specific aspects of nature (since the cosmos is way too big for us to comprehend in its entirety), but then they would each need to be acknowledged as one of many, various, small g, gods, not the Big One, not the All.

What might a notion of Pantheism imply? That we are each a human being, sensible body and consciousness, experiential node in the God-complex, each with a specific, unique, embodied perspective. That everyone’s experience, his or her thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, would also be the experience of God. I think that the potential for experience, and consciousness too, exists coiled inside the potential for life which infuses every cell, every atom. They have to be assembled into the right kind of functioning aggregate, but the possibilities are unlimited. (Just look at all the craziness that has sprung up here over the last so many millions of years, and this must be only a drop in the bucket of potentiality). Imagine how the experience of All would vary with internal states of strife and killing or internal states of cooperation and joy. Our conflicts with one another would be a cancer or disease within God.

Of course, human beings are a flawed species, and maybe we can’t help it. And tension, difference, dynamism permeates the All, keeps it going. And we are each born and have our day and then die, like every other countless number of specific entities. Life to Death to Life to Death to Life to Death…

I look out the window and watch the trees blowing in the breeze, breathe and let it go…

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Borderlands

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

I was being told something about what was rational, logical, good, and true, and this was not just about art or by anyone in particular, but a kind of general and pervasive line. It’s a method of understanding and perceiving the world that is presented as normal or of common sense. By this method the chaotic strangeness of life is ordered into arrangements which offer both meaning and comfort. It is a way of illuminating experience, and the light shows everything how it really is, and gives us a proper way of seeing things. We are instructed, trained from an early age, on how to make these illuminating light sources, unquestioningly, and wherever we travel in life’s dark journey.

Yet, I remained skeptical.

“But that’s not how it really is out there,” thinking about the vast regions beyond the reach of illumination. “Out there it’s dark and chaotic. Why is this way of order through illumination deemed good and true? It’s not anymore true than the dark out there. And it’s less natural. Artificial. Maybe it presents things in a false light…” I might waver, change my mind, fall into bouts of uncertainty, but I would never be convinced that these methods of illumination and order were true. Useful for certain things, yes. They could be functionally employed. But to accept them as normal or common sense, without question, was to live a lie: be conditioned or molded by a particular methodology, trained to accept a whole accompanying sets of discourses, and, ultimately, a complete lifestyle and worldview. Certain people might find this an acceptable way to live, but I could not. It went against my fundamental notions on what it meant to be an artist, an individual creative perceiver.

And yet, in spite of my feelings, I could never travel very deep or for very long into the darkness beyond the illumined sphere. It was rough on me. One must be prepared to have his or her insides scoped out and outside burned away. I couldn’t go all the way because after a while I’d worry too much and start questioning what I was doing, or I’d get sick with depression or anxiety. But maybe this is just as well. After all, it’s a good thing to question your beliefs, to cross boundaries, to look and move in new and different ways, but one also has to, after a while at least, listen to that inner voice that’s screaming, “What are you doing? Stop!,” or look into the reasons one is becoming sick with depression or anxiety or rage or whatever other malady, because it may be a sign, a warning to change one’s actions. My belief was that it’s good to challenge or ignore this voice too, but after a while I’d wonder if I was just being stupid. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with stupidity, but it can get one in trouble. Not that there’s anything wrong with trouble either, but at some point these things can be painfully unsustainable, and for someone who goes through periods of uncertainty, there will probably be a time when one wonders about continuing in painfully stupid pursuits, especially if one has the means to avoid them. And so it was with me. For these reasons I gravitated to that diffused region between the dark and light. I don’t see this as fence-sitting, or a case of being too weak or uncertain to pick and so meandering around the in-between spaces. I see this as a complex position in the midst of interesting occurrences and strange interactions. It’s a place where your view can drastically change with subtle movements of your head, and where you’re removed enough from either side to be convinced of it’s totality or ultimate rightness or logic. I understand how it might appear as a compromise to someone firmly entrenched in an extreme position in the dark or light camp, but when you’re standing between the two it feels fascinating, rich, full of its own overwhelming reality, and capable of offering a more complete and intriguing perspective.

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Velvet Eraser and Wild Peaks

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Impressions of Early David Lynch Films

The countenance of this man, how he is lit, and the particles that create a haze floating around him in the darkness, indicate the embodiment of a strange world, where the change of a lever’s position causes a greater change in a far off industrial wasteland or a sunny, small town in the U.S.A. A woman emerges from her home—the darkness—wearing a mask, perfectly strange. The corridor appears empty but it is not: it is rich in texture and full of sound, it is a vacuum tube gateway full of unseen movements, hissing and sucking. Every absence points to an unknown presence. There is a blank window. There is a head in the window. The expression on the head is blank. The eyes in the head look out, full of uncertainty, and pain or fear. And there, between the twigs and steaming pipes, a pile of dirt and an unruly collection of strands of hair. (Is that blood?) Those pipes didn’t just grow in those houses, and that hair didn’t get there merely by accident, without a reason. And it is the reason that should make us nervous, because it is not one we will expect, and it won’t be pleasant to discover. There is always a reminder, especially in the times when we are most afraid, that we are composed of, and exist by, a system of circulating fluids. Here the energy is always electric and shot through with sex and violence. Ready or not: here comes the dark.

It is an enigma that these small boxes can hold the potential for such brutal and uncontrollable energy, but look at how much space can be squeezed into an atom. Are these symbolic markers or mysterious but actual material objects? Time, too, collapses and expands, and the nights can be drawn out into long and turbulent trails. (I sleep, I dream, but this is no refuge: even my dream-show confronts me, mocks me, frightens me) And within this world, there is another, and beneath that one lurks another… The best place to discuss all these mysteries and risks is in a bright cafe, with the lights shining in our coffee and smiles on our faces. We can plan events situated in realms of chemicals, control, and perversion; and, later we will walk through the night, into the wildness, and dream.

The characters’ faces are contorted by irrational expressions of emotional extremes; behind them fabric is blowing, but it is probably not being blown by a mundane, natural breeze or wind. These faces and fabrics are being contorted and blown by mysterious flows of intensities. To understand this, and learn what these forces may be, one must uncover certain hidden dangers. In an endeavor like this failure is much more likely than victory. And there is a dance for every occasion. If you can’t find where the birds sing a pretty song, you can always try hiding in the closet. Try to be receptive. Be open, for instance, to communications through dreams. Go with the flow. Fighting it can be disastrous. There are signs everywhere, but you have to know how to read them. The motion of a flame, the vision of an owl, a well-dressed man, or a couple of silver dollars, anything may stand for a potent secret. Watch the desires, emotions, and anxieties play themselves out in living, interacting bodies. See the characters squirm and sigh and burst, watch them dance and eat and smoke. They are not who we think they are. They are vessels of secrets, mysteries. They are embodiments of the tensions and pleasures of violence and sex. And they are right there, close to pain and in sight.

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