S & M

It is not all just sweetness and kisses. It is a constant reminder that pain and pleasure are inextricably mixed, the small white dot in the black yin, the tiny black dot in the white yang. Each kiss, tempered by a brutal slap is a sharp awakening to the dualities that constantly exert themselves in each moment. Nothing comes alone, emotion, fear, smell…it all comes with its companions. We come from two, a male and female linked in chemical union. The forces of creation and death dance a careful ballad, each step balances upon the shining silver blade that gleams as it descends into folds of earthy musk. Dark matter and multiple layers of flesh obstruct it gently at first, but even they quietly give way.
Constantly gagged with fingers and warm flesh, the screams still find a way to escape, releasing with it the invisible movements of shock and love. These noises take on muted forms, bouncing off of each surface with a whirlwind of enthusiasm. Escaping from a red mouth, they descend upon the stereo, ricochet to the ceiling, crash into the southern wall, on and on…on a moving bounce that does not end, but merely decreases in perceptibility. Wrists are bound with metal and no matter what comes, whether the soft whisper of an open mouth or the careening velocity of a ruler, the body is bound, left to absorb the energy that forces itself inside.
There is nowhere to hide and because of this, only because of this, small pieces of light enter the deeper realms. Once covered in ivy and Polynesian masks, disguised as a goddess and multifaceted chameleons, the wooden gates have swung open, leading to oft forgotten pools of turquoise water.
And just as it feels as sweet as it ever could, at the moment of rainbow cliffs and tidal waves; a mouth grabs a piece of tender flesh, the skin right below the belly button, and latches on, teeth dig in harder and harder, puncturing the creamy smoothness of a torso with multiple bite marks and indentations. And the lesson is given again.
Schooled without linguistic instruction, bodily actions alone deliver the powerful message that nothing is constant, and more than that, we exist in a kaleidoscope of movement. We are not in control. Not of our bodies, our minds, our emotions. We adapt to the weather, are thrown by a misinterpreted comment, crying over a particularly good bite. There is no end, no sweet reward at the end of the tunnel…just a constant shift within and without. Each slap, each gag, each kiss is a reminder of the constant ebb and flow, the steady waves and constant change that moves about constantly.
That there is not one without the other- for true understanding must be grasped from all angles.

To Reveal

Many years ago, a famous poet from El Salvador talked about the writing of poetry to my mother, while I listened without being seen. He was trying to communicate something very subtle, very elemental and intimate. He said that in the true writing of poetry you must rip yourself apart, you must reach inside, grab the innermost tendrils of your nature and pull out hard with all your strength, spilling yourself outwards in a messy explosion of blood and guts. It must hurt and it must be uncomfortable. Anything short of that he would not consider poetry. When I heard those words I felt the twinge of truth inside me but the understanding didn’t sink deep enough, it floated around on my surface, reappearing every once in a while as a memory or a linguistic code.
Many years later, playing guitar, I heard someone say that distortion could be used to add to the guitar but that it was commonly used as a way to hide, to protect yourself from criticism and deep examination. By implication the same would be true of all other guitar effects. They can all be used to emphasize and highlight the core musical motif that is being played (in this way bringing it to the forefront and making it more alive) or they can be used to protect the player from displaying mistakes, vague intentions and unclear obfuscation. Again the message tweaked me delicately and the sensation of intuitive understanding ran through me like lightning but I pushed it out to the surface. Again I remembered the words, and assigned a label of "true" to them, but didn’t really swallow them completely. I let them float around the tip of my tongue but didn’t open my own throat to take them in.
Ultimately it was impossible. It is only through direct and constant creative work that such a truth can be swallowed. No amount of communication can replace that. Knowing that, understanding that from the inside out, I make here a new futile attempt to make this communication, in the hope that it may spark practical constant effort.
In the process of constructing a new piece, a new world, a new multi faceted universe of simple elements coming together to form a complex whole, a single clear and simple gesture will always be at the core. This is not an "idea" or a "message" or a "moral" or a "lesson". I don’t speak here of political communiqués or the exploration of deep psychological issues. Instead I refer to a simple shape, a straightforward curve in the fabric of reality, that resides at the core of this new Universe you now create. In the visual realm, this is a shape, a particular curve or form that resides at the heart of the construction. In the world of sound and of text, this shape may be more elusive but it is just as real and just as simple. To maintain a good, clear focused contact with it is difficult. It requires intense and constant attention. It requires some kind of knowledge of the law of octaves (whether direct or intuitive) to prevent the inevitable deviations that will make your focus float away from the original impulse. It requires a clear and honest ability to look at yourself and your habits, to recognize when these habits are taking over and to have enough skill to stop them from doing so. It requires the skill to add without hiding or subtracting, to bring in extraneous elements without destroying the foundation in the process.
None of this can be learned in theory. You cannot learn it by reading it here or anywhere else. In fact, it probably won’t even make any sense unless you are currently involved in the process of constructing. Only with that as a context will the words carry enough referential weight and practicality to have any meaning. A true and sincere effort may be made to attempt to reveal this but you will have to be in a particular inner and outer place to have any chance of receiving the communication and taking it deeply enough for it to have any effect. In this there are many obstacles, but there is also hope. But if the initial effort to reveal is not there, then there is no hope.
The nature of the initial shape is not important. Any shape will do, taken from anywhere through any process or method. What is important is to be constant in your work with it, to be truthful and sincere in your effort to reveal it, to allow it to come forth and take on its hidden significance, a shining clear light that will be found in any one thing and in all things. The secrets are everywhere. When you understand this and you develop enough skill to create with a shape (any shape in any form of construction imaginable) then your search for truth is over and your work has begun.
When I first heard these things, both in the examples I have pointed out and in others I may have left out, I did not truly understand them. They were words that had the ring of truth and that I would store away in my mental filing register for future reference. The same will be true of anyone that reads this text without a context or a real Necessity. This is then a message in a bottle, lost in a vast ocean of thoughts and opinions, aiming to somehow find its true recipient. This text is a seed scattered to the winds in the improbable hope that it may find a fertile breeding ground in a receptive Being ready and willing to bring it to Life.

In The Twilight

Flying high above the clouds, progress may seem endless, continuous and uninterrupted. Since there are no obstacles in sight, you may come to believe that there truly won’t be any. But look below. There are clouds right beneath you. A slight loss of altitude will bring you into the heart of them, where the sky won’t be visible anymore and the ground will be calling. To slide downwards a bit does not necessarily mean that all is lost, but your machine might say so. It will say: "The downward spiral has begun and there’s no way to break it now. Set your motors towards a total catastrophe!" This is a trick. The machine knows that when you fall, it takes over. It gets to do all the things it likes to do, it can relax, indulge, dream away the moments without turning back. So any excuse will do. A mistake will be an excuse for another, and that one will make the excuse for yet another… and the chain itself will be used to signify that the process can’t be stopped and that you shouldn’t even try.
It is important to come to understand that this is not true. You can stabilize and slide back up. It will seem unnatural. It will seem like something is wrong, something doesn’t fit right, something is flowing the wrong way. All of these statements are literally true.
My old teacher told me a story. A monkey has a handful of peanuts in a jar. As he walks through the forest, bouncing up and down with happiness at his luck, one of the peanuts falls over and is lost in the bushes. When he bends over to try to find it, the jar tips and he lets another one fall. This means further bending and further tipping. Pretty soon, the whole handful of peanuts is lost and he sits crying at his terrible luck. None of it would have happened if he had simply allowed the first peanut to be lost. If he had only let go of that one little peanut.
This story applies to our work in a very direct and practical way. It is not some kind of vague moral teaching. It has to do with our moment to moment shifts in attention. When the machine starts to take over, we will begin to be lost in thoughts, in daydreams, in hard identifications (the kind that come with solid justifications and logical arguments), in emotional pain ready to be attached to the nearest possible cause, in lost desires, in nostalgia for moments that are now only images, in physical pain that presses against your nerves and pulls you down and out of life… this will happen from one moment to the next.
One instant you will be vibrant and clear about what you are doing. The next you will be lost in a complex swamp of identification and stress and pain and desire. When the slide down begins to happen, these two spaces may be about even, one moment for one, one moment for the other. As the machine justifies itself, it will say: "we already lost these 2 moments, we may as well lose another one… and another one now…". If we can release the lost moments and concentrate on the present instant, we can expand our attention through our machine and bring it back to Life. But as long as we punish ourselves internally for the moments that were lost, we will have no hope and the descent will continue.
In the twilight, you must be careful as to what door you step through. Know that the doorways will open and they will lead to places you would much rather not go… but they will be so tempting. The more attractive the doorway, the more you should resist it. Here in this twilight space all offers of rest and pleasure are to be suspected and rejected. Step away from the open doorways. If you have already stepped through, but a foot is still behind, take a moment, breath calmly and step back. This can be done.
AN OPEN REBIRTH DOOR CAN BE CLOSED
It is not easy. It takes a lot of practice. But there is no way to learn to do it other than by actually attempting it. When you step back, there will be a gap, a space of nothingness. The part of you that had already found itself on the other side, the part of you that had already identified with the new world, will call for help, will feel the closing jaws of final death tightening around it. Let it die. Let it dissolve. Step back and let the nothingness replace it until the doorway disappears into the Void once more. Let the nothingness itself become a burning sun in your solar plexus that will lead you back to Life.
You are only in the clouds. You have not truly fallen. Rise up once again. Step back from the inviting doorway and rise. Rise above it. Fly again. Rise.

Chamber of Secrets

It was a clear, sunny, breezy afternoon. There were probably better reasons to be outside, but we were on our way to the pharmacy, the one inside the big hotel that had a lot of medicines and other items imported from the United States. The whole place was covered in slight teasing glimpses of another life, a life far away and drenched in sex, violence and money. I could feel the caress of these visions in the way that man was dressed as he signed up for a room, in the way the bellhops spoke to each other, in the smell of the leather of the sofas in the bar, in the laughter of the people seated in a circle, drinking large glasses of hard liquor and talking very loudly, one of them wearing dark glasses with his arm around a much younger woman wearing a mini skirt, in the cold voice of a tall man giving orders to two guards about their respective positions, in the shiny gold of the handrails that lead up to the hotel rooms upstairs. I felt it and I wanted it, I wanted to be part of it, to be in it, to receive it and become it, to swim in it and let it drown me in its unimaginable pleasures.
We stepped into the pharmacy and my eyes immediately wondered to the newsstand. It was very wide and very tall, full of mysterious magazines I had never seen before. There were some comics but these were not the comics I was used to. They were all in English, the covers screamed sex and violence, they told of stories that had begun before me and would continue after me, stories I would never fully understand and I adored them because of it; because they escaped me, I wanted them more. There were so many that I felt overwhelmed, my eyes shifting quickly from one to another, spotting some familiar characters in very unfamiliar situations, sensing that this was the "real thing", not the imitation I had become used to… here was a chance to touch what had formerly been just a rumor, but where to begin? Which one to pick?
Quickly, before the maid picked up the needed medicines and it was too late. I looked up and saw it.
It was the size of a regular magazine, not the smaller size of a comic. The cover had thick, dark colors, not the bright glossy colors of the comics… it was the color of real blood and not its fake counterpart. And blood is what there was. Lots of it. A large character dressed in red opening a bag full of human entrails and laughing, the pieces of intestine and heart dropping onto the floor along with a broken hand and the remains of a human foot. I looked a little closer. The large man had a long white beard and a tall hat. The large man was Santa Claus. My eyes opened wide. This was a comic book, but it was not like the others. It was so high up that I couldn’t reach it. It was probably not meant for my hands. But neither the maid nor the man behind the counter had any clue about it. For them a comic book was a comic book and they never even looked at the cover. So pretty soon the strange magazine was in my hands and I was breathing intensely, reading the little blurbs that spoke of the mysteries to be found within.
This space, this instant of recognition, surrounded by temptation, closed doors and revelation, was now inside of me. I would now search for it. There was a new "me" that now swam within my inner ocean whose only purpose was to find this space, over and over and over. Search for the place, the special chamber, find it, activate it… search again.
It would now be a comic book store in the suburbs of a faraway city in California, or a little college town turned into a festival of medieval color and strange little rolling dice in Wisconsin, or a lost little book store in the heart of the Basque country in Spain, or a strange web site in the lost backwaters of the Internet, or a little booth covered in flashy covers in the middle of a huge convention specially prepared for others cursed like me. Wherever I may find it. However I may look. I would shift aside and under, let my attention slither out and connect and I would look for it.
And when I did find it, it would only last an instant. It would not be the moment before, it would not be the moment after, when I may or may not have an item in my hands and be ready to pay. It would only be that single eternal instant, when my eyes would land on it, on the cover, on the text, on the voice, on the message, on the color, and I would hear the laughter, and the cars, and the voices, and the golden handrails leading up to the secret rooms where the hidden heart of darkness would finally be revealed. Always one step away. Always just slightly beyond my reach, always alive in its obscurity, infinite and eternal in its insistence on staying one step removed from time, space and form.
And as it would always escape me, I would forever want it more.

Avoidance

Come and bring all your ghostly fears.
Bring them to my feet, for my shrine awaits its sacrifices.
I want them bloody. The pulsing life, once stolen from the sleeping spills upon the golden floor, staining my torn feet with circles of raw form.
With that sacrifice comes this text. These words, pulled forth from my being like stubborn rotten teeth with long tangled roots. The holes go deep and the novocaine has long worn off. There are a dozen things I would rather do…make some lunch, work on a photo, do some internet research…easy things, tasks that come without so much effort, and therefore, are slightly more enjoyable to this temperamental machine. This pleasure whore, willing to sacrifice any gains, any person or space for one moment of pleasure.
This is the witch I face. Her eyes sparkle with the stolen breath of dragons. Their shape ebbs with each subtle gesture, their layered color whispers with familiarity, yet always remain strangely distant.
She aims to trick. She coos that the day is long. Her ventriloquist’s voice reminds me relentlessly that easy tasks can be done first. Lunch is important, and she is hungry. Or perhaps we should rest, or read a book.
But I know, at some point today, I must write. As much as I would like to forget, to hide behind a thick wall of lies that promises pleasure and rest, I cannot. Saving my most dreaded task until the end of the day throws a black stain upon the entire day’s labor. The fear awaits my attention, the dreaded task grows strong with each avoided glimpse. Never fully gone, never completely hidden.
Like black rain clouds on the horizon, their persistent thunder is a constant distraction, and because of this, my attention can never focus on anything else. The simple tasks, the "easier" tasks are not more enjoyable. They are only a piece of the continuing lie. Every action is slightly tainted, a bit more heavy and labored.
Like a persistent tick upon a monkey, the habit of procrastination sucks me of vital blood. By avoiding that which is difficult, it stays within, sitting in my heart like a restless raven, draining me of attention and raw energy with each passing hour.
There is one thing to do. I step to the edge of the cliff. The valley below is black, darker than any I have seen, but this is the heart of my fear. I plunge, head first, directly into the center of this chasm. It is This I avoid, and into This I must fall.
The dark pool of energy opens. I begin shifting words. Fingers begin to type, moving faster, responding to each new thought as it springs forth, faster and faster. It hurts, my neck twinges, my fingers ache. My hands cannot keep up with the sentences that emerge from somewhere inside. I exchange a sentence for a thought. A phrase takes shape.

It is in this space that I may Work. This strangely foreign land that does not grant favors. Each step must be earned. The very road asks for homage, the surrounding trees require my attention. This is darkness that must chosen, to avoid this is to avoid the possibility of change, of Transformation. Do not avoid the spiders, do not jump over the puddles. They are the path, they are its keepers, they are the guides.

A Thousand Years

I have strolled here for a thousand years.
Moving beside these blue mountains like a shadow in hiding,
moving in the darkness to escape my own face.
The mirror is frightening, each glimpse becomes a new horror
of hollowed eyes and flaming hair.
I escape myself at each turn,
and each lifetime piles upon the next.
Piles and stacks, mostly of red and yellow,
but faint sparks of blue shine from the furthest star.
Un-countable, like the bodies of battle,
but these have suffered from sleep.
With each new birth, my image becomes an ingenious disguise.
Like all the others I buried,
the enormity of Darkness always seems to settle upon my skin.
Each pore moves softly to accept the dew,
like a whore with a thousand open mouths, we drink.
We drink the waterfalls that pour from us.
From engraved goblets, the dragons toast their assent,
they curse my fall.
They await my rising.
Laugh at my death.
Dance at my birth.

Perception

I am a girl who feels scared- feeling is a perception.
I am a girl who has white skin- this color is a perception.
I am a girl that likes the taste of cookies-her taste is a perception.
I am a girl who dances- is that what that is?
But, truly, what is this girl?
Not a girl, not a feeling, not a sight, not a taste…everyone perceives these qualities in different ways. Some may like them, desiring to see her again, others may be completely repelled by her smell. At some moments, I may agree and identify with my own perceptions of Self, at other times, I may completely hate them.
And still, this perceived Self, none of these are her. Lydia is not even her name. There is something... what it is cannot be described. To do so would be a voyage into the realm of perception.
The mirror shocks me. Who is that? Well known eyes are not familiar. Everything about this creature is a stranger. And yet, I sleep with it, laugh with it, indulge it with cookies and jewelry. This creature calls itself by the name "Lydia". This creature has an album full of pictures and a thousand memories of being "Lydia".
My mind has left, launched to the outer cosmos- travelling recklessly at brutal speed; and with it have gone my assumptions, my ideas, my preconstructed perceptions. This creature sits at a computer desk, struggling with a heavily beating heart, not remembering, not even knowing if "up and down" exist, if I am alone or cradled. Scared or okay?
None of these words will do, and yet, they seem to be the only language I know. Without perceptions, what is there? Just a huge expanse of nothingness that has no qualities or titles. No tastes or sounds. Maybe there are sounds. Long drones and whistles.
But to experience those would require perceptions…so perhaps, not even sounds accompany this drifter. Is it drifting? It just Is.
Not floating, not dancing, not moving, not rotating, not pulsating, not laughing, not crying, not sucking…its just there…here. And all this seems too much for the creature at the computer to understand…what should it do?
This non-human, non-writer.
This non-woman.
It is in shock.