THE DATA COLLECTORS & THE STEEL CORSET
i. THE DATA COLLECTORS & THE STEEL CORSET
They are acting like they have something to prove to Nature herself, some bullish thing they need to rub in her face. The big metal tool is tightening around the soft object at the waist, cranking from all directions - we're bulging, ribs are getting pushed aside. What's the point of being a doll in in this black-magic hypnosis. I don’t want any more numbers attached to my name. You scan my fingers, my pupils - how wayward and violent. Always chipping into the most intimate territories. I’m sick of being pressurized and documented. Please, no more airport machines X-Raying my organs. No more photographic evidence butchering the flowers in my mind. I don’t want to take their pills to keep up. I love, and believe in the creatures of the earth, even if they mock me for it. Why are they trying to kill us all the time?
ii. THERE IS ROOM FOR EVERYTHING
The rocks cut my feet but the sun is warm on my face, the salt stings my cuts but the sea is alive. I’m unsure why I'm so rigid in the flowing water. I'm cramming so much in the air of my life, I'm reaching to touch it, and the world is crawling all over me. Where can I unroll my mind — which doctor has a comfortable chair and will look me in the eyes? The more I see, the more I untether from feeling real. I think I should go away from men and people and everyone who expects something of me, especially good behaviour. I am in the immobile underground, my gaze will not move, my eyes grab onto tiny things and try to make other worlds.
iii. THE WHITE COLD BLOOD OF THE SUN
I think of gazelles and zebras running in groups: the music of innumerable hooves drumming the earth, the blood, joy and endurance in their hearts, and the force which animates it. I imagine their heaving lungs and bristled pelts, the oxygen and minerals in their bloodstream, their sharp, shameless knowings. I wonder about the seed they grew from, or the heart they fell out of. A broken heart, an open heart, a heart broke open. Why did life choose to disperse itself into masses of proliferating bodies, all dying together? Why are we are all dying in unison forever? Maybe this disconcerting death-carnival of saints, swamps and diseases is the only way that we can become PureLight together, finally meet in one body. Destroying ourselves to re-open the Heart. The termites, Me, You, our great uncles, the New Gods we've birthed in fountains of subconscious worship, infant rodents, eyeglasses which are also cameras, the Great Nile River…
Authors Commentary: On the peculiar outcomes of evolution as it expresses itself Today ◻︎ Today: built upon the grinds of empty shells. Spirals shattered: over and over, smaller and smaller, split to dust among the shifting boulders ◻︎ and me, finding my inner experience as erratic as the passing scenery ◻︎ Frustrated confusion diffused by an encounter with an expression of truth ◻︎ which causes that instant and temporary renewal I know so well ◻︎ Part three refers to a particular instance of this, provoked by the song “Fôrça Bruta” by Jorge Ben ◻︎ which transported me from frustrated confusion to the miracle of running animal herds, something that could be happening on the planet right now ◻︎ why do I let myself forget these things ◻︎ forget about gazelles and savannah trees twisting under the sun and slimy frogs in high treetops ◻︎ I can’t afford to forget these things ◻︎ I need them in my psyche, binding with the molecules of desolation ◻︎ this western 21st century cacophony has too much airtime ◻︎ I shall cast myself towards the perfect things which don’t beg for my attention ◻︎
God is found in the soul when sought with truth and self-sacrifice, as fire is found in wood, water in hidden springs, cream in milk, and oil in the oil fruit. - Svetasvatara Upanishad