light on display

Quite funny thing, taking pictures... Although technically instant, sometimes the images fully develop long after you've taken them: they appear in a totally new light. At least this looks to be my (in)experience for now.

Roamed through the 'museums' night'. And back home the pictures I've taken started to talk to me about light in a spectrum that goes from the visible through the vicarious and ends in the unfathomable.

speaking about layers...

May 1st: the sunny day brings the prospect of a couple of idle hours in the park with a friend and her baby (my soon-to-be-goddaughter!). Strolling with the baby cart in the silence of the empty streets that lead to the park already has a soothing, almost miraculous feeling to it: on an ordinary day, in a chaotic city where impertinent hoards of cars flock on the streets and sidewalks as well, this would be a tense, downright dangerous pursuit.

Along the way, from time to time, small idiosyncrasies gently break away with the scenery and fuse with our unfocused, welcoming attention in order to take shape: ivy flows and patterns, a recently painted detail on a façade, flower pots scattered in a tree’s crown.

The park is bustling with leisurely goings-on: kids riding tin horses fitted on coils, unfolding epics on the banks of a mockup river, or encircling with joyful shouts the spring fountain. Quiet protective trees, bunches of grownups mounted on benches, and mating pigeons complete the picture.

After a sunny while on the lazy bench, I’ve reluctantly stretched my hand out for the camera. And started to – yeah – press the shutter button here and there. No peaks of photo-excitement, just an even distribution of the same quiet, self-contained delight that the trip has been floating on from its beginning (to the very end).

The outcome: poorly focused, ‘what’s really here?’, malexposed pictures – which resulted in an immediate urge to invoke deflective, rescuing ideas like ‘bad photo day’ or ‘point-and-shoot camera’. Following the new – lighter – spin on things, I even began to theorize on the virtues of frustration: transmutation power, doorway to new directions, fuel for ‘corrective’ action, etc.

Started to pick out some more acceptable photos, while thinking on how I would learn more, buy a new camera, practice more, etc. ‘Hmm, I like this girl playing there’, and I quickly arranged one of the images that was overexposed and included it, too.

Slowly, while absorbed by the petty demands of putting together the slideshow, the ‘frustration’ theme dissipated: and something totally exciting managed to surface – something I didn’t see when I took the pictures!

Look at the three pictures with the girl playing with her toys: first there’s a horse – on one side of the ‘river’ (there’s water running in there). Next, a doll – on the other side. And then… they acknowledge each other’s presence. I felt sorry I didn’t take any more pictures of the playing girl: I believe though the doll has eventually saddled the horse and flew: even to the moon and sun and back! Because the girl – sitting on a bridge – is somehow playing one of the most powerful myths that has scattered on Earth a myriad of versions over thousands of years: that of the separation and union.

What’s with the horse? Shouldn’t there be a – say – prince instead?... That could also be, but think of what a hero can do when united with his horse: St. George slays the dragon (symbol of man’s inferior nature); in many tales, the horse fed with fire can fly and take the man to heights unattainable otherwise. The horse is an embodiment of Shakti, “the power aspect of divinity that lies numb in the fallen man, as mere potency” (Vasile Lovinescu in a study on popular tales).

Enough with the ‘explanations’. There’s an inherent ambiguity to every myth; it’s not possible otherwise, since “the myth is the penultimate Truth” (Ananada Coomaraswamy).

I was really excited to see how below the immediate ‘reality’ of three pictures taken in the hope for one of them turning ‘right’, something else developed: an enactment of “Magnum Opus” – the Great Work of man – on a 1st of May (1 being also 'One', union)!...

Of course, you might say I’m reading too much into the girl’s play. But “wer den Dichter will verstehen muss ins Dichten Lande gehen.” (Goethe).

Christmas Spirit

The God-prescribed armistice came into being this year, too: in short, the world seems to have yet again refrained from its all too earthly wheelings and dealings, and burst into a state of euphoria, sprinkling peace, beauty and happiness all over itself.

Some of the holy signs looked quite the same, no matter where they landed (perhaps because sourcing from the One?...): Christmas lights on the streets and in the windows, Christmas trees, Christmas tunes, Christmas movies, Christmas – selfless, giving – glitters in the eyes of politicians, businessmen and stars, a.s.o.

[I feel tempted to further dissect some of the local incarnations of the Christmas spirit, but I’m not sure whether I could master the ensuing deluge of thoughts – I’d better keep it all locked up.]

Well, I don’t remember what happened in other such Occasions, but this Christmas Eve I found myself putting up a fierce resistance. No matter how hard I’ve tried (I think I’ve tried), and in spite of all the mediatic help – music, those telegenic, caring Christmas smiles behind the screen, etc. – I couldn’t let the seemingly ubiquitous Peace, Goodness and Beauty go through me.

Decorating the Christmas tree didn’t help either. Once garnished with some of the painstakingly made ginger bread cookies, plus leaves and cones, the initially good-looking, small, and funny green tree (it had two peaks instead of one…) turned into something I couldn’t decide whether it was plain ugly, or just weird.

Annoyed, I started thinking about Christmas – what is it, actually? Or rather, what should it be? Or "should" it be at all, and for whom, why, etc. ... (I’m not exactly a Believer). Too unsettled to think clearly and perhaps even decide (although I never quite decide, I would still doubt), I gave up the whole Christmas problem, surrendering to whatever was going on.

Until late in the night, when I stumbled over a TV program about Leonard Cohen. While listening to some lyrics, I suddenly felt some sort of – I don't quite know how to put it – warm, beautiful peace flowing freely throuh me. In an instant, I knew – no further doubts – that my Christmas tree with horns was just right the way it was.

ring the bells that can still ring
forget your perfect offerings
there’s a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in

Limbo

A couple of days ago my mind found itself crunching on the subject of theft, from the most material type to the subtler forms where it becomes acceptable, rational or even a desirable action. Many instances and people came to my mind. I’ve also sniffed my own acts and underlying thoughts for such scents. Not detecting anything obvious, full of luminous self approval, went to my room and leafed through St. Augustine’s confessions (just purchased). The first paragraph my eyes landed on – Book II, Chapter VI: “What then did wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine, thou deed of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age? […] Fair were the pears we stole […]”. That adolescent night came back in an instant: I stole those pears!... (what a blow: theft in its most material form! I’m afraid to find out what else I might have done…)

Coincidence. You know: a friend you’ve been thinking of calls you. The unusual word you’ve just uttered is written on – say – the bus you see in the very next instant. An idea that interests you pops up immediately in an email you receive, a magazine you’re reading, or in a conversation with a taxi driver.

Nothing that out of the ordinary. Besides, enchanting the explanatory word ‘coincidence!’ quickly dispels the traces of any incipient extra-ordinary.

[In spite of – or as a complement to – the uplifting excitement that sneaks in while we’re busy being surprised, there’s an unbearable itch to finish with it all: touching down with the known ground is imperative and relieving.]

And if you start and think about it all, there’s the progressive possibility that the fluttery unknown is just yet to be pinned down, classified, and recycled in a larger scheme of things where the old cause-effect dyad reliably continues to produce rationales, should we need them.

[The downside of the Mechanism is that it can get stuck. As the universe turns inert to historically well documented actions, the confident march towards the envisioned goal can end up in a blind alley – hence the word ‘luck’ in the mechanical-positive vocabulary.]

But what if, instead of yet uncharted elements of an ever more encompassing system – will there ever be an end: a Wholy Scheme – coincidences actually signal flaws of the mockup structure we’ve managed to erect so far? They may be cracks through which a parallel, altogether different kind of Universe – responsive, warm – is spreading its soft substance.

[An inkling follows immediately: one crack left unmended, and an increasing flow of possibly ever more mind-blowing coincidences might work their way through.]

Try this one out, too: next time a coincidence comes your way, don’t label it. Let it be.

[And let me know how it all goes! I have to confess, I’m not sure what I should do: fight within the System, or let myself flow with the Unknown – I’m currently doing none of these. Perhaps striking a balance?... Hmm… doesn’t that smell like mere calculus? A son of the System in disguise... Tuig were preaching a leap of faith (sorry: a crap post about a great show). Can I be sure?... I think… hmm… err…]

"Salto Vitale"

Some sort of complicated, three-legged wooden 4-5 m high construction (with a scaffold-like appearance), with a chair and a lamp at its pinnacle, and surrounded by three metal/ wooden 1-2 m tall devices, is overlooking the grassy plateau from the center of a rope-defined circular area. In this bizarre scenery, the last show of the “AirWaterFire” street theater festival (go, ICR!) is about to unfold.

Magic floating in the air: the lit structures in the fading dusk, the upbeat (yet smooth) soundscape, plus the magnitude of the promises irradiating from the show’s title have all pumped up expectations of something way out of the ordinary.

9 p.m. sharp. It should begin: the change in musical phrase and volume confirm it. Almost inconspicuously, an average-looking guy (with an ordinary grocery bag dangling in his hand) walks in briskly and checks with quick, qualified gestures the three mechanisms: "couldn’t they do this before?!..." But then he climbs the stairs to what now appears to be his familiar post on the top of the central structure, sits down, and opens a book: in an extraordinary setting, the show started after all with what looked like any other day of this average person’s life.

[On the cover of the book: the sketch of a human body… after reading a little, the guy looks upwards.]

One by one, three characters, all dressed up in white – I’ll call them elementals (or genies, better?) – sort of “report” to the job.

[The genies come on bicycles… Although riding very fast – for now, everything seems to be about efficiency and performance – they nevertheless complete a circle before stopping at their designed places of work.]

Each time a genie arrives, our guy gets down and – without any ceremony or familiarity being involved, only with sharp, efficient movements – puts it to work at one of the nearby devices. After setting a fire and connecting the mechanism to the central structure with ropes, he climbs back to his post.

[Up there, he resumes reading and, from time to time, observes the working genie – as if checking if everything goes “by the book” – and… looks upwards. Inspiration?... Aspiration?...]

Back down, the disciplined, reliable elementals keep swaying, walking or pushing in the midst of flames and water, on which the mechanisms run. Their hard work is rather invisibly propagating through the intricate tangle of gears, levers and ropes – showing up whenever the change in altitude of the central structure’s top post becomes apparent to the distracted eye.

Only in his well progressing way up as a result of mastering the elements (applied knowledge…) our guy gets increasingly restless (bored?... uncontent?). He throws away the lamp (a light of scientific descent… with very limited range…), the book (a manifestation of what’s known…), looks upwards, looks bored, throws leaves from a bag, looks disconcerted, makes planes of paper and follows them down with his gaze, looks upwards, etc.

[Maybe he’s only contemplating his destination – but there’s “nothing” up there. Maybe the stars, beyond the clouds...]

In the meanwhile, one by one, the genies finish their work and depart. Again, on bi-cycle… (infinity with a saddle …or just the handy Dutch – Tuig are Dutch – way of getting around) And again, they complete a circle before exiting (otherwise very fast).

[The circle… Ouroboros. The insatiable Universal Dragon that is endlessly devouring his tail. At a "higher altitude”, “in the sky, in the clouds, the Substance of the Dragon is being scattered”. The circle becomes Plenitude, the summum of all possibilities: “the Father of all things is here”. Wholeness. The One.]

The ascent ends. Genies have left, the man has thrown everything he had (including his casual clothes: he’s left in a white overall…), and is standing on his tiny platform, 14 meters above the ground – all alone, enveloped by darkness.

[The audience feels like applauding: it’s like a pinnacle of human progress.]

This could have been the logical end of any fine show. But our man plunges into the night (“is he crazy?... thank god it’s only a show…”). At first with hands wide spread, he looks like embracing the uncharted void into which he’s jumped. Then, he hangs by his rope as if dead.

[The known – the Old – has to die, before any New commences. And a cycle is completed.]

What looks like a “salto mortale” transforms into “salto vitale” when our guy is reborn. “THIS IS THE BEGINNING” – the message he’s unfolding dangle the silent bells of Eternity.

[Back on hard ground, the jumper fraternizes with the (now) warm and caring elementals. Just as in the end of a show?...]

"Narcissus reflects"

Bucharest, July 29. Tineretului (“Youth”) Park. Darkness. A flame drifts on the lake: like the Holy Ghost on the Primordial Water before the Creation?... A man (he’s been “holding” the fire) takes shape from the surface of the water (magic border between Earth/Water and Air/Fire… or just the reflective, superficial layer of the water…), sits up, plays a little with the fire, then extinguishes it with water. He continues playing with the water, then starts washing himself with it.

Other flames on the water turn into beings: a woman washing clothes, a man mopping the floor. The activities diversify (but don’t leave the realm of the ordinary) as the lacustrine stage gets steadily populated with more characters.

[Each character is lit by a reflector, powerful enough to make him/ her visible, and weak enough to not disperse the cosmic night: individual consciousness?...]

Soon, the lake is bustling with action, shouts, questions, talks. Coupled with the sometimes forming clusters of (2-4) characters, it looks like of a lot of inter-action is going on there. Actually… no. Each character is on a personal (be it mundane) quest, never to intersect – other than physically – with the others: an old guy wavers around, holding a gift, a lover searches for his (inexistent) half, a young mother pushes a baby stroller in the middle of the madness, a depressed woman lies in bed (when she’s not bursting into episodes of climbing into the stage-dominating tree: the Tree of Life, or World Tree, rooted in water – Materia Prima, Anima Mundi?...), a woman sells (narcissus) flowers, a man carries some stairs with him (climbing 3-4 stairs helps him “see” something high above), a guy maneuvers a lawn mower (there are narcissus flowers all around on the surface of the water…), etc.

More “characters” appear on the stage (no further need for “personalization”, as everybody here’s the same, no matter how different they may look): transparent (see-through…) dummies… Final frenzy of the absurdly drifting fragments: on this world-resembling stage, everybody just goes around, propelled by its own small impetus, unable to see anything else beyond (or anything else than – if reflected in the water, if you want) its individual limitations.

Bravo, Ilotopie.

P. S. Who’s Narcissus here?! The one in the title of the show, “Narcissus reflects”… Take some time and…reflect!… I have the feeling you’ve guessed right.

End of show. And... the show must (?) go on...

(extra)ordinary

I usually pass by words “I know” like I pass by buildings I’ve “already seen”: they are mere signposts (brief, efficient) on my way to where I want to get.

So – usually – “extraordinary” is the antonym of “ordinary”: it’s something out of the ordinary (or normal, usual, everyday, average, etc.). Or beyond the ordinary. (beyond: further than, past, away from, etc. – I’m using the ordinary thesaurus installed on most computers).

Ok, that’s all clear. Or?... If I take the time and swing among the “synonyms”, the whole setting begins to lose its antagonistic appearance. Going further than… So I’m walking – as usual – in the dull sameness. There are some extra steps I can take to suddenly find myself in an entirely different, exciting place?... (HOW MANY?!...) The extraordinarily green grass and blue sky don’t seem to be too far away, though. Further than, past, away from (the ordinary).

[Furthermore: the two words sound too close for us not to suspect that either 1) they’re actually not too far apart even as we speak or 2) albeit spotted far away from each other, they’re nonetheless close – blood – relatives.]

So we’re talking about some degrees or steps – let’s settle for steps here. I don’t know how many. Say 100? 10?... Question: can we summon the extraordinary from anywhere in the ordinary we happen to be – no extra steps?...

Maybe. What’s sure is that there’s no recipe (otherwise predictable, therefore ordinary)… What can be practiced however is getting away from the regular, habitual, familiar, etc. No heroic, total departures. Just a few steps around the border, to start with.

Anybody knowing helpful “tricks”?... I’m thinking of sharing a couple of self-discovered ones here – don’t expect anything out of the ordinary!…

On "Untitled" – 2, 3, and 4 (as multiple of 2).

Mike5555's niece, pkavitha1's model, deziner02's mom.

Even if there isn’t such thing as the linearity of time (leaving aside time itself), we usually feel – if not count on – the imminence of a “next”. Perhaps it’s time I reliably moved on to pkavitha1's model, who’s next in line.

While waiting for acknowledgement, Raj (I’ll call him like this) keeps looking in a certain sideway direction. Zooming out and taking into account that he’s actually posing in front of pkavitha1's camera, we can safely assume his mind is working into yet another direction, to some side of the (already aside) direction of his look: that can be anywhere but straight ahead.

Can you sense the Direction?...

Adulthood brings with it a sense of direction. The reverse holds as well: growing up is growing out of the aimless Openness and focusing on pursuing a path in life.

Help is available all along: parents, teachers, idols or gurus pop up at different stages, point into the right direction (which can vary, of course), preach about good things and perils, and selflessly pass on the skills we need to carve, refine and organize all sorts of arrows that should finally connect what we are to what we should become.

[A big romantic arrow, powered by will alone, doesn’t cut it any more: first, the arrow could always be swamped by powerful, unforeseen drifts, and second, it’s only natural to employ complex tactics – pressing ahead for a while, taking a step back or walking aside – in planning one’s way through the Brownian world of arrows secreted by an increasing population with escalating potential destinations.]

As one thing leads to another, practice blossoms into the habit of – even taste for – playing with arrows. Arrows are being placed all over, backward as well: travelers turn around, contemplate the distance separating them from some apparently lagging behind pack, and carry the resulting amount of importance with them, everywhere they go.

I could go many places with all this, but – I’m a grown-up – I’ve decided to stop paying precious attention to everything that develops here and return to my initial plan. Here I go:

Being adult is all about heading into some direction. Yes: it’s about quitting real world and going some other places, made out of dreams, goals and – for subtler tastes – sacred missions.

Let Raj go his way for now. We have someone else waiting next in line.

And you can probably sense where all this goes.

“[…] I’ve been wasting my time; and my time has wasted me. Maybe it’s never too late? It may yet come. I’m waiting for It. It can start in the last hour, the last minute, the last second.”

While writing down the above words (my feeble translation of a translation), a warm, trustworthy voice from behind the TV screen asked me: “Happy in your new bathroom?” and assured me he believed in attainable dreams. I’ve quickly made up my mind: the hell with Eugene Ionesco, the interest rate looks good. And – I’ve been pondering this for a couple of weeks now – I’ll buy that Avon mascara, too.

Childish

Today I’ve rescued a fly. Actually I’m not sure what it was – it looked like a big ant with large, fragile wings (I’m somehow embarrassed with the scarcity of my knowledge. Maybe not embarrassed – plus it’s no longer vital to be perceptive about real nature… reality seems to have changed its nature – it’s more like I’m missing out on something; I carry this feeling with me ever since traversed by Ernst Junger’s Radiations /"Strahlungen".)

Anyway… what’s sure is that this fly didn’t know what a window was, and obviously wasn’t prepared to learn individually, in that instance, from repeatedly banging its precariously assembled body against the invisible barrier. (Although… what about those fish that, long ago, landed on earth and finally developed lungs... Was there a particular instance… a particular fish…)

The recurrent action took place in a tram. Just a few centimeters away, from time to time, the doors to freedom (the fly’s natural reality, with “transparency as usual“) were opening, and closing on the fly’s inability to look around the corner. Must have been very tiring: bursts of sheer determination were followed by progressively longer sessions of recomposure.

So – perhaps also in the wake of my previous post – I took action: got out a piece of paper and, quite effortlessly, helped the fly leave the tram the same time I did. Ok, I didn’t get to see the fly actually flying afterwards (I had – ?... – to blow it off the paper: now I think it was kind of cruel), but nevertheless felt content.

A couple of hours later, I took the tram on the way back. Inside, the same play was going on. Starring: a bee (unable to look over its shoulder at the door on the opposite side), this time. Plus me. I took the same paper out (a “sublime object”, by the title it was bearing), only things weren’t running as smoothly as previously. And the bee looked increasingly drained. People started to take an interest in the rescue effort. “She’s helping the bee!” cheered a little girl, answering some question of her mother. Now I think it could have been rewarding to stop for a few seconds and look around, but back then it didn’t even cross my mind: I was intensely into gently catching the bee. I knew time was running out, nevertheless a confidence of some kind was radiating from somewhere inside of me.

All was in vain. The tram stopped, and I had to rush out with bee-less hands. And… I still felt content. Like after rescuing the fly. Only now, thanks to the bee, I knew it had nothing to do with the result of my action. It had something to do with not looking over my shoulder (it’s childish, what will people say, I’ll make a fool out of myself, it’s just a fly/bee) or around the corner (will it even work). No, I wasn’t really feeling content: I was rather feeling myself. No… not even that: I simply was.

On "Untitled", 1.

It was just another day when I jumped into the hot bus interior. As the doors closed behind my questionable action, I surrendered to the soothing tedium lurking inside the crammed cubicle. My gaze brushed evenly the landscape I’ve seen so many times before: the same buildings shaping the street where I lived (only shaping it faster – I usually walked the distance), the same people (perhaps in different sizes, colors or hairdos) roaming around in various degrees of decisiveness, or feeling in command of something, behind their steering wheels, or – just like me – giving in to some greater willpower, such as a bus’s.

As the outer dullness kept passing by, next to me a weary mother was economically quenching her little son’s incessant curiosity. At first seeming as one of those many idiosyncrasies that finally compose the sound of nothingness, his energetic persistence began to annoy me. While anticipating a culmination of some sort, I suddenly spotted the boy’s happy face as he pointed his finger at what I knew it was an ugly spring fountain: “Look, mother! Look at the water!!...” Half disconcerted, half annoyed (and for the lack of anything else to do), I looked at the fountain. To my bewilderment, I saw the beauty of the water: surreal, glittery drops were playing in the sky. With a jerk of the bus, the rest of the world kicked back in. With joy still flooding my veins, soggy eyes, and an uncontrollable smile on my face, I looked around the bus, and felt like shaking those people with bored gazes and yelling that true beauty exists, “just look!!”... Of course I haven’t done that: “you’re being childish”, my mind scolded me as it was placing back the last few scattered pieces of itself.

Untitled

Mike5555's niece, pkavitha1's model, deziner02's mom.

Some facets of happiness

Now I realize I’ve been longing for rain for a few days (maybe more?). As clouds started to gather this afternoon, I grew aware of some increasing activity in a latent system of indefinite flows. The only thing I could pin down was one that surfaced as a kind of promise of – yeah, I know how this sounds, but… – liberation. And as I heard the first drops, I believe I was… happy. Burst out on the balcony, smiled to the cloudy sky (or rather beyond it), and insatiably sniffed the windy air enriched with tiny particles of water and earth. I’ll circle away from the radiating subterranean point, suffice -- coward! -- to say I reckon it wasn’t my lungs that needed the deep intake of freshness.

As I first felt an earthquake (somewhere in the ‘90s), I got undeniably happy. At the time, trying to rationalize on it, I thought it’s because I’ve missed the bigger quakes in ’77 (sleeping) and ’86 (not in Bucharest), and probably got curious. And then forgot all about it. Until stumbled over somebody else’s – Gellu Naum, a Poet – account of such an experience. He was happy, too. He said something – and the following words are just a combination of my memory and interpretation of his words, I’ll try to find the passage at some point – about some sort of proof of the unreality of our cozy little realities.

Serenity

And what is, more exactly, serenity? -- never mind the dictionary. To me, serenity is what happens when I unplug my mental labeling reflexes. When I don't try to "understand", i.e. to fit what I see into what I already know. Or to manipulate reality into the mould of my desires. Or away from my fears. This is when I can really "see" new things. More exactly, things appear in a new light.

So, before rushing into doing things the usual way, take a chair, sit down, and look -- but don't think. Not so easy, huh?