Consider the last event which called to your attention the basic reality of being ALIVE.
 |
| Moma Fauna, on Ice. |
Was it an extreme sensory experience? One of great trauma or pleasure? What is it that brings us pause, muzzles the monkey-mind & reminds to treasure this basic gift?
Consider the most spectacular Sunrise on the Turnagain Arm, a sliver of Alaska's larger Cook Inlet. The temperature is 6º F/-14ºC, but the winds along the steep slopes & water-turned-ice make for a more chilling sense of cold. I am standing on the beautiful & very frozen ocean below the very bluffs from which we had such hopes of seeing the Northern Lights. I am here to take a photograph of myself with a book -- a book written by a woman I admire enough to perpetrate this act of sheer madness.
I am wearing a crocheted dance halter, complete with beads, fringe & a full makeup & jewelry compliment. I am also wearing tall, baby-blue Sorrels, knit fingerless gloves & stocking hat complete with ear flaps.
It is nothing but cRaZy.
If you think about it, it is the precise costume of The Fool -- dressed for adventure, yet painfully ill prepared. I am stepping off the bluff into the abyss...
This entire production lasted perhaps 30 minutes from beginning to end, my time of extreme exposure even less. But it was enough time for my large ring made from a bent silver spoon to freeze to my finger. It was enough time for me to have to ask my partner to press my phone screen for the last few shots because the phone no longer registered my touch as among the living.
No longer registering as among the living. How quickly, how easily this can happen.
Yet there was no terror about this -- it was in fact, exhilarating. Framed by the sweeping, impersonal majesty of this Landscape, bitten by the cruel, unyielding climate, I felt more alive than I usually do when I resister as living.
The Fool tells us to take the plunge, experience the consequences & ride the Arc of Zero anew, back around, full circle. Do it again. Again.
When did we fall off the Circle onto the straight line?
8 comments:
"Consider the last event which called to your attention the basic reality of being ALIVE."
Thanks for the call to rememberance and reconnection. Appreciating your blog as always.
Perhaps it is nearing time to seek a new memory? Zero is always waiting. ;)
You amaze me, always doing the coolest things! Once again we are on a similar wavelength. I was doing some research the other day (updating an old project from the 90s called "Finding Zero") and read this amazing article by world-renowned physicist Alan Lightman about the power of nothingness: http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/my-own-personal-nothingness
Reading the above I have to admit to a little pang of jealousy. We're getting lots of sunless wind and rain at the moment, and I LOVE sparkling bright cold weather, even when its very cold (at least by local standards). So, many thanks for the beautiful words and imagery (once again) :).
One of the compensations of ageing seems to be an increased appreciation of the many small miracles of ordinary life ...
Holy Moly! Thank you for the link! There are so many goodies in there.
"Every cubic centimeter of space in the universe, no matter how empty it seems, is actually a chaotic circus of fluctuating fields and particles flickering in and out of existence on the subatomic scale. Thus, at the material level, there is no such thing as Nothingness." -- this is how I have always understood our existence, a chaotic soup w/strange order, like the webs or fields
"Sadness, by itself, has no meaning without reference to joy." -- this is why I strive to seek out contrasts, it enhances my experience
"Each of us is a temporary assemblage of atoms, not more and not less. We are all on the verge of material disassemblage and dissolution." -- !
"What I feel and I know is that I am here now, at this moment in the grand sweep of time. I am not part of the void. I am not a fluctuation in the quantum vacuum. Even though I understand that someday my atoms will be scattered in soil and in air, that I will no longer exist, that I will join some kind of Nothingness, I am alive now. I am feeling this moment. I can see my hand on my writing desk. I can feel the warmth of the sun through the window. And looking out, I can see the pine-needled path that goes down to the sea. Now."
This article, the concept of the void or Nothingess (which actually isn't filled with nothing) is how I understand the gods I chose, or maybe they chose me, particularly Nyx, Her cosmic mate Erebus & Her "parent" or "origin," Chaos. If we find gods in large part for their comfort (along with awe, inspiration, gratitude, etc.), I confess I find great comfort in the certainty of dissolution & falling into the void. Returning to the primordial source has a draw for me no version of Heaven, the Summerlands, or other utopia can match.
As for you Mitch, you do the coolest stuff too! My eldest & I watched your graffiti art time-lapse video this morning before school. He was amazed, I was admiring. You have your own crazy blend of life-ways & philosophy that makes you eternally stalk-worthy. ;)
Brian,
Ah, well, then we are even. Sometimes I gaze across the continent & ocean at your pastures (& fungi!) through your eyes (words) & wish for an airline ticket... The cold makes for lovely, but the DARK, oh! the DARK is another story!
And True, there is an attention to the pleasant details, the pleasures of the moment & perhaps a wee bit more (ha!) attention to mortality. I found that bearing children has had a similar effect. I suppose that means I am getting a double dose! 0_o
That would make a great title of something: "When Your iPhone Thinks You're Dead."
Coincidentally, I was just reading the Foot chapter in the book "Jung and Tarot," which I had not looked at for years. But synchronicities are like wildflowers, mainly to be admired as a sign that something is going on.
Ha, in my case, it would be, "When your Android no longer validates you." :P
I'm sure "Foot" was a typo, but how apropos given it is the Foot (like the Fool) that is poised to step into the abyss.
"...synchronicities are like wildflowers, mainly to be admired as a sign that something is going on." Love it! And yes, synchronicities are often abundant, yet difficult to understand -- still, very worth appreciating even if the "something" remains just that.
Post a Comment