Song Of The Day: Isobel / Bjork
Word Of The Day: Vastation / Purification through fire.
It's that time of year. Crushing, ineffable beauty in the few fleeting moments as Godhead moves its footless Foot from Summer to Fall. Who knows why or what, but this time of year feels so tender, so achingly rich in myriad emotions (longing, ecstasy, comfort, uncertainty- a host of paradoxical twins). I wake up, walk outside, and feel a crisp bite in the dry Colorado air with the first breath taken in through the nostrils. It is incredibly bitter sweet. Something about this time of year wakes up my soul and infuses each moment with the sober understanding of how transient and precious it all is. EVERYTHING- the way the golden light from the sun catches leaves, mountains, clouds, grass, or the hood of my car in that magic hour before the sun goes under. It rains and the fallen leaves and cut grass grow moist and then begin to rot, releasing that intoxicating earthen smell. It makes me wish I had three lungs to inhale that smell into every atom, like my entire body were olfactory.
My sensate swooning under the spell of Autumn (isn't that a fucking AWESOME word? 'Autumn' - it even sounds like it feels) is undeniable, and I'm not a hippy / earthy type by any measure. My favorite places in the world are the center of the busiest parts of Manhattan, Amsterdam on a busy weekend, Berlin at 3am on New Year's, Hollywood any night of the week. I like cities, concrete, steel, skyscrapers, the smell of exhaust from taxis and trains, I like REAL restaurants, REAL cafes, immersion in Museums, theaters, and clubs. Most of all I like the wild variety of cultures, perspectives, and typology. I don't like hiking in the woods, but I'll walk around Central Park all day, cuz it's in the middle of a metropolis, like all nature should be. The outdoors should be preserverd and protected, not encountered or experienced. Natural beauty is an ugly affair, and we got no business in the bushes, that's the whole goddamn point of evolution and post-industrial information achievment. I can't wait for the day I can upload my entire consciousness into a Nano Rocket and fucking check out the rest of the Exterior Kosmos, yo.
Anyway, my point is just that that incredibly vulnerable, orgasmic feeling that sets in with Autumn (starting in the belly and warming its way out to the torso, throat, limbs, and head) has nothing to do with tree hugging naturism. It's more archetypal, more universal than that. I think it has to do with the impermanence and brevity of human existence, like those three or four weeks between summer and fall trip all the tethers between our body and our soul, and for a while each breath we take in acts like a somatic reminder of our fragility and mortality.
Whatever life erupted in numinous color just a few weeks and months ago is about to disappear. And no one will remember. Or if they do, how long? Each human life is that way. From some unknowable no-one, an unknowable some-one emerges. It's a total, absolute mystery how or what that is. Then, we're here for what we experience to be a "time". A period, perceived as a sequence of events. This history of events, episodes, and occasions -and the way we respond, interpret, and react to them- forms an incredibly convincing house of cards we call "me". It's total fucking bullshit, of course. And indescribably miraculous. Somehow in the last million years, discrete entities -sentient beings- ushered in one of the Kosmos' greatest innovations: Self-reflexive identity. We're not just aware, we're aware that we're aware. And we reinforce identity by locating our 'self' in relation. It's all subject / object. 'I' am the subject. Whatever is inside of 'I' is 'me'. Whatever is outside of me is an object, could be you, it, they, and so on. Of course, this is a repeatable, provable 'fact' in the relative realm. And that's all cool as long as you stay in the relative domains. The problem is that, much the way the Universe is 99% Dark Matter -which is science-speak for 'What the fuck is that shit?'- REALITY is 99% the Absolute, the unknowable, Immutable IS, a singular Nothing which also kindly unfolds and presents itself as something. Our identity, our reality as self-reflexive beings is squarely planeted in that relative reality.
But, alas, it's a decoy.
The Absolute is the game you're actually playing wiht all these relative pieces. It's time for us to acknowledge paradox and the limits of language as well, because in actuality the Absolute and the Relative aren't two. They're not one either. Just fuck it. Take your head off or you won't fit in this ride, trust me. While we're addressing the peculiarities of IS, I might as well mention that YOU are the one writing this message, you are the one reading it, you are the one disbelieving it, recognizing its veracity, and every other reaction, aversion, embrace and position in the nexus of this moment is YOU. It's YOU, YOU, YOU, but oddly 'you' are no where to be found in the ridiculous simplicity of IS.
The point is, you're already dead. That's no metaphor, no poetic license. The part of you that is aware that you are aware is dead, literally ex-carnated, or outside of that which inhabits or is dependent up a particular form. That YOU have always been dead. That's the nature of being unborn, unmade, undying. You can afford to be born, made, and die. You are before and beyond 'you'.
Which brings us back to Autumn. Just spend a few moments each day swimming in its Ocean of clues and cues. The tiny you, the smaller self that you understandably mistake for an 'identity' is actually a fleeting, fragrant bloom which will pass out of being in a matter of a few moments. That is literally the case, you are going to die in the PRESENT. Not the future. You are in the Present right now, right here reading this. This is the moment of your death. Autumn is one breath in the respiration you've practiced before and beyond all ages and all places, those fading, and those being born. Breathe out another season...
