Day 16:
I am telling you a story backwards. I have already scored it, but to you it uploads linear. Time is a problem. This illusion I created just for you. If you ever doubt how loved you are, know I stopped time. I pulled it through language and image. I corded it over a decade/ and all of the time it took me/ all the hours of my life/ they are for you/ to show you/ this is the length of my love/ be not afraid/ is all art is ever saying/ i’ll be here until we are all free.
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Process Notes:
"Let's not fracture our music in this existence of urgency."
-A. Waldman, 2020
Every vibration awakens all others of its particular pitch.
the symbol of a code
(metaphor) replaces energy disruption
& personal attachments that halt progress
to seeing clearly
how do you know the passage of time
is exact.
tell me how long is a night
now.
our greatest dangers are our habits.
from here, the story turns on invocation, for what we make
what we create first in thought
is what assembles the world.
we made the imitation of life
more valuable than life itself.
"acute sensitiveness is always associated with genius"
-A. Crowley
Photograph:
New Orleans skyline at dusk taken from the River
You can go towards what scares you, they are your feelings after all. New Orleans. I have layered in image, symbol, metaphor and a draping. What I sacrifice is the up to this moment how I carved from self the art I thought would save me.
I let it float.
I will never go back to being who I was before this.
And this, the story of your breaking inside your breaking. I would hold it for all of us.
But I must ask for a return. Take this whole life from me, take every minute left and let the vessel be place holder for what is invulnerable.
I retire breaking this land. I retire breaking this song. I retire breaking this path to surrender. I retire the sound of fear and doubt. I retire any gods that don't dance on the charnel ground. I retire attachment to outcome. I retire any story that makes small what we carried to our shores. Between the basin and the river, canaled of outlets and water ways, I retire fear of what takes, of what erases, of what submerges, of what swallows. I retire the anger of lost hours. I retire the regret of potential.
I forgive it all, for this lifetime and seven generations. I mark into the edge between land and empty, the outskirts where energy thins under bridges, along the train tracks, the walls bounding our city: I mark the overgrowth and neglect, the art of temporary, the forgotten codes of abandon. I have run from end to end of miles between where no one listens. I have seen how what is real wavers in invisibility. I have catalogued what you would put away. I have seen the inequity of time and place. I retire belief in systems, in programs, in thought patterns of uneven priority. I retire any notion that all life is not sacred.
I forgive the cycles of birth and death. I forgive the cycles of dream and awareness. I forgive the cycles of rebirth and endless suffering.
Plague Diary:
6.23.20
Vow:
With one eye on this world and one on the next
And a third focused on the timeless dimension
Throughout this life and all possible lifetimes
Until Enlightenment be achieved
May I inexhaustibly endeavor in the Bodhisattva way
And follow the path of unconditional compassion
And selfish altruism
So that all beings everywhere be delivered
And freed from the ravages of suffering and confusion
And reach the other shore, great peace, deathless nirvana.
Resource:
Ten Years Since Katrina: A Meditation on New Orleans by Kristina Kay Robinson
https://ibw21.org/editors-choice/ten-years-since-katrina-a-meditation-on-new-orleans/
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