Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Justice

Justice...as I contemplated this word (or supposed virtue) this week... it felt like a rock hanging over my head.  A rock ready to fall out of the sky onto my chicken little. I am but a little chicken after all (but, have been swinging my sword for some time to cut off its head).


Justice...a concept I thought I might consider a virtue within myself and found lacking the ability to express any meaning other than a swollen symbol inside the representation of myself getting ready to burst.

Justice... blinded with two hands busy with dichotomies, slashing and selling off what has been measured, clad as a woman, what madness is this?

Women have no understanding of justice other than that, which is manufactured for them, bearing their resemblance to draw in their sword and scales in occupied hands. Weighing up measures of sins whilst they sit blind folded by the system that created such a word.

I have had a hard time with justice as you can see, but then I can’t see that for myself... I am blind folded.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Tobacco Roads Meets Industry Sincerely

My Brother John arrived on time to help rebuild Christchurch, but industry had a go at him in the airport as he came through customs from America to New Zealand (via Austrailia for economy). After waiting for him at the security gates for thirty minutes I began to wonder why he was being held up. Turns out, it was a modern day ‘hold up’ to be sure. A security person came out and asked me who I was waiting for. I said, my Brother John and she said, ‘we have him for too much tobacco’, and then she vanished.


So, what does industry have to do with it?

Well, since my brother is going to be in New Zealand for three months and had heard how expensive tobacco was here he decided to buy a three months’ supply. That supply cost him $60.00 for three bags of pipe tobacco in Oklahoma. Brother John rolls his own cigarettes and has a really clever roller with the empty cigarette tubes with attached filters. This way, they look just like what Kiwi’s call ‘tailor-mades’...instead of lopsided looking cigarettes that look like joints. It's always a pain to get busted for smoking tobacco.

New Zealand customs took great care to weigh out exactly how much tobacco he was allowed to bring in and confiscated the rest, but with the understanding that he could buy it back from them for $641.00. Pretty industrious, aye? The Customs officers gave Brother John a receipt that says he has a month and a half to return to the airport and buy back tobacco that he already paid $60.00 for in America for $641.00 or they will burn it (does anyone really believe they do this?).

Brother John said, ‘let it burn’.

Now, I am two days late on discussing the next virtue for this week, sincerity. I sincerely see something wrong with using any industrial act to create the above scenario. But then, no one’s been asking me for most of my life, for you see, I’m just a woman who is through pumping out and raising four children all over the age of eighteen and promptly cast aside by the chaos that surrounds the patriarchal order and left for dead, but I’m not. How sincere is that?

I tend to say, ‘let it all burn down and start over’. Yep, a flaming feminist.

I think Brother John and I are going to be some kind of dangerous together, sincerely, I do.

Meanwhile, yesterday, they let me back into university again a month from the day of the last earthquake on February 22 that caused my Brother John enough concern to come visit us for three months and see what he can do to help rebuild this, that or any other thing. Brother John is a mason, a stone mason, a laid back, ‘happy as’ soul who’s lifetime motto has been ‘don’t worry, be happy’ and ‘it don’t matter to me, I’m just here to help’.

Help is what we all need in a world where industry has gone absolutely mad, not to mention what ‘ole mother [sic] nature' is up to!  Sincerely.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Industrious Needs Its' Tummy Flap Lifted

Industriousness looks different to me now. I begin to watch for signs of it while I get up from bed every day and head straight for my desk where I might write down what comes to mind after being shut down and then restarted. (Two cities come to mind by comparison, Christchurch and Sendai, I live in one and consumed the other)


Today, I stood in front of the mirror naked...

...while lifting the flap of my tummy off the caesarean scar from giving birth to my second to last daughter, whose name appropriates all that I am ever contemplating as I go along in my own industrious ways. There is an underlying pattern I seek inside, not to classify, but to bring light to the darkness. Air under the tummy flap, to make things heal, is my destiny.

My daughter’s name is Destiny. Destiny Rose, in case Destiny is not enough. I never meant for it to be the flower, but the act of rising, like the energy that needs addressing, too long repressed, under oceans and inside hearts. I long for us all to be in touch with our destinies.

That destiny is to love no matter what, alongside our natural tendency to slaughter and be condemned to a death of some kind, which always follows birth by moments or many years, the difference is only important to the survivors, who cloud the issues of what life has left for any of us on the backside of too many earthquakes and one hell of a tsunami. All with feminine characteristics no doubt and very cranky tummy flaps.

With my own words I desire to make less of a mess of the space I occupy. I long for a landscape of peaceful composition fully rendered with potential approval by everyone. Ahhh, a dreamer you say, there is no way to do that. But nevertheless, how might I do that is what occupies my mind every minute of every hour, every day of every year, every year I have been here. Not because the ‘I of me’ needs it to be expressed by me for others, but because the ‘I of me’ requires that that one possible language to be strong enough inside myself to create an over-riding pattern of reality to offset the slaughter.

To deny my own sense of slaughter is insane and not very intelligent, for intelligence renders one thing to all, we know nothing, and we are more often merely responders than meaning makers, not one of us makes any lasting meaning for anyone besides ourselves to the point of intention that I seek inside myself, which is every one’s right that cannot be breached, except...some do try. I rub my finger across my scar and remember my own efforts to control anything, the futility smells upon my fingertips.

Then some are the collective parts of ourselves left to go fly into the universe without editing, like say the media...showing tsunamis, earthquakes, nuclear explosions over and over again with the still pictures heaped with visual remnants of past industriousness torn asunder. What think ye of industry today my friend, Ben? I think he might agree with me on this...there is nothing to be gained by watching it over and over and everything to be gained by turning it off collectively and saying, excuse me, I need time to think this thing through, there is much to do here, but it needs to be from the part of the ‘I of me’ of all of us after we become intimate with our own destinies and lift up our tummy flaps and allow a little air in.

While many are performing rescue, I sit here and contemplate...what we do next certainly needs to be extremely different from what we have done before...and...

It occurs to me that the only reason we need armies is for the purpose of saving those who are lying in the rubble of Christchurch and Sendai, this is an army’s true destiny, to rise up their numbers for these acts of love and not those that contribute to the slaughter. An army has the force that could put love back on the map of our world, to counter balance what is the natural tendency of all organic matter, to slaughter, decompose and/or simply die.

Imaginary boundaries need to come down, property rights rethought, positions of power destabilized need rethinking in egalitarian ways utilizing all our natural and material resources collectively to bring love equal to slaughter. There is no one on this planet unaffected by these events now thanks to technology, it is our best friend and our worst nightmare and it has brought to every one’s table this reality:

We are all on this planet together, and this planet is undergoing a very strong pattern of repositioning itself, not because of some angry god, gods, or external mad-hatter, but simply because it can and does over and over, no matter what. We all need each other to collectively create a world where everyone can be as safe as possible, while always understanding that there is not anything we can build, plan for, or dictate, that cannot be pulled apart, drowned and destroyed in the blink of an eye, or nearly as quickly, and this pattern will never stop.

The only thing we as human animals can truly do is to be constantly industriously cultivating our abilities to love differently than the way we have in the past. We need to language things differently, rebuild differently and that will never be possible as long as we look at the mediated spaces for our language keys...turn the television sets off...and think what destiny might rise up inside the 'I of you' that is important for now, we need one another to all be doing just that...NOW, not later.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Real Aftershock Gallery

Right now, the real Aftershock Gallery has no set anything.  People come and do what they need to in order to regain their ground of being...one person paints, another turns the sprinkler on and runs half naked through it...we don't care here what you do to bring the art of life back, just do it. 

Some drink endless cups of coffee, some smoke like chimneys while others up and quit.  There is no set anything, nor should there be...we all have to find our level (Brother John is bringing his) and the only thing I do to help is to make sure there are no useless rules, and no one here to tell anyone the one word that shuts us all back down....NO.

YES, I say to the person who wants to rearrange my cupboards, just because it makes them feel better, it doesn't matter to me anymore where any THING is, just as long as all that lives is allowed to express that through artistic endeavours that is the impetus to go on in the face of so much tragedy, so much crisis and the endless aftershocks that will certainly continue to plague many human animals alive at this point in time and hereafter, because let us face it, there always has been a part of the world no man can control.

In so many ways, change has to be embraced and not resisted, it is this resistance to the changes we all need to intuitively over-ride and make a space in some way that provides the ground of being for artistic expression, which heals the savaged soul that has been for so long told NO, you can't do that, NO, it must be this way, NO, this and that are the only ways... 

There are no room for "experts" in the aftershock gallery, we have become "friends of chaos" here, realizing that there are things in this world no "expert" can predict, control or alleviate...

but, "friends of chaos", can generate new and interesting ways to live in the midst of all that is...anyway that makes them feel better with only one rule in place...

do and say nothing that stops another person from giving a go at generating an expression that might make sense only to them, one is enough, one is...what we all are anyway, coming in and going out, it looks different, but is always, and always has been....this same way, individually, even when collectively extinguished in earthquakes and tsunamis.

Before Industry

Still working my morality board, it sits here propped up against the wall and anchored by a painting of myself created by a friend of mine who loved Van Gogh as much as I...I count the things before industry...temperance, silence, order, resolution, and frugality...I try to find those things in myself and others as they go 'a building Christchurch' again, like busy little bees, telling most of us what to do and how to do it...because that's what you get when you have a disaster--you get marshal law, a police state, a bureaucratic nightmare and a major media spectacle that just looks different than the state of things before, but operates the same, same, even a good toss, or total annihilation cannot wipe out man's nature.

I cry a lot, it eases the tsunami rising inside me.

Looking for a way to describe what it feels like for friends outside the pacific ring of fire that want to care and do something, anything to help (you know who you are, I will never expose you)...and, I can think and feel a temperate warning, it feels like extended death, created by 'real live' footage of massive watery burial in Sendai, oh....what's wrong with this picture...can you hear me...can you hear me....what does it mean...it means something, but, no matter what we decide for it to mean...it is just the way it is and always has been, sometimes more, sometimes less, but now that we have technology to bring us all abreast instantaneously, it means we all get to feel everything at once without any time to distinguish between the parts of it....whatever the event. 

Christchurch tumbles, Sendai drowns and everyone everywhere gets a front row seat.  How industrious this must make us all feel, no shit, or perhaps we just become cheerleaders screaming at the vision before us 'run little man in the far right corner of the television screen, run, run as fast as you can, that ain't no box of chocolates chasing you, it's a real live tsunami and don't you worry, we be watching you, too, and praying for you to win.'

Bullshit.  Turn the damned thing off.  There are some things we should not have to watch.  Bring order into your living rooms everywhere.  Stop watching and consuming the remnants of humanity.

I laugh too, it eases the volcano in the pit of my stomach and helps me digest the food I eat that threatens to choke me, or just quietly finish me off from being genetically modified, just like me.

So, just in case we might miss the nose hairs on those reporting the major crisis es, we buy a bigger television...and, instantly, I rip the veil across my face to poke my nose through and smell, the smell...which feels like it threatens to extinguish me, but smells can't kill you, they tell me....and smells don't come from television sets...but, I can smell something, strongly fermented and ingrained through pixels in my head that says there is disaster everywhere, always is, and always will be, and just like now, not a damned thing I can do about any of it.

So, my nose knows, that my mind is being colonized, my nose has not been because I have never stuck it in a television much, and now....I will watch it even less, which means leaving the rooms it occupies wherever it is on and tumbling and drowning out life for those who sit before it consuming other peoples predicaments and then, getting up to be industrious in ways that are programmed into them or out of them depending on the nature of man behind the pixels.

Sit in real silence. Create new pixels that float inside your mind and build a world of one, the most industrious thing in the world, is a singularly well focused person uninundated, unburied, unencumbered by one disaster after another after another after, ahhhhh, you get it, allowed to contemplate their own temperance, silence, order, resolution and frugality, before they engage in any industry whatsoever.   

Monday, March 14, 2011

Thinking about Industry and my Brother John

I was thinking about industry while I rearranged my office, had the kids bring over an extra bed, cleaned out drawers and made space for my brother to come and live with us in New Zealand for three months to help our morale and just be with us after we've had two major earthquakes here in Christchurch, New Zealand within the last six months.  I wrote this poem for him:

My Brother John


My Brother John is coming on a big bird mechanical and complicit with its nature...

landing brilliantly, or so I hope

let fly before death by fire, hanging, slander, or natural disaster.

Like any other man, I am her, too.



Brother John brings cowboy boots, level, trough and all that implies

inside his own mind, not yours or mine, too, we can be duality when he leaves of course, as we

do, have and will be again.

And then, even when we don’t do, have and won’t be by choice, and then again by chance.



Will Brother John come to my rescue? You bet, he will and then he did in my mind before he

even came and went again. Intriguing me to realities of static, non-imaginary renderings off the

cuff, just to hear their refrain, it does not have to be in stone anymore my mason, but

if it be, let it be built by my Brother John--So Christchurch won’t fall down again.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Today

Today, I remind myself because I have to lest I forget to remember that for a week I must think about frugality. Then, I contemplate all that I just tipped out of my trashcan, consumables consumed by me, and one other person. The take is shocking. I recognize this and hate the waste and the seemingly no way to stop it. Every surface in my house has something on it left by someone other than me, I clean them off, the stuff continues to simply arise out of the dust that mythologies are cast in, and then decidedly, gets blown away by something, natural or man-made, a disaster is a disaster, a clean-up, now, that’s magic.


But, we are all alive, ya betchya. I re-conscribe my world and colonize my own language. I might as well; there is nothing and no else to talk to. Talking is passé for everybody, including myself, that’s why I write. Yeah, I talk a lot, too, inside and out like now. But, I don’t have any choice, that is just what I do, because I have to in order to find some order within the chaos that surrounds me, vibrating intensely beneath my feet as a testament to nature, that has always been prescribed as feminine, unstable, mysterious, unpredictable, or worse, an act of God.

None of it works, let’s face it.

Its okay to wipe the slate clean when the whole mucking place is devastated, but, the order must resume donchugedit?! They both suck because of and in conjunction with one another, there always is two in communication, but I disagree with this, I talk to the robins in the garden, I really do and you can’t take that away from me, call me crazy and be done with it, I exist alongside you always and I am an animal, no doubt about that, that makes two of us.

Most days I like it in a frugal kind of way, so I can’t wait for industry, which is always the by product of frugality, too, they are one and the same in the mirror, no matter who discusses which self blooms, they both change by the reflection one to another, we are not only a product of our environment, we are the environment that makes the product, the only time you go into the darkness is to flee, unless you walk at night amongst the stars, naturally, both parts addressed inside yourself, you are stardust if you like, and not stardust if you don’t. You get to decide at least that much. Which do you chose? Which sounds better? I decide.

I look up at the sky and see birds flying two by two everywhere, but I, I am alone until I recognize that Tuppy is there lying at my feet, protecting me from what? There is nothing to come and get me unless there is a decision made or an accident. I am not over there; I am inside you. When I write I can do that, be in more than one place at a time like magic.

That’s what I keep looking for while I learn what part is mine and communicate my own desire through language first, then and only then can it be communicated to another, that’s how it works, inside, outside, in reverse, reflecting back and forth, making it work, making it flicker across the screen by a process the “experts” would have you discoursing for a trillion years, and then suddenly, the years are at an end catastrophically by all kinds of events that rob us of our lives, and because of this deep fear of that, we attack one another cannibalizing no matter where we come from, where we are now and where we might think we are going.

Such is life and such is what Art longs to be, but never is, unless we decide for it to, says Eva.

Boom, boom goes the house in an up and down aftershock, just a jolt, a reminder of something kicking from the inside out, coming through, out to geeatcha...oh, my, it’s feminine rising.