Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 6:56AM layers
Its funny, I keep touching base with my wild hair (the BCP/KJV) thing and in doing so I am learning more and more about the nature of words. How we feed ourselves diets of small corruptions through a subtle intake of words that are framed within something that should be so good, but deliver a powerful ulterior message.
Like the constant repetition of the word "enemy" in the orders. Even though, technically you may be praying for peace, to do so by constantly reaffirming that there is a separate class of people dubbed "the enemy" defeats the purpose.
It has been one of my longstanding issues with the efficiacy of 12 step programs that demand a constant reiteration of the problem as your sole source of identity. At some point, if the program is effective, you should evolve to be defined by something else.
What you once were shapes were you are now but in no way determines what you will become although it does remain a part of it. If it remains the defining part then nothing much has changed and no growth has occurred. In essence, you have just pushed the peas around on the plate but they are still there, waiting to be eaten, only now they are cold and mushy.
I am deep into the edit of the demon and still working towards the Song while mentally making notes on the City. When I look at them in terms of reconciliation, each piece is revealed in layers. Funny when you think I wrote the damn things but am just now beginning to understand what I was trying to write and why.
Its like...stacking stones to make steps. If you don't look up and know where those steps are going to lead then you could build them in the wrong place. That isn't to say that you know what where they lead will be like, but it is....again...a direction.
And it is hard, right now, as I am engaged in all this to also examine my life and my work in the stages of its effect. By this I mean in certain stages - that are fairly easy for me to define because there are easily found blocks of artistic work built around them - I have begun to look outward to what was surrounding them and what types of influences they invited into my life. Not just that but in regards to those influences, what behaviors it then made acceptable for me to engage in and whether now, those are behaviors I think would do me well to keep active in my life, or are they ones that cause harm.
I have stages where...even though my stated and understood purpose and intent was quite lovely - it brought to me stalkers, people without boundaries, people vested in deception and denial and some others who were just plain very disturbed. In the context of my actions relating to this I can trace feelings of being overwhelmed, high stress, anger - rage even, deep distress and a complimentary acceptance of boundryless and inappropriate behavior in return.
I have stages where....even though my stated and undestood purpose was confused by well intention - it brought to me people who were kind, giving, supportive, funny, spiritual, compassionate and deeply vested in self-awareness, growth and participating in the world around them. In the context of my actions relating to this I can trace feelings of having meaning, purpose, direction, contentedness, love, compassion and a healthy sense of appropriateness in all of my relationships.
I have had stages where I bounce between the two like a rubber ball and everything gets messy and confused.
And, as I enter this new stage, one that I am at the small beginnings of being able to form a stated and understood purpose, I have no real guarantee what it will bring or what it will convince me is appropriate. But I am being guided by the second set of stages more then the first. While that is wonderful, it is interesting to see the...death throes of my attachment to the first. Because, after all, you get some type of reward out of everything you participate in, whether that reward be good or ill.
It is awkward. I do some things badly right now, really badly. The kind where you sort of cringe after and go "shit, I wish I had thought that through." And I do some things that make me sit there in wonder and go "Why haven't I done such an easy thing sooner."
A word about "easy."
Sometimes, in fact, more often then not, the "easy" things that can be done involve more work then the hard things. But the fact that they bring with them that sense of contentment and placement is what makes them seem so easy. It is when you are trying to do something that deep within you do not believe is what you should be doing that the simplest thing can seem the most difficult.
I read something yesterday that is so true and I will leave you with it to think on:
"Our differences are more apparent then they are real."
c.2010. Cassandra Tribe. All Rights Reserved.





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