Sunday, November 29, 2015

joy

Today, I don't want to write about blood. I don't want to write about darkness, pain, sadness, regret, cynicism,self-loathing, fear or death. All of these things have been swirling very close to me this year--yet again this past weekend, in a way that has left me emotionally drained--and these things have taken up far too many of my words, my time and my existence this year. 

All I wish to write about today is joy. Very specifically, how one incident of joy as demonstrated in the video below is everything that is beautiful and wonderful about this crazy world we inhabit. Everywhere you turn you see the worst, but I fervently believe that joy is always present too. It might be better at hiding and it might not get the same box-office returns but it is always, always there. 

The look of joy on the faces of the people in this video--old and young, skinny and fat, male and female (oh, but how wonderful the boys look in dresses!) is everything that is beautiful and wonderful about humanity and the forms in which we express ourselves. This is what the cosmos does when it sees itself. It dances and laughs. 


I only wish I was in a red dress dancing with all of them. 

Friday, November 13, 2015

man is the animal



man is the animal
light a candle, light a candle
spraypaint hearts on brick walls and the foreheads of those who would kill
death comes, death comes
is there a white light? is it a black void?
my death will come too and i won’t have a say in it
i don’t want a say in it

birds painted on the flesh come to life and fly free
birds escape from my wounds and return as falling snow
angels are mathematical, man is the animal
angels carry their own candles
man burns his hands

i detest war
i hate empty platitudes like "support our troops"
i don't believe that you can defend my freedom while working for those who wish to take it away
those three lines were spoken by another but state it better than i ever could
we kill, we kill, we kill
man is the animal

what saves a heart? what creates a heart?
rub a little dirt in the blood
it’s no longer possible to hide in the forests, they are almost gone
every tribe starts out in love
tribe of one, tribe of many
tribe of hearts
a pulsing heart feels so strange in cold hands

galaxies are born out of violence
the universe was born in violence
humanity is the universe seeing itself, the first evolutionary step
can we give birth without violence?
who defines the cleansing aspects of destruction?
man is the animal

a cool drink of water to each killer
lay them down in a circle of hearts
give them more than one book
point out the stars whose light is only now reaching us

we are all travelers
we are all tired
we are all tribe

man is the animal


--11/13/15

it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness



These words will be, in all likelihood, at least somewhat incoherent. It’s Friday night, and normally at this time I’m enjoying a fine craft beer and watching a movie. Friday night movie night, I call it, and it’s my treat to myself for getting through the work week. But tonight…I have the beer, but I just can’t turn the world off enough to do a movie. Not with the news rolling in about Paris.

Events such as this are sadly too common, and the degree to which they cross our radar depends on where they happen, who they happen to, and our sympathies to both. Paris is hitting me hard because of one the locations of murder—fuck it, it’s a massacre, let’s not mince words—Bataclan, a venue that on this night was hosting a rock concert by The Eagles of Death Metal. As of this writing, there are over 100 dead. I don’t even know what to say to that.

I’ve attended hundreds of concerts in my life. Music is not merely entertainment for me; it is a sacred art and the concert is one of the most transcendent, beautiful expressions of that art. I go to concerts for the same reason some go to church: to find haven, to find a community that accepts me, to escape all of the shit in the world, to touch the divine (which I find in the sound, not the performers.) To transcend the limitations of the earth and body. As corny as it sounds, to expand consciousness through the sheer beauty of sound, volume and vision.

To turn it into a scene of mass murder devastates me in a way I can’t explain. People gathered to hear a band play some tunes and for those people, the world should be a better place while the band is playing. You don’t even need transcendence, sometimes a little escape is just fine. And instead these people got death, injury, or witnessed both rain down on their fellow concertgoers. Their tribe.

I am listening to Metallica as I type this. Part of the reason I am alive to type this is this music. In the darkest hours of my life, many years ago, it pulled me through when I was drowning. It told me there were others out there that knew the score, knew this darkness, but we were a tribe and there was absolutely something worth living for. I’ve seen this band in concert more than any other—13 times, I believe—and every time it was a transcendent, deeply spiritual experience for me. This band means the world to me, and to see them in concert is a very special, personally important experience for me.

There were probably some Eagles of Death Metal fans who felt the same way about them. Many of the rest were simply there to have a good time, to enjoy a few tunes. A concert is both a shared experience and a personal one; there is no experience that is more legit than another. It’s all beautiful, goddammit, and it’s all love. Not murder. Never murder.

The next days will be unbearable as the full details become known and far too many shrill, loud voices will race each other to point fingers, spew hatred and ignorance, and further fan the flames. Some will figure out how to turn tragedy to profit, some will use it to promote their latest book about how the world is unsafe and so we’d better arm ourselves and shoot anything that moves. Many of us—I’d like to think most of us—will feel disgusted, heartbroken and confused. We won’t know how to react because there really is no proper way to react to such a hatred of human life (for those who lost loved ones in this, it will be infinitely worse.) Speaking only for myself, the only one I have a right to speak for, I will struggle between wanting to understand why someone could participate in such a thing and wanting to completely shut off all news and social media. I have no unique perspective, nor do I have anything valuable to contribute to the conversation.

I’m simply someone whose life was saved by music, and who believes that art is a banner under which we can all find acceptance and be part of a tribe, regardless of race, language, or nationality. To love each other. That a few lone individuals were so full of hate and violence that they could take that love, something they, for whatever reason, could not feel themselves and so they therefore extinguished the lives of those that could is something that is so far beyond my comprehension as to be completely alien. I’m left with no words. So I turn to the phrase I hold in my heart at times like these:

It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.