Beauty & Preta

Floating like a hungry ghost through the spaces between connections. A full-bodied longing, impossible to ignore, which comes up like the first 30 minutes of MDMA and lingers in the space where thought meets embodied action. Fulfillment of the desire is only ever temporary. Greater feats of physical exploration are begged by the body-mind complex. Strings of anxiety pull ever forward in the direction of personal progress. A high voltage twinge previously ignored, now pointing the way towards a greater expression of being. To turn away from the action begged by the feeling of anxiety is to miss out on a chance to level up. Go, dive in, push forward, and let yourself fail. It’s ok it’s ok it’s ok.

I’m a hypocrite, failing my own ideals.

Though there may never be a bottom to the well of desire, I follow it as deeply as I can. The only alternative is a fearful one. Pretend renunciation, comfortable dishonesty tracking straight towards a person I do not want to become. There’s so much comfort in lying to yourself. So much comfort in failing truth. A relief of responsibility replaces the tension-filled inner command to ACT. Comfort or freedom? Comfort or expression? You can choose with words over and over again but it’s the only action that steers the boat.

Sitting across from her in the living room of the now-empty communal house. Stories of past adventures and near misses exchanged freely like emotional currency, no longer needing protection behind the vaults of social reservation. Safety and comfort paradoxically highlight the sparking heat of connection. Verbal expression of desire and intent only slightly precedes the physical expression of the same. Beauty and its witness unfolding in a natural way. Magnetism without obstruction.

The corner of a socially distanced coffee shop. Toned and tanned mid-drift visible from across the now vast floor space, beckoning. Sitting down at her table, diving into the unknown expression of truth. A click. Immediate exploration of our mutual difficult facts. Oblong and unwieldy experiences we both maneuver to fit in our otherwise geometric lives. Mutual angles were identified and traced toward the still-unfound source. Honesty: My truth one of want, hers one of need. Outside that strange barn, we danced in the lighting, sang against the din of rain on a tin roof, and made love in the dirt while horses watched us.

Moments and experiences immediately washed down the river of time. Now empty pockets of desire pulse yet again with felt prompts demanding acknowledgment. A hunger for that essential nutrient most contested. Beauty. Something necessary and vital. The higher calling of a man forgotten and replaced with anesthetic interests. Numbing the discomfort which is the only hope for action. Feel it fully. Embrace the anxiety and the doubt and the shame. Welcome it at the table and gaze fully into it’s toothed maw. What do you have to teach me? How can I dance with you?

“All human knowledge is worthless in the creation of art”

• Agnes Martin

Lack of intellectual clarity is the most fertile ground for the seeding of an artful existence. Forget what you think you know and throw yourself mercilessly again and again into the feeling of groundless growth. Disobey your fear and allow yourself to be taken by the rushing flow of human experience or stay stuck on the middle-river rock and long eternally for the icy freshness of that rushing water.