Catharsis is an asymmetrical existential balancing
act. It appears to be intimately linked with the act of art. Are catharsis and
art inseparable?
“Catharsis” is an ancient Greek word. Like “parthenogenesis” *, which means virgin creation (parthenos = virgin, genesis = creation), a form of asexual reproduction, a lone birth. Catharsis means “purification” or “cleansing”. I’ve always associated the word with the act of emotional release in art. An artist’s emotional experience finding expression in a performance, for example, or the emotional release of an audience moved to laughter, anger, or tears. I wonder, is to practice (any) art, to swim in the unpredictable ocean of emotions? Or is art a way to tame feelings altogether? But can an ocean really be tamed?
Evolutionary art in the human body.
Can muscles move however they want, in theory? Or are they inherently encompassed by the shape they take? Can they conceptually move anyhow, or are they constricted by form? What has lead to specific anatomical formations to begin with? And where can they go from here?
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| Asymmetrical Balancing Act Malabarismo Asimétrico Asymmetrischer Balanceakt |
How many human and other organic experiences are
embedded within an individual body? How many lives lived by countless
ancestors? How many countless experiences lived by an individual body alive
today? We carry the lessons of our forebears in our
bodies. Of course, we also carry our own. We are already all fathers, mothers and kin,
gods and goddesses who exist in solidarity with the divine (a perpetually
present beyond). Who exist within the limitations and possibilities given to a
terrestrial species enwombed in a planet whose condition is a delicate cosmic
balancing act of light, movement, darkness, and matter.
"Ancestral Mathematics
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 second great-grandparents
32 third great-grandparents
64 fourth great-grandparents
128 fifth great-grandparents
256 sixth great-grandparents
512 seventh great-grandparents
1,024 eigth great-grandparents
2,048 ninth great-grandparents
For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total of 4, 094 ancestors over the last 400 years.
Think for a moment - How many struggles? How many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many stories? How many expressions of hope for the future? - did your ancestors have to undergo for you to exist in this present moment..."
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| Misses and Mister Goenka meditating. |
Techniques abound. Vipassana meditation, as the Gautama Buddha himself is said to have practiced it, is only one technique, albeit a very effective one.
Master Thich Nhat Hanh revealed that meditation is possible in every moment, no matter how fleeting and benign. Because mediation is merely the ability to be consciously and completely present in the moment. In a world full of distractions (within and without), being completely present in a given moment is easier said than done. Being present involves the practice of becoming an ever more detached observer of life's flow without losing touch with it.
Besides life, we all share the phenomenon of death, which precedes and follows us as well. How many ancestors have died? All that
lived. And they were released (temporarily) from the bonds of becoming (organic), except for the ties left
in the progeny of the species, or variations thereof. Individual, idiosyncratic
will does affect the collective. But to what extent can it be transformative of
an entire species? What constitutes the will of a species? In the vast existential ocean of inter-being, who moves the tides of
becoming?
Alone or not alone? To bear or not to bear? Who knows?
Do you?
*Parthenogenesis
Human creature,
Give birth to yourself!
And breastfeed yourself!
Whose arms will catch you,
when you fall into the world,
who knows?
Whose hands will touch you,
when you slither onto X scene,
who knows?
