on the mystery of faces

There are faces that are beautiful abysses.

Science thinks it has things figured out. That the effect of a human face has its cause in strictly biological -- reproductive -- function. Duck feathers and nonsense!

A friend has described me as (accused me of being?) "romantic and hallucinatory." That sounds about right.

So for me, the mystery of a face is an infinite symbolism, a true magic, and a suggestion of the impossible-possible.

The mystery of a face is like the texture, color, and ghostly presence of an untouchable and geographically dubious aurora borealis -- a swirling plasma of significant energy, a hue of the uncertain, an interweaving of magnetic sympathies.

The mystery of a particular face is a reason to persist against the darkening of time.

Desiring the impossible...

...is hurtful but better than being dead. Nonexistence is even more futile and bizarre.

Asja Lācis

1891 -- 1979

I'm mentioning Lācis because...well...look at that photo above. How could I not try to write something about that face, those eyes?

Asja Lācis was an early witness to the Revolution and a believer in it. This Latvian actress, theater director, and writer combined the aesthetic with the political in Soviet Russia. She met Brecht in 1924 and collaborated with him. She had an affair with Walter Benjamin, which some say led to the assimilation of Marxist ideas into his (always somewhat ambiguous) thinking. She and Benjamin wrote an essay together -- "Naples" -- about the porosity of a city. Here's an excerpt: 

"At the base of the cliff itself, where it touches the shore, caves have been hewn... As porous as this stone is the architecture. Building and action interpenetrate in the courtyards, arcades, and stairways. In everything, they preserve the scope to become a theatre of new, unforeseen constellation. The stamp of definitive is avoided. No situation appears intended for ever, no figure asserts it 'thus and not otherwise'. This is how architecture, the most binding part of the communal rhythm, comes into being here..." 

Lācis must have been an intellectual of a rare order. Or at least someone with a rare sensibility. Was Benjamin drawn to her mostly from erotic impulse or from the seductive shape of her philosophical thinking? Or was it that he found someone whose form of sensibility was as fluid and deep as his own? 

It appears that most scholars have defused and made diffuse the explosive power of the sexual aspect of their relationship. That it was less opposites coming together in an erotic combustion than the fact they shared an attraction to the theater. I prefer that evaluation. I like to think that Lācis and Benjamin were kindred spirits. Floating on a mutual aesthetic stratum, they could confess anything to one another -- dreams, visions, neuroses, existential bafflements. 

But it seems that she was quite set in her Revolutionary thinking, so maybe she wasn't as dreamy or existentially bemused as Benjamin. Maybe it wasn't a balanced relationship. She saw the world through a definite Marxist lens, while Benjamin construed reality via more abstruse, ambivalent forms. So it's sort of delightful and charming after all to think his late-blooming Marxism was, at root, influenced and stimulated by chemical romance. Her presence -- the aura of the work of art Lācis -- sent him down a new philosophical boulevard, perhaps one that he walked half out of his love-ruffled mind.  

wanting

Pulled into a parking space at the convenience store. Got out of the car and strolled toward the entrance. As I did so, I repositioned my tan Grand Teton National Park cap (my wife brings me these as souvenirs from her yearly girl-group ramblings) with the bill tilting upward – a gesture of openness, which is to disguise my pathological introversion.

I passed a female clerk sitting out front on a bench. I'd say about 37 years old. Longish, dirty-blond hair. 18 1/2 years ago, I imagine she was quite the looker. Looked okay now to me. She was smoking. She was smoking existentially.

I gazed at her as I passed, intending to speak some uncharacteristic bon mot. You know...fulfilling social expectation. No, that's not quite right. This particular occasion, I really felt drawn to her. Maybe it was the way she dragged like Sartre's mistress on that cigarette. It wasn't to kill time or to find pleasure. It was to ward off emotional demons...like a smoke bomb against mosquitoes.

She glanced up at me in a flash. Then down again. Well...I'm REAL good at hallucinating stuff, so I probably misread that space between glancing up and down. But I'm pretty sure I caught the look of a sigh in her eyes. That she kind of liked what she saw strolling past, but she was just too damn metaphysically wore out to even think about it.

Went inside. Made my purchase. Went back outside. Still sitting there, and this time I didn't feel quite right looking at her or trying to pry a conventional, even nonverbal response. Just strolled past her. Either owing to the results of peripheral vision or telepathic ingestion, I picked up a stronger vibe of yearning. Pretty sure she didn't even look up at all. But I read her heart in that moment as I walked past.

Got in my car. Fired up my own damn cigarette. Backed out of the space and then swung past her as I made my exit. She was staring full-on at me as I drove past.

A glimmer of sadness was in those eyes. I wasn't hallucinating. She wanted someone.

She WANTED.

fields

The Oxford American College Dictionary has this to say about the word "field," in its physics usage: the region in which a certain condition prevails, esp. one in which a force or influence is effective regardless of the presence or absence of a material medium; the force exerted or potentially exerted in such a medium.

Among current philosophical theories of consciousness, an odd one has been offered. It hopes to resolve the "hard problem" (how to account for experiences of qualia, given a material brain substrate) by envisioning our sense of self as something partly external. The strong sense of an "I" is a kind of illusion. According to this line, the "I" is actually one half of a binary "self." Thus, consciousness sort of hangs out there beyond our bodies and is composed equally of the brain's emanations and the world's field. Invisible strings of diffuse meat and spatial event are woven together to construct the web of self-consciousness.

This scenario reminds me, counterintuitively, of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Of his ideas about alterity – radical Otherness. Although I think he would have agreed that the external field of experience is a strong shaping force, he would ascribe to it no actual intermeshing toward the realization of an "I." For him, I believe, the "I" is distinct. What is "out there" is something else. But it also presses on our selves with a tremendous moral weight. Otherness is infinite. Its claim on us is inexhaustible. (A simplistic extrusion on my part: selfishness is a violation of reality). Levinas thought that the truest implication of Otherness is its requirement for a God to contain and be expressive of the radical magnitude.

All of the above is prologue to my own stab at a bit of (suspect) philosophizing. That theory above about consciousness being a complex is attractive to me. Yet I also think Levinas makes some sense, with his conception of being as points of discrete obligation to what lies outside. Seems like we're in a paradox. Maybe from a higher crow's-eye view, the tension of the paradox is relaxed somewhat: perhaps there's an answer, but it's not really available on this plane of existence.

What I've in mind seems related to the idea above that selfhood inheres, ultimately, as a complex, not in some radical Cartesian I-am-ness. But instead of a strict binary "I," I'd call that complex a milieu. Then, I'd push into that word a little deeper and re-characterize it as "fields." A personal note: all my life, I've been forced to live inside alien fields, the overpowering fields of others; those force-fields make a claim on me that I wish, for the most part, I could avoid; I want others (or another) to spend some time inside my own field – the world I've built up from my idiosyncratic point of view, the frequency on which my soul buzzes.

All right. Now to gather up all the above and try to cram it into a point. This post is labeled "Eros," not philosophy, so I wish my point -- my reason for writing this thing -- to be about love relations. Fields of love.

"The region in which a certain condition prevails." Rumor has it that there are soul mates out there for us. Broadly considering that, I would say people are divided into two pools: those of action and those of introspection. Who knows what causes a person to become one or the other? Maybe the shadow of something mystical dapples this question, something from the foundations of the world.

Do opposites attract? Of course they do. But they can't be soul mates. They aren't made of the same "stuff," and they don't resonate or vibrate inside the same field. It is one of life's tragedies when a person must keep their field switched off. It is one of life's blessings when two similar fields collide, brush past or tenuously intermingle with one another, exchanging subtle particles of sensibility.

on desire

You might have, as a pensive child long ago, looked for your lover. You thought you found her many times in the charming faces of all those girls. Even before enzymes and secretions gave you biological permission, you would languish in erotic dreams, awake or asleep. Tirelessly, you sought that princess from whom the Mystery saw fit to separate you. No, she wasn't any of those giddy girls, pretty as they were. Even as a pensive child long ago, you discerned her out there somewhere else, beyond the frosty chill of a Dixie morning. Maybe even beyond the time of your living.

That night parking in the backwoods and fumbling toward carnal release, you had forgotten your mystic lover. Those hot strikes of lightning as you sweated with another ran through you and melted you, blending you into the mundane earth. Years fly, and carnality wanes. Until you are drunk that night, puking and alone, leaning miserably against someone's back tire. Inside, the others are dancing and laughing. A darling appears, like a sad angel, to join you on the reeking ground. She doesn't know you, but she puts an arm around you. Is she, at long last, that lover you'd nearly forgotten? If not, you do now have a friend, a sister of mercy, to walk you farther into life and into calmer being.

In middle-age, you will get occasional hints, strange intuitions. You try to shrug them off, and if you can't, you push them into your songs. Or you follow them into the words of a poem or other piece written to quell your subtle, eccentric fever. One day, something happens. You catch an improbable glimpse of a face. And it takes you some time to recognize it. When you do, your breath leaves you; your pulse quickens; you feel a warm flush moving from your head into your arms and down into your legs. It is her! How can you be certain? Life is full of illusions, and you've spent most of your life moving in and out of dreams. Then you read her words and fall into a delirium of holy desire. That she is beautiful is only a clue. A body holds, besides the carnal graces, a secret code within the lines. Which can only be read through the newly opened eyes of a pensive child.

But there is a tension, a paradox in Being, on this side of living. Yes, you're persuaded she is real. That it is her. And that she approached this close because it had to be. But the mystic hint of her so long ago – the intuition pointing beyond the frosty mist of an October morning -- has no power in matter. As spirits congeal into atoms, ancient remembrance flows out, and the opium of forgetfulness flows in. She will live according to what human time brings, according to the meanings that appear and give weight to experience. Before the congealing, you must have been near to her when souls were sliced from the Emanation. Knowing that, or at least wanting it to be true, shall have to be enough. You will smile fondly at your old friend, even as you both move on further into the long sigh. Wish her more happiness than you could even desire for yourself.

fragment

from a disintegrating manuscript unearthed in a reliquary beneath another dimension:


Things have been strange. Thoughts have become untethered in time. Feelings slipping loose into space. Is this a form of insanity? Why can't communion happen without an amorous light blistering the bloom?

Things have been strange. Thoughts are nonsense. Feelings swallow the mind.


; )

a personal note

Tikuli Dogra's essay on human rights for gays and lesbians has inspired a long moment of reflection for me this morning. I think back over my life and how my attitude has shifted. Well..."shifted" is not quite right. It's more like when I first began to even have an attitude.

As I grew up in southern Arkansas, homosexuality was such a prohibited topic that I don't think I was aware there was such a thing until late junior high or early high school. And for years afterward, I never really formed a strong opinion one way or the other. Not until about 15 years ago.

I had just begun my obsession with classical music. And when I say "obsessed," I mean I was one gone cat. At the same time, I was just discovering the writings of Thomas Mann. It didn't take me long to realize that Tchaikovsky's gloriously beautiful and sometimes-tragic music was a gift from the heart of Being itself. And Mann! While reading The Magic Mountain, I fell into an aesthetic trance that has lost none of its mesmerism. In this story, Mann had to channel his "forbidden" passion into a heterosexual depiction: Hans Castorp's infatuation with the gnomic Clavdia Chauchat. There is a universal human need for companionship and for expressing the heat of Eros. Too bad that ignorance and meanness sometimes force one into self-censorship.

Along with experiencing the works, I read about the composer and the writer. About their lives of anguish. It was then, I'm pretty sure, that I actually committed to an opinion, an attitude about homosexuality. These were human beings, regardless of their wondrous contributions to music and literature. I began to sympathize with them, and I owed them a simple human understanding.

So...I finally came to less a decision than an awakening. I heartily recommend the new state of consciousness.

a fairy tale

Once upon a time, there lived an old man in a strange land. Strange because he had never felt at home there. And something else peculiar about him: he had always suspected that some dark wizard had cursed him at birth...and the curse was this: he would grow old like all other human beings, but his heart would remain young and passionate. The old man knew this had to be true, because he felt things that only a young person should feel. The curse would torment him, because it made him young inside an old body. And an old man feeling certain things...well, that just won't do.

And one thing he felt strongly. He knew deep inside that there existed, somewhere on the far side of dreams, another land. And in this land, a beautiful princess lived. He could picture her so vividly and forcefully. So strongly, in fact, that sleep could find no purchase. It reached a point that the waking world took on a quality of dreaminess. He became lost in this bizarre world of waking dreams...and on the surface of those dreams, the face of that princess swirled.

He decided to make a butterfly in his mind and send it to her across his dreams. (See...by this time, our old man was pretty far gone.) He thought that creature could fly on the wind of his dream. All he wanted was for his “butterfly” to gently brush against her heart. He simply wanted a measure of communion before his time ran out. So...it flew, colorfully, out of his young heart and disappeared into the blue.

Time went by. He was in his garden, and a large, beautiful black butterfly alighted on a flagstone. Its back was bejeweled with delicate blue markings. It stayed on the stone for quite some time, then began dancing around in delirious circles...then it lifted off the ground and began swirling about in the air before him.

And he knew. He knew that his princess had magically sent this creature. In defiance of time and space. Just pow, there it was! A fairy spell. And as it swirled and waltzed, it seemed to be etching out feelings on the air. And the old man could read this “language” of the butterfly. And this is what it said:

“Yes, I know you. And to be finally known by someone is the gift I give you. But we live in two worlds, and in my own world, I have found my prince. I have sent this creature to dance for you my dance of sadness. Sad because you are cursed to feel too deeply and too dreamily...unbecoming for an old man. But this butterfly I send to bring you peace. You will always remember its dance, and your own sadness will be turned into bittersweetness. Goodbye.........”

And the black butterfly with delicate blue markings flew away on the warm breeze.

The old man sighed, then smiled. And the young heart beating in his old body was glad. She was really real. And she knew him. And that is more than even he thought might possibly come true.

The end.

to a lunatic

You are half a world away from me tonight. And half a world away in years. How can I communicate with you? Through an electronic satellite? No...that only gets part of the message through.

Another satellite orbits.

I shall transmit to the moon, and it will receive what I feel. The moon cares not for space and time. It is a moving, dreaming sponge...soaking up wishes and unspoken words. It doesn't care that I am old and that you are young. It doesn't care about the languages of Earth.

Tonight, the moon will take my thoughts and translate them. Then transmit them to you. Purely, transparently...on the wind of gravity.

And you will know my heart.

smitten

I guess that's a good word for it. Though I think "smacked" is probably better. You see someone's image -- all it takes is one second -- and whap. Love slaps you in the face. Your head goes spinning like Linda Blair's. Your emotional breath is knocked out of you.

Thinking becomes farcical. Pining becomes paramount. You have become a dream.


Yes, all it takes is one second. And the world has changed forever.

insomnia

I awoke at 3:30 AM again, making five nights in a row. The walls are starting to whisper accusingly, and my cat is looking at me funny.

love is in the air...like mustard gas

[This was written about three months ago]


Season of rebirth and desire's agony. It's here, in spirit. Roots stir, beginning their new plunge into dark dampness. Soon, the sexual gear inside blooms will pulsate enticingly with the nomadic pulse-dreams of pollen. Life's timepiece is being rewound. A new cycle of steaming chemicals and tumescent thrusts into the bright air.

For the human male, this season is not that much different from others, romantically speaking. We're ready to fall at the drop of a shapely hat. Romantic love is not what it's cracked up to be. Sure, the brain buzzes pleasurably like a mass of mesmerized bees serenading a forsythia bush. But all that sound and fury also signifies a darker aspect: helplessness. And lacerations, some of which are slow in scabbing over, if ever.

Life is a mystery. Spring is her druidic handmaiden. The parade of royal nonsense moves through forest and village. The fauna applaud in a racket of howls, whistles, grunts, and love songs; the flora break out their sycophantic, colorful banners, which flap and wave in the new breeze like dizzy jesters.

Nature is also helpless. It is being pushed once again into the ancient process of time and matter. Things come together in countless complex arrangements, echoing the nascent forms of life -- clay crystals self-organizing into platforms for cells and enzymes. Things are coming together in a choreography of love and heat. Sentience catalyzing into new hopes. Lips seeking lips.

5 AM

Restless. Woke up at 3:30. Streamed a couple of The Office episodes. I love Andy.

Dawn light. I drive to the convenience store for smokes. With windows open half-way. Cool air flows in, caressing my face and arms. Nice.

The young lady behind the counter looks at me pleasantly and announces:

“I have a friend who has purple eyes.”

“Hmm...,” I manage. But feel that more is called for. So:

“You know, I've seen pictures of women with gray eyes. Is that real? Have you ever seen anyone with gray eyes?”

“Oh, yes,” she says, “mine turn gray depending on my mood.”

While quickly pondering this, for me, new fact – that mood can affect eye color – I reply:

“Yours are a real light green, aren't they?”

“Yes...just like my father's, and his used to turn gray sometimes, too.”

I pay her and leave.

Was she channeling some impromptu Daoist spirit? A voice...an unseen oracle who knew I needed to hear a koan this morning? Something spontaneous and strange, like purple eyes?

I guess I'll be OK.