Becoming Pagan
I just translated a tale of wolves and humans, of men and women, of nature and spirituality. In it, characters all too often "find themselves" on the road. Driven by instinct, one starts doing things before knowing it. Some claim it's the subconscious or the social performance. I don't think anyone else can know what it is, it's just stuff that happens.
I happen now to find myself as a pagan, celebrating solstice and Walpurgis, trying to keep my body in touch with a cycle that should never end. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in Europe I am at last in touch with a cycle that actually makes time visible, in which nature interacts with time. You don't get much seasons in a city which is damp and cloudy all year, but in which it never rains. On the other hand, you do. I did write something about that:
La calurosa navidad debería en verdad ser una gran celebración, una bacanal que glorifique el término del ciclo junto con la aparición de las mangas y faldas cortas, las blusas blancas que transparentan los sostenes de las colegialas y los helados que succionan mientras suben en grupo a los microbuses. Me invade la sensación de un estado de erotismo universal, de que, quizá, cualquier persona que me encuentre en las calles podría venir a revolcarse entre mis sábanas sin la ropa que tanto sobra en esta estación. Definitivamente una celebración de la vida que vale un par de feriados y la renovación de varias tradiciones.
Probablemente, la valoración de lo bajo que describe Bajtin también tiene que ver con el flujo de fluidos y secreciones, sean digestivas, transpirantes o libidinosas. En cualquier caso, todo movimiento de fluidos es una disolución de los límites del cuerpo, una negación de la unidad y completitud del ser humano, que así también se afirma parte del mundo y su flujo, solo una breve articulación en el ciclo del agua que entra y sale de nosotros, que tantos rostros hemos tenido.
A cycle of seasons that drive me, there it was, only waiting for me to accept it. However, it's probably easier to accept it if it is written in the traditions, instead of alienated by Christmas and Jesus and Whatnot. In Lima, matching the traditions to the seasons is still a task and a process, and the subtle but contrary flow of the seasons clearly deauthorizes the colonial imposition of catholicism, and thus of tradition and cycles in general.
In Europe, Walpurgis lies close at hand. It has symbols and narratives which ride on the strength of nature and not against it. In the end, however, isn't it a subject who rides those symbols?
I accepted the cycle, too, to work with my body, to put it into a longer process I call Ishtar and to achieve pleasure and enlightenment through it. Bodies are still a part of nature, and even mine, in its exceptions, responds to it. Of course, each body responds to nature differently - but they all do, somehow, respond. Of course, the yearly cycle is only a greater unit of the lunar cycle and the daily cycle, but also, most importantly, a small reflection of the life cycle. I have put my body on a telic road to achieve transcendence and have lain it on the yearly cycle to wish for its endurance. But very soon its life cycle will have crossed its peak and the body will follow its natural road of decay. It is a time of the year, it is a time of the life, that's the time it is.
Is it though? Of course, that's relative to the material conditions of my body, and it will never exist outside of them. It is also a subjective interpretation, but it is always matter that we interpret. Aristotle's matter and shape. Working with the body means working with what there is and with how others see it. Working with the body means to be conscious of other people's interpretations in order to defy them. Working with the body means to transcend my own perception of myself and thus enhance my spirit.
But the spirit is still beyond the body and does not bend to it. The spirit does not bend to time or to any master. The spirit works in many other directions and is, again, the only one who can give the body any meaning at all. Thus, above the cycling bodily level must remain a linear spiritual level. Above the waters, be them muddy, clear or troubled, the lotus always grows unsullied.
Have greater means, transcendent means. Look ahead. Write ahead. (Do I now find myself as a Buddhist?)
I happen now to find myself as a pagan, celebrating solstice and Walpurgis, trying to keep my body in touch with a cycle that should never end. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in Europe I am at last in touch with a cycle that actually makes time visible, in which nature interacts with time. You don't get much seasons in a city which is damp and cloudy all year, but in which it never rains. On the other hand, you do. I did write something about that:
La calurosa navidad debería en verdad ser una gran celebración, una bacanal que glorifique el término del ciclo junto con la aparición de las mangas y faldas cortas, las blusas blancas que transparentan los sostenes de las colegialas y los helados que succionan mientras suben en grupo a los microbuses. Me invade la sensación de un estado de erotismo universal, de que, quizá, cualquier persona que me encuentre en las calles podría venir a revolcarse entre mis sábanas sin la ropa que tanto sobra en esta estación. Definitivamente una celebración de la vida que vale un par de feriados y la renovación de varias tradiciones.
Probablemente, la valoración de lo bajo que describe Bajtin también tiene que ver con el flujo de fluidos y secreciones, sean digestivas, transpirantes o libidinosas. En cualquier caso, todo movimiento de fluidos es una disolución de los límites del cuerpo, una negación de la unidad y completitud del ser humano, que así también se afirma parte del mundo y su flujo, solo una breve articulación en el ciclo del agua que entra y sale de nosotros, que tantos rostros hemos tenido.
G.Y. Lima, Dec. 2010
A cycle of seasons that drive me, there it was, only waiting for me to accept it. However, it's probably easier to accept it if it is written in the traditions, instead of alienated by Christmas and Jesus and Whatnot. In Lima, matching the traditions to the seasons is still a task and a process, and the subtle but contrary flow of the seasons clearly deauthorizes the colonial imposition of catholicism, and thus of tradition and cycles in general.
In Europe, Walpurgis lies close at hand. It has symbols and narratives which ride on the strength of nature and not against it. In the end, however, isn't it a subject who rides those symbols?
I accepted the cycle, too, to work with my body, to put it into a longer process I call Ishtar and to achieve pleasure and enlightenment through it. Bodies are still a part of nature, and even mine, in its exceptions, responds to it. Of course, each body responds to nature differently - but they all do, somehow, respond. Of course, the yearly cycle is only a greater unit of the lunar cycle and the daily cycle, but also, most importantly, a small reflection of the life cycle. I have put my body on a telic road to achieve transcendence and have lain it on the yearly cycle to wish for its endurance. But very soon its life cycle will have crossed its peak and the body will follow its natural road of decay. It is a time of the year, it is a time of the life, that's the time it is.
Is it though? Of course, that's relative to the material conditions of my body, and it will never exist outside of them. It is also a subjective interpretation, but it is always matter that we interpret. Aristotle's matter and shape. Working with the body means working with what there is and with how others see it. Working with the body means to be conscious of other people's interpretations in order to defy them. Working with the body means to transcend my own perception of myself and thus enhance my spirit.
But the spirit is still beyond the body and does not bend to it. The spirit does not bend to time or to any master. The spirit works in many other directions and is, again, the only one who can give the body any meaning at all. Thus, above the cycling bodily level must remain a linear spiritual level. Above the waters, be them muddy, clear or troubled, the lotus always grows unsullied.
Have greater means, transcendent means. Look ahead. Write ahead. (Do I now find myself as a Buddhist?)
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