Tag: Antonio Dias

Ritual, Part II: Bewitching, Initiating and Ritualized Languages

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325px-Tripod-of-Life_Holy-Trinity.svg

This continues from where Ritual, Part I, left off:

“The illusion that the self and the world are broken into fragments originates in the kind of thought that goes beyond its proper measure and confuses its own product with the same independent reality. To end this illusion requires insight, not only into the world as a whole, but also into how the instrument of thought is working. Such insight implies an original and creative act of perception into all aspects of life, mental and physical, both through the senses and through the mind, and this is perhaps the true meaning of meditation.”
― David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order

The Reductive Bewitchment of a Literal Language

The literal mood of language is necessary for carrying out almost any practical work. It’s dominant in following a blueprint (a legitimate authority), or in honing a craft. And it plays a subordinate role in art, teaching techniques for working in any medium.

In its “proper” context this language could be described as “positive”, “practical” or “technical.” In a utilitarian context the connection between the useful thing one describes (such as the word “hammer”) and the hammer itself is so close that almost all awareness of the meta-level functionality of words recedes (or never develops).

The witchery begins when a literal language spills over into conventional life; when it’s used to talk about ideas – about opinions, goals, and identities. Then opinion posits itself as a literal description of material reality. Fixed. Truth. Not mere opinion.Read More »

Ritual: Part 1

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Stag at Echo Rock

“His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything” (from Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko)

I enjoyed moving-up ceremonies in elementary school at the end of each school year. Every grade stood in a separate line in the gym. And then the principal commanded everyone in each grade to step forward. There was some magic in that step. It instantly made us older and wiser.

But after a few years ceremonies all began to feel like empty gestures. Stepping forward and serving Communion and so on felt too superstitious.

Then in college I read the the book Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko. It was about a Laguna Pueblo Indian man named Tayo, returning home from World War II, unable to cope, heading for ruin. Read More »

Conversation with Pat Styer About the Role of Words, August, 2009

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Beckett International Airport

I recently had the pleasure (along with my brother Brian) of meeting Tony Dias at the train station in Old Saybrook, CT. 

It was a good talk. And at first I thought we’d walked into a Beckett play.

My brother and I thought we’d arrived early. There was a sign at the intersection that seemed to proclaim the correct address, 355 Boston Post Road, but the name of the cafe was wrong. I told the bartender I was looking for the “Old Saybrook Cafe” at 355 Boston Post Road. He’d never heard of it.

So we kept waiting next to the misleading sign. I was reluctant to call Tony on my brother’s cell phone because I didn’t want to seem impatient. I have some inhibitions of that sort that I claim to find amusing.Read More »

Imagine the Limits of the Imagination (Part I)

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From Supernatural Magazine
From “Supernatural Magazine”, used without permission (please forgive)

I want to write simply, but the pathways of habit, belief and assumption that I’m trying to describe are entangled. I’m not interested in trying to dis-entangle each strand. I’ve never been able to untangle a hose let alone a mind. But there’s a difference between thinking your way out of a mental entanglement and letting the entanglement unravel of its own accord. I can’t think my way out of a wet paper bag. But it’s easy enough to fall out of one.

It’s a lazy man’s way of learning. Keep going along the usual twisted pathways, but be alert enough and precise enough in the description to at least “embarrass” the habits of thinking into “thinking twice.” This is a small part of what Jeppe means by “refiguring,” and an aspect of the plasticity that Tony refers to. And it’s a small part of what I tried to describe in the manifesto as “second sight.”Read More »

A Moment to Drift

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WhaleEye9-JeanLuc

One Last Preparatory Post

It’s been interesting to reflect on the change I’ve felt after posting that long introductory “manifesto.” I’m tremendously grateful to the people who read the thing closely. (Special thanks to Tony Dias, Jeppe Graugaard and Brian Shampnois). It feels like a great privilege to have found even one person, let alone a half-dozen, who rigorously engaged the piece. And I suspect that the ideal size of this pool of perceived readers corresponds to David Bohm’s ideal pool for dialogue – between 5 and 25. I can’t realistically picture more than that without the voice becoming vague and almost political in character (as if I were making a public speech).

I never used to think I needed anyone to read anything I wrote apart from the one person to whom I was writing. But that person’s attention has been wavering of late (it was my dog). And I know now that the quality of attention I’m able to put into this thing is dependent on the quality of attention of the reader. And this is a strange thing to realize: I can’t say certain things unless I know there’s someone there who understands what I mean.Read More »

Manifesto

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Trauma
Photo from “Truth Theory”, online magazine

In memory of Pat Styer

The Writer(s)

I’m having more trouble than usual picturing the reader. This project will lead me far from my usual comic shticks. As I leave my comfort zone, sneers and arched eyebrows appear on the imagined face of this unfamiliar reader. And it’s not helpful to focus on the few familiar faces out there. They differ so much from one another that it makes me nervous.

It reminds me of being at a party. With respect to each person I act and feel completely differently. Talking to all of them at once builds a mini-Babel. There are awkward silences interspersed with comments bordering on Tourette’s. Editing does wonders.

I’m uneasy because I don’t feel any overriding persona I can lean on like an old friend.

I’m a shifting perspective exhibiting the personality implicit in whatever angle of view happens to be momentarily dominant. (And that wasn’t a good way to introduce myself to girls at college).Read More »