Posts Tagged ‘Spirituality’
Trigger93
I know it's been ages since I've posted here, but it's only because I've been putting my writing and editing energies to good use by starting an edgy, magickal, artistic, and somewhat-academic zine called Trigger93. 
Our first print issue came out in late December of 2010 and is available for purchase at www.trigger93.com. The Trigger team has also put together the first of many mini issues called Trigger93 Interludes, and Interludes 1 is available for free download on the website as well (donations appreciated!). Our articles touch on a variety of topics, from activism to art and beyond, generally with a nod to all things spiritual, alchemical or uncanny. Hope you'll check it out and spread the word!
xoxo,
Ayesha
Entering the Temporary Art Zone with Hakim Bey
by Ayesha Adamo
“The art, such as it is, comes into existence only in the moment of its own disappearance; afterwards it will be invisible—except to the spirits” – Peter Lamborn Wilson
• • •
On May 15th 2010, Peter Lamborn Wilson, known to many as Hakim Bey, completed another happening in a series of events aimed at re-enchanting the landscape of forgotten or not-yet-revealed sacred places in upstate New York. These acts of “Endarkenment,” a term Peter uses to mean “fear & respect as well as love for Nature,” are the culmination of his last ten years of research in Ulster County and the surrounding areas. He’s putting the magick he dug up back into the land.
Peter has called this a “temporary landscape installation piece.” It is art that disappears and defies a fetishized place on the 
gallery wall. While it bears a resemblance to landscape art, it is more than that, for its goal is to enact the magick of enchantment on the land where each work is performed. The documentation of each of these works includes a hand-written essay, and this May 15th working also featured a large storyboard with pictures and photographs significant to the occasion.
After Peter’s short talk about his research leading up to this event, a few helpers went ahead to make preparations, followed by Peter and his large box labeled “Jukes.” Slowly, the rest of us followed in single file along the narrow towpath where mules used to tread, hauling boats, when the Delaware and Hudson Canal was operational.
In my understanding of it, there were three main groups called forth for reawakening in this work:
one group that has already disappeared, one that is disappearing, and one that now returns.
The group that has already disappeared is known as the Jukes, or at least that’s the name that flawed social scientists gave to this now infamous community of families when they were the target of eugenics studies in the 1800’s. The flaws in these studies have since been recognized, but what still remains fascinating about the Jukes is the reason that they were targeted for such studies to begin with: they were what Peter calls, “a drop-out society,” not unlike the modern day Ramapough Mountain Indians from New Jersey, who were the subject of the recent New Yorker article “Strangers on the Mountain.” But the Ramapough Mountain Indians, 
or “Jackson Whites,” as they have been called, have kept their society, even with the skyscrapers of New York threatening on the horizon. They have also kept their mountain - even with the enduring effects of the toxic waste that the old Ford factory dumped on it decades before. The Jukes have not been so lucky – if you can call it luck. While descendants of the Jukes surely still exist, their isolated drop-out community has vanished, and they seem a distant legend in the Ulster County of 2010. All that remains of the Jukes today can be found in a poorhouse graveyard in New Paltz that was re-discovered in 2001, and in the records kept by the poorhouse and those in the archives of the SUNY Albany library. The once vibrant living community of Jukes has now vanished.
The second group, the group that is in the process of vanishing, is the bat community. All along the East Coast and into the Midwest, bats have been found dead in the hundreds of thousands. 
The bats are dying of “white-nose syndrome,” so named for the white fungus, Geomyces destructans, that can be seen on the muzzles of infected bats. It is still uncertain whether the fungus is the disease or whether it is able to take hold of an immune system already weakened by some other disease, though it seems that the fungus itself is the culprit. Bats are a major predator to insects, not just the insects that interfere with us on a hot summer day, but also those that interfere with the growth of crops. The threat of imbalance in the ecosystem, as well as the possibility of extinction for many species of bats, is a serious concern for us all as we watch this community of animals suddenly disappear. 
The last group, the one that returns, is the cement itself, which was to be the bonding agent of all that went into this day’s working of Endarkenment. Standing on the aqueduct bridge abutment designed by Roebling in 1850 and overlooking the Rondout Creek, it seemed only fitting that the cement used for this occasion should be Rosendale Natural Cement, which was the business that founded the nearby town of Rosendale during the construction of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The cement was first discovered in Rosendale during the excavation of the canal bed for the D & H Canal in 1825, and would later be used as one of the materials in the building of the canal itself. Rosendale Natural Cement was also used in the construction of Roebling’s aqueduct bridge, the remaining abutment on which we then stood, and in his later and more famous project, the Brooklyn Bridge. Despite the popularity of Rosendale Cement in the nineteenth century, the introduction of faster-setting Portland Cement meant the end of natural cement production in the twentieth century. By 1970, the last of the cement mines in Rosendale were closed. Natural cement was no longer available.
But in 2004, natural cement made a surprising return when Edison Coatings, Inc decided to resurrect production of Rosendale Natural Cement. The main reason behind this comeback was the need to restore buildings and monuments that were originally constructed using natural cement, 
though it turns out that Rosendale Natural Cement is actually “greener” than modern Portland Cement. Due to its much lower firing temperatures and the ease of grinding, natural cement requires less energy to produce.
As we gathered around Peter to watch this artwork in its vanishing, an artwork that is being done for those who vanish, the scent of copal mixed with other incenses - those he had burning on the rock before us, and those of the forest itself.
The artwork happened simply. There was little ceremony, perhaps to the confusion of some in attendance who had hoped for a chant or a reading. Peter presented items, one by one, and placed them into a hole in the ground that would be filled with cement. Among these were crystals, a fancy bat skeleton from Carolina Biological, the remains of the incense itself…it made me wonder: must things be buried that they may return? Do we re-enchant our environment when we return to the point zero?
For Peter’s magickal purposes in this act of art, I believe it was significant that the natural cement local to this area, the one element in the work that had gone from a state of disappearance into new life, should be the bonding agent for all the others. As the creation of this temporary installation piece was executed, we watched closely as items disappeared into the hole, as their physical passage from the box labeled “Jukes” into the hole before us disappeared into memory. All of this was then sealed by cement and rocks found around the site the day before. While the process of art may have vanished, the evidence of the act endures. Like the Brooklyn Bridge, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and Grand Central Terminal, this momentary work was made using Rosendale Natural Cement. Its purpose is beyond that of a monument, but the place of Endarkenment was built to last just the same, even if it was now only visible to the spirits, as Peter says.
After we traveled back along the narrow towpath and out of the woods, a little boy who was playing pointed up to the sky, and we all saw it: a small rainbow showing itself faintly through the trees, though it hadn’t rained at all. The enchantment was complete, and the signs of this were not only visible to the spirits, but also to us.
*** Peter's statements that have been quoted here are from the press release of a previous related event. You can read his writing on that event here:
http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/first_vanishing_art/
7VPZM2AUKGJM
Our Deepest Fear
by Ayesha
Recently, someone very close to Loss of Eden asked me to add a familiar text to the blog - one that he feels speaks directly to his current situation, and to a pattern of envy that he has seen time and again. The passage was given to him by a friend years ago in a similar time of struggle; you've probably heard it before:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
This is perhaps the best known passage of Marianne Williamson's writing. It comes from her book, A Return to Love, and has been quoted recently in two feature films, Coach Carter and Akeelah and the Bee, and also in the inaugural speech given by Nelson Mandela in 1994. While my spiritual work doesn't generally lead me to hang with the Williamson/Deepak set, it's hard to deny that this passage has an appeal that continues to speak to us all of the fear of owning exactly who we are - even the very best parts of who we are. And when we think of a thing like envy, and I don't mean envy of physical possessions, but the envy of who a person is, aren't we really talking about a fear that our own unique light is somehow not what the world truly wants from us, a fear of what might happen if that unique shine were discovered, if we let that light be seen? To hide one's own light that another might feel brighter is simply to keep everyone in the dark. Let each to his or her own way that the path may be illuminated for all that seek to shine.
Lisa (Letizia) Zindell
by: Ayesha Adamo
This blog is designed to represent not only the music, but also the personal thoughts, insights, and interests of the members of Loss of Eden. As such, it seems only appropriate to dedicate my first written entry to someone very important to me in my continued development as an artist and as a person.
Lisa Zindell. Letizia Ann Marie Zindell. Lisa. The prom queen, the cheerleading captain, the salutatorian, the dance teacher...the DYFS worker, the girl with a Masters Degree in Criminal Justice, the Masters student in Social Work...the daughter, the girlfriend, the fiance, the ex-fiance...
The Friend.
In the summer before fourth grade, Lisa Zindell was my best friend. We spent nearly every day together - walking to the only corner deli in our tiny seashore town to get sodas and candies, playing imaginative games of dress up or pretending to be gypsies in the woods behind my house, going to late afternoon barbeques or learning to dive and do backflips into the in-ground pool at her house....On those long summer walks in our childhood, it seemed like we could talk about anything. It was one of the first times in my life that I felt I had a true friend.
And then there came a day when she stopped calling. She didn't come over anymore, and I was no longer invited to her house either. I never knew why. We never spoke about it, but I watched her as she became...the popular girl. I was still invited to her birthday party the next year. She traced my creative drawings to put on the invites because sometimes that's what love is.
There were times when she seemed like the Jacob to my Esau; she was the girl you always wished you were - beautiful, smart, popular, sought-after...included. Before I went away to school in tenth grade, we shared classes and cheerleading practices, but still there was a distance between us, seemingly insurmountable - a distance necessitated by her position up there in the brilliance of who she was, just a few steps ahead of me on the great ladder - a brilliance that I knew the shape of from being on the outside of it, from not being able to climb up quite as high. The last time I saw her was on the day she graduated high school and I came to watch. She was on top of it all.
On August 13, 2009, Lisa was choked and killed by her former fiance, who then killed himself.
For his repeated violations of the restraining order she had filed against him, Lisa's killer was released on bail for a mere $1500. In this world that attaches a monetary value to absolutely everything, even the worth of a human being, wasn't the life of a woman who dedicated her time and efforts to the protection of children and women facing dangers not unlike her own worth more than that?
To read the words of all the people whose lives she touched, whether in her work with DYFS or in teaching dance classes, as a close friend, or just as someone who lit up the high school hallways with her smile, is to know that the girl that I once played dress up with had grown into someone very special. To lose her as a friend when we were young was one of my first heartbreaks, but the deeper heartbreak still, the very adult heartbreak, is that I never got to know the great woman she was becoming. I would have loved to have known her.
When I walk back into those woods where we played as children, there is a tiny stream back there that's almost disappeared by now and trees we used to climb in. The trees have grown too tall for climbing now, but I can nearly hear the laughter of the children that we were...somewhere...very high up in the brilliance, where the angels were ascending and descending.
Lisa (Letizia) Zindell and Ayesha Adamo: Rockstars
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