Listening to Antony (My Birthday)

Today’s my birthday. I’m 37. Antony’s brand new one is on its first loop of many through my ears. Shhh. I’m listening.

It’s been kinda one of those days. Even though it’s my birthday. Because it’s my birthday? I’m getting ready to go lie down on the couch. Maybe I’ll figure that one out.

If I had to speculate already though. I’d say. It might have something to do with the fact that two dogs have recently made me want to burst out into tears. The first one looked like Camilla. My parents’ last (and aborted) project. I mean she’s still alive. And I hope well somewhere. But the project got abandoned. The other one worked by ricochet. Just a dog. With its head on the ground. Making all that effort to look up at the world walking by him. You know. The way they have their heads down on the ground. And their eyeballs. Rolling up. All that effort. To see things going by.

Then there was the series. Haha. It’s funny. Because in French. Your sets on a muscle machine are a series. So I was in the middle of a series. Triceps. If I’m not mistaken. And there was an article in the paper. About a movie. Called “About War.” And apparently the last half of the movie. Could be resumed in two sentences. By Hélène Cixous. “When I lose my father, I also lose his child. The child I was for him, the one I am for me.” I had to make a big effort to be able to finish the series. Maybe I should have just let it break me down. But I made the effort to hold it together. At a moment when. One could understand. And I could, too. That things might fall apart a bit.

There’s also B. And T. T’s idea. To invite him over for traditional Saturday market roasted chicken lunch. Which was super nice. Then the three of us went to see a little show Tillmans has up here in Paris. B bought me the catalogue for the recent Hamburger Banhof show in Berlin. For my birthday. “Lighter.” It’s called. (Writing that up now, I read that as an injunction. “Make it lighter.”) It’s the one that is full of pictures of his pictures up on the wall at different exhibits. It’s beautiful. It has the smeared-up “photocopy (Barnaby)” on the front hardcover. And the back hardcover is more smeared-up photocopy. Of one of the pictures of an exhibition. I have some major thinking to do about constellations. Because I have to write about these things. For serious real. And. Because the B T W constellation. (By The Way???) After such a lovely Saturday. Entered into static on Sunday. When I had to work translating. Heavy buzzing. B’s still coming over for dinner with M tonight though. I’ll be in good company. And that’s already a lot. “I need another world…”

waiting for antony (part deux)

ooh it just gets better and better

"...The sensation of my body changed, and I finally understood what it was to feel like a mountain. There was no more space or time. The voice of the first awakener resounded unceasingly: "Never pretend anything that is not certain. There is no substantial ego, no object that is not impermanent. Perceptions, feelings, and visions are processes empty of real substance. Life is suffering. Birth, illness, old age, and death are suffering. To be separated from those we love is suffering. To be forced to be with those we do not love is suffering. To be unable to satisfy our desires is suffering."

Yet Ejo's kesa seemed to be saying to me: "Do not dwell at the surface of things. Beyond the Buddha's words, in the deepest depths, in the highest heights, lives an exalted passion. Listen to cosmic consciousness, the phoenix surging forth from the mind in flames, for it is telling you: Life is pure happiness. Birth, illness, old age, and death are four gifts as marvelous as the cycle of the four seasons. You can never be separated from those you love, for they live in you forever. You cannot be forced to be with those you do not love, for you have let go of aversion. Your light, like that of the sun, is for everyone, and you love even those who appear odious. To be unable to satisfy your desires is not suffering-the important thing is the prodigious gift of desire itself, satisfied or not, which gives you your sense of being alive.

"Go beyond this litany of The cause of suffering is attachment to desires and things, because when attachment to desires and things is free from all possessiveness, it is sublime goodness. All that appears to be impermanent is engraved in the memory of God. Every second is eternity.

"Go beyond the litany of Put an end to all attachments and end all suffering. No-we cannot end these attachments. If all is one, then how can one detach itself from itself? Attachment through love is the way of realization. Eternal being is attached to you with an infinite tenderness.

"Go beyond even the litany of the Buddha's Eightfold Path of ending suffering by right seeing, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right attention, and right concentration. Free yourself from all conceptual chains; trust in the wisdom of Creation. You are not merely a part of Creation, you are Creation. To live in full happiness, walk in the infinite, pathless land. Let your eyes see what they invite you to see; do not put blinders on them. Let your thought wander in all dimensions, let your every word be rooted in your heart, act like a beloved child of beloved parents, see a thousand lives in one life. Make no effort; instead, allow things to happen through you, for every natural act is a gift. Right attention and right concentration are the offspring of a passionate love. Think, feel, desire, and live with pleasure. A cat makes no effort to concentrate when it sees a mouse."

Transmitting the Shrouds of the Dead, Alejandro Jodorowsky