MY BONES.
For almost two months now, I have been washing bones; it has become my daily ritual. From flesh to bare bones with remnants of fat and tissue, with a repulsive smell and yellowing water, condensation of grease coating the walls of the container—now they almost do not smell, the water is practically clear to the eye. What has this done to me? It is as if I were washing my own bones, or perhaps the bones of my skeletons in the closet—long-forgotten traumas, stories, people, feelings.
This morning I heard gunshots from a rifle; judging by the echo spreading through the area, there were approximately four. Not far from my home, there is a deer pasture. I always see them from a distance, driving past on my way home. Innocent, driven creatures, like all of us, to some degree. Perhaps this is merely the logical chain of my consciousness—gunshots, a rifle, a pasture, the culture of eating game—or perhaps this morning truly became the last for someone.
I am not trying to be a moralist, though such attempts have been made. I eat meat, which clearly points to the weakness of my character, and to concern for my health, considering that since childhood I have been prescribed to eat meat because of a blood disorder. Trying to change the world, to resist, to call others to righteousness that I myself was unable to root in my life, I suddenly realized that this changes nothing. The world is as it is. This does not mean that one should stop trying, and yet the world is a test of the soul.
By cleansing the bones, I was cleansing myself, confronting a multitude of prejudices, painful memories, and protest arising from within. And all of this is a product of consciousness—while the bone-piercing smell, from which there is no escape, the truth of decaying flesh, and what remains behind as a symbol of the eternal cycle, the antiquity of the soul, and proof of life—bones—this is the truth from which we flee in fear. In fear of not measuring up, of wasting time, of not being valued. Corporations profit from our fear, turning us into perpetual engines, luring us with illusions of a better future, of achievements and heights. I do not condemn aspirations, being a slave to them myself.
08:52 — another shot.
I wish only that people would learn to look inward, to want to see the truth of their desires and actions, before—
08:53 — a shot —
—surrendering themselves to the power of illusions.
Another part of the project, dedicated to grind, the mask, and sound—I did it motivated by an attempt to demonstrate that I, too, can. Realizing that this was pretended, that I was in opposition, I do this for my shadow—as an idle hymn to the darkness that has always pointed me toward the light, remaining its own mistress.
In various cultures, bones are a sacred element used to connect with the world of ancestors and spirits, for the transition of souls into another dimension, for the transformation of a person into a shaman who worships spirits and protects nature. Part of the ritual was often the washing of bones. To be reborn, one must first renounce everything that exists—personality, flesh—remaining as bones, which are closer to the world than we are, closer to stone, to cliffs, to the ancient foundation upon which the world was built. Only then, through the echo of howling winds and the songs of the first people carried by them, can we return to ourselves, see life with the heart, with our spirit.
Our world is a school. We come here to teach the heart to love, the spirit to be, and the mind to be silent. Only then are we capable of sensing and living far more than what is visible in this material world.
09:03 — a shot.
Life is a cycle; it is not finite. The soul becomes finite only when it exists in violence. We must learn to listen to our psyche, which notices far more than the untrained mind stuck in opinions and paradigms.
Language, religion, faith, politics, history, business, spirituality, magic, dance, science—all elements are bound by one thing: life and death, the transition into something else, unknown to us. We merely assume what it might be and believe in our illusions, in suppositions imposed on us for generations. This does not change the fact that we do not know what lies beyond the boundary of death. We only observe life, which is itself merely part of the cycle. Why fear what cannot be explained by the mind, instead of experiencing, in presence, the gifts of life and, having been filled by them, entering the transition that happens to us every day? For night is a small death, sleep a passage. One need only listen, allow it to happen, and attempt to comprehend it with the mind, while spirit and body live.
