Undas - food for the soul
Posted by: Fats in: What and WhyNovember 1 is All Saints Day or Todos los Santos, Undas, Araw ng mga Namayapa. The family will be at the cemetery and I will most probably just stay home and look after the house. Undas can be pretty boring, but could be quite fun – it is a bit like having a huge picnic at the cemetery. Someone joked to me a few years ago that if I don’t visit our dead on All Saints Day then the dead would visit me. I suppose that would be fun. Whenever I dream of my father, it’s always about him coming home from the grave and staying with us with me wishing he’d stay on and on and on.
I don’t really know what to reply to my ex-partner. Reading his post and trying to reply makes me feel very tired. It was nice to read about him trying to change and I earnestly hope that continues. But I don’t think I can work with him again yet. We’re like two people drowning – it will be impossible for one to save the other. I also have a very safe space here now with my family, which has always been here, so contrary to what he wrote, I am not in desperate need. What I desperately needed at that time was to get away from his suffocating space.
Although I still have a few depressive episodes, I don’t get pushed by his presence into bursts of anger anymore. I actually feel quite sad seeing the tone of writing in his website. The bit of anarchy, criticality, cynicsm and the like can be pretty entertaining, especially for young rebellious people or old cynical folks, but if your life is based on diwa then you can see how the entertainment wears out.
I was watching Super Inggo the other day. The monster trapped in the jar has escaped. The monster is a woman with super powers, but she was betrayed by her own tribe and was thus trapped in the jar for many years. So her anger and frustration with her tribe became embedded in her heart, and she uses her super powers only for vengeance and aggression. So, she is not any different from her cruel tribe.
My ex-partner seems to be like that; he blames society, authority figures, politicians, his western culture, his computer art history, etc. for his aggressive behaviour. Funny, I remember the lecture at Lopez and Ralph asked us if we see ourselves as responsible for the problems we pointed out. I said, yes, the problems are complex and I take responsibility for what we are now and let that empower me to change. My ex-partner flatly said he didn’t see himself as responsible, but sees himself more as a victim. He doesn’t realize that it is a sign of weakness - when you let those you do not like shape you.
But now, just thinking of my nephew Alwin makes me so happy, he makes me smile from within. 
It’s really different, this is true love.
There are lots of things here at home that I wanted to change before, like my sister’s caged dogs, Alwin’s mischievous behaviour , etc. When my ex-partner was here, although we shared the same desires for change, his approach was imposing, cynical and critical. Now he is not here, the changes are slowly taking place simply because of love. I realized that you don’t need to be imposing, cynical, critical or aggressive. I don’t know how to explain it but love can indeed move mountains.
My sister has given away many of her caged dogs to my aunt and to my dad’s old friend and driver where the dogs are much happier. I think my sister did this partly because of the environment created by Alwin and myself playing with Edward all the time and having so much fun. And the other day, Alwin went into my room and pulled out my oregano plant! Naku! But instead of getting upset or angry I exclaimed, “my poor oregano!” So Alwin explained that he wanted to see if it had top roots or emasculated (?) or whatever it was roots (they are studying two types of roots in school!) I didn’t get angry, I thought it was so funny. Of course I replanted my oregano, gave it some water and I told Alwin, “this doesn’t have roots yet because this is a new cutting.” He saw how I cared for the plant and felt happy. The next day Alwin was the one telling me about cuttings.
As for my ex-partner, I do have a few suggestions for him:
[1] Body: like the Irish priest’s Custody of the Eye, perhaps he could try to refrain from doing those things which he had always done out of his frustration with the world, to refrain from the practice of invalidating and imposing his valuations on others – from his friends, colleagues to the BBC. If art is therapy (as my ex-partner is so fond of), then perhaps this therapy is, like fuzzy logic, a formal solution to an internal control problem. I remember in Sierre, I would wake up at around 4AM to join the nuns in the morning prayer and then by 6AM would be at the refectory to have breakfast with Fr. Sigisbert. Fr. Sigisbert spoke only German and I am absolutely German illiterate so we were often very quiet. What I found amazing among other things was, because of the silence, how much noise I made and how silent he was. By noise I mean my eating noise, drinking noise, chewing noise, and my stomach noises (I always have a noisy stomach in Europe perhaps because of the cold), which as far as I’m concerned were quieter than the average person’s but being with Fr. Sigisbert made me sound like a howling bear!
[2] Language: perhaps my ex-partner could have a blog or other form of journal to keep track of his therapy as motivation for change. Certainly for me, a blog is like an everyday reason to write about something more introspective, more intuitive, more directed towards the validation of what is still good (with occasional rants like instant noodles and shampoos more recently). Keeping track of my progress in turn provides motivation for continuing change. But what is important is that the blog is devoted to the more introspective, more intuitive. If true love and kindness and goodness have become endangered in this world then indeed shouldn’t we be spending more time nurturing what is left of these rather than giving in to the temptation of destroying our enemies?
[3] Knowledge: if he cannot trust mainstream institutions for communications therapy then he should consider staying in a monastery. It will not be easy but if he has always contemplated it, then he should fulfill it. I stayed only a few days at the Monastere in Sierre and it is an incredible a true refuge for the mind. I believe there is one in Bukidnon where they grow coffee and pineapples. I met a photographer way back 1991 who made a book of photos from this monastery. The photographer’s name is Noli Yamsuan. I was surprised actually because he was doing coverage of Afghanistan before I met him at an event where he was providing documentation for a diamond jewelry design competition (!) and then suddenly he was doing a monastery and Cardinal Sin (he was the Cardinal’s photographer for over 30 years)! Finding that monastery shouldn’t be too hard in a catholic dominated country. I believe that monastery became rather well known many years ago when a famous fashion designer retreated there to a monk’s life.
I got an email from San Minn, artist friend from Burma. He is now in Finland – oh, if he had been there earlier I would love to see him again! The last we met, life has not been entirely good. He has a small hardware-type of business with his wife, and all businesses in Burma has been getting bad because of the sanctions – well, good only for those with enough power and influence to benefit from “investments” from India and China. But with all that, I am so happy to be keeping in touch with my friends from Burma – considering how difficult it is to keep in touch, since my first visit there in 2002, the links have stayed… we are still alive!
November 1st, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Thank you for your kind advice -and thank you for making the effort. I always take your viewpoints and advice seriously. Hopefully, you will patiently bear with me (again) and forgive me for trying to answer some of the many good points that you raised: I agree entirely when you say “If true love and kindness and goodness have become endangered in this world then indeed shouldn’t we be spending more time nurturing what is left of these rather than giving in to the temptation of destroying our enemies?”. It is in this spirit that I hope that my reply will do more good than harm.
It is delightful to read that your direct environment is changing. Good to read that your anger is decreasing too. Your analogy is very accurate -earlier we were both drowning -and in such cases, people can sometimes help each other. However, especially if they both panic, they can also make things much worse for each other and such situations should be avoided. Which is perhaps not to say that they should abandon each other completely -especially if one (or even both) of them has now been rescued, or they have managed to save themselves somehow….
Perhaps we were also both rather like Super Inggo too. So it is good to hear that she has escaped, hopefully to do better this time….. In fact, I understood quite well the danger of becoming what one fights against. This was one reason for my isolation in Holland (in the absence of a more positive environment at the time). It was the reason that I left the aki. It was also the reason that I abandoned all international ambitions and preferred to watch the plants grow -while concentrating on healing ourselves and each other by working with you on our personal archeologies. Hopefully, as your anger decreases you will understand better the positive aspects of my attempt -and see it less as an imposition and more as the invitation that it was truly intended to be. Indeed, I saw the move to the Philippines with great optimism -a chance to break with the past and concentrate on the positive. This was the happiness that you brought me. Unfortunately, the negativity and lack of sensuality in the new environment was too powerful and destructive. It seems that our own tribes did successfully lock us both in a jar -with disastrous consequences. Like you, I have no wish to go back to the past. So it is very good news to hear about the changes being effected. In the several letters that I have written to your doctor (and given permission for you to read when ready) I have also spoken of my hope that improvements in your family environment might lead to improvements in my relationship with them and with you too.
There is no need to explain the power of love -there is only the need to have faith that I am not so stupid that I can never understand such things.
The idea of (both individual and collective) retreat was indeed something I suggested earlier in a posting on your “projects” site (with regards to marginalized artists). I am not afraid of “spirituality” (or intuition) -but I am afraid that the language it uses can (sometimes) impose and obscure more than it reveals (as can the language of other things -such as politics, art history and philosophy, etc…). Certainly, I would be grateful for more information and advice on this, as a retreat is completely uncharted territory for me -and I would not like to go down false paths at a critical moment. What is so obvious for a person from one background can be completely invisible and obscure to someone from a different background -and non-dogmatic and patient guidance can be essential in such cases. Perhaps the organization of a retreat (for more than just myself) could still play a valuable practical role within your project structure.
Concerning “body” and “language” the situation is more complex: By dealing with them separately it perhaps becomes less easy to understand how my work actually focuses on the integrated use of (both formal and material) “body” to dialogue and question the intuitions so easily (and perhaps sometimes uncritically) expressed in the “language” of blogs, “new media” and western culture generally. In a sense, by reflecting “Body” in “Language”, my work applies the “Custody of the eye” to creative mental (and cultural) processes in general. Perhaps this is why many people find it so oppressive -because it does indeed imply responsibility and restraint in an age of total abandonment. However, my theories are not just mental impositions -they are also developed through intuitive practice -and are tested and developed by implementations (and observations) in various contexts (which doesn’t necessarily mean that they are universally true!). Of course they may also be flawed by personal fears and panic attacks -but perhaps this too is part of the process of externalisation and examination. Not all the texts on my site are rants and raves against society -many are positive attempts to deal with complex issues -and I’m also hoping to present more visual work soon. Of course there are many texts -but this is the result of 30 years working experience (both positive and negative) -much of which still hasn’t been ordered and integrated. It was my intention to discuss the issues raised on my site (and how they might relate to others) via the Korakora list -but regrettably this failed. Hopefully, I can establish my own mailing list for informal discussion soon. You (and others) will be welcome to join. I believe that your preference for blogging and my preference for a more formal approach should be seen as different but valuable contributions to a potentially fruitful dialogue -and not as mutually destructive oppositions. Unfortunately, there are currently technical problems with the computer -and my isolation does make it difficult to find a technician who is able and willing to deal with Linux in combination with possible hardware problems -so progress is slow at present.
Responsibility is too complex and ambiguous a concept to discuss here and now. Suffice it to say that there is a difference between being responsible for damaging something and being responsible for trying to repair it. A person can feel responsible for repairing things without having to feel responsible for them being damaged in the first place (as indeed a person can presumably be responsible for damaging things without taking responsibility for their repair). So perhaps we were talking about different things and this explains the difference in our answers -more than a difference in actual belief or approach. I suspect that such confusions happened fairly often in our relationship -with love, hope, ambition, anger and frustration (on both sides) creating a toxic mix that blocked a truly mutual understanding of the situation -and each other. Differences in language (and perhaps body of experience) created a deadly mixture that tragically caused apparent differences to destroy the underlying solidarity of thought, feeling and desire. Perhaps initially, we should have spent more time exploring and understanding each other -explaining and appreciating our differences more -rather than letting them force us apart.
The move to the flat could have made this mutual exploration easier -but, apparently, came just too late. However, one road may be more stony than the other -but ultimately, surely, it doesn’t matter as long as the travelers all arrive and can reunite safely at their destination. All’s well that ends well -but all was for nothing if things ends badly. So let’s look forward and celebrate the changes….
However, the effects of change and perhaps misunderstanding are difficult to communicate and correct when all communication lines are cut. Given a free choice, then a constructive dialogue which also leaves room for alternative viewpoints (without becoming entirely negative and destructive) is surely much more preferable than playing the “blame game”. Hopefully, soon Super Inggo will have recuperated and will finally become truly free….
Imagine what two (or more) of them could do if they learned from their mistakes, refocused their energies and worked together….
:)(:
November 1st, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Ah, I don’t deal with body language knowledge separately in what I wrote you. Writing is linear, use your imagination! And you talk too much, live that love, retraint and resposibility for real in your life - not whether others find it oppressive or not. You haven’t started living yet! Didn’t you ever get it? My doctor wants to know more about you and what and how you think of yourself and not what you think of me or my family! A pity. You don’t live for the valuation or the constructive (or whatever) criticism of others. Live your own life now before it’s too late!
November 1st, 2006 at 3:31 pm
[1] Body: …….
[2] Language: ……….
:)