![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
In an attempt to synthesise my emotional inclinations with visual art, it seems I cannot escape the written word. Stories, knowledge, information and linguistic communication precede visual creation. I cannot draw without words to guide my hand.
I don't even know why I'm back here.
There is something about this space that allows my thoughts & feelings to flow freely.
I have been tasked (by myself, more or less) to identify 3-5 personally significant symbols. Key words being powerful & sacred. What I found was not visual connection, but conceptual and and somewhat abstract.
1. Sleep, dreams
2. Illusion
3. Taphophilia
4. Memory, Anamnesis
5. Rage
These words are keys to doorways containing multitudes of ideas that deeply inspire me to create as well as to do - to bring forth into the world something that cannot be contained once opened. A veritable Pandora's box within my very own heart, if you will.
But today - right now, in fact - I must figure out to express these key words in an entirely visual manner.
It begins with unwrapping the core of each, like peeling fruit or cracking nuts to get to the core. Already my language has taken a visually descriptive direction, which is great!
────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────
1. 𝓢𝓵𝓮𝓮𝓹, 𝓓𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓼
Everything in me connects to everything else.
The concept of sleep & dreams is core to who I am. Beyond heart, it goes into soul, from earliest memories down to the most recent. Not only is it significant personally, but there's an inheritance aspect to it too. I've touched upon it here, the recurring symbols such as the moon, lightning, dragons and certain public figures visiting me not infrequently.
But to cut straight to what I've personally dreamed about, literally, seems wrong. Reductive. Limiting.
There's a bigger picture here.
I believe - and have always believed since I was a child - that life is a dream in which humans are the dreamers, in some sense or another. As a child, I was awake. As I got older, I slipped into slumber myself. And now I have my constant disassociation as living proof - I am asleep in the dream, which is not even lucid most of the time.
Beyond myself, it connects to various spiritual beliefs, from Gnosticism to Hinduism. It was referenced in Final Fantasy X, one of the games that strongly shaped me as a child - the Dream of the Fayth and the true nature of Tidus and his life.
There is also a romantic aspect to sleep & dreams that is undeniable to me. Beyond romantic, simply soft and safe. Sleeping with a loved one, with a pet. Nap times.
It is surrender to a fantasy. It's not the same as illusion (which I'll get to in a moment) or a lie, not in this case. It is simply letting go. To rest, to be unconscious, to be surrounded by symbols and experiences that cannot be deciphered by logic alone. It is a state that invites feeling and sensing and listening to something subtle, like a secret, both within oneself and in communion with the dream itself.
I think I want to peel back symbols, or their obviousness. I'm interested in more abstract or complex expressions as far as visual representation goes.
2. 𝓘𝓵𝓵𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷
Next, we have illusion. This is not the same as sleep & dream. There is a slightly negative connotation to it, but there is also a trickster-like quality. The magician and his tricks, the red curtain, the performance. Illusion is not delusion - that is dependent on the level of awareness, how much of the lie you have bought.
Illusion, for me, is a concept that reaches further beyond into the broader human experience, more specifically, psychology. I am interested in things like cognitive dissonance, hallucinations, ego death, confirmation bias, mind control, conspiracy theories etc. Beyond that human phobias and mental gymnastics that trap humanity in cycles of hate and destruction. So, really, illusion to me is the devil on the shoulder. It's where the line between truth and lie becomes blurred, even though the answer is just behind the curtain or behind the mask.
Speaking of masks, one of my favourite concepts is the Schandmaske aka Masks of Shame.
It is a chilling medieval torture method that lives rent-free in my mind. Its basis is public shaming.
A hideous metal mask, sometimes with spikes and an uncomfortable contraption in the mouth, is fixed upon the head of the victim - usually female - punished for saying something unpopular or gossiping. It was used in America up until the 19th century, apparently. Something about it resonates through the centuries, at least for me.
In this case, the victim becomes an object of shame. For all we know, this is a tool of censorship and control meant to subconsciously discourage the spread of certain language, encouraging half-truths, policing of language, which leads to dishonesty and, well, illusion. The illusion of freedom, for example.
Illusion plays into one of my own personal fears; inability to distinguish something that should be clear, perceiving something untrue which is nevertheless persistent and constantly trying to assert itself. It can be a belief, it usually is. I strive for objectivity whenever possible, but illusion is something which holds onto subjective experiences like a captive animal, and the only way to free oneself from illusion is to look within with unwavering honesty and then step out with total neutrality. It requires self-knowledge and capacity to call yourself out, to see yourself from the outside. It's hard work, and illusion can be oh so alluring and comfortable... Illusion, I would say, is a toxic version of the previous concept of sleep & dreams. The nectar that once consumed will keep you stuck in its sickly honey forever, giving way to addictive patterns in an effort to escape without consciously understanding why... Illusion is a powerful thing, my friends. Take heed.
3. 𝓣𝓪𝓹𝓱𝓸𝓹𝓱𝓲𝓵𝓲𝓪
Taphophilia is a love or fascination with death, funeral rites, cemeteries, coffins and everything related to it. Death aesthetics, essentially, sort of goth-adjacent but not necessarily vampyric in any way.
I am a taphophile. Walking among tombstones, reading obituaries, seeing pictures of coffins, attending actual funerals and so on, fills me with a deep sense of peace which nothing else can match. Not consistently. The concept of death is comforting to me, despite its afterlife uncertainties and all the world's beliefs and fears surrounding it. I see it as birth in reverse, somehow. A return to something real. A freer existence is to not exist. I just always had this sense that the world of the dead was more real and alive than actual life. I remember going to the cemetery as a child, particularly on All Saints, and feeling like I've stepped into a bubble, an oasis, of something that wasn't a dream anymore. And death was a reassurance. Even though a corpse is reminiscent of a sleeping person, I felt that the reverse was true. They woke up and left their body behind.
I love what becomes of time when you cross it with the dead. It becomes real too, not abstract as it usually is. Faded names on gravestones. The dates of birth and death. The ritual of erecting monuments or plaques saying "this person existed, the evidence of their existence persists beyond living memory" I like that stuff. Time, in the context of death, takes on the essence of an ocean to me. Or a sky. Without beginning or end, without an edge or a bottom. I feel at one with the universe, some ultimate connection. This is what death symbols and rituals do to me. It's also the subconscious reason why Christianity will always resonate with me, because it literally worships a dead god. Its symbol is death - the crucifix upon which Christ died. Sure, there is resurrection, but they almost entirely focus on death.
Finally... Within death, there is a sense of eternity. Nothing in life is certain except death. That sort of thing. The finality and inevitability of death speaks to me of eternity. And, in my case, eternal peace. Eternal sleep, even... So it all comes around. Dream within a dream... Maybe when you die, you go on to dream a new dream - a new life - and on it goes, the Samsara dance.
4. 𝓜𝓮𝓶𝓸𝓻𝔂, 𝓐𝓷𝓪𝓶𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓲𝓼
The more I talk about concepts that are important to me, the more excited I get. The more the veil begins to lift from my eyes and I feel myself become connected to something fundamentally real. So I know I am doing something right.
I've had a concept for a few years now that I have collectively referred to as "amnesia" because I had no other alternative... Well, this past week I have finally learned of the term "anamnesis" or "anamnesia" more specifically, even if the former is more historically correct. I shall take "anamnesia" and run with it.
Anamnesia is a memory without history. It is the experience of familiarity without an explanation. Some call it homesickness or nostalgia for a time or place that has no connection to your actual life, but it feels more true somehow or an inseparable part of who you are "outside" of you, of this.
This is a part of myself that I've distanced myself a lot from, actually. Because the pull of anamnesia has been overwhelming, it made me lose touch with what I had, the life I had to live even if it in no way related to these other associations I aligned with.
Then came Gnosticism and this connection with a life unlike this one took on a spiritual and philosophical form. Then it became not just me, not just "what if past life", but the fallen soul of humanity itself. The sleeping soul encased in matter, forlorn and far from home. Tying back to illusion, that this life is not what it seems and may even be a distraction from what is true and real. The wine of forgetting, as some Gnostics texts describe. Anamnesia reminds me of what I've forgotten. It's closely linked to idealism as well, and the ideal as the real. To a vision, a destiny, unmanifested dream. It seems outside of time somehow as well, both past and future, though never the present. It is, in short, resonance.
But, as I said, I lost touch somehow with it. Though one thing never leaves me - the colour aqua and all its shades. This is what Anamnesis feels like. Cool and salty like a sea breeze yet forbidding as a lightning storm over a barren desert.
I used to also be quite caught up in childhood nostalgia as well, particularly the Y2K era. I don't feel that so much anymore, but I also feel like by denying myself childhood nostalgia I lose something important. I just don't want to acknowledge that life was "better back then" because that's what pretty much everyone says. I feel it so viscerally though, I need to just own up to it... Because I have changed. I can look at the past different. Or something.
5. 𝓡𝓪𝓰𝓮
I would prefer to call this one "wrath" because it's one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but rage feels more raw and primal, excluding the ego's pitfalls.
Rage is my core foundational emotion. Which sounds like the exact opposite of me if you know me irl, because I am chill and am known for exuding a calming/comforting influence on others. I don't have anger problems either, it's extremely rare that I get angry. I get passionate, sure, but not angry. Not enraged. So how can this be? How is rage, or wrath, so central? So important in my creative work?
This rage is a front. It is, in fact, a kind of armour or a sword, wielded by none other than compassion that is reacting negatively to cruelty and injustice. This is a rage of fire that consumes and cleanses, warms and lights the sky. It is ancient. Both destroying and life-giving.
But it is also a rage that is repressed within me, finding little to no outlet. Where there is a candle it should be a forest fire, an inferno of passionate compassion. It is the spirit of a fighter, not a healer. Or maybe a healer that has taken up the sword... In D&D terms, this might be some kind of paladin.
Rage is fun. To me, it as fire that fuels itself. It energises me. Hating something makes me feel happy. Though I never troll or participate in bullying. I always bite my tongue. I am civilized and am trained to look for goodness and positivity, to redirect to peace and diplomacy. But this is not who I am - and this is the part that scares me. This is the part of me that needs an outlet or I lose touch with who I am, my heart and soul, maybe even my purpose.
𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓬𝓵𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷
I don't know what it is I just feel like I need to figure it out here right now.
There are common threads uniting all of these concepts together.
But they don't point to specific symbols... I refuse to limit myself like this.
They are wells to draw endless motifs from, both personal and universal, clear and cryptic, specific and loose. It's supposed to be complex and mysterious, it's supposed to suggest there is something more...
I don't know what I'm going to do with this information, yet I still connected to some deep part of me, and that's not nothing. That's a step in the right direction, which is facing homeward.
I don't even know why I'm back here.
There is something about this space that allows my thoughts & feelings to flow freely.
I have been tasked (by myself, more or less) to identify 3-5 personally significant symbols. Key words being powerful & sacred. What I found was not visual connection, but conceptual and and somewhat abstract.
1. Sleep, dreams
2. Illusion
3. Taphophilia
4. Memory, Anamnesis
5. Rage
These words are keys to doorways containing multitudes of ideas that deeply inspire me to create as well as to do - to bring forth into the world something that cannot be contained once opened. A veritable Pandora's box within my very own heart, if you will.
But today - right now, in fact - I must figure out to express these key words in an entirely visual manner.
It begins with unwrapping the core of each, like peeling fruit or cracking nuts to get to the core. Already my language has taken a visually descriptive direction, which is great!
────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────────୨ৎ────
1. 𝓢𝓵𝓮𝓮𝓹, 𝓓𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓼
Everything in me connects to everything else.
The concept of sleep & dreams is core to who I am. Beyond heart, it goes into soul, from earliest memories down to the most recent. Not only is it significant personally, but there's an inheritance aspect to it too. I've touched upon it here, the recurring symbols such as the moon, lightning, dragons and certain public figures visiting me not infrequently.
But to cut straight to what I've personally dreamed about, literally, seems wrong. Reductive. Limiting.
There's a bigger picture here.
I believe - and have always believed since I was a child - that life is a dream in which humans are the dreamers, in some sense or another. As a child, I was awake. As I got older, I slipped into slumber myself. And now I have my constant disassociation as living proof - I am asleep in the dream, which is not even lucid most of the time.
Beyond myself, it connects to various spiritual beliefs, from Gnosticism to Hinduism. It was referenced in Final Fantasy X, one of the games that strongly shaped me as a child - the Dream of the Fayth and the true nature of Tidus and his life.
There is also a romantic aspect to sleep & dreams that is undeniable to me. Beyond romantic, simply soft and safe. Sleeping with a loved one, with a pet. Nap times.
It is surrender to a fantasy. It's not the same as illusion (which I'll get to in a moment) or a lie, not in this case. It is simply letting go. To rest, to be unconscious, to be surrounded by symbols and experiences that cannot be deciphered by logic alone. It is a state that invites feeling and sensing and listening to something subtle, like a secret, both within oneself and in communion with the dream itself.
I think I want to peel back symbols, or their obviousness. I'm interested in more abstract or complex expressions as far as visual representation goes.
2. 𝓘𝓵𝓵𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷
Next, we have illusion. This is not the same as sleep & dream. There is a slightly negative connotation to it, but there is also a trickster-like quality. The magician and his tricks, the red curtain, the performance. Illusion is not delusion - that is dependent on the level of awareness, how much of the lie you have bought.
Illusion, for me, is a concept that reaches further beyond into the broader human experience, more specifically, psychology. I am interested in things like cognitive dissonance, hallucinations, ego death, confirmation bias, mind control, conspiracy theories etc. Beyond that human phobias and mental gymnastics that trap humanity in cycles of hate and destruction. So, really, illusion to me is the devil on the shoulder. It's where the line between truth and lie becomes blurred, even though the answer is just behind the curtain or behind the mask.
Speaking of masks, one of my favourite concepts is the Schandmaske aka Masks of Shame.
It is a chilling medieval torture method that lives rent-free in my mind. Its basis is public shaming.
A hideous metal mask, sometimes with spikes and an uncomfortable contraption in the mouth, is fixed upon the head of the victim - usually female - punished for saying something unpopular or gossiping. It was used in America up until the 19th century, apparently. Something about it resonates through the centuries, at least for me.
In this case, the victim becomes an object of shame. For all we know, this is a tool of censorship and control meant to subconsciously discourage the spread of certain language, encouraging half-truths, policing of language, which leads to dishonesty and, well, illusion. The illusion of freedom, for example.
Illusion plays into one of my own personal fears; inability to distinguish something that should be clear, perceiving something untrue which is nevertheless persistent and constantly trying to assert itself. It can be a belief, it usually is. I strive for objectivity whenever possible, but illusion is something which holds onto subjective experiences like a captive animal, and the only way to free oneself from illusion is to look within with unwavering honesty and then step out with total neutrality. It requires self-knowledge and capacity to call yourself out, to see yourself from the outside. It's hard work, and illusion can be oh so alluring and comfortable... Illusion, I would say, is a toxic version of the previous concept of sleep & dreams. The nectar that once consumed will keep you stuck in its sickly honey forever, giving way to addictive patterns in an effort to escape without consciously understanding why... Illusion is a powerful thing, my friends. Take heed.
3. 𝓣𝓪𝓹𝓱𝓸𝓹𝓱𝓲𝓵𝓲𝓪
Taphophilia is a love or fascination with death, funeral rites, cemeteries, coffins and everything related to it. Death aesthetics, essentially, sort of goth-adjacent but not necessarily vampyric in any way.
I am a taphophile. Walking among tombstones, reading obituaries, seeing pictures of coffins, attending actual funerals and so on, fills me with a deep sense of peace which nothing else can match. Not consistently. The concept of death is comforting to me, despite its afterlife uncertainties and all the world's beliefs and fears surrounding it. I see it as birth in reverse, somehow. A return to something real. A freer existence is to not exist. I just always had this sense that the world of the dead was more real and alive than actual life. I remember going to the cemetery as a child, particularly on All Saints, and feeling like I've stepped into a bubble, an oasis, of something that wasn't a dream anymore. And death was a reassurance. Even though a corpse is reminiscent of a sleeping person, I felt that the reverse was true. They woke up and left their body behind.
I love what becomes of time when you cross it with the dead. It becomes real too, not abstract as it usually is. Faded names on gravestones. The dates of birth and death. The ritual of erecting monuments or plaques saying "this person existed, the evidence of their existence persists beyond living memory" I like that stuff. Time, in the context of death, takes on the essence of an ocean to me. Or a sky. Without beginning or end, without an edge or a bottom. I feel at one with the universe, some ultimate connection. This is what death symbols and rituals do to me. It's also the subconscious reason why Christianity will always resonate with me, because it literally worships a dead god. Its symbol is death - the crucifix upon which Christ died. Sure, there is resurrection, but they almost entirely focus on death.
Finally... Within death, there is a sense of eternity. Nothing in life is certain except death. That sort of thing. The finality and inevitability of death speaks to me of eternity. And, in my case, eternal peace. Eternal sleep, even... So it all comes around. Dream within a dream... Maybe when you die, you go on to dream a new dream - a new life - and on it goes, the Samsara dance.
4. 𝓜𝓮𝓶𝓸𝓻𝔂, 𝓐𝓷𝓪𝓶𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓲𝓼
The more I talk about concepts that are important to me, the more excited I get. The more the veil begins to lift from my eyes and I feel myself become connected to something fundamentally real. So I know I am doing something right.
I've had a concept for a few years now that I have collectively referred to as "amnesia" because I had no other alternative... Well, this past week I have finally learned of the term "anamnesis" or "anamnesia" more specifically, even if the former is more historically correct. I shall take "anamnesia" and run with it.
Anamnesia is a memory without history. It is the experience of familiarity without an explanation. Some call it homesickness or nostalgia for a time or place that has no connection to your actual life, but it feels more true somehow or an inseparable part of who you are "outside" of you, of this.
This is a part of myself that I've distanced myself a lot from, actually. Because the pull of anamnesia has been overwhelming, it made me lose touch with what I had, the life I had to live even if it in no way related to these other associations I aligned with.
Then came Gnosticism and this connection with a life unlike this one took on a spiritual and philosophical form. Then it became not just me, not just "what if past life", but the fallen soul of humanity itself. The sleeping soul encased in matter, forlorn and far from home. Tying back to illusion, that this life is not what it seems and may even be a distraction from what is true and real. The wine of forgetting, as some Gnostics texts describe. Anamnesia reminds me of what I've forgotten. It's closely linked to idealism as well, and the ideal as the real. To a vision, a destiny, unmanifested dream. It seems outside of time somehow as well, both past and future, though never the present. It is, in short, resonance.
But, as I said, I lost touch somehow with it. Though one thing never leaves me - the colour aqua and all its shades. This is what Anamnesis feels like. Cool and salty like a sea breeze yet forbidding as a lightning storm over a barren desert.
I used to also be quite caught up in childhood nostalgia as well, particularly the Y2K era. I don't feel that so much anymore, but I also feel like by denying myself childhood nostalgia I lose something important. I just don't want to acknowledge that life was "better back then" because that's what pretty much everyone says. I feel it so viscerally though, I need to just own up to it... Because I have changed. I can look at the past different. Or something.
5. 𝓡𝓪𝓰𝓮
I would prefer to call this one "wrath" because it's one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but rage feels more raw and primal, excluding the ego's pitfalls.
Rage is my core foundational emotion. Which sounds like the exact opposite of me if you know me irl, because I am chill and am known for exuding a calming/comforting influence on others. I don't have anger problems either, it's extremely rare that I get angry. I get passionate, sure, but not angry. Not enraged. So how can this be? How is rage, or wrath, so central? So important in my creative work?
This rage is a front. It is, in fact, a kind of armour or a sword, wielded by none other than compassion that is reacting negatively to cruelty and injustice. This is a rage of fire that consumes and cleanses, warms and lights the sky. It is ancient. Both destroying and life-giving.
But it is also a rage that is repressed within me, finding little to no outlet. Where there is a candle it should be a forest fire, an inferno of passionate compassion. It is the spirit of a fighter, not a healer. Or maybe a healer that has taken up the sword... In D&D terms, this might be some kind of paladin.
Rage is fun. To me, it as fire that fuels itself. It energises me. Hating something makes me feel happy. Though I never troll or participate in bullying. I always bite my tongue. I am civilized and am trained to look for goodness and positivity, to redirect to peace and diplomacy. But this is not who I am - and this is the part that scares me. This is the part of me that needs an outlet or I lose touch with who I am, my heart and soul, maybe even my purpose.
𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓬𝓵𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷
I don't know what it is I just feel like I need to figure it out here right now.
There are common threads uniting all of these concepts together.
But they don't point to specific symbols... I refuse to limit myself like this.
They are wells to draw endless motifs from, both personal and universal, clear and cryptic, specific and loose. It's supposed to be complex and mysterious, it's supposed to suggest there is something more...
I don't know what I'm going to do with this information, yet I still connected to some deep part of me, and that's not nothing. That's a step in the right direction, which is facing homeward.
