"from the cunt to the head is/ a Mobius strip/ that connects us to death" --Eleni Sikelianos, excerpted from "Notes Toward the Township of Cause of Trouble (Venus Cabinet Revealed)"
Thursday, May 8, 2008
*gasp*
Photo by Clayton Cubitt (aka Seige), from his Blue series.
This makes my heart pound.
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Some days..... I read your posts and go....I'm not so sure.
And it fascinates me and scares me at once. Beyond that, I'm interested in the way in which it triggers an immediate response in me... and then I consciously make a decision to not judge it (positively OR negatively, really). Looking at this photo is an exercise for me. I have not yet arrived at any fully-realized analysis. And I may never do so. I suppose I posted it as a challenge to myself. If it happens to challenge my readers, too, well, so much the better!
Oh, and as for why people put themselves through this, I refer you back to my April 27th post. There is a link there to another blog that speaks to the sado-masochistic philosophy of administering pain so as to aid in the spiritual quest to transcend fear. It's the same logic by which the Opus Dei people wear the cilice-- and by which religious seekers of many other stripes mortify the flesh so as to move past the contraints of quotidian mindsets. I don't know if that reasoning answers your question or satisfies your balking, but it's an idea that interests me -- and makes some sense in theory, at least, if not in practice.
It's interesting to me, though, that so many of the Western sects that employ mortification-of-the-flesh practices privilege the mind over the body in their philosophies-- and yet, they use a technique which draws intense and focused attention to the PHYSICAL self, in the form of bodily pain, in order to draw "higher" thought OUT of the body. It's counterintuitive, I think. And completely fascinating. To me, anyway.
5 comments:
Some days..... I read your posts and go....I'm not so sure.
Other times I think, WOW!
Um.
OK?
That came across wrong.
Wow, as in, what the hell? Why put yourself through that?
Hey, it's not a photo of ME!
But I do think it's a gorgeous photograph.
And it fascinates me and scares me at once. Beyond that, I'm interested in the way in which it triggers an immediate response in me... and then I consciously make a decision to not judge it (positively OR negatively, really). Looking at this photo is an exercise for me. I have not yet arrived at any fully-realized analysis. And I may never do so. I suppose I posted it as a challenge to myself. If it happens to challenge my readers, too, well, so much the better!
Oh, and as for why people put themselves through this, I refer you back to my April 27th post. There is a link there to another blog that speaks to the sado-masochistic philosophy of administering pain so as to aid in the spiritual quest to transcend fear. It's the same logic by which the Opus Dei people wear the cilice-- and by which religious seekers of many other stripes mortify the flesh so as to move past the contraints of quotidian mindsets. I don't know if that reasoning answers your question or satisfies your balking, but it's an idea that interests me -- and makes some sense in theory, at least, if not in practice.
It's interesting to me, though, that so many of the Western sects that employ mortification-of-the-flesh practices privilege the mind over the body in their philosophies-- and yet, they use a technique which draws intense and focused attention to the PHYSICAL self, in the form of bodily pain, in order to draw "higher" thought OUT of the body. It's counterintuitive, I think. And completely fascinating. To me, anyway.
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