By now you may well know that I am spellbound by our very existence, and more precisely, my very existence, since that is the only one to which I have such mad access! Needless to say I spend as much time as I can meditating on this strange-cake phenomenon I get to call me. Many of my meditations are like those of Descartes, a wondering wandering mind aligning itself along a ladder of rational links of thought.
Many of them are otherwise, when I take the approach to not interact with my thoughts, to not make inferences of any sort, but aim only to observe them as they come, linger and as they go. I focus on my breath in order to resist entanglement. I don’t always succeed, and sometimes I even choose to converge these two meditation styles. Every once in awhile, they mix in such a way and create a dumbfounding experience. This is my first attempt at describing it:
I begin with my breath meditation, I breathe in, I breathe out. I notice where there may be tightness in this path from my nostrils, down my throat, into the breadth of my chest, the bottom of my lungs and deep into the bowl of my belly, and then as it climbs back up and out through my mouth. Once I can maintain the relaxation in that path, I place my attention on my body, looking for places of tension in order to replace it with ease. I know the places to look – shoulders, brow, mouth. Sometimes I discover unexpected tightness – toes, scalp, biceps. I breathe, I relax. Breath, relax.
Once I’ve been occupying this space, when I think I am simply maintaining relaxation, suddenly and without preparation, I will feel a surge of electricity shock me alert and the lightning leaves words in its wake: All of this will die.
My eyes snap open, wide. I attempt to settle myself with focus on my breath. All of this will die. And I try to find relaxation amid the unfathomable: All of this will die. Breath in 1-2-3, breathe out 1-2-3-4-5. Repeat. Sometimes I stick with it, eventually restoring my calm, allowing this thought to leave, and continuing my breathing meditation.
Other times, I allow myself to begin to dissect this thought, “All of this will die.” I begin with myself. That is what “all of this” is. I am the static cling of these experiences called “Kjirsten”. I know Kjirsten will end as necessarily as a wave cresting must crash. I know my actions and presence are itsy bitsy particles on a line of a thumbprint on a painting by Chuck Close, even though to me they feel absolutely central.
I understand that the stories I are, are dime store novels from 1950, quickly drifting, evaporating, disappearing, buried amid the fertility of existence. The “I” in me quiets, doesn’t fight, moves toward its undoing and . . . when synchronicity allows . . . within its own thoughtful dissolution, it somehow becomes isn’t. My I, existing and dissipating, feels outside this is. And for a brief moment, there is a thrill of ecstatic comprehension before my thoughts turn into incomprehensible mush.
This unsustainable impossibility tantalizes me philosophically. It is this very moment which fuels my passion for philosophy and which has fueled these pages of manuscript that I reproduce now as art, and which continues to fuel my exploration on canvas.
To express the impossible. To illuminate where the intellect is dark. To feel the becoming beauty of the not behind the is. It makes the is so delicious.
