a candle for seeker, pt. 1
Jun. 10th, 2016 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anonymousblackalone on the shore, seeker gathers up shells. alone on the shore, seeker gathers shells together, shells and coral and ocean-tumbled stones, smoothed into simple shapes, smoothed into pale colors, into colors that are only just there. seeker seeks seashells on the shore: walking along the tidewater’s perpetually shifting boundary, a place where things wash up to wash back out. such a beautiful analogy for seeker’s unconscious and yet what does she find? things are different near the ocean. the ocean peaks and recedes. the ocean has its own shape to reveal.
gathering shells in the hem of her gown, seeker looks out into the ocean and sees: how the nature of the water’s surface changes in the distance. how the sound of water changes with its volume. the ocean churns and rushes. the ocean is always on the move. seeker clacks and rattles her shells, herself an altar, herself an altered matter. herself the point where water, wind, stone, and flame conspire to manifest experience. but then again: and then what’s more: and then: and how:
ribbons and scarves. something about seeker is always trailing along. answers and questions: seeker often can’t be bothered to experience them in an examined variety of sequence. what do you know, what do you expect, what are you looking for?
seeker wants everything you would expect seeker to want. she wants to be beautiful. she wants to feel beautiful. she wants to share beauty. she wants to remember almost as much as she wants to be remembered. seeker wants to walk at the endlessly shifting tide line and believe there’s a reason she is there: a reason she is here: a matter being communicated: information that needs to be conveyed to her and needs to be conveyed to her in a meaningful way. her shells are colors of flesh. her shells are colors of teeth. her shells are the color of bone, of things stripped to their core essence, of things stripped to the elements of form: the elements of form, exposed to the elements: water and gravity, water and salt, the moon’s pull, the sun’s fade, tiny waters splashed and gathered in a clam shell’s flipped dish. gathering water and sand. gathering microbes and salt.
the ocean trails on about it like the ocean does. scarves and ribbons. always another inhale, always another expanding sigh, always another seeker looking out over the water wondering what it would be like: to look back over the water, to look back towards shore. to rise above, looking down into the sloshing shallows, the sandbar’s steady rise. sea creatures click and moan. sea creatures shimmy and undulate. seeker leaves the sea creatures their shells or the shells that could be theirs:
seeker only takes what is partial, what no longer constitutes shelter, what she can bring together incomplete to make into a new sort of whole. this is seeker’s purpose: bringing together what does not satisfy in a satisfying way. seeker finds the farthest flung pieces. seeker brings together what is broken and lost. broken and lost until seeker pieces it together in seeker’s distinct manner: what seeker is most often looking for is a new way of looking at something lost to our understanding of it: a new context, a new arrangement. a new use, a new way of thinking. seeker wants to show me there’s a place for everything and everything has its place: the snail shell broken and tossed over itself over and again over until every broken place slides smooth beneath the thumb, smooth beneath the thumb in spirals and twists: twisting into a kind of portal. a new break in reality. a place you did not know you could go. a place you did not know you could find yourself in. a place with no coordinates, no address, no zoning code: where you are when you are not really, or the place you’ve always been.
seeker wants to bring what is broken together. not to piece it together as it was. not even to remember it as it was: seeker sees her own reflection in what is broken and worn smooth, what is bleached lifeless and riddled with holes, what constitutes mystery, obstruction, revelation, and release.
the pleasures of what cannot be completed, the pleasures of what has already begun to break down: the pleasures of halfway lost, strange and scattering, already broken, already breaking down. seeker knows these things are not the only gift the ocean has to offer her but in this moment she is sustained by the gathering process. finding and gathering, observing and remembering. how observing calls memory. how memory calls. how memory calls.
gathering shells in the hem of her gown, seeker looks out into the ocean and sees: how the nature of the water’s surface changes in the distance. how the sound of water changes with its volume. the ocean churns and rushes. the ocean is always on the move. seeker clacks and rattles her shells, herself an altar, herself an altered matter. herself the point where water, wind, stone, and flame conspire to manifest experience. but then again: and then what’s more: and then: and how:
ribbons and scarves. something about seeker is always trailing along. answers and questions: seeker often can’t be bothered to experience them in an examined variety of sequence. what do you know, what do you expect, what are you looking for?
seeker wants everything you would expect seeker to want. she wants to be beautiful. she wants to feel beautiful. she wants to share beauty. she wants to remember almost as much as she wants to be remembered. seeker wants to walk at the endlessly shifting tide line and believe there’s a reason she is there: a reason she is here: a matter being communicated: information that needs to be conveyed to her and needs to be conveyed to her in a meaningful way. her shells are colors of flesh. her shells are colors of teeth. her shells are the color of bone, of things stripped to their core essence, of things stripped to the elements of form: the elements of form, exposed to the elements: water and gravity, water and salt, the moon’s pull, the sun’s fade, tiny waters splashed and gathered in a clam shell’s flipped dish. gathering water and sand. gathering microbes and salt.
the ocean trails on about it like the ocean does. scarves and ribbons. always another inhale, always another expanding sigh, always another seeker looking out over the water wondering what it would be like: to look back over the water, to look back towards shore. to rise above, looking down into the sloshing shallows, the sandbar’s steady rise. sea creatures click and moan. sea creatures shimmy and undulate. seeker leaves the sea creatures their shells or the shells that could be theirs:
seeker only takes what is partial, what no longer constitutes shelter, what she can bring together incomplete to make into a new sort of whole. this is seeker’s purpose: bringing together what does not satisfy in a satisfying way. seeker finds the farthest flung pieces. seeker brings together what is broken and lost. broken and lost until seeker pieces it together in seeker’s distinct manner: what seeker is most often looking for is a new way of looking at something lost to our understanding of it: a new context, a new arrangement. a new use, a new way of thinking. seeker wants to show me there’s a place for everything and everything has its place: the snail shell broken and tossed over itself over and again over until every broken place slides smooth beneath the thumb, smooth beneath the thumb in spirals and twists: twisting into a kind of portal. a new break in reality. a place you did not know you could go. a place you did not know you could find yourself in. a place with no coordinates, no address, no zoning code: where you are when you are not really, or the place you’ve always been.
seeker wants to bring what is broken together. not to piece it together as it was. not even to remember it as it was: seeker sees her own reflection in what is broken and worn smooth, what is bleached lifeless and riddled with holes, what constitutes mystery, obstruction, revelation, and release.
the pleasures of what cannot be completed, the pleasures of what has already begun to break down: the pleasures of halfway lost, strange and scattering, already broken, already breaking down. seeker knows these things are not the only gift the ocean has to offer her but in this moment she is sustained by the gathering process. finding and gathering, observing and remembering. how observing calls memory. how memory calls. how memory calls.
