Metaphysics and Marina

Hours at the Marina Abramovich exhibit at the MoMA this Wednesday, more than a couple. We come thirsty and leave parched: good thing Ophra always carries water in her bag. The brilliant pink tulips in the back courtyard listen as we try to make sense of it all. Most interesting are the questions:

So what's next?
What do people think/wish to get from sitting with her?
Is the guru stance acknowledged, intentional, imposed on her?

Ophra loves the Erotic Balkan piece best... why? It is true, speaks of Marina's personal history, of nature, love and the spiritual.

Here's what I want to write at this moment... it was in front of the tulips, I think that the questions led to this proposal: Most of the time Marina is dealing with the political body, even with Ulay, it is about relationship, yes, but the politics of. In her more recent piece, the erotic one, she approaches the spiritual. I'll risk saying that Erin and I are looking for the metaphysical body. How is that different from the spiritual body? The metaphysical is an expression of the spiritual, but the spiritual is much more than just metaphysical. Maybe the question is, how is the metaphysical body different from the political body? Yes, I like that question:

how is the metaphysical body different from the political body?

Locked Gates

Last Friday (4/23) the wild winds were blowing and women all around us were in tears. Erin lost her phone for a moment and Ophra landed for a moment, only just long enough to bring another's feet a little bit closer to the ground. We talked and drank tea and warmed up in Erin's space, surrounded by flowers and skeletons and explosive Bulgarian art. The time to head to the park presented itself, and so we hopped on our bikes, arriving at the exact moment that the cops were pulling away, having locked up not just for the night, but possibly for the rest of the summer.

So the project is an interesting one already.

Ophra considers jumping the fence, but follows Erin and the wind around the corner, to the pier just North of the park. We watch the water, Sweet Cherry Pie or something of the sort playing from the car twenty feet to the right, like a stage carpet for the working men with beers. We are mainly quiet, then eventually cold. What to make of it all? And yet the communication deepens.

Leonard Cohen

From Selected Poems
1956-1968

This Is For You

This is for you
it is my full heart
it is the book I meant to read you
when we were old
Now I am a shadow
I am restless as an empire
You are the woman
who released me
I saw you watching the moon
you didn't hesitate
to love me with it
I saw you honouring the windflowers
caught in the rocks
you loved me with them
On the smooth sand
between pebbles and shoreline
you welcomed me into the circle
more than a guest
All this happened
in the truth of time
in the truth of flesh
I saw you with a child
you brought me to his perfume
and his visions
without demand of blood
On so many wooden tables
adorned with food and candles
a thousand sacraments
which you carried in your basket
I visited my clay
I visited my birth
until I became small enough
and frightened enough
to be born again
I wanted you for your beauty
you gave me more than yourself
you shared your beauty
this I only learned tonight
as I recall the mirrors
you walked away from
after you had given them
whatever they claimed
for my initiation
Now I am a shadow
I long for the boundaries
of my wandering
and I move
in the direction of your prayer
for you are kneeling
like a bouquet
in a cave of bone
behind my forehead
and I move toward a love
you have dreamed for me

Stepping in to the vision

Dog Jumps

First day in the park, we fell in love with a dog's jump for a flying stick. Here are a few moments from our attempts: