This installment is audio only. It features excerpts from a conversation with Ryan about addiction, recovery, and lessons learned. Please enjoy.

ORANGE

​Maybe I haven’t died yet because death is actually afraid of me.
(we are all skeletons, not just kids)

​All futuristic predictions 
have exceeded expectations.
Commercials play on screens 
of our headache eyes,
and our bodies’ movements 
commoditized and taxed 
like some forgotten governmental resource 
to be shipped overseas
and sold back to us 
at a 30% markup. 
But none of this is really happening. 
We are in a dream - a plagiarized dream - 
stuck between bridge and water. 
As if the dark soul around every corner 
knows we know: 
so it can never reveal itself.
But the headaches persist 
like bleeding-heart Marxists
or 
my daily, quotidian, rote, trite
tearful thoughts of utter confusion
and disgruntled breathing. 
I used to think I was not scared to die. 
Then I did die: I lied. 
I was.
Now it is different. 
I am not scared; 
I am indifferent. 
Death is not a worthy fixation
but a necessary contemplation.  
Either that
or 
I’ve allowed technology to win me.
I’ve succumbed to its thieving of 
our fantastical futures. 
Our reality (in many ways)
is both more dire and surreal 
than before’s artistic predictions.
The truth is:
we never stood a chance.
People make too many guarantees. 

Orange Death Piece
    
     I just learned that some people born deaf but gain hearing later in their life are surprised the sun is not loud. “It’s not weird to you that the unshielded nuclear inferno that is the source of all life and the center of existence is so fucking quiet?” (Craich, Elroy. Text, September 23, 1999)
 
     Orange is Red that has died a little. It is not dead; it merely exhibits a tired hue of its once red vibrancy – like an organism’s demeanor concomitantly dulling with its waning will to live. And for reasons unknown, I nostalgically recall my grandmother’s mangled nail on the tip of right index finger. Which is to say, perhaps (poetic justice/creative liberties) that Orange may function on multiple planes of existence – like Frodo Baggins’s encounter with the witch King of Angmar (never fully dead; never fully alive – a perpetual straddle of infinity’s opacity). This is not the fault of orange: orange, from earth’s vantage point, is the Sun’s heart: and the Sun’s heart is an orange enigma – creator of all things immaterial and living and destroyer of all things material and dying (potentially). Orange’s home is all unsearched places everyone is looking. Orange is a neon beacon in perpetual disguise; therefore, orange has no enemies, and orange can never fully die.

     A fire’s orange light (some say) can gift insightful luminous paths to one’s otherwise veiled idiosyncrasies, making it somewhat of a code breaker. And this fervid orange light from within obsidian blackness betrays secrets stored in facial folds: shadowy, angular, and weathered by time (this is where the secrets of youth retreat to become fully formed and retire). Humans’ observable visual spectrum is a mere sliver of carrot flesh upon Portland’s damp grey moon, a perfunctory obscurer of celestial illumination – a blip on the universal visual scale, a retinal longing, a sphere forever searching for the bright side of life. A standard Homo sapiens’ eyes therefore, live in a quasi-purgatorial visual plane. Orange cuts through the superficial to expose the ethereal. In this regard, orange is a gatekeeper to our fragile souls, a rubric to personalities unknown, and an alacritous weapon eager to navigate transient troubles until the next set of troubles arrives (a forever willing orange colored “Meeseeks”(we just need to ask).

     But, maybe orange is not just a little dead: maybe orange is just a thief – shaving off microscopic cerise particulates to combine with pirated yellow tephra to create a new color bore of thievery and deception – co opting the best bits of two enviable primaries? This hackneyed hypothesis is in alignment with the characteristics, emotions, and motivations associated with orange: fascination, enthusiasm, warmth, energy, and (most appropriately in this absurd supposition) creativity. Orange is a creative juggernaut, and orange is like every artist that has ever lived, an amazing thief.

     But I am lying. Orange is not a little dead, nor is orange a mendacious thief. Orange is our final sleep’s guiding light (spoiler: the light is not white). This orange light projects joy, pain, tribulations, and love on to the screen behind our lids, and this “exit to enter” state is a cinematic masterpiece – a panoramic display, a crepuscular gratitude, an ethereal orange light dousing our pineal, a relative forever, a celebration. For orange is, as all things, a portal (if utilized) to greater perspective. We live. We die. Orange is a choice. There is no panacea to the horrors of this broken, mercurial, fascinating, and utterly absurd existence. Orange is a gateway color to an expanded realization. I can choose to create how I see, and how what I see affects the quality of my process and reaction, which is the only actual control we have.

     The world is currently crumbling in a blaze of orange skin, hair, fear, and flammable resources: no reasonably thinking person wants and or enjoys these unintentional consequences, but we are here; and the end is nigh: It is generally accepted that the Universe is 13.8 billion years old: the Earth is 4.54 billion years old; the earliest appearance of Hominids is 4.4 billion years ago; and so, when I postulate that the end is near, it must be understood that my prediction is not macabre; it is within the considerations of “existences” generally accepted epochs, and also assumes this “existence” will. (But regardless of my feigned backpedaling, it does not look good for us – I must also state that my true concern has never been for the planet’s health: the planet is and always will be, gosh darn fine; we are simply a disposable appendage. We will eventually fall out of fashion and join the dinosaurs.

     Orange has become (as a result of writing “Orange Death Piece”) a greater symbol for me – a representative color I choose to consciously acknowledge and engage with. Times are trying, and I will utilize any intervention at my disposal to lengthen my trip. Because I have been dead, twice, and it is boring. I concede to the privilege of love and joy, and orange is my neon beacon in perpetual disguise. I attach meaning and stories to its vibrancy, because my vibrancy will one day fade. Because when we die, it is not just a little bit: it is not orange. And death is less than the absence of color; it is less than the absence of light; it is both less and more than anything we could ever imagine while enveloped within its plane of unlimited limitations.
 

Sanctulacrum

​1. a faux ritualistic hymn presented as a celebratory song of           worship; liturgical drama. 
2. a transcribed chordal progression (ethereal in nature) played       during lyrical prose.
3. the year 2020’s dichotomous exhilarative dirge; a simulacrum of     life’s ephemera: life, death, and all in between.        

Equivocal Malnourishment or: |Faith| = The Death of Reason

Now, what about ideas, and their
Originality?
A mad-mad
Man 
Running a 
Dendrite
Factory?

Or, 
Myriad 
Interactions 
Between 
Cerebellum
Contraptions,
Coalescing 
Seamlessly 
In an aether
Nursery?

One may
Look forever
For all the 
Missing 
Pieces,
Locate explanations,
Find many
Faults and 
Reasons.
 
(This a
Perfect
Path -
If you like
Unanswerable 
Questions). 
 
Or,
Study the 
Practice 
Of Art,
Love, 
And 
Beauty. 
Forever 
Their 
Expressions
Will understand 
(And rarely understood). 

Embrace 
Absurdity -
Make it 
A living dream.
It’s the only
Remaining ideal, 
Making sense
Of anything.

Perpetual Therapeutic Aversion
(Misplaced)
I have been writing this essay for over a week - maybe two. I believe (more on my complications with beliefs at a later date) it is safe to say, whether employed or not, quarantine/pandemic time supports a surrealistic quality particular unto itself - like the euphoric/nighmareistic hallucinations of a sixty-continuous-hours unslept person - time’s mercurial breath distorts its predictable ripples and exposes myriad superficially dressed fissures. I began, as I begin most essays, thinking I can use whimsy, vocabulary, esoteric information, and artless phrasing to lyrically drive similes, metaphors, and surrealism to an eventual point I did not know I was trying to make - like a goalless stone carver or rotted wood-whittler. My typical approach also includes removing myself from the equation as to refrain from relying on anecdotal evidence and whatever other unsubstantiated nonsense I tend to spew from my maligned mouth. So during a recalibrative conversation with Wanderfalke in regards to the somewhat directionless progress of this essay (one in which he identified my thesis discrepancies), he asked me point blank, “What are you trying to say?” I was stumped. I thought I could wing-it. And my initial goal (thesis) was to write more than a craftily written prosaic essay of masterful lyricism. However, it just didn’t happen. But what I did tease out from my spaghetti bowl of ideas was: “Sometimes people search for meaning in questions that cannot be answered, because, in actuality, there are no questions to be answered. In reality, what people observe is a series of occurrences filtered through previously unseen forms of radical behavioral expressions that influence and embody more shifts (not more - like increased: more - like stricter folkways) faster than their minds can process. This can shake people’s core beliefs and sever their once thought to be fundamentally sound worldview, and to recognize such things can lead to potential group psychosis, which is an unpleasant mind state for all parties involved.” And so the reason I could not pinpoint my thesis is because I took myself out of the equation. My self-involved egoist mind could not fathom that I am also“people.” I expected myself to identify the meaning of the questions that cannot be answered. 

Now back to our regularly scheduled program. 
Sanctum has two definitions: 1.) a sacred place and/or shrine (especially within a communal place of worship) or 2.) a private place from which most people are excluded (a bedroom, a meditation space, a private bathroom, my mother’s apartment etc). (And I will, perhaps - if the denotative discourse between the aforementioned definitions does not prove obvious by essay's end - expound upon the term’s inherent cognitive dissonance {an expository on the aforementioned also at a later date}). One may argue (and I am) that religiosity birthed the need and desire for a conceptual and actualized sanctum; because a “sanctum,” absent of religious or spiritual necessity, is just a place with ornately carved pews or pillows or stain-glass windows or decor specific quarters within a sect-specific architectural structure - a sanctum without intent is just a musty room with odorous lingerings. And what precipitated this need for sanctum actualizations was a cerebral blank spot when pondering inexplicable happenings or situations, and a sanctum is (hopefully) a safe space to ponder such things. 

“Sanctus” is a hymn performed during a particular part of a liturgical Christian mass. It begins with the words (sung or spoken) “Holy, Holy, Holy.” There are countless hymns or songs or blessings from numerous religious and/or spiritual practices performed during the “holiest” part of their ritual specific practice. Therefore, it could be said, “Sanctus” (I will use this word as a blanket term to signify all music performed during the ritual specific portion of a spiritual gathering) is a hymn of gratitude symbolizing a mutual exchange from a sanctum’s attendees and their higher-power: it is a human’s humbled admission of their physical form’s limitations. All ceremonial happenings prior to the sanctus are gradual movements supporting the sanctus crescendo - comparable to all the words spoken prior to, “I do,” at a wedding ceremony. Ultimately, sanctus acknowledges a cause for celebration in whatever form that may take. 

Wanderfalke recapitulated the 11th century hymn, “Sanctus,” by utilizing a variety of stringed instruments and electronic music making machines, whose dexterous workings I cannot begin to fathom. And the end product is, “(in)Sanctus.” (The beautiful ethereal sound scape nurturing your ears at this moment - volume up please). Wanderfalke’s updated arrangement was motivated by two insights: the spiritual value he finds from his home studio (or sanctum), and the beautifully uncommon chord progression of a centuries old hymn composed to be performed and listened to in a spiritual vortex (echoing the function of his personal sanctum). And so, I devised a goal to pull only one of the many threads through the eye of a treble clef. With this thread I will build a bridge. I will build a bridge from Wanderfalke’s song of the month, “(in)Sanctus,” to the majority of human being’s desire for reason, logic, and explanation in otherwise inexplicable situations, events, or scientifically driven occurrences (the precipitous for a reason of a sacred place, a sanctum - pretty heady I know). But first, let’s talk about French symbolist writer and pataphysics creator, Alfred Jarry, and his absurdist play titled, Ubu Roi (Ubu the King or King Ubu). 

Ubu Roi opened (and closed) at Paris’s Théâtre de l'Œuvre on December 10, 1896: the premiere and final performance of Ubu Roi share every last detail. Notable members in attendance were Irish poet W.B. Yeats and French poet and essayist Catulle Mendès. The buzz surrounding the play’s style and content seemed revolutionary: and it was - in a way. Some historians credit Ubu Roi as the beginning of the Modernist movement. The play is also credited as the precursor to Dada, Surrealism, and the Theater of the Absurd, and the hype - once again, in a way - was exceeded. Ubu Roi’s childish, irreverent, and out right disrespectful mode of theatrical performance, which satirically challenged social norms and conventions in such unprecedented, bizarre, incomprehensible, and comical ways, that the audience did not know how to respond - so they rioted. 

Most of human history people leaned on God, religion, and spirituality as just cause for reason and explanation to the inexplicable, Jarry was not confounded by the world’s “supernatural” happenings. He was, however, perplexed by the social class of choice at the time, the bourgeoisie (a class he defined as super-mediocre). (And please do not conflate my examples with disliking religion and/or the bourgeoisie, my point is this: 
​
“Sometimes people search for meaning in questions that cannot be answered, because in actuality, there is no question to be answered. In reality, what people observe is a series of occurrences filtered through previously unseen forms of radical behavioral expressions that influence and embody more shifts (not more - like increased: more - like stricter folkways) faster than their minds can process. This can shake a people’s core beliefs and severe their once thought to be fundamentally sound worldview, and to recognize such things can lead to group psychosis, which is unpleasant for all parties involved.”

We are living in a new thing, a sanctulacrum. A word I made up (which is redundant because all words are made up). Sanctulacrum is a portmanteau that combines sanctum (a sacred place) and simulacrum (a superficial likeness or resemblance); And this is the bridge Wanderfalke’s “(in)Sanctus” builds for us. It is an evolutionary resting point that honors past ceremonial practices and links them to our present Sanctulacrum: a distorted reality based on, and rewarding, faux praise and placation. And that is where we are, a several strata deep detachment from the inward healing intent and practice of spiritual wellness - seemingly caught in a perpetual malstrom of spiritual malnourishment. It is why I am fascinated by Alfred Jarry, his pataphysics, and Ubu Roi; it is why my brain became a ball of dirty yarn with myriad loose ends; it is why things seem (and are) so difficult to comprehend at the moment and lack a definitive causational crux; it is why a return to love and spiritual soundness are so needed: our higher minds have been captured, or, more accurately, we have forfeited our higher minds to a misled concept, a sinister ism, a person, place, and/or thing fraught with deceptive malintent. And that is the ominous portents of present day. Much like my inability to poignantly pinpoint a linear, succinct, and clear thesis due to the overwhelming lightning charged insistence of external (and internal) stimuli, the once playful distraction mind for satirical material has gone off the rails. We are players in a game with undefined and shifting rules. And there is not one specific center for our biopsychosocial spiritual sickness and confusion. All matters of equanimity have seeped through resentment’s egoist cracks. I am compelled to share this line from Hunter S. Thompson’s only novel, The Rum Diary, “Human beings are the only creatures on Earth who claim a God, and the only living thing that behaves like it hasn't got one.”

And I am not saying we must, as a collective or individuals, believe in Gods or a God, but it seems being tethered to some source of moral anchor and guidance could help restore our faith in humanity and ourselves. Allow inexplicable encounters and their byproduct opportunities fuel a wonder to wander the byzantine folds of your frontal lobe; Let mystery supplant reality’s broken ballast, embrace enigma’s mystic forces as their gracious vibrations course into and through all we pursue. And even at its worst, remember to acknowledge the utter strangeness of being anything at all.