Cages and Fields
nowhere I'm ever going to arrive
Sometimes I become intensely convinced I need to defend myself, I need to take a stand.
This is the realest moment that’s ever happened, my life is on the line.
Two hours later, I’m washing dishes thinking, “Why did I just get so crazy?”
In an acute bereavement, it was astonishing to me that other people were carrying on with ordinary life.
My earth’s crust had caved.
Every wake-up was a cold sweat.
I cannot overstate how permanent this felt.
But I couldn’t have maintained that state even if I’d wanted to.
I emerged different, but definitely out.
I fail constantly to recognize emptiness, falling for life as a journey with a place I’ll arrive.
I imagine a series of points collected under my name. Eventually, at the Great Desk, their sum will determine whether I’m loved or discarded.
But no one has ever successfully condemned me.
No one can save me from death.
I’m never going to get anywhere.
There is simply this moment of experience: textured, unmoored, and exposed.
And I’ll never save my life. I won’t save a single actual experience, not one. Not. A. Single. One. It’s like passing under a waterfall. The first sight of your baby’s face. The man you love promises you. The war ends and everyone’s in the street. Later it’s copies of copies of copies of the sheerest sense impressions.
You’re a whole universe. You’re angry or you’re bored or you’re— even now, hear it? Stickers. These words are a kid’s school album, or tape that’s gotten too old, barely there.
I have a cloudy recall of a photograph of my grandmother, glimpsed when I was much younger. She was a stunning woman. In the photo, she had dark hair and wearing shorts? How, but she was and she had such long legs. Did I dream it? I’ll never know. That’s how it is, every bit of my life: the wisps of a long-gone exquisite young woman, captured on one last remaining wafer-thin paper, a glimpse I’m no longer sure I saw.
You cannot reify me no matter how hard we try.
There’s a certain View that Stemless in particular has helped me into.
In this place, I know that nothing can really stick to me, or to anyone else. I know that my mind is constantly producing strategy after strategy, story after story, and so is yours – and none of them are Finally Real.
In this view, I can see them! And somehow they are simply hilarious…
I say something and often I don’t know why but I know it’s false.
I go, “Nooope. Not that.” It’s only absurdist and lovable.
I unlock into a deep and wide forgiveness. In the view together, you could say anything to me and I could say anything to you. It was all a big joke that we kept falling for! There’s a silken neutrality.
Stemless isn’t my chance to finally say the Big Dark Truth That Was Here All Along, or build the skills to handle it.
Stemless is where I realize that the Big Dark Truth That Was Here All Along is also just part of the prank.
Practice Stemless with me! Stretches + Jam (open to all skill levels) Thursday, March 12, 6-8pm UK time / 11am-1pm LA time. Email rsvp.stemless@gmail.com to join.
Joining our WhatsApp Group to hear about events. We’re coming to Vancouver, BC for a weekend immersion, March 14-15 and dreaming up more in-person weekend events later this year!
Future offerings. We’ll soon invite a second round of closed group practice. We’d love to have you. Express interest.
Listen to us talk about Stemless on The Container podcast! Also available on Spotify and Apple.