The art of living as a whole, and any art or process of creation in particular, is a continuous becoming. A reliving. From a blank slate. Metastability. Nothing stands still—neither stars, nor cities, nor the mind. With every new thought, we change. Metacognition is the highest degree of intelligence. To step beyond the self and look at everything from the outside, as it were. As if it isn't me.
Yet sometimes, one longs to be right here and now, in the full density of life, and in those moments, reflection fails. There is no looking from the outside. No rift, no imperfection.
This spring, I am soaring on the waves of unceasing bird trills. The very thing I missed in Gothenburg a year ago: the diversity and richness of birdsong. Terra Mariana—the land of birds.
The foundational lighthouses have shifted. It is no longer the dead, nor the monastery, nor the walking dead; the Saturday mantra to appease the fierce Shani. Saturn. Jupiter’s exaltation in Cancer.
On Trinity Sunday, stepping into the church at the end of the Liturgy, at the very close of the Transubstantiation of the Gifts, I buried my face in the Cross. Take, eat. And yet, I chose a path bypassing the Cross. Or perhaps it only seemed to me that I bypassed it, for truth be told, my life has been quite difficult. Often. Was it the Sacrifice and the Joy of the cross and resurrection that sourced my suffering? Though what suffering to speak of—yes, it was there, but recently, over the past few years, I have learned to be happy in the rather harsh conditions of long pilgrimages and the physical strain of seasonal work. Of course, I was always a little not from here, and not quite here.
Or perhaps the cross and resurrection became a panacea for me, a meaning, the only way out at that moment, entangled with my father’s death, the loss of home, vagrancy, and only later, pilgrimage. I thought I had overcome my wandering, that this chapter of life was closed. But what can I say—at the mere thought of the road, of freedom on the Camino de Santiago somewhere in the foothills of the Alps, my heart would leap with joy and wings would grow. The road has always gifted me generously when walked with an open heart and without guile—both along the way and upon returning home. Imagine that, I had already bought new trekking sandals—half-open, half-boots. My backpack has stood ready in the corner since returning from Portugal in December. I felt filled with the vital juices of the first day of the menstrual cycle and the wild blossoming of chestnuts; the lilacs had already faded; a screaming, flagrant green. Albeit, of course, tired from the excessive workload, a little unfocused, somehow.
As before, and perhaps ever more intensely, my essence as an intellectual, a thinker, a cloistered philosopher, and a loner kept breaking through. As before, as always, I observed life and people without exactly sharing it—remaining slightly aloof, leaving the slits of truth unobstructed. I wanted so badly to truly want something material—lots of money, to buy my own house, a car. But for now, I still couldn't claw my way out, or was only just beginning to scramble up from the very bottom. I couldn't work where my intellect, my talent, my freedom were not engaged. My true nature was becoming far too blatant, yet I was still suffering too deeply from the blows of fate and the struggle against the imperfections of the system. A starved, feral system of primitive exploitation where the value of an individual, of personality itself, is utterly ignored. You are not viewed as an intrinsically valuable, unique individuality; rather, they try to shave you down and blend you into the mundane, gray, passive, indifferent mass. To use you up and throw you away.
Yes, of course, it’s worth mentioning the brutal hangover after two bottles of champagne drunk at work. To top it off, on my way home in the taxi, I forgot my phone. The next day, realizing I wouldn't make it to work, I picked up my phone after lunchtime at the Laagri Selver information desk. And I made a fish soup from the heads and tails of rainbow trout—very rich, with parsnip root, shallots, rice, and aromatic herbs. Meanwhile, I got sucked into Anthony Bourdain's documentaries—culinary travel sketches from different corners of the universe. I love everything raw—unpolished, rough-hewn, uncut, wild, natural, and imperfect, yet possessing a powerful potential for movement, held in a state of metastability. I am raw myself: aesthetically unrefined, punk enough to allow myself minor imperfections and escapades. Minor distortions, allegories, witchcraft. But naturally, absolutely exquisite and saturated with haute cuisine were his dispatches from Italy and France. I deeply loved watching the cooking process—this creative act of crafting a culinary masterpiece. Bourdain undeniably possessed a charisma of his own, a veneer of decadence, and that allure—an animal magnetism often inherent in lost souls. Some born for endless night. For pitch-black night. A junkie who had been on crack and later alcohol, though I suspect he didn't disdain hashish in Marseille or cocaine in Granada. Judging by the mood of his television shows. Marked by sadness. He wasn't happy. Yet he draws you in with this sadness of his. With his doom. With his abyss. And then I read on the internet that he hanged himself in 2018, at the end of his affair with the infernal Asia Argento. The daughter of the great, terrible, even demonic character Dario Argento. In a hotel room in France. The mark of sadness.
