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Resistance by Andre Platteel , May 4th

Chairs stand empty in a bar packed full. Evening has fallen. A warm spring night lies ahead. A waitress pushes her way through the crowd outside, picking up glasses, those offered and those left on a brick wall. Leaning against this wall, he talks with his friends. Nothing particular. Just subjects arising in mind. Women. Careers. Unnoticeably, as usual, he is competing. When it starts to rain, no one tries to go inside. Knowing it will pass quickly, they shelter beneath an awning. Too many people. The sudden heavy rain drowns out voices and he loses contact with his friends. He finds himself looking into the face of a young woman he had not seen minutes ago when he was scanning the crowd. She is carrying a baby on her belly, wrapped in cloth that is knotted around her neck. He makes space, but not enough. They stare into each other’s eyes. She looks away. She puts her arms around the cloth, around the baby who is visible through the curves in the cloth. ‘I hate this’ she says, the words bouncing back from the ground and hard to hear. When she lifts her head again he asks if he can help. In the redness of her face, her eyes move quickly and her jaws are tight. The moisture on her forehead does not come from the rain. ‘Just talk to me’, she pleads. He does not know what to say. There is silence. ‘Talk’, she commands. He thinks of questions, but immediately realizes that she is not looking for a conversation. She needs words only as distractions. She tries to + more Chairs stand empty in a bar packed full. Evening has fallen. A warm spring night lies ahead. A waitress pushes her way through the crowd outside, picking up glasses, those offered and those left on a brick wall. Leaning against this wall, he talks with his friends. Nothing particular. Just subjects arising in mind. Women. Careers. Unnoticeably, as usual, he is competing. When it starts to rain, no one tries to go inside. Knowing it will pass quickly, they shelter beneath an awning. Too many people. The sudden heavy rain drowns out voices and he loses contact with his friends. He finds himself looking into the face of a young woman he had not seen minutes ago when he was scanning the crowd. She is carrying a baby on her belly, wrapped in cloth that is knotted around her neck. He makes space, but not enough. They stare into each other’s eyes. She looks away. She puts her arms around the cloth, around the baby who is visible through the curves in the cloth. ‘I hate this’ she says, the words bouncing back from the ground and hard to hear. When she lifts her head again he asks if he can help. In the redness of her face, her eyes move quickly and her jaws are tight. The moisture on her forehead does not come from the rain. ‘Just talk to me’, she pleads. He does not know what to say. There is silence. ‘Talk’, she commands. He thinks of questions, but immediately realizes that she is not looking for a conversation. She needs words only as distractions. She tries to focus her eyes, wants to find rest in him. He reads the fear he himself knows so well. Not a particular fear, not a fear for something or caused by anything. ‘Not now. I must take care. Not now’, she repeats. He makes the space smaller between them. Without thinking he puts his arms around her and the baby. Carefully. Trying not to create a misunderstanding. ‘You are bigger than the fear you feel right now’, he whispers. And he also thinks: whatever happens, I’m here to take care of you and the baby. He doesn’t speak this thought, knowing that it would sound pathetic. Worse, the intimacy would spark this energy she is fighting with so intensely. She makes small kicking movements with her legs. She is losing ground. He feels shaky too. He holds her loosely, but firmly. His grip is telling her that he is here for her. And also that she is strong enough to cope with what is happening. He looks to the sky and sees a bird flying through the rain. The bird is already grounded. He looks back at her. She is crying. Her body is shaking. There is no resistance anymore. She is becoming grounded. Soon, the fear will leave her. He feels tears welling up in his own eyes. And in the back of his mind an uninvited voice hopes that his friends have not been paying too much attention to him over the last few minutes. - less tagged:   fear   silence   mind   Body    permalink  read: 2061  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Ignorance by Andre Platteel , April 28th

He had reserved a table at their favourite restaurant, which they would visit after seeing a film at a nearby cinema. In the film, a little boy dies. The whole family is devastated but tries to ignore his death and get on with their lives. Thanks to living in denial, however, death almost completely takes over their lives. She was still sad about the boy during dinner. He couldn’t talk her out of it by saying that it was just a movie and that if she Googled the actor’s name, she would see that he was still alive. She answered that these things happen in real life, too: people die and the sadness it causes can be so big that the people left behind die a great deal as well. Whatever he was trying to say to cheer her up, he was actually making her sadder, even more upset. The restaurant had an outstanding name, but her meat was too red. And her beans looked frail. She hardly ate anything. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she said she wasn’t sure if she loved him – that she felt it was possible that her love for him could disappear. How can love be true if there is a chance that it could pass? He felt her distancing herself from him. Tears welled up in his eyes, although he knew she wasn’t talking about their love. She went to the bathroom and returned pale and sweaty. He said 'sweetie'. She eventually filled the silence that followed by saying that she also doubted life, because life is not eternal, and how can you trust something that ends? He ordered some coffee and + more He had reserved a table at their favourite restaurant, which they would visit after seeing a film at a nearby cinema. In the film, a little boy dies. The whole family is devastated but tries to ignore his death and get on with their lives. Thanks to living in denial, however, death almost completely takes over their lives. She was still sad about the boy during dinner. He couldn’t talk her out of it by saying that it was just a movie and that if she Googled the actor’s name, she would see that he was still alive. She answered that these things happen in real life, too: people die and the sadness it causes can be so big that the people left behind die a great deal as well. Whatever he was trying to say to cheer her up, he was actually making her sadder, even more upset. The restaurant had an outstanding name, but her meat was too red. And her beans looked frail. She hardly ate anything. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she said she wasn’t sure if she loved him – that she felt it was possible that her love for him could disappear. How can love be true if there is a chance that it could pass? He felt her distancing herself from him. Tears welled up in his eyes, although he knew she wasn’t talking about their love. She went to the bathroom and returned pale and sweaty. He said 'sweetie'. She eventually filled the silence that followed by saying that she also doubted life, because life is not eternal, and how can you trust something that ends? He ordered some coffee and chocolates and told her that they had come to this beautiful restaurant to celebrate love and life. Seeing these words fail, he tried another tack: ‘You know, when something passes and seemingly ends it comes from something eternal.’ ‘But when one of us dies,’ she asked sweetly, ‘we are separated. You can’t deny that, can you?’ The waiter came back with a cup filled with chocolates and raspberries. He tried again, with different words. But these didn’t convince either. He couldn’t reach her or himself. Their minds were filled with voices that had created a conspiracy against everything they believed in and knew was true. - less tagged:   ignorance   mind   life   love   fear    permalink  read: 2251  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Mother of all memories by Andre Platteel , June 1st

It was almost finished: the detailed model of the memory he had spent the last few years searching for. A search begun after a short but terrifying moment one particular night (a night thus far unmemorable). The night had gone something like this: woke up; realized the reason he had woken up was a lack of breath; reached for oxygen that his body failed to absorb; opened his mouth only to find nothing there, nothing that was willing to fill his lungs; noticed he had left his body and saw himself choking into nothingness, just white, recently washed sheets around him. And then, out of nowhere, something, a little sound (he thought), or at least something that sounded like a sound, something not so trivial, a vivid but veiled memory that made life flow again. That which had brought life back into him had not only brought back his body; his body was brought back into something, something full and sweet, something he knew he knew, but was forgotten. He became obsessed with the sweetness and fullness he felt connected with, something that he called ‘it’. Immediately the same night, the night now made memorable due to what had happened, he crammed his ideas and thoughts about what ‘it’ could be onto small, sticky pieces of yellow paper. He was tracing ‘it’ and felt how he was coming closer and closer to knowing it. There were moments when he thought he would embrace what he was looking for in a split second, something ‘just around the corner’. But always, the thing he was chasing found a way to escape. The harder he tried the more he seemed to forget what ‘it’ exactly was all about. He changed his strategies; he surrounded ‘it’ carefully and peeled the mystery from the thing he wanted to know so obsessively. That’s actually how the idea of a model began. Since ‘it’ had hit a memory deep inside him, ‘it’ had to be something in his brain, he thought. He created a copy of his brain with its collective memories represented by the sticky yellow notes, by images he had drawn or torn out of magazines, and by sounds he had collected. Sometimes (almost always when he was not so busy chasing) images entered his mind that resonated with ‘it’. He wrote them down and stuck them into his model: jigsaw pieces of a puzzle soon to be whole. + more It was almost finished: the detailed model of the memory he had spent the last few years searching for. A search begun after a short but terrifying moment one particular night (a night thus far unmemorable). The night had gone something like this: woke up; realized the reason he had woken up was a lack of breath; reached for oxygen that his body failed to absorb; opened his mouth only to find nothing there, nothing that was willing to fill his lungs; noticed he had left his body and saw himself choking into nothingness, just white, recently washed sheets around him. And then, out of nowhere, something, a little sound (he thought), or at least something that sounded like a sound, something not so trivial, a vivid but veiled memory that made life flow again. That which had brought life back into him had not only brought back his body; his body was brought back into something, something full and sweet, something he knew he knew, but was forgotten. He became obsessed with the sweetness and fullness he felt connected with, something that he called ‘it’. Immediately the same night, the night now made memorable due to what had happened, he crammed his ideas and thoughts about what ‘it’ could be onto small, sticky pieces of yellow paper. He was tracing ‘it’ and felt how he was coming closer and closer to knowing it. There were moments when he thought he would embrace what he was looking for in a split second, something ‘just around the corner’. But always, the thing he was chasing found a way to escape. The harder he tried the more he seemed to forget what ‘it’ exactly was all about. He changed his strategies; he surrounded ‘it’ carefully and peeled the mystery from the thing he wanted to know so obsessively. That’s actually how the idea of a model began. Since ‘it’ had hit a memory deep inside him, ‘it’ had to be something in his brain, he thought. He created a copy of his brain with its collective memories represented by the sticky yellow notes, by images he had drawn or torn out of magazines, and by sounds he had collected. Sometimes (almost always when he was not so busy chasing) images entered his mind that resonated with ‘it’. He wrote them down and stuck them into his model: jigsaw pieces of a puzzle soon to be whole. One night, a night when sleep would not come, he went downstairs, switched on the light of a room that was once his office space but which now provided space for the model that had outgrown the size of his brain by at least twenty times. He saw how the light brought life to the fragments and realized, out of nowhere, that all the different pieces could never unravel the memory he was so obsessed with. All these fragments could never add up to what he was seeking. How could he have thought that he would discover the totality of ‘it’ by isolating fragments, by analysing memories? Not a single piece of what he had gathered said anything about what was so important to him. Every connection he had tried to make, every effort to connect two or more fragments together, had created only the idea of something that was about to become whole. He had been tracing something that could never be revealed by assembling fragments to serve as a manual. And yet it did. He was about to leave the room when, for no particular reason, he turned back with an almost unnatural faithfulness. He flicked the light on again and saw how his model of many fragments had come alive. It could have been something about the artificial light, or the sleep that was about to knock him out, but he saw how the fragments not only told their own story, he saw ‘it’ in every fragment. ‘It’ was not a particular memory; ‘it’ was omnipresent. He saw how his model became a hologram, 'it' being present in all the different parts of his model. And fragments he had not connected became connected by ‘it’. He turned off the light again, went to sleep and dreamed about what he had seen. He knew that what he had seen was something that can never been seen by the eye, and yet is present in everything we see. He slept well that night, heard the sound of light, and felt how the memory that is embedded in everything made all memories come home. - less tagged:   light   spaciousness   connectedness   life   Body   mind   memory    permalink  read: 7046  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Northern Lights by Andre Platteel , March 28th

Today, I am quite immortal. I open my eyes and see a sky full of stars; a landscape that’s totally silent. Wide open. Dark background deepened through the ages. No time. There is no time that can make darkness as deep as this. A thought escapes: this does not exist. It does. Even if I was nothing more than air. I make a meaningless sound. Wait. Make another sound. Not loud, just for myself. I am trying to follow the rhythm of light and dark above me. And wondering: Is the darkness the silence between words or is it the light that represents silence? It makes a completely different rhyme. There is no distance between my eyes and the stars; their light burns my retina. My eyes fly. Anything further than ‘none’ falls off the edge of my vision. The Northern Lights are radiant tonight. It’s as if they are leading the other stars in a flight so fast that movement becomes invisible. How can lack of movement be so moving? I go into the living room. A big space. I see wood that makes a table. The table makes the living room. The living room makes the house. The house makes the street. What if this house decides to move somewhere else? The light outside has decided to shine on some garbage that’s acting silently, hoping to be left alone. I clean, light some candles and think of her and of the last time I saw her. There is a hole in my thinking. A sound. And with it returns the memory I failed to retrieve a second ago. I push a button. A short distance away a door is opening downstairs. A few seconds later she knocks and opens the door of the room, leaving me no time to answer. Long hair; a waterfall of gold. There is a dark blue fly on the table, and the moment she enters the room it takes off, flying like a lost child. She passes me, speaking with her eyes. My legs are burning. She walks to another part of the room. I had no time to see how she is dressed. There is a wall between my eyes and her. Thin. I could blow it away with my mind. She walks back, heading my direction. Stops half way. Undressed. She stands near a cupboard, a few metres from me. She impresses me. Outside, the future is humiliated. She curves her body, her arm resting on the top of the cupboard, her legs crossed, one of her heels curved upwards. She knows her classics. I could liberate her from her pose. Paradise is just a few steps away. To stand here, watching her, seeing her breathe and shape her body, makes me want to be air. “I can never love you,” she says. “I could never hurt you.” She sounds sure but feels unclear. There are shadows between the words, shadows that behave like time stretching endlessly. Words can create such a feeling of powerless. Still, I feel more than I can see or hear. + more Today, I am quite immortal. I open my eyes and see a sky full of stars; a landscape that’s totally silent. Wide open. Dark background deepened through the ages. No time. There is no time that can make darkness as deep as this. A thought escapes: this does not exist. It does. Even if I was nothing more than air. I make a meaningless sound. Wait. Make another sound. Not loud, just for myself. I am trying to follow the rhythm of light and dark above me. And wondering: Is the darkness the silence between words or is it the light that represents silence? It makes a completely different rhyme. There is no distance between my eyes and the stars; their light burns my retina. My eyes fly. Anything further than ‘none’ falls off the edge of my vision. The Northern Lights are radiant tonight. It’s as if they are leading the other stars in a flight so fast that movement becomes invisible. How can lack of movement be so moving? I go into the living room. A big space. I see wood that makes a table. The table makes the living room. The living room makes the house. The house makes the street. What if this house decides to move somewhere else? The light outside has decided to shine on some garbage that’s acting silently, hoping to be left alone. I clean, light some candles and think of her and of the last time I saw her. There is a hole in my thinking. A sound. And with it returns the memory I failed to retrieve a second ago. I push a button. A short distance away a door is opening downstairs. A few seconds later she knocks and opens the door of the room, leaving me no time to answer. Long hair; a waterfall of gold. There is a dark blue fly on the table, and the moment she enters the room it takes off, flying like a lost child. She passes me, speaking with her eyes. My legs are burning. She walks to another part of the room. I had no time to see how she is dressed. There is a wall between my eyes and her. Thin. I could blow it away with my mind. She walks back, heading my direction. Stops half way. Undressed. She stands near a cupboard, a few metres from me. She impresses me. Outside, the future is humiliated. She curves her body, her arm resting on the top of the cupboard, her legs crossed, one of her heels curved upwards. She knows her classics. I could liberate her from her pose. Paradise is just a few steps away. To stand here, watching her, seeing her breathe and shape her body, makes me want to be air. “I can never love you,” she says. “I could never hurt you.” She sounds sure but feels unclear. There are shadows between the words, shadows that behave like time stretching endlessly. Words can create such a feeling of powerless. Still, I feel more than I can see or hear. The fly is back on the table; it knows it belongs there, for now. With those few words she has erected a whole world between us. I wait: which of us will give the word ‘distance’ another meaning. Two steps, three, and a small one. Behind her back it’s the wood that disappears first, followed by the table, the room, the house and finally the street. It is snowing in summer. I feel I am not nothing, not anything, but that I am alive. I once bought a little box in a Chinese shop near my house. It was the size of a small button. When I opened it, stars appeared. I took them out, one by one, right hand placing them in the palm of my left. As I did so I was thinking what to do with them. After some time I still had no clue. I decided to put them back. The man who sold me the box, a tall dark guy, certainly not Chinese, said that the box held a secret. The box weighed next to nothing. I look at her: I can see that darkness and light are both silence and sound simultaneously. Her hands are tight to the sky. “What are you afraid of?” She becomes transparent. She falls off the edge of my vision but I know she is still there. “Can love cause pain?” she says without asking. “Are you in pain?” I ask. She giggles and I read: Not after the moments just gone. “Are you sure you are not in pain?” I ask. She stops giggling and moves her head in confirmation. Serious now, as serious as a little child. I call for the sky and the stars to be my judge – the Northern Lights are beside me, already here. - less tagged:   body   stars   mind   life   darkness   love   fear    permalink  read: 5738  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Falling upwards by Andre Platteel , March 17th

I wake up in a mind that never sleeps. Colours. Forms. Me. It’s all still there; fresh but barely noticeable, even if you do your best to see the differences. I make a cup of tea, enjoy the tree I can see through the windows, shower, dress and head to the bakery. Small streets with small shops. Not yet defeated by bigness. So quiet here, this morning. I look up and there she is, as always. She waves. I’ve never seen her up close, only there, up high. The wind whips her grey hair into a late winter day. She’s wearing a nightie; a flowery pattern, I think. She throws something, it begins to snow and pigeons eat from the air. I wave back and duck: a reflex to avoid being hit by a bird blinded by hunger. She laughs, her right hand covering her mouth. From down here she looks like a lovely teenage girl. And I am sure she still is. I buy some bread and choose another route back. It’s then I see that the neighbourhood bar has re-opened. Serious renovation work – nothing had been changed for four decades. I head in, order a freshly squeezed orange juice and pick up one of the newspapers they have. The bar feels even more authentic than before; not because it has changed a lot, but because the changes are barely noticeable. A big, long, wooden table. Five small tables down the right-hand side and, at the end, a wooden, oval one with a nice semi-circular wooden couch. Simple lamps. Posters announce festivals and plays. A long bar; metal and wood in one. It’s all still there. The owner is bald and warm and tired. Congratulations. Thanks. Orange juice. A man at the other end of the long table is looking at me – has been for a while now. Tall man in a suit. Skinny. Braces. Not a businessman – suit’s too old, made at least thirty years ago, now unexpectedly back in fashion. He wears big glasses. Long, thin hair touches his shoulders at the back. I wait for the moment he’ll start to talk to me; meantime, my mind reads about everything and nothing. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I hope the age-old cliché isn’t a chat-up line. He releases some cigarette smoke and my lungs fill with his exhalation. Through his mouth, into his lungs, back out again. A part of him is inside me now. I don’t know if I like that. I look at him. Nothing comes to mind. “You helped me some time ago. The supermarket bag. I live next door, high up.” He tells me his name and apologizes. He has had many names, he says, and he changes them quite often. When we met, probably a half year ago, he must have been called Marc, he says. The name doesn’t ring a bell, but carrying a supermarket bag up 12 small, steep flights of stairs certainly does. It’s coming back to me: “Can you help me?” he had asked. “My hip’s just been operated on.” A man with long, dark hair. Army boots. Metal noises. Big belly. Long coat that looked heavy, its pockets filled with something substantial. The coat stretched out like a yoga student. Cigarette between lips; bag in hand. Yellow fingers and big glasses. I’d agreed to help. As we walked up, the air became dryer the higher we went, the smell more intense. He had opened the door. A cat jumped and I could barely hold the bag, barely regain my balance. He had turned on the light, revealing a carpet covered in torn-out magazine pages. Lots of text and some images. I counted three other cats in two seconds. Heard my feet on the paper. + more I wake up in a mind that never sleeps. Colours. Forms. Me. It’s all still there; fresh but barely noticeable, even if you do your best to see the differences. I make a cup of tea, enjoy the tree I can see through the windows, shower, dress and head to the bakery. Small streets with small shops. Not yet defeated by bigness. So quiet here, this morning. I look up and there she is, as always. She waves. I’ve never seen her up close, only there, up high. The wind whips her grey hair into a late winter day. She’s wearing a nightie; a flowery pattern, I think. She throws something, it begins to snow and pigeons eat from the air. I wave back and duck: a reflex to avoid being hit by a bird blinded by hunger. She laughs, her right hand covering her mouth. From down here she looks like a lovely teenage girl. And I am sure she still is. I buy some bread and choose another route back. It’s then I see that the neighbourhood bar has re-opened. Serious renovation work – nothing had been changed for four decades. I head in, order a freshly squeezed orange juice and pick up one of the newspapers they have. The bar feels even more authentic than before; not because it has changed a lot, but because the changes are barely noticeable. A big, long, wooden table. Five small tables down the right-hand side and, at the end, a wooden, oval one with a nice semi-circular wooden couch. Simple lamps. Posters announce festivals and plays. A long bar; metal and wood in one. It’s all still there. The owner is bald and warm and tired. Congratulations. Thanks. Orange juice. A man at the other end of the long table is looking at me – has been for a while now. Tall man in a suit. Skinny. Braces. Not a businessman – suit’s too old, made at least thirty years ago, now unexpectedly back in fashion. He wears big glasses. Long, thin hair touches his shoulders at the back. I wait for the moment he’ll start to talk to me; meantime, my mind reads about everything and nothing. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I hope the age-old cliché isn’t a chat-up line. He releases some cigarette smoke and my lungs fill with his exhalation. Through his mouth, into his lungs, back out again. A part of him is inside me now. I don’t know if I like that. I look at him. Nothing comes to mind. “You helped me some time ago. The supermarket bag. I live next door, high up.” He tells me his name and apologizes. He has had many names, he says, and he changes them quite often. When we met, probably a half year ago, he must have been called Marc, he says. The name doesn’t ring a bell, but carrying a supermarket bag up 12 small, steep flights of stairs certainly does. It’s coming back to me: “Can you help me?” he had asked. “My hip’s just been operated on.” A man with long, dark hair. Army boots. Metal noises. Big belly. Long coat that looked heavy, its pockets filled with something substantial. The coat stretched out like a yoga student. Cigarette between lips; bag in hand. Yellow fingers and big glasses. I’d agreed to help. As we walked up, the air became dryer the higher we went, the smell more intense. He had opened the door. A cat jumped and I could barely hold the bag, barely regain my balance. He had turned on the light, revealing a carpet covered in torn-out magazine pages. Lots of text and some images. I counted three other cats in two seconds. Heard my feet on the paper. “Could you put the bag in the living room please?” he had asked. The windows were covered with old clothes. Mostly T-shirts; some light coming through the thin cotton. I had asked him why. “The light is too intense. And have you seen the horror outside? That’s why I wear these.” He had taken off his coat to show me what was in his pockets. Heavy metal. Lead. “Look outside, if you dare,” he had challenged. I couldn’t imagine seeing anything different to what I had seen moments before, when I was out there. Different things going on, of course, but the timbre should still have been the same. “What’s happening?” I had asked. Had to know before I saw: something inside me told me that craziness is not all strange. “People falling upwards and slowly coming down again, being other.” And they were. Through a bit of uncovered window, between two T-shirts and a pair of big, white knickers, I had seen some people falling upwards. Lifted by something. Not something you could see, but not nothing either; something was happening to them. First they floated, then they became kind of pixelated, then they fell softly back down and landed on the ground. They went on their way as if nothing had happened, although you could see that something had happened because of the light they spread. Out there, no one paid attention, no one seemed to have any idea what was happening. “You want a beer?” he had asked. I’d opted for water; he drank beer while unpacking his groceries. Milk, eggs, bread, butter and cheese. And beer, lots of beer. A simple survival kit. “You still wear that heavy coat?” I ask, snapping back to the present. “The same coat, but no heavy metal in my pockets anymore.” “And your windows?” “Still covered: love privacy and I wouldn’t know what to do with all the clothes if I took them down from the windows.” “And?” He laughs. And says it’s amazing, falling upwards. If you are aware of it you can feel it changing you. But whatever happens, he says, you can never stop it from happening. Not even by putting lead in your pockets. We are lit by the sun; we are sun ourselves, becoming conscious that we are light is just a question of evolution. I walk back home. The woman up high is no longer standing in front of her open window. I whistle. There she is. Slow steps. I let it pick me up; I fall all the way up until I am in front of her. I give her a little kiss on her cheek. Her skin is like freshly fallen snow. Finally I see what I had thought: she is ageless. - less tagged:   sun   evolution   consciousness   falling   mind   form   spirit    permalink  read: 4640  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

On Holy Ground by Andre Platteel , February 25th

The butterfly has tried to make itself invisible. Its colours are the same as those of the tree it clings to: brown with dark lines. Its body is flat, its back slightly arched and it is this that betrays it. The child ignores the butterfly. His mind is focused on something else, something that seems to be alive, but not alive like any living thing I have seen before. He is sitting on the ground, legs spread, his tiny hands moving like a T’ai Chi Master. Consciously. Slowly. Almost silent. His knuckles are woolly as if he has worked with his hands for decades. He wears a short, knitted overcoat. All sorts of browns blend together, tricking the eyes into believing of being just one colour. His corduroy pants are tied at the waist with rope. His trouser bottoms rolled up. His hair is dark and still thin; his eyes big and black; his nose tiny. You can never judge from its size how a child’s nose will develop. The child stares at me, all the while his hands still moving, creating a space for a sharp-clawed insect (or is it an animal?) to move. The creature tries to attack the child, but the child is too silent to get hit, to get hurt. He raises his hand. The creature rises with him as if connected by little strings. It’s using its wings, but that doesn’t distract it – its sharp claws continue to attack the child. The creature is blue. Black. “What is it – that thing?” I ask my guide. “It is his imagination. Given to him by holy man.” “Why doesn’t it fly away?” The guide’s answer to my first question hasn’t yet registered with me. “There is no fun in your imagination flying away from you, is there?” Some time later we are standing before a door. We have been walking for at least seven hours to reach this place in the mountains. A beautiful walk through small Berber villages and plains of solitude. The last few hundred meters involved attaching crampons to our shoes and leaving tracks in the fresh snow. We met several people along the way; with mules; with guides; with complete families – all coming to visit the holy man. Our holy man is someone different: he is still alive and everyone can come to visit him. The guide pulls a red cigarette packet from his pocket. His right hand is red, too. The cold hits him on the right side. When he inhales he closes his eyes, releasing the smoke casually from his mouth. He lives around here, so he told me, but he dresses like a big-city boy: baseball cap, jeans and a leather jacket. I hear the sound of a radio coming from the other side of the door. I think it’s REM, but I am sure I must be wrong. The door is green; made from different kinds of wood but painted to create the impression that it’s all one. “Does he know we are coming? Do we have to knock or ring?” The guide doesn’t answer. Now someone is knocking from inside. My guide throws away his half-smoked cigarette, his third while we have been waiting. It disappears in the snow. No filter. + more The butterfly has tried to make itself invisible. Its colours are the same as those of the tree it clings to: brown with dark lines. Its body is flat, its back slightly arched and it is this that betrays it. The child ignores the butterfly. His mind is focused on something else, something that seems to be alive, but not alive like any living thing I have seen before. He is sitting on the ground, legs spread, his tiny hands moving like a T’ai Chi Master. Consciously. Slowly. Almost silent. His knuckles are woolly as if he has worked with his hands for decades. He wears a short, knitted overcoat. All sorts of browns blend together, tricking the eyes into believing of being just one colour. His corduroy pants are tied at the waist with rope. His trouser bottoms rolled up. His hair is dark and still thin; his eyes big and black; his nose tiny. You can never judge from its size how a child’s nose will develop. The child stares at me, all the while his hands still moving, creating a space for a sharp-clawed insect (or is it an animal?) to move. The creature tries to attack the child, but the child is too silent to get hit, to get hurt. He raises his hand. The creature rises with him as if connected by little strings. It’s using its wings, but that doesn’t distract it – its sharp claws continue to attack the child. The creature is blue. Black. “What is it – that thing?” I ask my guide. “It is his imagination. Given to him by holy man.” “Why doesn’t it fly away?” The guide’s answer to my first question hasn’t yet registered with me. “There is no fun in your imagination flying away from you, is there?” Some time later we are standing before a door. We have been walking for at least seven hours to reach this place in the mountains. A beautiful walk through small Berber villages and plains of solitude. The last few hundred meters involved attaching crampons to our shoes and leaving tracks in the fresh snow. We met several people along the way; with mules; with guides; with complete families – all coming to visit the holy man. Our holy man is someone different: he is still alive and everyone can come to visit him. The guide pulls a red cigarette packet from his pocket. His right hand is red, too. The cold hits him on the right side. When he inhales he closes his eyes, releasing the smoke casually from his mouth. He lives around here, so he told me, but he dresses like a big-city boy: baseball cap, jeans and a leather jacket. I hear the sound of a radio coming from the other side of the door. I think it’s REM, but I am sure I must be wrong. The door is green; made from different kinds of wood but painted to create the impression that it’s all one. “Does he know we are coming? Do we have to knock or ring?” The guide doesn’t answer. Now someone is knocking from inside. My guide throws away his half-smoked cigarette, his third while we have been waiting. It disappears in the snow. No filter. We open the door and take off our shoes before walking in. “You are on holy ground now.” A man sitting on the ground. He wears a suit and a woollen jumper under his jacket. In front of him stands a table bearing small, decorated glasses and a silver teapot. Carpets all around. He says something to the guide and they both laugh. I ask my guide what he just said. “He asks if we came flying.” I don’t understand. “He sees big wings on your back. Not the wings of an angel. Just big wings.” Holy Man pours tea. He’s skilled; leans away to make the distance between teapot and glass as big as possible. Tea hangs in the air. “He asks you to sit down. On the ground. And for you to feel the ground.” I drink the tea while doing my best to feel the ground. Holy Man picks up a carpet and shows it to me. “He asks if you like it and if you want to buy.” I feel confused. Holy Man looks at me and giggles like a child. “It is beautiful,” he says, switching to a kind of English. “Made myself. Carpet is holy.” Giggling turns to laughter. Energy goes up; seven wasted hours? He flips the carpet, shows me the back of it and sticks two needles through the cloth, one threaded with silk, and starts weaving. The skin on his hands is tough. “Why do you come to Holy Man?” Holy Man asks. “To see me making carpet?” His giggling is not putting me at ease. “This is made of earth. Caterpillar. Silk. Butterfly. You have to stick your needles into earth and weave it before you fly.” The guide is lighting another cigarette. No objections from Holy Man. “You have body, no?” The answer is obvious so I decide not to answer. “Do cars fly?” I’m thinking that he doesn’t expect an answer. “Do cars fly?” But he does. I use my head to do so. “Do planes drive?” I repeat the head thing. “Do bodies fly?” And again. “So why is your body up in the air? You come down first. Like a caterpillar. First touch ground. Later, you will become butterfly, naturally. You can use wings on your back. You fly on earth, through earth, with earth.” He stops talking and giggling and continues weaving. Here in his room all the questions I thought I would ask have disappeared. Minutes later, the guide and I are outside again, our shoes back on. I feel my shoes sinking through the snow and how they touch solid ground. Holy ground. The carpet in my backpack feels light, like air. - less tagged:   God   mind   fire   holy   mountain   ground   wing   butterfly    permalink  read: 5026  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The outer layer of the mind by Andre Platteel , February 15th

I get out of the plane. No corridor to greet me, just stairs down to the tarmac. Quite a walk. Kerosene, citrus, rubber, sweat. Once through passport control I see someone holding my name. I drive with him through the night, into the desert. Many stars above us; more and more as my eyes adjust to the darkness. I can see deeper, with each breath expanding what is above me. The key to my room is red. A large sitting area. Lavender, dates, roses, mint, honey. Walls plastered with red leather and dark grey tadelakt. Transparent, off-white cotton curtains, deliberately too long. A soft desert breeze through a half-open shutter turns them into vertical waves. A large bath opposite the bed. Grapefruit, lemongrass, oranges. I’m hungry. Food on the roof terrace. Below, the city square. Pillars of smoke. At least a thousand food stalls. The faded sound of knives, magicians and storytellers. Someone is bringing my food. Greens and browns. Couscous, aubergine, nuts, olives, pumpkin mouse. “Just arrived, Sir?” The next day his hands mould my body. Clay, steam, Argan oil. In my calf, the sural nerve shoots pain. No softness, no relaxation. My body as raw material. As he’s not relaxing me, I try to relax into the pain he is causing. His head near my ear, he whispers in a strong voice: “What are you stressed about, Sir?” Eucalyptus, calendula, peppermint. Cover-ups for urine, vomit, blood, fear. “It is all here.” He touches my stomach. “You thought it was here”, he puts his hand on my neck, “here”, hand on lower back, “and here”. His fingers again press into my sural. “But it is all here.” He giggles, puts me on my right side for a few seconds and then back on my back. I feel transparent to him. And more. Butterfly light. “I want you to relax maximum now.” No touching or pressing. He leaves the room. A splash of sunlight blindfolds me. Potatoes, grease, green peas, coffee, nicotine, sugar, beer. I see someone vague, then familiar; someone I haven’t seen for a long time; someone I have known so well; someone I have been longing for. He hasn’t grown older. Of course not. I follow him through the rooms of a house I also once knew well but seem to have forgotten. The house feels new to me now. Because of him. Maybe. + more I get out of the plane. No corridor to greet me, just stairs down to the tarmac. Quite a walk. Kerosene, citrus, rubber, sweat. Once through passport control I see someone holding my name. I drive with him through the night, into the desert. Many stars above us; more and more as my eyes adjust to the darkness. I can see deeper, with each breath expanding what is above me. The key to my room is red. A large sitting area. Lavender, dates, roses, mint, honey. Walls plastered with red leather and dark grey tadelakt. Transparent, off-white cotton curtains, deliberately too long. A soft desert breeze through a half-open shutter turns them into vertical waves. A large bath opposite the bed. Grapefruit, lemongrass, oranges. I’m hungry. Food on the roof terrace. Below, the city square. Pillars of smoke. At least a thousand food stalls. The faded sound of knives, magicians and storytellers. Someone is bringing my food. Greens and browns. Couscous, aubergine, nuts, olives, pumpkin mouse. “Just arrived, Sir?” The next day his hands mould my body. Clay, steam, Argan oil. In my calf, the sural nerve shoots pain. No softness, no relaxation. My body as raw material. As he’s not relaxing me, I try to relax into the pain he is causing. His head near my ear, he whispers in a strong voice: “What are you stressed about, Sir?” Eucalyptus, calendula, peppermint. Cover-ups for urine, vomit, blood, fear. “It is all here.” He touches my stomach. “You thought it was here”, he puts his hand on my neck, “here”, hand on lower back, “and here”. His fingers again press into my sural. “But it is all here.” He giggles, puts me on my right side for a few seconds and then back on my back. I feel transparent to him. And more. Butterfly light. “I want you to relax maximum now.” No touching or pressing. He leaves the room. A splash of sunlight blindfolds me. Potatoes, grease, green peas, coffee, nicotine, sugar, beer. I see someone vague, then familiar; someone I haven’t seen for a long time; someone I have known so well; someone I have been longing for. He hasn’t grown older. Of course not. I follow him through the rooms of a house I also once knew well but seem to have forgotten. The house feels new to me now. Because of him. Maybe. He lifts the tablecloth so I can see what is underneath the table. Canyons, horses, desert, nomads, fire, fish. He walks to a bedroom: the room we shared almost twenty years ago. He directs me to look under the bed. A fox, an eagle, flying people. We walk to the dining room. The house is small and I feel too big for it. I have to bend my back to move around. A chess board. Odd. We didn’t play chess. One King remains. White. He grabs a black pawn, puts it on the board and hits the King from a position that normally poses no threat. He lets me see what is under the dining table. Stars, comets, flowing water, a heart breathing without a body. He lifts up the carpet the dining table is resting on: gazelles are escaping. Under the carpet lie stairs that he wants me to take. I enter the darkness. I want him to follow me. It is too dark to see him behind me. I am in my own house now. Much bigger than the one I used to live in with him and others. He is no longer there. I can see the lines of my house, as if it is painted and I am outside, watching it. It is big, yes, but like a painting, it has a frame. The house is restricted. I pick up a carpet: an elephant being chased and eaten by lions – something they don’t normally do. I don’t have to look further: although I don’t know what to expect, I know it can be anything once I let go of the limitations of my ‘house’. “This is good. This is maximum relaxation.” My head is resting in his big hands. It feels like a peanut. His eyes are close to mine. His words don’t come from his mouth. “Now you choose for this life. Choosing this life is letting go of old life. Please swear me not to stress anymore. It is no use.” He lets me swear two times, the second one comprehensively. His hands are caressing my body, tenderly; not erotically but faithfully. “Your body is the outer part of your mind. Clear your mind. Let no thoughts hold your mind; let your mind hold just one thought: to choose this life fully.” Sulphur, swan, snow. Silence. Surrender. - less tagged:   Butterfly   mind   body   erotic   faith   life   stress   space   house   plane   travel    permalink  read: 5702  print  forward  comments: 2  add comment      name:  Tom, February 16th • Heavy, beautiful, clear, dangerous. Spark. Greta, February 15th • This is quite beautiful. The listings of sensations woven throughout are like little poems. I love the way the past is suggested but not revealed. Tha... + more Greta, February 15th • This is quite beautiful. The listings of sensations woven throughout are like little poems. I love the way the past is suggested but not revealed. Thank you. - less

Photo: André Platteel

Glass-made-mind by Andre Platteel , February 10th

It was one of those days in which normality seems to have gone on sabbatical. Two heavy bags hung from my bicycle’s handlebars and just as I was about to take one of them off the bike slipped from my grasp, the handle of the bag broke and the bag crashed to the ground. The bicycle followed, landing on top of the bag less than a second later. Glass. In pieces. A vase I’d bought less than an hour earlier. “Where are you going to put it?” the sales person had asked. “On the table,” I replied. “And what do you think the flowers will think about, when they are in the vase on the table?” I had no idea what he was on about. “Is it possible that the flowers will think they are standing on the table, not in a vase that is on the table? The glass is really high quality, you know. The flowers might make a mistake and look through the glass and become convinced that they are standing on the table.” “Is that a good thing?” I had asked him. “How clearly do you want to see? Do you know what you’re standing on? Come and have a look at something…” I followed him as he went to one of the dozens of vases of flowers that filled the shop. It was a beautiful vase; a bigger version of the one I had just bought. It had orchids in it. Orchids aren’t my thing. But now that I looked closely I realised it was probably the name I didn’t like. A beautiful yellow and green specimen with lots of sensual branches drew me into another world. “Now, see for yourself how clear the glass is and how quickly the mistake can be made. To me it’s not a small mistake but a big one, and it’s so logical that it’s made over and over again. You cannot imagine how important it is that the flowers know they are standing in the vase. Knowing what they stand in is of the greatest importance. I should say that it is essential that they know what sustains them and keeps them together. Maybe to know what it is that keeps them prisoner. I tell them time and time again that they are in a vase and not on the table, but they’re not good at remembering things, you know. The flowers. They’re not very good at remembering. Too busy flowering. And who’s to tell them they’re wrong.” I place the other bag, which I had already taken off the bike, on the ground. I inspect the damage to the stuff in the one that fell. The vase is indeed broken. It wouldn’t be so bad if the flowers did believe they were standing on the table and that I could put them on it, I think to myself. I put the broken-glass-filled bag next to the other, turn the key in the lock of my front door, open it, pick up the bags again and prepare to go inside. My senses twitch. Someone walking past, slowing down. My bike – I haven’t locked it. Forgotten in all the slipping, falling and dropping. I shove the bags inside and walk quickly back to my bike. The guy is 30 or so. Worn out jeans and jacket too thin for the time of year. Looks tired – probably not slept for days, I guess – bottle of beer in his left hand. “I’d put the other lock on as well, man; that one’s useless.” Checked out. No shame. I take his advice and put the lock and chain that’s currently wrapped under the saddle and thread it through the frame and front wheel. “What did you think: that guy’s gonna take my bike?” About to answer. “Yeah, well, you saw that right,” he says first. I can’t see if there’s still any beer in the bottle. The glass is brown. I want to head back inside, but he’s in front of me. With words. + more It was one of those days in which normality seems to have gone on sabbatical. Two heavy bags hung from my bicycle’s handlebars and just as I was about to take one of them off the bike slipped from my grasp, the handle of the bag broke and the bag crashed to the ground. The bicycle followed, landing on top of the bag less than a second later. Glass. In pieces. A vase I’d bought less than an hour earlier. “Where are you going to put it?” the sales person had asked. “On the table,” I replied. “And what do you think the flowers will think about, when they are in the vase on the table?” I had no idea what he was on about. “Is it possible that the flowers will think they are standing on the table, not in a vase that is on the table? The glass is really high quality, you know. The flowers might make a mistake and look through the glass and become convinced that they are standing on the table.” “Is that a good thing?” I had asked him. “How clearly do you want to see? Do you know what you’re standing on? Come and have a look at something…” I followed him as he went to one of the dozens of vases of flowers that filled the shop. It was a beautiful vase; a bigger version of the one I had just bought. It had orchids in it. Orchids aren’t my thing. But now that I looked closely I realised it was probably the name I didn’t like. A beautiful yellow and green specimen with lots of sensual branches drew me into another world. “Now, see for yourself how clear the glass is and how quickly the mistake can be made. To me it’s not a small mistake but a big one, and it’s so logical that it’s made over and over again. You cannot imagine how important it is that the flowers know they are standing in the vase. Knowing what they stand in is of the greatest importance. I should say that it is essential that they know what sustains them and keeps them together. Maybe to know what it is that keeps them prisoner. I tell them time and time again that they are in a vase and not on the table, but they’re not good at remembering things, you know. The flowers. They’re not very good at remembering. Too busy flowering. And who’s to tell them they’re wrong.” I place the other bag, which I had already taken off the bike, on the ground. I inspect the damage to the stuff in the one that fell. The vase is indeed broken. It wouldn’t be so bad if the flowers did believe they were standing on the table and that I could put them on it, I think to myself. I put the broken-glass-filled bag next to the other, turn the key in the lock of my front door, open it, pick up the bags again and prepare to go inside. My senses twitch. Someone walking past, slowing down. My bike – I haven’t locked it. Forgotten in all the slipping, falling and dropping. I shove the bags inside and walk quickly back to my bike. The guy is 30 or so. Worn out jeans and jacket too thin for the time of year. Looks tired – probably not slept for days, I guess – bottle of beer in his left hand. “I’d put the other lock on as well, man; that one’s useless.” Checked out. No shame. I take his advice and put the lock and chain that’s currently wrapped under the saddle and thread it through the frame and front wheel. “What did you think: that guy’s gonna take my bike?” About to answer. “Yeah, well, you saw that right,” he says first. I can’t see if there’s still any beer in the bottle. The glass is brown. I want to head back inside, but he’s in front of me. With words. “Look, I’ve been carrying this around for weeks.” He pulls out an envelope from inside his jacket. “They know that I do this, that I’m here, you know. I’m too afraid to open it. I’m ashamed man. You understand?” Silence for a moment. “Do you believe in God?” he asks. I tell him what I believe in and ask him if he believes. “I want to believe. But I fall back again and again believing in something that is destroying me. I know it is destroying me. Yes. I’ll tell you honestly, do you know how I get my money to buy drugs? By taking things.” He points to my bike. He takes another drink. So there was some left. “What’s stopping you from stopping, if you want to?” “If I knew that, man. If I could see that." A car drives by, fast, too fast. "You know, I have qualifications. I worked with liquids in sterile rooms. That’s how I got my first gear.” We stand there. Neighbours go in through the doorway we share. I apologize to them for the bags that are placed inconveniently in the hallway. “What are in the bags?” I tell him about the broken vase. He looks at the glass containing his beer, if there’s any still in it. “You know, if you put this bottle under a microscope the bottle doesn’t have a fixed shape – it moves. Everything vibrates and moves. And there’s lots of space between the bits that vibrate. And despite this the beer stays in the bottle and doesn’t leak out. Bizarre, huh? And you know why that is?” I know there’s no point me trying to come up with a scientific answer: I don’t know enough about that kind of thing. No doubt he knows a lot more than me, and, anyway, I have the feeling that that’s not what he means. “Because the glass convinces. The glass is so convincing that the beer doesn’t even think of escaping.” He tells me his name is Michel and before we say goodbye he apologises and asks, “Any chance of some change?” I’ll buy food with it. Really.” - less tagged:   space   mind   God   darkness   life    permalink  read: 4172  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

What are we guilty off? by Andre Platteel , January 12th

“Look to the left. Okay. And now your fingerprint.” While he’s talking and I’m doing, he is going through my passport. “Why are you here?” The answer is on the green form I gave him a minute ago. After a few seconds’ silence he says: “I am sorry Sir, but I need you to come with me for further investigation.” I do. We enter a big room with a lot of seats, like a waiting room in a large hospital. There are quite a lot of people in the room and as they are all black, they look a little surprised to see me come in. And judging by their expressions, they have been waiting a long, long time. I find a seat among everyone else and feel weird. My passport is given to someone behind a large desk; the only thing they say to me is “take a seat and wait.” So I wait. After more than an hour no one has been helped, or even asked to approach the desk. In my mind, I try to figure out what has gone wrong. Why was I picked out? What did I do? And as more time goes by, and jetlag starts to hit, I can only think: What am I guilty off? I can name a few things. I stole a bike once, with a friend. I was the lookout. I have hurt friends because I couldn’t be a good friend to them (whatever ‘good’ may mean in this context). I have hurt some girlfriends by not being honest with them. I have hurt myself doing all these things and many others besides. But none is a reason to be here, virtually on trial, I guess. My name is called, the first name to be called after two-and-a-half hours’ waiting. Being white seems to have advantages. “Why are you here?” the woman behind the desk asks, not looking me in the eyes. I repeat what I told the guy earlier. She repeats the question. After a while more in ‘Groundhog Day,’ I still don’t know what answer will satisfy her; I just want to say: “Yes I am guilty. And I’m very sorry. Although I don’t know what I am guilty of, it feels good to say it.” But before I can open my mouth, she throws my passport on the desk and starts busying herself with something else. I wait a few seconds, not knowing what to do, then leave like a thief in the night, grateful that my mouth was slower than my brain. What are we guilty off? + more “Look to the left. Okay. And now your fingerprint.” While he’s talking and I’m doing, he is going through my passport. “Why are you here?” The answer is on the green form I gave him a minute ago. After a few seconds’ silence he says: “I am sorry Sir, but I need you to come with me for further investigation.” I do. We enter a big room with a lot of seats, like a waiting room in a large hospital. There are quite a lot of people in the room and as they are all black, they look a little surprised to see me come in. And judging by their expressions, they have been waiting a long, long time. I find a seat among everyone else and feel weird. My passport is given to someone behind a large desk; the only thing they say to me is “take a seat and wait.” So I wait. After more than an hour no one has been helped, or even asked to approach the desk. In my mind, I try to figure out what has gone wrong. Why was I picked out? What did I do? And as more time goes by, and jetlag starts to hit, I can only think: What am I guilty off? I can name a few things. I stole a bike once, with a friend. I was the lookout. I have hurt friends because I couldn’t be a good friend to them (whatever ‘good’ may mean in this context). I have hurt some girlfriends by not being honest with them. I have hurt myself doing all these things and many others besides. But none is a reason to be here, virtually on trial, I guess. My name is called, the first name to be called after two-and-a-half hours’ waiting. Being white seems to have advantages. “Why are you here?” the woman behind the desk asks, not looking me in the eyes. I repeat what I told the guy earlier. She repeats the question. After a while more in ‘Groundhog Day,’ I still don’t know what answer will satisfy her; I just want to say: “Yes I am guilty. And I’m very sorry. Although I don’t know what I am guilty of, it feels good to say it.” But before I can open my mouth, she throws my passport on the desk and starts busying herself with something else. I wait a few seconds, not knowing what to do, then leave like a thief in the night, grateful that my mouth was slower than my brain. What are we guilty off? I was in a meeting once when a man suddenly stood up and asked the facilitator if he could say something. “I am very, very sorry.” The man’s words hit us like arrows. Straight to the heart, stirring something that had never been stirred before. And everyone in the room felt guilty. Not the kind of guilt that comes from having done wrong, but a deeper sense of guilt – the source of all wrongdoing – whatever that may be. I felt guilty of being mortal. This guilt, itself confused, is the source of the other things that confuse me, the other things I feel guilty about. As I walk through passport control and grab my lonely bag customs again pick me out. “What are you doing here, Sir?” the guy asks me. “I am being alive, Sir, and will never stop.” It’s another two-and-a-half hours before I can finally breathe the air outside. - less tagged:   guilty   confusion   mind   mortal   Groundhogday   heart   sorry    permalink  read: 3247  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

How is Diego Maradona doing? by Andre Platteel , January 8th

As a kid, I used to watch martial arts movies with my father. He was a travelling salesman and mostly only got home at weekends. When he did, I would rent VHS tapes from a guy who copied films illegally. They cost next to nothing. My father and I particularly enjoyed Bruce Lee films: Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury, Game of Death. Bruce Lee didn’t act, he was a master in Wuchu styles like Wing Chun. Lee saw himself as water: “Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes a cup; put it into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. Water can flow, or crash. Be water, my friend.” I watched Bruce’s movies again and again, trying to copy his fast and furious hands in front of the television set. What I didn’t know then was that his lightning-fast hands didn’t come from ‘doing’ quickly’. When I was about twelve years old, a sports school opened near where I lived. They didn’t teach boxing, Karate or Judo, I heard, but something quite different. When I went to see what it was, I joined immediately: Wing Chun. I trained for four hours every Saturday, first in a small group, but growing bigger over the years as Wing Chun became more and more popular. My mother was glad. At the time, I was anything but water. I was a fat kid lying on the couch, only interested in reading comics and watching movies. The training was tough. We had to harden our fists and shinbones through contact with stones, wood and by hitting the fists and shinbones of others; for the same reason, the teacher would hit us in the stomach without warning; we had to hold ourselves in positions no normal person would hold for their pleasure; we practiced fighting multiple opponents simultaneously, learning how it feels to have eight hands demolish your body. After four years I joined the core group. About ten of us were picked to do extra training and to prepare for the yearly competition between selected fighters from Wing Chun schools in different cities. I was nervous about the tournament. Although I fought every Saturday, I had never had a real fight, except for one, with a friend who had tried to kiss my girlfriend. I walked up to him, all very masculine, he stretched out his arm and I stretched out on the ground. Game over. + more As a kid, I used to watch martial arts movies with my father. He was a travelling salesman and mostly only got home at weekends. When he did, I would rent VHS tapes from a guy who copied films illegally. They cost next to nothing. My father and I particularly enjoyed Bruce Lee films: Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury, Game of Death. Bruce Lee didn’t act, he was a master in Wuchu styles like Wing Chun. Lee saw himself as water: “Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes a cup; put it into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. Water can flow, or crash. Be water, my friend.” I watched Bruce’s movies again and again, trying to copy his fast and furious hands in front of the television set. What I didn’t know then was that his lightning-fast hands didn’t come from ‘doing’ quickly’. When I was about twelve years old, a sports school opened near where I lived. They didn’t teach boxing, Karate or Judo, I heard, but something quite different. When I went to see what it was, I joined immediately: Wing Chun. I trained for four hours every Saturday, first in a small group, but growing bigger over the years as Wing Chun became more and more popular. My mother was glad. At the time, I was anything but water. I was a fat kid lying on the couch, only interested in reading comics and watching movies. The training was tough. We had to harden our fists and shinbones through contact with stones, wood and by hitting the fists and shinbones of others; for the same reason, the teacher would hit us in the stomach without warning; we had to hold ourselves in positions no normal person would hold for their pleasure; we practiced fighting multiple opponents simultaneously, learning how it feels to have eight hands demolish your body. After four years I joined the core group. About ten of us were picked to do extra training and to prepare for the yearly competition between selected fighters from Wing Chun schools in different cities. I was nervous about the tournament. Although I fought every Saturday, I had never had a real fight, except for one, with a friend who had tried to kiss my girlfriend. I walked up to him, all very masculine, he stretched out his arm and I stretched out on the ground. Game over. My first opponent in the tournament was a girl and I didn’t know how to behave. Could I just hit her breasts? Instead, she forced me to get out of my head and into my body: she whacked me in the face. My nose bled. And I reacted as a shark would, attacking without mercy, not even for her breasts. Mean. She began to cry. But I felt no guilt. Three more fights followed. Easy fights. My opponents were more nervous than I was. Later, I heard that one of the guys was afraid of me because of my recently grown moustache. I never asked him why. My other two opponents had only recently begun Wing Chun, but were chosen to fight me because they were skilled in Karate. But the rules of Karate did not rule in this Wing Chun-protected area. One more victory and I would become number one in my class. My last opponent was a heavy guy, at least ten years older than I was. He had dark skin that somehow forced respect. He was one of the first fighters in our Wing Chun school. A year before our fight he has been injured and had had to train very hard to get into the competition. I had no chance. He was stronger, better, more skilled and clear of mind. After the first two two-minute rounds I felt tired, broken and embarrassed. I was outclassed. In the third and final round I made a terrible mistake. I made out as if my opponent had hit me in the eye – something that was not allowed and which was punished by the judge. Because of my lie I won the competition – I became the winner. Afterwards I felt so embarrassed that I never picked up my title, and I never went back to my Saturday morning training sessions. My lie has followed me for many years, often resembling water shaping itself. But unlike Bruce Lee’s water, this water didn’t find its way within me. It felt like fat water that couldn’t mix with the 64% that is naturally me. Recently, I noticed that when you truly taste ‘fat water’, it actually purifies the water that makes up so much of our body, the water that I had thought was already pure. I often wonder how Diego Maradona is doing. - less tagged:   mind   fear   martial-art   BruceLee   Wing-Chun   water   DiegoMaradona    permalink  read: 3332  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Video: André Platteel

The windmills of our mind by Andre Platteel , December 15th

We all have at least one family story that has caused us pain, don’t we? After listening to what had made her feel so sad for the last few months, she asked me to tell what had happened in my family. I talked, and after a few minutes I felt the words become no longer words but vibrations caused by my body releasing what had happened and what was not yet fully formed. Sadness welled up. As this was happening, I felt her drift away and a moment later she bursts into laughter. I didn’t know how to feel first. Didn’t she take me seriously? Had her mind wandered off to a funny story and she couldn’t help herself? Was her laughter a way to protect herself from my emotion, a way to avoid really letting the words in? Or was my story just funny? Funny because it illustrated that we all have stories we identify with so strongly that they keep causing us pain – even when we could stop identifying with them and be free? Was her laughter the laughter that comes from seeing the real cause of the pain and therefore pain becoming funny? Rather than saying so, she made a gesture like ‘I can’t help it but I really am listening, so please continue’. Should she try to open her mouth, laughter would come out for sure. And it did come out. Despite her clamped teeth. Her laughter was contagious; seconds later we found ourselves roaring with laughter, not knowing how to stop. Laughter does not deny pain; it metes out justice to pain, revealing its funny side. Our mind is a funny thing. It tries to help us and in doing so it creates stories around stories, making everything so complex that we get lost in an endless tunnel where the sun barely shines. The other day I was watching the 1968, Norman Jewison version of The Thomas Crown Affair, with the stunning Faye Dunaway and cool Steve McQueen. The lyrics of the song The Windmills of Your Mind provide a beautiful guide for the stunning title images (done by Pablo Ferro who also did the opening sequence of Dr. Strangelove). During the title sequence you see multiple screens with different images: sometimes the split screens overlap, preventing you from seeing something; sometimes the split screens are used to create different impulses simultaneously, giving the feeling of abundance. But the split screens are not used to show events taking place simultaneously, as you often see in the TV series 24, for example. + more We all have at least one family story that has caused us pain, don’t we? After listening to what had made her feel so sad for the last few months, she asked me to tell what had happened in my family. I talked, and after a few minutes I felt the words become no longer words but vibrations caused by my body releasing what had happened and what was not yet fully formed. Sadness welled up. As this was happening, I felt her drift away and a moment later she bursts into laughter. I didn’t know how to feel first. Didn’t she take me seriously? Had her mind wandered off to a funny story and she couldn’t help herself? Was her laughter a way to protect herself from my emotion, a way to avoid really letting the words in? Or was my story just funny? Funny because it illustrated that we all have stories we identify with so strongly that they keep causing us pain – even when we could stop identifying with them and be free? Was her laughter the laughter that comes from seeing the real cause of the pain and therefore pain becoming funny? Rather than saying so, she made a gesture like ‘I can’t help it but I really am listening, so please continue’. Should she try to open her mouth, laughter would come out for sure. And it did come out. Despite her clamped teeth. Her laughter was contagious; seconds later we found ourselves roaring with laughter, not knowing how to stop. Laughter does not deny pain; it metes out justice to pain, revealing its funny side. Our mind is a funny thing. It tries to help us and in doing so it creates stories around stories, making everything so complex that we get lost in an endless tunnel where the sun barely shines. The other day I was watching the 1968, Norman Jewison version of The Thomas Crown Affair, with the stunning Faye Dunaway and cool Steve McQueen. The lyrics of the song The Windmills of Your Mind provide a beautiful guide for the stunning title images (done by Pablo Ferro who also did the opening sequence of Dr. Strangelove). During the title sequence you see multiple screens with different images: sometimes the split screens overlap, preventing you from seeing something; sometimes the split screens are used to create different impulses simultaneously, giving the feeling of abundance. But the split screens are not used to show events taking place simultaneously, as you often see in the TV series 24, for example. For me, the different images shown simultaneously feel like a metaphor for the different images that play around in our minds like never ending ripples from a pebble. Images that we use to define as rational, or psychological, or emotional or physical; all running around in an ever-spinning wheel. When the mind works this way it starts dividing, labelling, focusing, narrowing, splitting and losing sight of the wholeness that we are. It makes us smaller. And darker. The running mind has neither ending nor beginning. The mind is no longer aware that it is running within the silent space that gave rise to it in the first place. Once you become aware of silence, the images start unwinding. The mind’s mechanism becomes known. Brightness shines through. And a roar of laughter might occur: an outburst from silence. - less tagged:   mind   sadness   laughter   Jewison   McQueen   Dunaway   lyrics   images    permalink  read: 3005  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The man who loved too much by Andre Platteel , December 4th

She’s sixteen, sweet sixteen. She’s only lived here four years but speaks the language fluently, cleverly. She says she loves being here, but would also have loved stay at home. Not because of her new country, she explains, but because she doesn’t know the father she’s living with. Back home she only saw him two weeks a year, yet even after spending four years with him here, he still is a stranger. “He is a clever man with a great memory.” I am listening with ten other young people and we have only one purpose: to really listen to what each of us has to say. “He always knows anything and everything. He can see inside you: what you think and how you will act. I never really liked talking with him though. I always had the feeling that there was a competition going on: who will win the conversation?” She doesn’t talk silently, to herself; her voice is clear. She eases into the eyes of us listeners. She has big brown eyes, beautiful eyes. “And if, occasionally and miraculously, you won the battle you still had the feeling you had lost, because he had permitted you to win the game. As a child, he let me win several times. And although I knew I won because of him, I liked those moments. I had the feeling of having a father for a few moments.” None of us is asking questions. None of us is impatient. “He is a strong man,” she continues, “with a strong body and a strong sense of justice. With him by your side you feel protected against all evil, protected against all the bad things that could ever happen to you – even the things you were never afraid of in the first place. When I first came to this country he warned me for all the dangers, and for the first few weeks I could only walk outside with him by my side.” There is just a little pause, and a beautiful silence, before she continues, as if she is taking the time to lead us to the next chapter. “He is a great man, actually.” + more She’s sixteen, sweet sixteen. She’s only lived here four years but speaks the language fluently, cleverly. She says she loves being here, but would also have loved stay at home. Not because of her new country, she explains, but because she doesn’t know the father she’s living with. Back home she only saw him two weeks a year, yet even after spending four years with him here, he still is a stranger. “He is a clever man with a great memory.” I am listening with ten other young people and we have only one purpose: to really listen to what each of us has to say. “He always knows anything and everything. He can see inside you: what you think and how you will act. I never really liked talking with him though. I always had the feeling that there was a competition going on: who will win the conversation?” She doesn’t talk silently, to herself; her voice is clear. She eases into the eyes of us listeners. She has big brown eyes, beautiful eyes. “And if, occasionally and miraculously, you won the battle you still had the feeling you had lost, because he had permitted you to win the game. As a child, he let me win several times. And although I knew I won because of him, I liked those moments. I had the feeling of having a father for a few moments.” None of us is asking questions. None of us is impatient. “He is a strong man,” she continues, “with a strong body and a strong sense of justice. With him by your side you feel protected against all evil, protected against all the bad things that could ever happen to you – even the things you were never afraid of in the first place. When I first came to this country he warned me for all the dangers, and for the first few weeks I could only walk outside with him by my side.” There is just a little pause, and a beautiful silence, before she continues, as if she is taking the time to lead us to the next chapter. “He is a great man, actually.” And: “His greatness became even greater the moment he saw that his behaviour had been coloured by fear and pain. That is why he always wanted to win; that is why he made himself so strong: to protect himself. He told me how afraid he had been to lose, to lose everything of value. I was with him the nights and days he cried away his pain and fear. Now he is happy again. And strong, he says.” We are all part of her story. If you were here, you would be able to sense it. “He tells everyone he has an open heart now. He says he only acts from love, only with a message of love. He tells everyone that his love pours from his heart so easily. This gift of God gives him the ability to see what is wrong with you emotionally, mentally, physically, and what you can do to become just like him. Made purely of love. He wants to become a spiritual teacher now. In the name of love he guides people to become love. You know, my father loves his love so much, and the love he receives when he turns you into love.” Another little pause. “A lot has changed for me since then. Suddenly, there is someone who pays me attention and guides me, like a father should do. But at the same time I do not feel complete. There is always something to fix. Despite my love for him, the love of my father is simply too good to be true to me.” - less tagged:   understanding   mind   spirituality   uniqueness   heart    permalink  read: 3567  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Coloured Mind by Andre Platteel , October 9th

I’m wandering around somewhere north of New York’s Little Italy district, where the streets have names like Mott and Baxter. I suddenly stop in front of a shop. Something must have grabbed my attention – in a split second and before I am conscious of what it is. The window in front of me plays a wonderful game with my imagination. I see a table, made from wood and beautifully done. But that’s not what has stopped me in my tracks. There’s a vase of flowers on the table and somehow the image of the vase with flowers looks like a paper cut-out by a photographer I recently bought a picture from. Looking closer, however, I see that there is actually nothing on the table. The table is bare, and the vase with flowers combination is a reflection from the flower shop opposite. As I turn around I see an exact copy of the vase with flowers, calling for attention. The flowers themselves are very colourful, but I prefer its reflection, for now. The reflected image makes the colours look more withdrawn and seems to bring forth the shape of the flowers more accurately. Is my mind tired of being coloured? I walk to the other side of the street and indulge myself in the flowers’ colours. The red and orange of certain flowers is intense. Looking longer, more closely and giving the colours the chance to grow in my mind, I suddenly see something other than the colour in the colours. The red, for example, is no longer just a certain shade of red; the red has a ‘floweriness’ to it as well: the flower adds something to the red and makes it unique to that flower. The red also communicates the velvety feeling that is part of the flower. I can see little spots bearing a slightly different shade of red and which give the flower its particular character. And at the centre of the flower, the red turns to black, giving it a specific shape. So although the reflection across the street actually communicated the outer form of the flower more accurately than the coloured version, the colours bring out the 'inner' part of the flower far better. + more I’m wandering around somewhere north of New York’s Little Italy district, where the streets have names like Mott and Baxter. I suddenly stop in front of a shop. Something must have grabbed my attention – in a split second and before I am conscious of what it is. The window in front of me plays a wonderful game with my imagination. I see a table, made from wood and beautifully done. But that’s not what has stopped me in my tracks. There’s a vase of flowers on the table and somehow the image of the vase with flowers looks like a paper cut-out by a photographer I recently bought a picture from. Looking closer, however, I see that there is actually nothing on the table. The table is bare, and the vase with flowers combination is a reflection from the flower shop opposite. As I turn around I see an exact copy of the vase with flowers, calling for attention. The flowers themselves are very colourful, but I prefer its reflection, for now. The reflected image makes the colours look more withdrawn and seems to bring forth the shape of the flowers more accurately. Is my mind tired of being coloured? I walk to the other side of the street and indulge myself in the flowers’ colours. The red and orange of certain flowers is intense. Looking longer, more closely and giving the colours the chance to grow in my mind, I suddenly see something other than the colour in the colours. The red, for example, is no longer just a certain shade of red; the red has a ‘floweriness’ to it as well: the flower adds something to the red and makes it unique to that flower. The red also communicates the velvety feeling that is part of the flower. I can see little spots bearing a slightly different shade of red and which give the flower its particular character. And at the centre of the flower, the red turns to black, giving it a specific shape. So although the reflection across the street actually communicated the outer form of the flower more accurately than the coloured version, the colours bring out the 'inner' part of the flower far better. A few days ago I visited the Ursus bookshop, on Madison Avenue. It’s on the first floor of the legendary Carlyle Hotel (Woody Allen lives nearby and performs in the Carlyle café once in a while). I bought a book by Karl Blossfeldt, who began photographing flowers to show his architecture students just how similar natural forms and man-made buildings can be. I love his black and white photos, which show the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. Just as with the reflection in the window, the black and whiteness of the pictures gives the viewer the opportunity to see the outer form of the flower more clearly. But now I wonder how Karl Blossfeldt must have seen those flowers in their true colours? If part of the uniqueness of a flower lies in its colour, is it possible to bring out that uniqueness without using colour? Can an artist like Karl Blossfeldt succeed in communicating the uniqueness of the flower if he doesn’t use the elements that bring out the uniqueness of the flower? In other words: Can Karl Blossfeldt find artistic ways to communicate the uniqueness of the flower by describing both his particular experience of it as well as the universal uniqueness of the flower itself? It hits me that our thinking is always coloured; we always think from a certain perspective. Our minds are coloured, I realise, but what happens when the colours start taking over mind? Our mind cannot be coloured enough in order to see what really is. - less tagged:   WoodyAllen   consciousness   KarlBlossfeldt   Ursus   NewYork   flower   red   mind   Nolita   imagination    permalink  read: 5530  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Fog by Andre Platteel , September 30th

It’s foggy outside and I have a flashback to one of Antonioni’s films – Identificazione di una donna – in which a couple decide to break up. Stuck in fog, she gets out of the car and disappears. He tries to go after her, shouts her name, but the fog is so thick that he not only loses sight of her, but of his car as well. He’s lost. As always, Antonioni illustrates beautifully the mental state of his characters by showing their surroundings. There is no breaking up where I am right now, besides the waves. The weather is not only murky, it is rough, too. But even waves, no matter how high they are, return to the sea. It took me two hours to get from Shelter Island to here. Montauk is at the absolute end of the island of Long Island, and the landscape is totally different from every other part of it too. Greener and less organized. And the waves make this place a secret surfer’s paradise. A friend of mine had advised me to turn left just before the lighthouse. I drive into a green area with no cars and no people. I park my car and get out. The fog not only takes away the visibility, it also absorbs the sound. Through a thick whiteness, I see a gigantic radar system on a white house. I walk further, through the forest, and the fog starts to become less intense. I hear a dog barking, but see no dog. Through trees I see three concrete walls with black letters: ‘No entering. Closed to public.’ I can’t see how you could enter, even if you wanted to. In front of me houses appear and as I come closer, a whole street becomes visible. Green and yellow houses, a church, even, and something that looks like a village hall. Here too, there are no people, and there is no sound, besides the barking of the dog, which has become louder. The barking doesn’t seem to come from the streets – it sounds like it is coming from under the ground. The houses look like they are made from wood, like the houses in those typical US fishing villages. Up closer I see that the houses are actually made of concrete and that the wood structure is actually paint. There is no way to enter these houses: the doors are concrete, too. And so are the windows. And as with the three concrete walls, earlier, here too I am warned not to enter. The warning works on me like a puzzle: how can I enter these concrete fake houses? Out of nowhere a dog runs up to me, barking as if I am his biggest enemy. A man shouts something at the dog. I can’t hear what he says as I’m too busy wondering what to do to stop the dog from attacking me. + more It’s foggy outside and I have a flashback to one of Antonioni’s films – Identificazione di una donna – in which a couple decide to break up. Stuck in fog, she gets out of the car and disappears. He tries to go after her, shouts her name, but the fog is so thick that he not only loses sight of her, but of his car as well. He’s lost. As always, Antonioni illustrates beautifully the mental state of his characters by showing their surroundings. There is no breaking up where I am right now, besides the waves. The weather is not only murky, it is rough, too. But even waves, no matter how high they are, return to the sea. It took me two hours to get from Shelter Island to here. Montauk is at the absolute end of the island of Long Island, and the landscape is totally different from every other part of it too. Greener and less organized. And the waves make this place a secret surfer’s paradise. A friend of mine had advised me to turn left just before the lighthouse. I drive into a green area with no cars and no people. I park my car and get out. The fog not only takes away the visibility, it also absorbs the sound. Through a thick whiteness, I see a gigantic radar system on a white house. I walk further, through the forest, and the fog starts to become less intense. I hear a dog barking, but see no dog. Through trees I see three concrete walls with black letters: ‘No entering. Closed to public.’ I can’t see how you could enter, even if you wanted to. In front of me houses appear and as I come closer, a whole street becomes visible. Green and yellow houses, a church, even, and something that looks like a village hall. Here too, there are no people, and there is no sound, besides the barking of the dog, which has become louder. The barking doesn’t seem to come from the streets – it sounds like it is coming from under the ground. The houses look like they are made from wood, like the houses in those typical US fishing villages. Up closer I see that the houses are actually made of concrete and that the wood structure is actually paint. There is no way to enter these houses: the doors are concrete, too. And so are the windows. And as with the three concrete walls, earlier, here too I am warned not to enter. The warning works on me like a puzzle: how can I enter these concrete fake houses? Out of nowhere a dog runs up to me, barking as if I am his biggest enemy. A man shouts something at the dog. I can’t hear what he says as I’m too busy wondering what to do to stop the dog from attacking me. The dog stops inches before me and falls silent. The man too is silent. He has a weird conception of personal space: he stands very close to me. I ask him where the people are, what kind of village this is, and he tells me that this is a military area that was created during World War II, continuing to serve as a military base long after. The government is said to have carried out experiments to bend time and space, and did research into the possibility of teleporting. “Time and space are just an invention of the mind, you know,” he says. ‘If we really understand who we are, we can appear and disappear everywhere we want. Internet is only here to make us feel comfortable with that idea. God’s house has many chambers, you know,” he concludes, almost to himself. Then he heads off. I don’t see the dog walking with him. I have lost sight of the dog, though I hear him barking and, if my ears are not deceiving me, the sound does come from under ground. - less tagged:   consciousness   Antonioni   NewYork   Montauk   time   mind   God    permalink  read: 4421  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

No place like Utopia? by Andre Platteel , September 28th

I’m en-route to Shelter Island, the most southerly part of Long Island. From Brooklyn, I take the Utopian Highway, all the way down to what New Yorkers describe as ‘heaven’. A few months earlier I was invited by the Eindhoven Design Academy to lecture on and discuss Utopia. Also invited was Isaac Shapiro, a South African teacher in non-duality, a man who has taught me many things that truly matter to me. Thomas More coined the term Utopia in 1516, in his novel of the same name. In it, he refers to an exotic, non-existent island of perfection. This was in the time that new worlds were being discovered – South and North America, for example, with their new and exotic cultures – giving Europeans hope of a better world after the darkness of the Middle Ages. Before More introduced the term Utopia, a better world was thought of as being something we could only reach after we die: the Christian promise of Heaven. Since More, many utopian worlds have been described, appearing in novels, theories, paintings, films and the dreams of many – each utopia describing a slightly different version of how the perfect world would look. What does Utopia mean? Utopia is often seen as a place where there is no drama, no war, no pain, no racism, no sexism; a place with respect for all that is living, where everyone has equal chances and where everyone is treated with care and love. In short: a place of true perfection. + more I’m en-route to Shelter Island, the most southerly part of Long Island. From Brooklyn, I take the Utopian Highway, all the way down to what New Yorkers describe as ‘heaven’. A few months earlier I was invited by the Eindhoven Design Academy to lecture on and discuss Utopia. Also invited was Isaac Shapiro, a South African teacher in non-duality, a man who has taught me many things that truly matter to me. Thomas More coined the term Utopia in 1516, in his novel of the same name. In it, he refers to an exotic, non-existent island of perfection. This was in the time that new worlds were being discovered – South and North America, for example, with their new and exotic cultures – giving Europeans hope of a better world after the darkness of the Middle Ages. Before More introduced the term Utopia, a better world was thought of as being something we could only reach after we die: the Christian promise of Heaven. Since More, many utopian worlds have been described, appearing in novels, theories, paintings, films and the dreams of many – each utopia describing a slightly different version of how the perfect world would look. What does Utopia mean? Utopia is often seen as a place where there is no drama, no war, no pain, no racism, no sexism; a place with respect for all that is living, where everyone has equal chances and where everyone is treated with care and love. In short: a place of true perfection. Most of us will probably agree that we don’t live in such place: there is pain, there is war, there is poverty, there is fear, there is sickness, there is pollution, we have global warming, we have terrorism (or at least the fear of terrorism), and so on. Despite our efforts to reach a utopian world, not one vision of utopia remains standing. Eve had to spoil the utopian setting of the Garden of Eden, with her apple-biting moment; the Human Potential Movement in the 1960s became, at least in part, a movement of drug abuse, sexual misunderstanding and nihilism; in the novel and film The Beach, jealousy and commerce disturb the utopian setting; Marshall McLuhan’s utopian idea of a Global Mind in which everyone is connected has become a global media manipulation circus that creates confusion and disorientation. Thomas More himself illustrated that utopian worlds are there to fail: in his novel, the perfect island is a religious dictatorship. Every image, every idea of true perfection seems to fail. Which brings us back to the core of what Utopia means: No Place, from the Greek words uo topos. Utopia has no geographic position; utopia cannot be described; utopia cannot be captured in visions, ideals, or concepts; utopia is made to be free in. It is exactly what we are in our essence as consciousness: We – our selves – are made to be free. Utopia cannot be found outside our selves or in ideas; Utopia is to be found in our selves, when all ideas (of how life should be lived) have come to rest. - less tagged:   utopia   NewYork   Shapiro   mind   McLuhan   film   media   marketing   consciousness    permalink  read: 4591  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Going in all directions without beginning or end by Andre Platteel , September 15th

The other day, I decided to visit the New York Museum of Modern Art, MoMa, which has been holding a major exhibition by Minimalist artist Richard Serra. Born in San Francisco, California, in 1939, Serra is known for his enormous metal sculptures. He treats lumps of metal like sheets of paper: his gracious steel-plate forms, often measuring several meters thick and several meters tall, are made at one of the few remaining shipyards with the equipment to shape steel plates as if performing an exercise in origami. But before I head for the two floors containing Serra’s work, I grab a look at the MoMa’s permanent collection. In short order, I find myself standing mesmerized in front of one of Jackson Pollock’s works, a huge piece that takes up an entire wall on the top floor of the museum. I know his paintings from books, but now I understand why the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, in a now classic essay, emphasizes the importance of seeing the original work rather than a reproduction. The clots of paint and hurriedly applied stripes go every which way: this is a work with no beginning, no specific direction, and no end. I back up till I’m a considerable distance from the picture, the way you do with a Monet (which reminds me of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless when she describes a hunk of a guy as “such a Monet,” because “He looks very good from a distance, but up close it is such a mess”). I’m now so far away that people keep walking between me and the canvas. But + more The other day, I decided to visit the New York Museum of Modern Art, MoMa, which has been holding a major exhibition by Minimalist artist Richard Serra. Born in San Francisco, California, in 1939, Serra is known for his enormous metal sculptures. He treats lumps of metal like sheets of paper: his gracious steel-plate forms, often measuring several meters thick and several meters tall, are made at one of the few remaining shipyards with the equipment to shape steel plates as if performing an exercise in origami. But before I head for the two floors containing Serra’s work, I grab a look at the MoMa’s permanent collection. In short order, I find myself standing mesmerized in front of one of Jackson Pollock’s works, a huge piece that takes up an entire wall on the top floor of the museum. I know his paintings from books, but now I understand why the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, in a now classic essay, emphasizes the importance of seeing the original work rather than a reproduction. The clots of paint and hurriedly applied stripes go every which way: this is a work with no beginning, no specific direction, and no end. I back up till I’m a considerable distance from the picture, the way you do with a Monet (which reminds me of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless when she describes a hunk of a guy as “such a Monet,” because “He looks very good from a distance, but up close it is such a mess”). I’m now so far away that people keep walking between me and the canvas. But it doesn’t matter, because they have become part of the painting – mobile stripes that merge into and then disappear from Pollock’s work. I start to experience Pollock’s abundance: the longer I look at the canvas, the fewer and fewer lumps and stripes I see. The painting grows more peaceful, my body anything but. I feel my legs weakening; I’m finding it harder to focus my eyes; my sense of balance is off. I stamp my feet and try to get a grip. I walk away from the painting. I’m breathing quickly. I know this feeling and it’s not nice. But I make a conscious decision not to leave the museum – to ignore my mind’s urgent advice. I go back, roughly to the spot where I was before, and try to let what is happening, happen. This decision calms my body and seconds later I find myself part of the painting. I am a dot, a fleeting stripe, just like the people walking by earlier. It was only a moment ago that I put some distance between us; now that space seems to have disappeared. I haven’t moved closer to the painting, the painting has entered me. I don’t feel empty or inferior, and I don’t disappear either. I feel I’m the width of a dot or stripe, connected (with other dots and stripes) and solid. At the same time, I seem to have no sense of position or direction; I dot and stripe away in every direction, at the same time. Pollock’s work was motivated by anger, an interesting theme, especially in a society that expects you to suppress it. As I stand there experiencing it, I notice how wonderfully anger can lead to a place in which silence and peace rule. I decide to come back to the museum the next day – Serra’s pieces of metal will surely wait. - less tagged:   NewYork   Moma   Serra   Pollock   Benjamin   painting   art   Clueless   disorientation   Monet   mind   consciousness    permalink  read: 4810  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

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June, 2010 Dutch Political Leaders Receive book Our World		May, 2010 Resistance Decadence New Book: Our World		April, 2010 Arrogance Naivety Ignorance		June, 2009 Mother of all memories
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December, 2008 Listen carefully		October, 2008 A fragment of a circle God’s Gods You, me and everything else		September, 2008 Man with powers		August, 2008 The hidden promise Crazy for love
May, 2008 Dr. Feelgood What’s the limit of love		April, 2008 Spring Snow will fall The Cleaner		March, 2008 Motherless Child What I am made of Falling upwards Northern Lights		February, 2008 Glass-made-mind The outer layer of the mind Growing younger On Holy Ground
January, 2008 Watch for the wind to blow How is Diego Maradona doing? What are we guilty off? Everything is what is besides language The eagle and the condor flying together In the heart of Otherness		December, 2007 The man who loved too much The dark brightness The windmills of our mind To make two mountains one, gone Bigger than the stars		November, 2007 Act of passion Making love Life has no meaning Where the heart is Oneness is never the same		October, 2007 Mind blowing Becoming authentic Coloured Mind Hide and Seek Culture of fear The man on the bench The Swordsman
September, 2007 What is thinking? World happening Unity in diversity Smell no evil Going in all directions without beginning or end Alternative routes Superheroes don’t age No place like Utopia? Fog		August, 2007 The Wholeness of being Spirit through matter Looking in the mirror A new heart Is matter what matters? World of opinions. Spaciousness for a flower to grow