I've been trying to write about my experiences on the playa, but I can't find the words. Sometimes music speaks where words fail. Turn it up, lift your soul, rock your body:
The dream of this image as given to us is given as a premonitory dream. And being some sort of foreboding, the fundamental fear of which I have spoken before takes the rudder helm fast in its hands again, til it is evacuated, thinned out and spread out over the painted surface. Once and again. -Juan Mendizabal onJoseba Eskubi
"These must be for halloween." -young girl at the Gaultier show
Jean Paul Gaultier at the DeYoung in San Francisco. Pure genius. Something about putting hundreds of hours of work into handcrafting a haute couture piece and then letting it drag along the floor really struck me about his aesthetic and his work in general. He seems to have mastered that elusive balance between precise, unwavering orientation to detail and unprecious non-attachment to the items themselves. One mannequin wore a camouflage jacket, coyly lined with gold lame that is only visible with a pop of the collar or a roll of the sleeves. How decadent, how inappropriate, what cultural statement that basic piece makes. Camo is to hide from attention, lame is to attract attention. Who wears such a thing? How dare they? Must we consider the feelings of others when we decide what to wear? Gaultier is crafting an experience really; one that just happens to involve immaculate costumes and results in transforming the wearer/viewer into someone they didn't realize they were. And who doesn't want to be someone different then they are every once in awhile? That's the core of fashion, isn't it?
Gaultier's tender and biting critique on gender is a second inspiring aspect of the show. In another dichotomy, his designs manage to exhault the female body and yet doesn't make an object out of it. Across all the work, men repeatedly covet female beauty and the rituals that get women there, but in hopes that they can possess these qualities themselves rather than the usual sexualized, mysogynistic response that culture requires men provide to scantily clad women. These men admire these women, but desire their femininity more than their anatomy. One of the most interesting pieces in the show for me, fine art wise, consisted of a male mannequin dressed in a (stunning!) 3 piece suit covered by a (supurb!) corset. He was positioned toward a mirror, which contained a projection of himself. Through the use of projected video, the mannequin and his reflection had a conversation amongst themselves about adornment, gender, beauty and self-consciousness. "Quiet! I can sense people watching us!" he says at one point, indicating his embarrassment at his genderbending outfit. "Just smile and look pretty, " his reflection responds, "why shouldn't you look beautiful?"
"Vulnerability is not weakness and that myth is profoundly dangerous. Vulnerability is courageous." - Brene Brown
As a psychotherapist, I watch people avoid feeling shame and being vulnerable through every imaginable defensive process every single day. Yet, every once in awhile someone approaches the edge of that black swampland of the soul and dips their toes in. These are beautiful, honorable moments. I always fall in love in those moments, soul to soul. The courage to face our darkest shadows without delusion heals not only ourselves, but the collective as well. Within that dank swamp of shame is the future of all our ancestors and the past of all those who came before us. When our fear and shame prevent us from going anywhere near that swamp (or even recognizing that the swamp exists inside of us) it becomes impossible to feel for anyone else's struggles. Vulnerability is essential for intimacy, internal and external.
Every single time we dip in, we can emerge with an experience of understanding that vulnerability, shame, self criticism, anxiety are fundamental building blocks to intimacy and that feelings of intimacy/belonging are the best protectors against abuse of the self and other. To be supported by others requires intimacy and to be intimate requires vulnerability. Therefore, we cannot really feel a sense of belonging and support from others without the courage to be vulnerable because this vulnerability is what incites empathy in others. It's a cycle that must start through an internal reduction of defenses against our own vulnerability. The myth of vulnerability as weakness is wrong. The ability to be truly vulnerable in relationship and interaction is strength. This is what helps people love one another- not perfection, not intellect, not beauty, not wealth. Vulnerability.
"You carry your wound. With your ego, your whole being is a wound. And you carry it around. Be aware of your wound. Don't help it to grow, let it be healed; and it will be healed only when you move to the roots. The less the head, the more the wound will heal; with no head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being and accept things. Just for twenty-four hours, try it- total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it; don't react and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before."
Last night, this beauty flew into my dreams, landed on my daughter's shoulder and told us he was hungry by attempting to peel our grapefruit with his beak. He then waited patiently while we sliced him a piece of the juicy, pink fruit with a gigantic bread knife. I was skeptical, sure that "owls don't like grapefruit", but he did and as he ate his feathers slowly turned snowy white and I boldly mediated a tense conversation and the child and the grandmother finally began to communicate. Just like his feathers, everything was softened.
