without ignoring the calamities/ problems/ frustrations/ disasters in the world we have all created and are responsible for... but since it is the last day of the year and the last day of a decade, allow me to throw some positivity around, a little glitter, a little sparkle, a little hope, as the fight and the love continue before we all perish...
i shall share with you my last, for 2019, i read somewhere, full of hard work, the unlearning of the bullshit, the total destruction of anything toxic in your life, from the government to any relationships, including the one with yourself and all the revelations, reflections, results and directions, you'll be able to decipher and unravel and finally practice, when and not if, you get ready to take the leap...
i wish you all a better, different, spectacular start; stay healthy, safe, creative, radical, resistant and keep swimming... <3 span="">
ps. this is not to be considered as some self serving mumbo jumbo motherfucker; just a little reminder of what alive, thinking and doing can achieve. x
I invite you to say/ think this:
love everything about you, your beauty and pain, hungry soul, wounded longing, flaws and fears. do not betray or deceive yourself believe, forgive and adore yourself accept, amuse and redeem yourself
feed and nourish your body and spirit be with people who deserve us and vice versa communicate with a yes and a no respect our planet and its animals and plants, the rivers, lakes, oceans, skies and forests spread the love smash the bullshit patriarchy and all the shackles enslaving us all believe that fortune will visit, to eradicate limitations and encourage braver horizons
devote yourselves and fight hard to cultivate beauty, truth, love, justice, equality, tolerance, creativity, playfulness, and hope
"Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style." Rebecca Solnit
know the problem, solve the problem and provide antidotes to the world's poisons, with love and power
"We should feel excited about the problems we confront and our ability to deal with them. Solving problems is one of the highest and most sensual of all our brain functions." Robert Wilson
remember you can make a difference stay humble and learn from it help and serve your fellow person take yourself serious and have fun with it too remember the coin has two sides; a good and bad take the leap, recognise your fears, how freeing thank yourselves for having the nous to identify the idiocies and then smashing them
we are human, we are a cluster of everything fluid and messy, we are victorious.
love rules - the love rules - the rules of love (some) from vincent, leo, emily, sark, rainer, blaise, erica, frederick and mary, pablo, emma, anais.
"I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
"Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love."
"Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself."
"Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal."
"For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It is the work for which all other work is mere preparation."
"If you do not love too much, you do not love enough."
"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."
"Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbours, your enemies, and yourself. And don't stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies."
"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's sweet."
"The most vital right is the right to love and be loved."
"Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."
"There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work."
experiencing aloneness, i discover connection turn to face my fear, i meet the warrior in me open to my loss and pain and ignorance, i remind me of myself and purpose surrendering into emptiness, I find endless fulfillment if i flee, I am pursued if i welcome, i am transformed
"I do want to create art beyond rage. Rage is a place to begin, but not end. "I do want to devour my demons—despair, grief, shame, fear and use them to nourish my art. Otherwise they'll devour me." Sandra Cisneros
be alert for creative inspiration that strikes you in the midst of seemingly mundane circumstances. do not believe what your read in sold out to greed and immorality, papers. trust your gut. do your thing. be thankful. be grateful. and breathe. the sun is shining, times are challenging; stay safe.
“Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you.”
The light of the world has grown a little dimmer with the loss of the phenomenal Maya Angelou, but her legacy endures as a luminous beacon of strength, courage, and spiritual beauty. Angelou’s timeless wisdom shines with unparalleled light in a 1977 interview by journalist Judith Rich, found in Conversations with Maya Angelou (public library) — the same magnificent tome that gave us the beloved author’s conversation with Bill Moyers on freedom — in which Angelou explores issues of identity and the meaning of life.
Reflecting on her life, Angelou — who rose to cultural prominence through the sheer tenacity of her character and talent, despite being born into a tumultuous working-class family, abandoned by her father at the age of three, and raped at the age of eight — tells Rich:
I’ve been very fortunate… I seem to have a kind of blinkers. I just do not allow too many negatives to soil me. I’m very blessed. I have looked quite strange in most of the places I have lived in my life, the stages, spaces I’ve moved through. I of course grew up with my grandmother: my grandmother’s people and my brother are very very black, very lovely. And my mother’s people were very very fair. I was always sort of in between. I was too tall. My voice was too heavy. My attitude was too arrogant — or tenderhearted. So if I had accepted what people told me I looked like as a negative yes, then I would be dead. But I accepted it and I thought, well, aren’t I the lucky one.
She later revisits the question of identity, echoing Leo Buscaglia’s beautiful meditation on labels, as she reflects on the visibility her success granted her and the responsibility that comes with it:
What I represent in fact, what I’m trying like hell to represent every time I go into that hotel room, is myself. That’s what I’m trying to do. And I miss most of the time on that: I do not represent blacks or tall women, or women or Sonomans or Californians or Americans. Or rather I hope I do, because I am all those things. But that is not all that I am. I am all of that and more and less. People often put labels on people so they don’t have to deal with the physical fact of those people. It’s easy to say, oh, that’s a honkie, that’s a Jew, that’s a junkie, or that’s a broad, or that’s a stud, or that’s a dude. So you don’t have to think: does this person long for Christmas? Is he afraid that the Easter bunny will become polluted? … I refuse that… I simply refuse to have my life narrowed and proscribed.
To be sure, beneath Angelou’s remarkable optimism and dignity lies the strenuous reality she had to overcome. Reflecting on her youth, she channels an experience all too familiar to those who enter life from a foundation the opposite of privilege:
It’s very hard to be young and curious and almost egomaniacally concerned with one’s intelligence and to have no education at all and no direction and no doors to be open… To go figuratively to a door and find there’s no doorknob.
And yet Angelou acknowledges with great gratitude the kindness of those who opened doors for her in her spiritual and creative journey. Remembering the Jewish rabbi who offered her guidance in faith and philosophy and who showed up at her hospital bedside many years later after a serious operation, Angelou tells Rich:
The kindnesses … I never forget them. And so they keep one from becoming bitter. They encourage you to be as strong, as volatile as necessary to make a well world. Those people who gave me so much, and still give me so much, have a passion about them. And they encourage the passion in me. I’m very blessed that I have a healthy temper. I can become quite angry and burning in anger, but I have never been bitter. Bitterness is a corrosive, terrible acid. It just eats you and makes you sick.
Painting by Basquiat from Angelou's 'Life Doesn't Frighten Me.' Click image for more.
At the end of the interview, Angelou reflects on the meaning of life — a meditation all the more poignant as we consider, in the wake of her death, how beautifully she embodied the wisdom of her own words:
I’ve always had the feeling that life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you, give you experiences. They may not all be that pleasant, but nobody promised you a rose garden. But more than likely if you do dare, what you get are the marvelous returns. Courage is probably the most important of the virtues, because without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues, you can’t say against a murderous society, I oppose your murdering. You got to have courage to do so. I seem to have known that a long time and found great joy in it.
Amelia Earhart — pioneering aviator, bestselling author, and one altogether fierce lady — must have known that when she sat down on the morning of February 7th, 1931, and penned this exacting, resolute letter to her publicist and future husband, George Putnam. Found in the out-of-print volume Letters from Amelia, 1901-1937 (public library), it spells out (typo notwithstanding) exactly what Earhart wanted — and didn’t want — in a marriage, a bold testament to her independent spirit and liberal mindset just before the golden age of the housewife and shortly after the era of Victorian sexism.
Noank Connecticut
The Square House Church Street
Dear GPP
There are some things which should be writ before we are married — things we have talked over before — most of them.
You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feeling that I shatter thereby chances in work which means most to me. I feel the move just now as foolish as anything I could do. I know there may be compensations but have no heart to look ahead.
On our life together I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. If we can be honest I think the difficulties which arise may best be avoided should you or I become interested deeply (or in passing) in anyone else.
Please let us not interfere with the others’ work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage.
I must exact a cruel promise and that is you will let me go in a year if we find no happiness together.
I will try to do my best in every way and give you that part of me you know and seem to want.
A.E.
The two married that afternoon. Putnam had proposed six times before Earhart finally said her highly conditional “yes.” She kept her last name and refused to be called Mrs. Putnam, even against The New York Times’ insistence. They remained together until Earhart’s tragic disappearance in 1937.
the world is getting smaller and life is getting nearer to the demise, so what have we learned so far? it is sunday. it is may, with scattered showers and rays and sometimes, at the same time, the sky plays hide and seek with the clouds. in london, uk. the fight continues and it's all very exciting indeed... and bewildering and isolating and... i'll be back...
“…and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads.”
What makes an extraordinary love letter? After Monday’s omnibus of famous correspondence, I revisited a lovely decade-old book titled The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time, which features missives from icons like Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Frida Kahlo, Franz Kafka, and Mozart, covering everything from tender love to lust to bitter breakups.
Among them is this 1927 letter from Virginia Woolf to English poet Vita Sackville-West, with whom Woolf had fallen madly in love.
Look here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come.”
The gender-bending character in Woolf’s Orlando, in fact, was based on Sackville-West, and the entire novel is thought to have been written about the affair — so much so that Sackville-West’s son Nigel Nicolson has described it as “the longest and most charming love-letter in literature.”
The greatest love letters, of course, aren’t those written for public greatness — they’re the ones penned for one particular trembling heart, honeycombed with private memories and private miracles, written in the language of the possible.
'My story isn’t sweet and harmonious like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves'.
Herman Hesse
'I want to be with those who know the secret things, or else alone'.
“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.” ― Ernest Hemingway
'Faith is the power to stand up to the madness and chaos of the physical world while holding the position that nothing external has any authority over what heaven has in mind for you.' Caroline Myss
'If you don't like the word "heaven" in Myss' statement, substitute a term that works for you, like "your higher self" or "your destiny" or "your soul's code." Modify anything else in it that's not right for your needs, as well. When you're finished tinkering, I hope you'll have created a definition of faith that motivates you with as much primal power as you feel when you're in love.'
'It's a great privilege to live in a free country. You're fortunate if you have the opportunity to pursue your dreams without having to ward off government interference or corporate brainwashing or religious fanaticism.
But that's only partly useful if you have not yet won the most important struggle for liberation, which is the freedom from your own unconscious obsessions and conditioned responses. Becoming an independent agent who's not an unwitting slave to his or her shadow is one of the most heroic feats a human being can accomplish'.
Insight is not a light bulb that goes off inside our heads," says author Malcolm Gladwell. "It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out." On the one hand, you will soon glimpse quite a few new understandings of how the world works and what you could do to make it serve you better. On the other hand, you've got to be extra alert for these new understandings and committed to capturing them the moment they pop up. Articulate them immediately. If you're alone, talk to yourself about them. Maybe even write them down. Don't just assume you will be able to remember them perfectly later when it's more convenient'.
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster,
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. Elizabeth Bishop
1. i read somewhere: "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays." Ralph Waldo Emerson
FRINGE FILM FESTIVAL was born three years ago, after three friends sat down over a glass of wine and reacted creatively to the cut of the LLGFF (london lesbian gay film festival) to one week instead of two... o. yes. we have the most stupid government in the UK with horrible, money grabbing men ruling it... don't get me started...
so, it begun and it was focused on films, short and features, events and parties and around cool places in the east end of london. i was invited to participate and contribute to the festival with my pop up bar: the first year (2011), stav B' liquor bar was operating at bob and anne cooke's pie n' mash shop on broadway market and we had music and cocktails downstairs and the short films shown upstairs in the dilapidated victorian living room, which we had customised to be cosy and safe. so much fun and so busy. the second year (2012), i was at lower clapton's colourful juice bar, lumiere, where the bar was upstairs among the sweet smells, the dangling glitter hearts and permanent fountain and serving spicy punch and other delights via books on erotica, female ejaculation workshops, body performances, music and a very lively and active dark room! this year (2013), i was invited to participate as an artist, where i became a priest for one night only, in a chapel, doing service and reciting a sermon (my own), giving communion and offering confession time! and as an atheist, denouncing god in my teens, who finished a private school for girls, with its own church and as part of the choir, i was obliged to sing inside it to a nauseating level, as it was always so busy and hot, it was quite a big thing... religion vs faith; principle vs art ethic; desire vs love; pushing the boundaries away from the comfort zone vs remaining stubborn in one's beliefs... of course i said yes! and it was no light matter... i still write and a lot, but i perform selectively... i wanted to be respectful, but also flexible and not too flippant, losing myself in some jargon, or pointless reaction to an industry i'm not familiar with, full of complexities, mystery and corruption... so, i delved into it... preparing psychologically to appear in front of strangers in a chapel and spilling my heart; choosing my two songs as hymns and finally writing my sermon after days of reflection and thinking, retaining it close, true and protected. the confession part was easy enough; folk come to me for advice and a point of view in life anyway, which, sometimes, i'm hopeless in giving it to myself... and i kept it honest, as authentic as possible, coming from the heart... being me... and complete with my clergy shirt and my rosary and a borrowed cassock, which i have always wanted to possess (wardrobe extension) and elements of religion... yes, i did some research on the matter and became a tourist for a whole morning in the rain, visiting clergy suppliers and abbey shops... and the service was wonderful and funny and warm, complete with prayers and hymns and two speeches from hilary clinton and patti smith and a full house, with boys and girls, who were totally up for it, singing, laughing, cheering, clapping and soaking it all in as well as the communion who were lining up to get in the shape of... love hearts! as it should be! that day the house of god, was the house of love; our love! and everyone said that i looked the part, it suited me to the ground and i felt as ease and very serious and calm and strangely elated covered in heavy black cloth and decorated in chains and beads... which most likely has got to do with my personal state at present; trying to keep it together, before i go completely mad, or was i in character? this is my sermon; my sermon of love...
SERMON
by stav B
Friday 12 April 2013
FRINGEFILM FEST*3
Good evening.
I’m stav B. Your priest for one night only.
It took me some
time to think and more time to decipher on paper, this sermon, which, despite
the subversion of it all, is a serious matter, standing in front of strangers
and delivering some kind of message with honesty and clarity, asking for your
forgiveness and hopefully transcending positive energy to take with you in
cognition.
I am not
religious, in the sense, that I don’t follow a particular manuscript, which
will lead my life in some kind of salvation, but I have faith:
Faith in the
undeniable power of nature
Faith in the
ability of humans, despite their stupidity and ignorance and fear
Faith in the
people who I love and love me
Faith in
myself, as I believe that everything starts and finishes from oneself…
Faith is not
about having all the answers, it is a feeling, a hunch, that something bigger,
connecting us all, exists: LOVE, which in itself is an act of faith…
All fine and
dandy in theory and we can enter in some futile discourse for eternity, what
use is it, if it’s not recognised, practised and finally embraced? If it’s not
felt?
Despite the
love within us, we all know, how hard and somewhat impossible it is to find the
other, identify them and love them and be loved back…
It is a
bewildering business indeed, we all need this so much, but when it actually
knocks on our heavy door, forever locked and occupied by work and hobbies, do
we open it?
Do we let it
in?
Do we enjoy it?
Do we nurture
it?
Do we keep it?
Close to our hearts with compassion and trust and responsibility?
Do we allow it
to bewitch us and sweep us away, in shores, where we can lose and find
ourselves?
Despite the
fears?
The past
traumas?
The busy
schedules?
The utter
foolishness to ruin something potentially amazing for us and to us, without
giving it a real shot?
Or deliberately
misunderstand it, sabotage it, challenge it, exclude it, control it, unfairly
and eventually destroying it, in the name of:
Career?
Friends?
Idle gossip?
Fear?
Closed heart?
Insecurity?
The superb
discipline of conditioning oneself to the state: I’m ok on my own, I have
worked very hard to reach that stage and I’m not prepared to relinquish it,
yet, ever, at the moment?
Working hard on
oneself is fundamental, whether we are alone or relating, nothing should
interfere with this crucial process, our loved ones should encourage this
wholeheartedly.
A certain lack
of decorum to be kind and compassionate to someone who has appeared in our
lives for a myriad of reasons, but most importantly to love us?
The answers lie
within each and every one of us and if we dare to be brutally honest with
ourselves, then we’ll know what to do and how to proceed.
As above, it is
a bewildering and tricky business at the same time and juggling life and
feelings is truly a wonderful as well as a rocky experience, but smooth sailing
never made a skillful sailor, right?
In short and
what I’m trying to say here, is that if we are sure about what we want and need
and are capable for and very adamant about our choices in life, whatever the
reason, the excuse, the previous experience and we are not prepared to shake
this meticulous crafted composition, just in case our tower crumbles…
Then, we should stay away from the harmful,
potentially messy and heartbreaking business of love and make sure that we keep
our hearts very
looked after and wrapped carefully… unbreakable… irredeemable, inpenetranable,
hearts, which eventually become motionless, airless and dark…
Life continues,
but how?
Or, of course, we can do something
different and interesting and surprise ourselves, totally remove our finely
knitted net and leap into the amazing unknown, the magic, the beauty, the
happiness, the love! Why not? Why can we not get what we want for a change? Why
can we not get what we deserve? And crack a little smile for a while?
Maybe we get scratched, bruised,
upset, confused and so what? It’s all a circle back to itself and love will
truly shine if it’s true! It’s all part of the process, courage is contagious
and faith; what a task!
There is no eternal sunshine of the
spotless mind, but despair and loneliness; soul-destroying… spots and mistakes
and miracles and warmth… yearning for the warmth.
'Somewhere there's a treasure that has
no value to anyone but you, and a secret that's meaningless to everyone except
you, and a frontier that harbours a revelation only you would know how to
exploit. Why not go in search of those things?
Visualise yourself being able to recognise the
raw truth about the people you care about. Imagine that you can see how they
already embody the beauty their souls' codes have promised as well as how they
still fall short of embodying that beauty.
Picture yourself being able to make
them feel appreciated even as you inspire them to risk changes that will
activate more of their souls' codes'.
It’s ok to love.
It’s ok to share.
It’s ok to get hurt.
And it’s ok to be alone. But if one
does wish to remain alone, one should not implicate others into this
experiment; one should remain unbending into their positions… unless, of
course, they do love, that is….
LOVE is the answer
and we all know that for sure and as I leave you now holding each other’s
hands, of the person next to you, whether you know them or not, I wish to
state, declare and share with you that I love, I’m in love and that I
have decided to let it in, before I perish, as I’m my own worst enemy when it
comes to protection. The pain is sweet. The rewards, enormous. And I’m glad
about that.
i post this sermon here, upon request, archive and for those who missed the event...
yes, it is true, i am a performance artist and that has saved my life, as a way to exorcise my demons and reach some kind of cathartic revelation, via my prose and the audience, but that could never be possible without my life's wonderful realities.
