The flame in your temple

My mother loved going to concerts. One of her motivations here had little, or only obliquely, to do with the music. Rather it was that, as she confessed, "I like to fall in love with the soloist." She was capable of falling, and did fall, in love with painters, sculptors, filmmakers - so long as they were celebrated. So Dalí and Picasso were "geniuses" [speak the word with terrifying reverence] and, as far as I am aware, to this day she wishes for none other than Ludwig von Beethoven to welcome her personally when she arrives on the other side.

The human love of human 'stars' has, probably, everything to do with being overcome momentarily with the feeling that you've champagne, or even the cosmos itself, in your veins, rather than blood. However, I do wonder whether this feeling is aroused by the artwork you're apparently appreciating, rather than by the contiguity you find yourself in, beside awestruck fellow humans, all of them in a thoroughly heightened state. Mob mentality does not kick in only when it comes to demagoguery, violence and war.

In the arts, rock concerts have exploited this human weakness - the deliciousness, the necessity, even, of losing the self - to an extreme. The Dionysian frenzy that fans whip up in their orgasmic surrender, to whoever it is they are united in worshipping at that moment, has been obligatory for at least as long as we have had electricity - though several millennia back, thousands of ancient Greeks would apparently weep and tear their hair in unison on seeing Oedipus Rex or the Medea, performed live in their amphitheatres. The very word 'fan', used in this sense, derives from 'fanatic', which originally meant a "mad, enthusiastic person inspired by a god" and, even nowadays, is not imbued with wholesome meaning. 

It is naturally cathartic to self-forget, to lose oneself to something that is blissful or terrible, overwhelming and literally awesome. What worries me when it comes to fanship, however, beyond the excessive enthusiasm it can stoke, is the one-way-street of stardom.

At times, it feels to me as if we've lost touch with our primitive (wholesome) worship of the sun, stars, moon and planets, because we've put human beings in the place of the heavenly bodies - sacrificing how many new Prometheuses to be daily divested of their livers? For, as everybody knows, the industry of fame can be a gory one indeed.

What worries me, perhaps most, about that industry, is that it transactionalises love. The lovers are turned into a clientèle, whose hunger is fanned by their own fanship, which is by definition a state of being in which you do not inhabit yourself. Indeed, who remembers to nourish their own flame when super-ignited by spectacle and sound effects, heated by a fired up crowd? Nowadays, this kind of experience is available 24/7 via video footage with shrieking applause and mind-numbing lighting aerobics.

There is naturally a place for (harmless) madness in this world, and music fests are a cheery way of allowing us to express that madness. I share reverence for a particularly good phrase or piece of writing, or piece of art or music and, along with other poets and performers, I do love mesmerising an audience with my voice at times. But what matters ultimately is surely what is stirred in you, rather than what is happening outside of you? A resonance, a flame that continues burning even when the lights dim down and everything is quiet again.

The Latin word fanum, whence 'fanatic' comes, meant 'temple', 'shrine' or 'consecrated place'. If my work should enjoy devotees, I would hope that it's because I've managed to introduce you to a consecrated place inside your own precious soul - helping you to remember, rather than forget, your dear self.

Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash

'Lovelight' (ceramic by Silke Heiss)

Weed (It's not what you may think it is)

 1.      Preamble

It is star-shaped and yellow and so delicate as to feel like a miniscule spray of mist. I am on my three-year-old haunches, mesmerised by its beauty. She speaks to me. She says she is from the stars and she asks me to look after her. I tell her that I will visit her every day. I keep my promise.

Then I sense the caretaker’s wife standing behind me. She is big and pregnant. I often play with her other children, who are older than I am.

She says, “What are you doing?”

“It’s a flower,” I say.

“It is a weed,” she replies. “We must pull it out.”

She is gentle. I don’t remember pulling out the flower. I remember agreeing with the caretaker, but I don’t remember pulling out the weed.

It has remained forever in me.

 

***

 

2.      Reflective Notes

Journey through dance

Driftwood Studios

5^th February 2023

First, we did a RAIN meditation, listening to Tara Brach.

Recognise Allow Investigate Nurture

I remembered the feeling of following my mother’s back, as she refused to turn her face to me, embarrassed by me, & me feeling cast out, unwanted, unworthy. And I knew I must re-mother myself.

 Then we walked in the lovely garden & I felt the moist grass under my soles, which have become so tough from all my barefoot walking. And I nudged the driftwood dinosaur, who looks away, into the foliage, & I found a little clearing near there, where I could hide – my bright gear did not camouflage me! But everybody was quiet and discreet.

 

Then we danced. It was strange at first with the words Cher was reading over the music, I am so sensitive to words spoken or written. But I realised this was a time to be more conscious. I breathed in the colour spring-green, which felt delightful. Then, when Cher told us to breathe in red – that was at once instinctive, it pulls me to feel so primitive, or primal, & lastly I found or was given a luminous blue sphere, Cher spoke about holding a seed, & my very beautiful sphere became a blue flower, & I remembered a tiny flower I once loved between the cracks of the paving, which spoke to me of the stars. It had a voice, & I danced her.

 

***

 

3.      Sharing

Each participant in the Journey through dance read their reflections. How many different worlds had combined in the studio, each one contained within her body! Some felt that they had freed themselves from reining in the love they feel for others and the world; another felt aware that she was releasing barriers she tended to put up, for fear of losing her independence; yet another travelled through her father into history, wars, complex family heritage rippling out into, or from, her individual self.

When I read my reflective notes, Claire said, “You are the flower.”

“A weed in a crack,” I replied sardonically.

“Yes,” said Claire, “and look how much it has influenced you.”

 

***

 

4.      Renewal

The next day, I walked along the beach near where I live. Suddenly the wind breathed an emission of positive memories of my mother into me, surprising and elating. The Journey through dance had wiped away an ancient, stagnant grief as if it were only a greasy mark on a glass. I no longer needed to think of all the wonderful things, whereby my mother influenced me during my life – I could feel them all again! The splendid books she piled on me; her not minding to walk in the rain; her irrepressible cheekiness and big-mouth-laughter.

I don’t need diligently or desperately to list or remember the bouncy, flowering weeds in the cracks of my mother’s persona anymore – they, too, are in me, abundantly so.

Even better, her back is no longer turned towards me, as I turn to face myself.

“You are allowed to be brave. You know how to swallow your fear and breathe fire with it!”

 

***

 

5.      Blue fire

I take up where I left off. I return to that point where I gave up on the little flowering weed pushing up between the paving stones. She was yellow like the sun. The Journey through dance gave me a blue sphere to hold: was that her sky?

Where will you lead me, little star-flower weed?

I don’t know why, but the words “blue fire” follow me, as well as your colour, yellow.

I’ll wait and see.

 

***

 

6.      Forgiveness

I ask forgiveness of all those readers, whom I disappointed, because this is not a story about dagga.

 

***

 – Silke Heiss, Sunrise-on-Sea, February 2023