I have a very specific criteria for defining art that moves me: it has to, in some way, come from, and speak to, a place at the furthest outside edge of experience. I want that art to live in that uncomfortable place where things are either about to, or just have been, pushed to the point where they fly completely apart.
There’s nothing but possibility in that shattered space.
That can be a desperate place. it’s an easy find in rock n roll: The Modern Lovers’ ‘Roadrunner,’ Jonathan Richman furiously counting down, his life absolutely depending on it, the rest of the Lovers on the very edge of falling apart —
I’m in love with rock ‘n’ roll and I’ll be out all night.
It doesn’t have to be sonically chaotic, either: Joni Mitchell’s ruthlessly honest exploration of what it means to live — and love — without reservation, not just in spite of, but because she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s going to get hurt, or hurt someone else, is just as far out into that wild place where anything is possible. Things are constantly falling apart. That’s just what happens when you’re completely awake, Joni seems to be saying — is there any other way to live?
JMW Turner’s ferocious landscapes, painted with fierce energy that always feels to me like it’s about to explode — or Mark Rothko’s deep and existential explorations of color, emotion, stroke and composition. Canvases that feel like they had to be painted. The artist’s life just depends on doing that work. Gerhard Richter’s chaotic and urgent investigations of interior territory that’s always verging on tightly focused rage, equally infused with an inchoate love of process, pain, and living — painted at the edge of understanding. Joan Mitchell’s intensive and expansive, furiously remembered landscapes.
Things get pretty wild in this life. We’re all just hanging on, sometimes for dear life, sometimes by our cracked and bleeding fingernails.
We’re always at the cutting edge of our lives. At least it feels that way to me: one teaching that’s constantly coming at me, from all sides, is that I’m out of control. Of anything. Not the weather, not politics, not practice, not the people I love. Life has it’s own momentum, it’s own unfolding.
That chaotic physics is completely unknowable. Wild, unpredictable, inescapable.
Life is lived, fully, at the edge of experience: we’re charged with bringing it forward, expressing our lives as honestly and wholly as we can. Not holding anything back. That’s definitely art.
Out there — out here — where anything is possible.
So cool.
Your comments are always welcomed and encouraged. I’d love to hear from you.
One more thing.
As a zen priest I’m a student of Tenshin Fletcher Roshi at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center. For more info on Yokoji, please visit www.zmc.org.
I’m also the caretaker of Warwick Zendo, a small in-person and online sangha based in the lower Hudson Valley of New York. if you’d like to check out our practice community, we’re at www.warwickzen.org.
How this works.
I plan to post at least once a week, at minimum. The Freeside offers those weekly posts, which will always be accessible. Payside will (eventually) offer access to some longer writing and ongoing investigations into practices both literary and zen.
Payside also helps to sustain this project, and this practice. Like any creative project, keep sweeping is a kind of labor, and as such, your support to sustain that labor is much appreciated.
If Payside is not for you, that’s all good. The posts will keep coming on Freeside. The support of your reading and attention is a deeply appreciated gift, and I thank you for being here.
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