Friday, May 30, 2008

Return to Eden

Micah 1:6-8 (NIV)

6 Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble,
a place for planting vineyards.
I will pour her stones into the valley
and lay bare her foundations.

7 All her idols will be broken to pieces;
all her temple gifts will be burned with fire;
I will destroy all her images.
Since she gathered her gifts from the wages of prostitutes,
as the wages of prostitutes they will again be used.

8 Because of this I will weep and wail;
I will go about barefoot and naked.
I will howl like a jackal
and moan like an owl.


Last night, the Franklin House hosted a group called, the CJ Boyd Sexxxtet. The build up to this evening has been long and surrounded by snakes, spitting venom and coiling a misunderstanding with rattles of childhood and innocence falsely hissing from their tongues. Such inadequacies some gods must adore!


It often makes me curious, by what manner did development of sexual enslavement become realized as a religious virtue? Christians would gladly point to Genesis and say with omnipotence and dangerous pride that we have been doomed since Eve took the fruit in the garden, causing god to become an angry god, and strike shame upon our bodies. Baha'i followers would say that modesty is a virtue, this being taken from Christian teachings as well as Islam and Hebrew writings of the Jewish faith. Atheists may be found to say simply that they are not comfortable with the idea and hipsters say that playing naked was so '04, passe and cliche by now.


It was a small group of social misfits, deviants, outlaws and curious lovers of poetry and music that came together at our house last night, in nervous anticipation of what would be.


The voyeurism we have learned since childhood, in the form of entertainment and television, has allowed for a separation from idea and action. Sure this has always been so, but never before, to such a degree, have we had people who have strong memories not of participation in something, rather of witnessing it on TV, or in books. We have the ability to glamorize the character of the whore, the junky, the rebel, and never have to actually know they exist. For years, the only naked body we are around sober is one on a screen or page. There, anything seems possible, all is okay, desires are comodified. And isn't that what we are striving to question? The commodification of people and ideas. The buying and selling of a world that is made free. It all may sound good in print and on a bumper sticker, but how silent the room is when none are here to preach!


"Revolutionary" new churches are springing up all over the place now, made up of young Christians talking about Christ like he was Che Guevera, wielding a beatnik beard and smashing a system built upon the control of one another. How then, once church ends, do we not simply live the ideas we talk about?

I want to make clear that I am not a member of any particular Church or belief system, and this is what most religious people would say is my "in" to be open. This utter lack of faith is what allows and makes easy my heathenous ways. I spit at that and tilt my bottle of wine over on the grave of Bacchus to wet his lips in hell. You see, when not relying upon a learned system of beliefs that are shared by my peer group, family, teachers, lawmakers, and damn near everything else we experience, one does not have a safety net on which to rely. You are quite simply cast from the garden again, this time, with no fig leaf and most times, no understanding of what will come. You are left to discover. You are free. Being cast from the gated mental communities that hang banners in the name of love and use ropes made of guilt to fly them, is in truth, a return to Eden.

I cannot decide if it is a sad commentary on our lives that there were people in attendance last night, in their late 20's and early 30's who had never been around nude strangers outside of the context of a strip club, or if it is a celebratory idea that we are witnessing the change and creating it here. Ego is there for a reason, and if that creative bastard does something beautiful, let it be that I suppose, beautiful. Beauty unrecognized is no beauty at all, just a shadow.


After the music last night, we formed a circle around a fire in the yard, and began to talk. Simple discussion at first, comfortable and dominated by a few. The fire was stoked again and the conversation grew. One girl pointed out that, because she knew no one there, she could be honest. Truth in a stranger, an angel in us all I suppose. We talked of awkward sex, regret, and passions. We tossed out some ideas as being simply not relevant anymore, not here, not now. We spoke of learning by experience rather than education, and this we all agreed was how we became who we are. We talked of futures and pasts, and were there in the present, if even for a while.

A few of us split off to enter into small trance of joy and absinthe, song and verse. We stripped off all and howled like jackals of Micah. Paid homage to hilarity and the holy! goof. Prophetic poetries came from all sources of the cosmos and we ere breathing it all in with the smoke and seat and drink. It was of great consequence to us all. This is where live, from now on, in an ever present state of union.



The evening fell with our bodies limp on the floors and couches of holy! ground. It would be naive to speak of all of this as a revolution, or as a declaration, but it would be negligent to deny the honesty and soldiering without regret. There is no control to be exerted over a people who do not function on guilt, rather on ideas. Some say that the most dangerous thing is to believe your own ideas. I say no. I say the most dangerous idea is one that tells you who you cannot be, in the face of what is. Today, we will not be invisible, nor silent...

There is so much more to speak about on this idea of sexual identity, and freedom being inherent to our own knowledge of our desires, and it requires discourse. Honesty and an openness to allow yourself to realize your desires is a hard step for most everyone of us. None of us have it easy, and those of us that seem to have either already fought the demons of insecurity, or are simply full of shit. It is okay. You will be you forever.

This is just a beginning to a long series of writing's I plan to do on this subject. If you were present last night, please add your tale in the comments, if you were willfully absent, please tell us your thoughts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My experience at the Franklin house was blissful and life changing. It’s been on the tip of my tongue since it found me. I can scarcely help myself from bringing it up in every sincere conversation I've been graced with since then. I cannot adequately express how profound the experience was for me... But, I will say that it was freeing and inspiring. It reminded me of why I choose to go on living.

-Mic