seek Consorts, not converts

Allow yourself to feel the magnetic attraction of two iron filings drawn to each other. Or observe tuning forks. The art of resonance is so much closer too where I'm at these days.

There is a history of marketing as being the art of persuasion. These days even the art of seduction reeks of too much effort.

One dramatic personal shift I noticed since I started this inspiration series is that I no longer seek converts. I don't care to convert anyone, even something as sublime as quote convincing unquote you to attune to your own inspiration and guidance.

Rather I am interested in consorts. My ideal partners in inspiration and creation are muses, collaborators, playmates, lovers (either literally or figuratively) - and preferably all in one. (This includes you dearest.)

DEFINITION con·sort (kŏn'sôrt')
n.

1. A husband or wife, especially the spouse of a monarch.
2. A companion or partner.
3. A ship accompanying another in travel.
4. Partnership; association: governed in consort with her advisers.
5. A group; a company: a consort of fellow diplomats.
6. Music.
   1. An instrumental ensemble.
   2. An ensemble using instruments of the same family.

I don't even care to seek out consorts. We collide together quite serendipiously and easily.

And so a multi-year experiment came to conclusion this weekend.

I already knew from losing nearly everything in 2001 that friends were more valuable than money, so that wasn't the experiment. It was closer to Einstein's query. Einstein once wrote at the most important question a human being could ask is, Is the universe friendly?

I didn't know the answer. My hypothesis was Yes. But I'm all about the Red Pill, the actual truth even if it is not what I would like to hear. And I'm not sustained by philosophy or systems of belief - only direct experience sticks to my bones.

So this past November, circumstances forced my curiousity to directly confront my fear of dying (these days I lean towards believing folks are more afraid of living than dying), of starvation, of abandonment. What if I didn't tell a soul that I was absolutely flat broke (by the time I revealed I was, I was at a turning point of coming through it)? What would happen? Could I rely on total strangers too? Could I rely on the beneficience of the infinite? And all this in America of all individualistic places?

"Once when [Jack] Kerouac was high on psychedelics with Timothy Leary, he looked out the window and said, 'Walking on water wasn't built in a day.'" - Allen Ginsberg

Walking on water wasn't built in a day, but doesn't take that long either.

My first week here on a chalk blackboard near Flanagan's Pub I saw scribed: "Every living vessel is sacred."

Saw Michael Cain, a neon and light and glass artist here in the Bywater - at the edge of 9th Ward of New Orleans - speak about two week ago. He said that when you pour light into a form, that adds a life force to it, that's why some of his glass art looks like it has a personality inside it (I'd say soul myself).

Cain turned the lights off, and in the dark one could see the vessel glowing.

I noted while there was a beautiful presence trapped in the vessel. Though it also came across as sterile static inert.

Behold! when a human touched it like the boy I witnessed, the light snaked and bamboula'ed* in step with the caresses and I suppose it was like lovemaking.

* an afro-cuban sensuous dance that urban artist Marcus Akinlana told me was "the dance of love" and quite popular in Nola; p.s. both my parents are from Cuba

And that dance of light conveyed essentially what I learned in my experiment about life and giving and receiving and Einstein's question.

Take note and recognize the consorts that come into your periphery these days; welcome them into your center. Your individuality will be ripened in their presence. And vicely versa.

p.s. Anyone that really knows me knows that I adore Jack Kerouac. Jack is my alter ego, my buddy, certainly my consort, my muse, & my co conspirator.

images Bamboulized and Barrelhouse Boogie by New Orleans artist Marcus Akinlana

Comments

[Bruce]

Welcoming of Consorts, check. The relationship between life and the world of form just becomes more and more tenuous. Just living in the clear space between IS an option. Namaste

[Tom Asacker]

I had a 10 hour drive up and back to Quebec a few weeks back, so I picked up the "On the Road" audiobook. Matt Dillon did a wonderful job reading Kerouac's stream of consciousness storytelling. It exemplifies Goethe's sentiment: Nothing is worth more than this day.