This month, that is to say, the update for this month, may not be as extensive as last month’s, but not to say, that is, that it is not to say that the month was not extensive. It did and was and will and that is what the moon is supposed to be. I mean month not moon.
The month is made of mothers, because of the relationship between the month and the moon, and the fathers are made of days in the work week, unless of course there are differences, unless there is variance, unless there is an exception, in which case, this is not a status update like last month but more looking forward to next month.
Precisely. Precisely I met with Dr.’s Gonzalez and Robinson and discussed the next and almost last draft of the RDC1, and that is due the 20 April, and the changes between now and then are small, and there is also the calendar, and there is also the form that we submit. This is very good, it is moving along very quickly, really, and honestly I am enjoying the work with my supervisory team. I like the conversations and the emails and the time writing in between. During the last discussion Debbie talked about the possibility of relying on surrealism, because the link between psychoanalysis and the spirit world is already pretty solid in the historical movement. And there was discussion about how Lucumí might serve as a kind of intervention in the text, along with the project in general, a kind of post-colonial subversion. These all sound like very interesting avenues to explore, and I’m looking into them, some during the writing of this next draft, and some slated for afterwards.
From a recommendation from my crit group, I found a copy of the Death and Resurrection Show (it’s very hard to find, sells for between 800-1,000 dollars on the web, but it was in the library here because this department has some very interesting performance scholars who are responsible for building the most remarkable avant-garde library in the most unlikely place). The basic ideas are terribly interesting (the relationship between pop and rock stars and the shaman), but I am finding that after just a few months in Dr. School, my knees get jerky with sloppy scholarship–an example, in one footnote, he instructs the reader to look in a book, “somewhere around p. 175, I think…” ((oh but this is also sloppy scholarship, because I don’t have it here and am just quoting from memory)) (((it’s sloppy though all right all righty))) )…
A big turn: last weekend I drove out to San Diego to visit with my godfathers in Lucumí. There was a personal reason for going, to get connected to the spirit roots and do some things at the ocean…
But also to get away from the energy here in Phoenix. In March there was a succession of deaths of close friends, and I’ve been to lots of funerals lately. Also, and this is bigger, I’ve been terribly worried about my father. This cancer that went away in 2011 showed up again in January of this year. I’m mentioning it here because I think it’s having a lot of influence on everything I do, how I see the world lately, and there are more times than I’d like to count where I’ve had an afternoon set aside to work and read and write, but have ended up in the v.a. hospital with him, or doing things to help them out at their home. He had another surgery this week, and it was not successful at all, there’s a new cancer growing very fast, and he’s going to need to do some more extreme surgeries and maybe radiation. I don’t really know, and probably won’t have a good idea what’s ahead for a couple of weeks, and it colors everything.
Ok, back to San Diego. Getting away from death didn’t work (it never does), because a very famous Santero, one who specialized in brujería, was killed when I was there (not right there), and that colored things in a different way. Warrior energy playing against the energy of the ocean, but they’re not foreign to each other, the mother in the ocean can be a warrior, too, and the warriors that live in the forest will sometimes lay down their weapons when there’s sweet music calling from the water. But. I did have the chance to ask the people I want to interview for the ethnography part of my work if they were willing, and they said yes. And I called my contact in New York, and he said yes. These are all priests of Oshun, by the way, the Orisha who rules over rivers, romantic love, and is really the one to talk to when you want to do a “work” (aka spell)…
So all of this reminds me of that story about Orisha Oko, the land, and Yemaya, the ocean. They’re in love with each other, but they can’t live together because they destroy each other. In a month of mothers and moons, lost friends and time staring at the sea, and everything has something to do with the father, who is calling me “bright sun.” The elements are all playing out the roles they are supposed to be playing, but it’s very hard to recognize it when it’s happening, because it moves through my chest with the weight of the sea, and is perfectly natural and beautiful even if I can’t recognize it.
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