Expand and Contract
SHEDDING (1 of series), Elizaveta Porodina
At some point for reasons that do not matter, I broke.
It might be more accurate to say that I shattered. The constituent pieces previously known as the United State of Me instead became the Loosely Related Fragments of Someone Who Once Was. More like an asteroid belt of selfhood than a whole planet, perhaps because they present smaller targets.
In retrospect, it’s no surprise that most of my life became about solving puzzles, placing missing pieces into some sort of cohesive order or playing with the lack thereof: programming, philosophy, glitch art, deconstruction of social dynamics, the inner colonization of every metaphysical theory I find, the constant alluding to a Big Picture which may very well be more a network of neurons, a star system, a social graph, a field of forces with invisible origins bouncing furiously.
#glitchtober2020 day 31: ghostly, Soso Gutter
A little bit too much of this makes a person totally spacious and specious. In accumulating the entire universe, you tie things together with ropes and declare that those things are related because lo and behold: ropes! But not every puzzle piece fits together neatly and not every idea is related just because you found them together. Restriction, restructuring, and sometimes cruel excision is necessary, like a writer killing their darlings. (I am bad at this, darling.)
Contraction is necessary. It’s no accident that in the Hellenistic astrology system of signs -> planets, Sagittarius Jupiter (expansion, big ideas) is followed by Capricorn Saturn (contraction, restriction). The expansive phase is necessarily credulous and a little bit stupid. The contraction phase is necessarily skeptical and a little bit cruel. You must breathe in, utilize O2, breathe out, release CO2. Transformation of essential life-giving properties into unwanted molecules.
These are natural cycles, though many people stay on one side more than the other, inherently more Jupiterian or more Saturnian, more expansive or more contractive. Finding the truth is not a matter of exclusively exploration and gathering and connecting or refinement and trimming and purifying; like the rhythm of breath life is only possible in the context of both breath in as well as out.
Eve Montgomery, Glitch Artists Collective November Artist of the Month
Incidentally, there are breathing techniques for both vigor and slowness, and with awareness we can also conscientiously choose to double down on expansion or contraction, contrary or concurrent with our own tendencies.
I am obviously in an expansive cycle, so much so that even within the umbrella of my in-breath I advocate yogic out-breaths, mindfulness practices, intentionally driven modality shifts, and I am incredibly hungover. Indeed, I find myself anxious about how I simply cannot seem to pull it together; the pieces of me are spreading and connecting even as they increase the spaces in between them.
Still, I’ll use the moment to remind you (me) that we can go the other way or double down. I hope you’re doing well. ❤
GL!TCH.INTERNATIONAL FEATURE: Mary Galloway
Mary Galloway
Indigenous, Coast-Salish-Cowichan filmmaker originally from Vancouver island
“Societal pressures and emotional abuse start erasing the spirit of a queer woman of color who must fight to regain her voice from within the void.” - Spirit Glitch by Mary Galloway (2019)
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Some links
The Rogue Planets That Wander the Milky Way Alone - The Atlantic
Astronomers are searching for mysterious, free-floating worlds across the Milky Way.
A History of Stranger Danger in the ’80s
Adam Walsh, 6, was abducted at a Sears; two weeks later, his head was found in a drainage canal. Yusuf Bell, 9, never completed the errand he was running for his neighbor; two weeks later his body was found at an abandoned school. Johnny Gosch, 12, went missing while delivering newspapers in his neighborhood. He was…
