Surface Tension

Hand details - Portrait of Andries de Graeff I

Marble, 1885, Rijksmuseum

In our lives, our existence is preserved and maintained by our own bodies. That idea is clear and obvious, but a juicier, more subjective rhythm of thought ought to be explored. We can all sense a location where the phenomenon of our own vitality does seem to exist. From the folds of your heart to the lining of your frontal lobe we each feel a position where the sense of ourselves sits, somewhere that just feels right. The query for us to sink our teeth into is this, where do our souls rest within ourselves?

For the longest of times, I protected my soul by leaving it in the bones of my body. With the most important part of myself locked away to the marrow of my calcified shell, my being sat preserved. Although my internal being lay secured it was not enriched to the buzz of the outside world.

As I’ve grown into life my coordinates of my soul have relocated. As of now I hold my own sense of being right below skin. Closest to where I can feel the heat of the sun is where my soul thrives.

To let your soul sit below the surface requires you to develop your own thick skin. You will grow through friction as you let life form its own calluses around you. Yes, when your soul flows through the capillaries, it's easy to feel the pain from life, but it also makes the pleasure oh so much grander. The sensation of energy becomes something more than just a feeling; it forms into tangible objects that lean up against you with their presence. Objects you can envelop in your being, objects whose ambiguous meaning provide raw overwhelming sensation. That’s what occurs when my soul settles to the most external of internal locations, you feel more. And while I understand why people develop their cocoons, their shells to grow into, that living is no longer for me. I’ll live in the danger of opening my soul to elements of life. I’ll let the energised static of existence flow in and out of my being. I will rely on my own strength to preserve myself against the harsh conditions that exist in bitter corners of the world, but I will also allow myself to be overwhelmed by the raw vitality of living.

The Final Frontier

Sahara's sand dunes sprawl and wash over Algerian rockfaces and sandstone plateaus, 

Photographed from a height of 259 miles, 2022.

The soul is the final frontier. 

That's what Haruki Murakami says in his final chapter of “Novelist as a Vocation”. A book I’d recommend if you got some time to kill on a beach in Cyprus.  Cyprus was where I crunched through this piece of writing, perhaps it's the warm nights or the white noise of a soft ocean, but there was something about Cyprus that allowed me to chew through this novel. I would finish dinner, an oversized feed paid for about ~8 euros- always cash, wander back through the ancient laneways of stone and meandering gangs of cats till eventually I would reach the waterfront. It would be night but luckily there was always a free bench next to yellowed hued street light, there I would perch myself to do two simple things, read my book or reflect. This little alcove became my monastery of dedication and meditation, not much of a view lay before me, simply a black void, but in that black void was an opportunity, an opportunity to look so deep into the abyss that eventually I came to see myself. 

Maybe that’s why when I read this statement in his closing remarks it stirred in my head so god darn much. For indeed the soul truly is our final frontier. Exploring the frontiers of the mind is a lot like mapping the dunes of the Sahara. It’s a probing task that will only produce ephemeral results. While these results presented are never long lasting, the task in itself is never a fruitless errand. For by mapping the valley and shoals of sands in the Sahara we can see its changes, its movements, we see what time has brought to this land. 

With expeditions into my psyche I see what is the landscape I have fashioned within my mind. If reflecting acts as my scout party then journaling constitutes my field notes. Field notes that require me to return to the same location as a later date to see how I’ve changed. I say require because certain landscapes require repeated expeditions to see where the bedrock is. There's solid rock that sits below the sands of the Sahara and there’s mountains that live under the glacial walls of Antarctica. Some of these will wither back to sand one day while others will stay firm and set. We can separate the transient, from the semi-stable, to the permanent layers because we have studied these areas for decades if not centuries. And while I can’t analyse my brain for centuries I can occupy what decades I have left to that final frontier. An expanse where I can feel my soul shift through the act of my observation. A landscape where the erosion of self growth can wear down even the toughest of stones. A place I will forever call home even in different surroundings. 

Edited diary entry written in Larnaca Cyprus, 12 January 2024

NASA, 2022, A portion of the Sahara Desert in Algeria, Nasa online archives, Accessed on 15/02/2024, <https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/portion-of-sahara-desert-algeria-2/>

 

Re(turning)

Returning to a reiterated declaration.

The familiar familial hometown,

A city of muddy creeks and industrial lots, 

The warm night breeze wraps me dry as I walk through its enclaves.

The creeping itch of childhood's memories fail to leave me alone.

Layers of learnt behaviour swarm the brain in the humm of this night. 

I must pay attention to the now,

So as to not lose the future to a misremembered past,

I return to the places that I feel acquainted,

And realign and adjust myself so the familiar becomes the unfamiliar, 

The comfortable, becomes the trial.

This city becomes the place not where a child was raised but an adult was born.

I sit in that house of friction that scrapes like sandpaper,

And embrace my fate like a molten pillar of gold.

It’s never easy to carve out figures of yourself in the place you grew up,

But easy and fulfilled are two different things,

And I am more than just two different people.

I am more than my past, 

equal to the present,

and infinite to my future. 

I am someone returning to the same spot, 

Only to paint it anew in colours of my own.

Colours I’d prefer to see.

Laterz

And damn baby we're done! That's 137 days out of the way and added to the pile of life. What a wild journey. I took my sweet time walking over 2.6 million steps. I swept past nine countries and nineteen cites maxing out my 90 day visa in the schengen zone. I marched through the cities of northern Europe only to meditate in the mountains of the South. We had thunderstorms in Cypress that quenched my soul and dogs that chased me down the road in Italy. I partied hard in Barcelona and swept into my cosmic resonance in Cornwall. I don’t think I should say Europe changed me, I think it’s more appropriate to say that I changed in Europe. Yes, the passions of the people of Spain fueled my fire, while the warmth of the Portuguese blushed my skin with tenderness, I thank everyone who’s paths we crossed once and surely many we will cross again.  But I also have to recognise my own soul, because recognising my own soul is indeed what's happened here. I had a rule if a walk was under 2 hours I did it and while my butt has never looked so good the real benefactor was my own mind, because in these hundreds of hours of non-stop movement I have found the faint outlines of where I can find my own inner-sanctum. Through manic, feverish pacing on this foreign land I ended up finding the beats and rhythms of my own psyche, what I think and how I think. I learned how my brain pulses with its ugly habits and its own beautiful mosaics. With this rough layout of myself in hand I have something I haven’t felt for a long time, presence. True presence, belly breathing, focus relaxing, mind easing presence, and honey I can’t wait to return to extend that state of mind to the land I know to be my home, 

the place from down under, 

Australia.

Cya soon cuties x

Leach Pottery Studio

St Ives 2024

Warm Blooded

Allegory of Charity

Ca. 1655. Oil on canvas.

Zurbarán, Francisco deFuente de Cantos, Badajoz (Spain), 1598 - Madrid (Spain), 1664

We are warm blooded creatures. Unlike fish and reptiles, we can produce our own heat and warmth. We don’t need to rely on the fevered exterior of the world to bring us our own strength, we can produce our strength from within. And while the warmth of a heater or the radiation of the sun may please our soul, the flame in our hearts nourishes us like no outside force can. I would always prefer to have a full belly in cold surroundings, then be hungry while in a warm climate. Because with that full belly in me I can find my own love and my own admiration that hugs me closer than any soul could. My own vitality pulses in the heated convection of my own blood. The orange tones of life's passions start as sugars stirred in the essence of myself. To create your own energy is to be warm blooded, to be enriched, to be alive with the force of life itself.

Maintaining your own fire may take more effort, but it's always worth it. For the flame that comes from within will always feel more enriching than the flame that comes from foreign origins. To love yourself is to stoke that fire, love yourself from the inside-out, that's what I say. It’s all within our capabilities, maybe some easier than others, nonetheless in all of us is a pilot light waiting to be fueled, waiting not for someone to say they love us, but for us to say we love ourselves. 

Prado Museum, Allegory of Charity, Prado Museum archives, accessed on 29th January 2023, <https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/allegory-of-charity/95d3d5cc-4af1-4c0d-b03c-a9e1c1e6481f>

Avaritia

Avaritia; Greed

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. 1558

Engraving

Greed builds greed, money chases money, dopamine chases dopamine. I met the man tonight I’ve talked about for a long time, the posited drug-addicted rich boy child of a legacy family. I'm lucky to have booked this hostel because tonight I saw what it looks like to have unceasing desire. He had just fled his previous country. He fled with 700K in corporate debt whilst running away from drug habits and running towards the imagined dream of a family. He said there was no luck that he was born to a rich family and to be fair this was the only thing we agreed on. He was privileged to be brought up amongst wealth but not lucky I felt. He lacked fortune to be born to his gilded surroundings, surroundings that on his own accord praise three great virtues: God, Glory and The Family Legacy. Here I found this Family Legacy drunk on his hostel bunk, coming down from a cocaine binged Wednesday night of paid dopamine and paid sex.

He was a man of God he told me, just not a practicing one. He was upper class British in accent and American Christian Free Marketeer in nature. He told me as he’d gotten closer to God, he had found happiness. Yet he never espoused the moral ethics of humbleness, humbleness he told me was what poor people told themselves to stay happy being poor, he said sipping his corona. 

He could stay in a penthouse suite in a hotel, yet he stayed at the hostels as they helped to stay grounded between his binges. When I asked if his hunger fueled his appetite even more, he told me yes it did. He told how he envied his friend who was satisfied sailing alone on his boat, his friend who didn’t crave money and instead managed to find himself simply content. 

He credited himself for the livelihoods of his employees saying his actions provided them with over 200 salaries, while never stating the fact that 200 working employees also provided him with a salary. A salary that would pay for his lawyers, his fast cars and even his helicopter rides when his licence was revoked for speeding 100 km over the limit. 

We talked capitalism, we talked socialism and somewhere we got into the weeds of what an economy should indeed look like. He asked me was it fair that he’d put in all his hard work, after he’d received the McClaren, the Penthouse sweet, the fixed wing-aircraft , he asked me if it was fair that he’d lost relationships, he’d lost his company, he’d had to stare the barrel of a gun, was this all fair? 

Fair is a funny word isn’t it. It doesn’t have the same legal bravado that justice has, or the same inalienable quality as prescribed rights, fair is a unique one. In this case the way he was using the word “fair” was to ask what should've happened? I can’t say if what he was describing indeed should have happened, but indeed it did happen, he chased his lust till it pushed him back to the other side of Earth. He consumed everything till his gluttony overwhelmed him and he found himself stewing in his own self-pity. 

When I asked him if money made him feel happy?

“define happy?” he asked, “fulfilled” I said, 

“define fulfilled” he replied, “feeling satisfied” I answered, 

“No one can ever feel truly satisfied,” he concluded. 

He told me he couldn’t meditate. For him the 30 minutes a day made no sense if the other 23 and a half are wild and frenetic. This is a thought that had on his own accord only for it to be confirmed and reiterated in one of his favourite podcasts. Meditating was both unachievable and unneeded in his life. Yet it’s often the things you feel like you don’t need that you often require the most. 

He is a child of his own privileged trauma, a human who can and will pursue their own financial success through non-stop self-sacrifice. Moving to Monaco was his next stop, a location picked for their low taxes and safe neighborhoods. His new God driven direction in life was to provide financially for the family to sow the seeds for future generations, preserving his and families name and legacy. He was yet to find his partner or yet to have his children, yet sure enough in the end the family name will pass on and his own legacy will be extended. 

When I dream of a family that brings me fulfilment I don’t dream of legacies, I dream instead of leaning back to the large wooden table that presides in front of me, relaxing quietly while I appreciate the people I love surrounding and showing love for each other. You will never live to see your legacy, but you can live to see and enjoy the immediate moment, only if you pause and breathe for it. I'd recommend 30 minutes a day. 

Image :

Greed, British Museum, New Hollstein (Dutch & Flemish) / The New Hollstein: Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts 1450-1700 (24.I), Accessed on 26th January 2023, <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1880-0710-642>

Ship of Theseus

1909 Illustration by John F.Campbell

I experienced multiple selves in my dream last night. It's as Paul, a companion in my Cypriot hostel said, "in dreams you can see behind yourself”. In dreams you can stretch your legs, pace around to observe yourself. You see your profile, your hands, your feet, even the weird ridges on the back of your head. It is when you walk around yourself that you realize that at all times there are multiple versions of you. Multiple representations of yourself that spontaneously emerge each time an observation is made from a different angle. This is the liquid nature of the human condition, the never-ending flow of lived and dreamt experiences. A perspective that is defined as much by what is being perceived as to who is perceiving. In all evaluations of perspective, we must interrogate the observer strenuously, even if that observer happens to be our own selves. 

When one does not pause and dive into their own psyche, they end up living blind, blind to the present and obscured to the feelings of the past. For while we can all stop to imagine our own selves, we only imagine ourselves through the context of the here and now. So, when we ignore the here and now, we reflect through opaque lenses that lack clarity. Perceiving the present self within conscious thought is possible but far from easy. It's like checking the oil yet we can’t slow down the car, we must continue to drive while the hood is popped up and we lean forward as the highway winds blow in our face. We are the observer, the test subject, the hypothesiser, the control group and the out-of-control group all wrapped into one. We must cut into and dissect the sinews of thought yet not flinch too hard in case we ruin the anatomical investigation. 

Leonid Rogozov acting as surgeon to himself 

and removing his own appendix as he the only trained medical profession during a 1961 Soviet Antarctic expedition  

This is our lived reality, the unceasing conditions of existence. For all our awake lives we are forced to swap out sections of our hull while the waves come crashing down on us. The open ocean of life is swimming with challenges and rewards that require us to do day to day repairs. This daily maintenance is imperative if we are to not take on too much water. The easiest way to repair a vessel though is to return it to the safety and quietness of a harbour. The drydock of REM sleep is perhaps the best suited location to discern and make alterations to our vessel. 

It is a unique opportunity for while the brain is cataloguing its archives in deep sleep, we can sit and take a read. Perhaps that is part of the reason we feel so relaxed after a dreamy night of sleep, for it is one of the few moments we can simultaneously reflect and rest. We sit portside while we look at our galley, we see the barnacles being stripped back, the decks scrubbed properly, the sales fashioned anew, and while we sit there, out feet perched up high, we ask two most important questions.

Why do we choose to set sail back to the high seas?

And what course shall we plot for our maiden voyage?  

Barham, M 2021, Counter Arts online article, 6th September, accessed on 16th January 2024 , <https://medium.com/counterarts/the-ship-of-theseus-time-identity-and-memory-f6a6e2e815b2>

Lentati, S 2015, The man who cut out his own appendix, BBC online article, 5th May, accessed on 16th January 2024, <https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32481442>

Waves

I can’t remember when the dreams of waves first began. I only recall that they started to emerge sometime during my primary school years. They all would start differently yet would end the same. Sometimes I was on a beach, a boat, or a cliffside, wherever it was I was somewhere I could see and sense the waves. Often it started in the presence of calm waters but out of nowhere you would feel it and then you would see it, a behemoth would lay before my eyes, stories and stories of water that blocked out the sun as it approached. My gut would drop as the wave crested over me, its form mimicking a mountain of liquid dread. Sometimes I’d try to run, but it would be of no use, slowly but surely the predestined terrors of Poseidon would always reach me. 

Gradually the wave grew and gradually the wave advanced.

And then Boom, it’d Hit. 

Sometimes I would claw to the earth as the waves washed over me, holding on with as much strength as I could. But it was all in vain as the swell would drag me back as it wasted the soil and dirt beneath my body. 

The ending of the dream would always be the same, you can’t escape fear and I could never escape the path of this oncoming deluge. 

I would have these dreams repeatedly throughout my youth. Over and over the wave would wake me up and leave me wide eyed in the middle of the cold dark night. Many good nights of sleep were sacrificed to this nightmare as I had to pause and collect myself in my adrenaline-fueled state before I could (if indeed I could) return to my slumber.

It would be years before I realized those waves were psychic manifestations of my own anxiety. These were the literal waves of dread and emotion that washed through my childhood and early adolescence. 

At an unclarified point these recurring dreams lessened.

From nightly happenings these dreams moved to weekly, then monthly, then seasonal occurrences. These dreams would never cease completely, still occurring as sporadic phenomena, but they now lacked the volume to dominate my life like they previously had. 

Once again, I had one of those dreams last night. It followed a similar pattern to others yet for the first time finished differently. In this dreamt illusion I found myself on an open barge in the middle of the ocean. Flanked to my left and the right were elevated platforms in which faceless members of the crew found themselves occupied. I however was in an open section and, like standing on the edge of the public swimming pool could feel the warm water lapping at my toes on the fringe of the platform. The sea at that moment was turquoise and tranquil, but as soon as I looked out I knew that the inevitable was yet to come. That's the thing about a recurring dream you can feel yourself being pulled towards it, and like swimming against a rip your attempt to fight it will only make you drown quicker. From the calm waters I saw the ocean grow angry and witnessed as the water welled up to tower before me. Slowly but surely the wave made its way towards the barge. The vessel creaked as the ship tilted back, my eyes a gaze at the giant that had terrorized my nights on so many occasions. 

And yet in this moment that I had found myself in so many times, something was different, something was different inside of me. And instead of filling with unceasing dread as I awaited my fate, I captured my resolve and ran forth and dived into the tidal beast. 

From the chaos of the surface above, I found myself sinking into pure tranquil blackness. The presence of my own body and soul provided the only illumination to be felt in these voided depths. With no noise and no movement, it seemed as though I had found myself in space, floating in a galaxy where every star had been painted over. 

There I floated and there I meditated, not concerned with the waves atop or the troubles in my soul but occupied instead with the quietness of the deep. 

A quietness projected not from the stormed reality above but projected from the dreamt solitude below. 

A solitude I can always find within me, only if I choose to leap towards it. 

Edited Journal extract- 

Originally written- 

4th of December 2023 - Madrid 

Video Cyprus- Filmed 10th of January 2024

nonsite-Iberian Peninsula

nonsite - Portugal 

"There’s a central focus point which is the non-site is the unfocused fringe where your mind loses its boundaries and a sense of the oceanic pervades, as it were. I like the idea of quiet catastrophes taking place…. The interesting thing about the site is that unlike the non-site, it throws you to the fringes. In other words, there is nothing to grasp onto except cinders, and there is no way of focusing on a particular place"

Reference Smithson, R, 1996, The Collected Writings, New York University Press, New York, USA

nonsite - Spain

Montserrat

I sit here, conscious to the elements,

Elements maintaining form and feel,

My eyes rest easy on the amber lit valley.

My lungs taste the air of olive tree forests

My feet hold firm placed on the trekked tracks of Catalan monks

My ears twist to the notes of crunching steps and whistling sparrows

All the while, my skin basques half in the coldness of a clouded east and half in the warmth of the setting sun of the west. 

It’s enriching to rest 

It’s fulfilling to be present 

I should get going soon,

Soon before night hugs this mountain with frost of December

But for now, let me have this moment 

Let my body rest sedate till my calves go numb, and my digits grow cold 

Let me have this time

For the moment,

But also for the memory. 

Transcription - Written on Montserrat, Barcelona, 

07-12-2023

Changes

Deposition of Christ 1587 Pieri Stefano

I think for a while I've tried to control my moods. I wrestled and grappled with my psyche to bend and contort it into submission. But I never mastered the art of Brain Jiu-Jitsu and no matter how hard I tried I could never choose to wake up in a good mood. On many occasions I have definitely awakened to a comfortable brain brimming with freshly topped up serotonin, but it was never something I could force. 

That’s the thing with a bad mood when you wake up to it. You wake up feeling shit, you're tired, you're hungry, your brain is in a chemically altered state. You can’t command your mood any more than you can command the tides of the ocean. 

I can’t control the tides, but I can understand my mindset. I can dive into my mental thoughts and mental rhythms. By swimming amongst the pools of my emotion states I can look and see the negative thoughts flowing within my grey matter. I see their location and why these ideas reside in me. 

I breathe slowly through my own consciousness,

In,         and,         out,         with deep breaths,  

clarity in my mind appears, clarity in my thoughts releases itself.

I can now find strength from my mind instead of labouring from beneath it. 

And through my own mindful presence and intention setting, I’ll get a good night's sleep and maybe, just maybe I’ll wake up fresh to a good mood. 

Trails

Surround me hills.

For that's why I am here.

To be swallowed whole,

By rocks that are dormant,

And fog that is flowing.

Smother me in a sunset hidden sky,

And coat my skin with Padua's mountain valleys.

For on this glim lit path,

Where step precedes step,

I may not find home, 

But I may find myself. 

Rainbow-Washed Revenance

Dilemmas and demands for the Doctrine of the Faith

How much should we expect from the Catholic Church? What reforms should we be thankful for and what progress should we be impatient for? These are all questions that have stirred through my mind as I’ve spent the last weeks walking and reading my way through the structures of the Papacy. 

Gold Cross - Cathedral di San Pietro (Bologna)

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is a 500 year old foundation that is cemented within the Vatican. Initiated in 1542 by Pope John III, this organisation has since shared and officiated church doctrine. If cardinals or priests have a question the Dicastery is the one who writes back. Letters to the consecrated editor if you will. 

It’s not often that the Dicastery has been part of news headlines, but on the 3rd of November they published the succinctly titled “ Answers to Several Questions from His Excellency, the Most Reverend José Negri, Bishop of Santo Amaro, Brazil, Regarding Participation in the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony by Transgender Persons and Homosexual Persons”. 

The voice of the Vatican clarified that people who were transgender could be baptized and them along with them homosexuals could potentially act as godparents. 

From this came a media storm, great changes were reported to be happening within the church, dare I even say could the Catholic church begin to be considered progressive?  While this step is an important one and does reflect some sort of doctrinal alteration within the institution, we must not get too excited for as always, the devil is in the detail. 

Two main points are worth considering, one- the Catholic Church still treats members of the LBGTQ+ community as people who participate in an immoral lifestyle, and two- the church leaves prudence within the hands of the clergy, a group of men who has been told repeatedly that queers who act on their urges represent “an intrinsic moral evil”. 

On to the first point of living as a sinful being. In the 2023 response to the Brazilian Bishop the Dicastry makes repeated mention of the Baptismal reflections of St. Thomas Aquinas taught and St. Augustine of Hippo. These two Saints who both wrote repeatedly on how Baptism itself can lead the sinner to a life of righteousness. 

“even if a man falls into sin, Christ does not destroy the character 

received by him in Baptism and seeks (quaerit) the sinner, in whom this character is 

imprinted that identifies him as his property”

Answers to Several Questions from His Excellency, the Most Reverend José Negri, Bishop of Santo Amaro, Brazil, Regarding Participation in the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony by Transgender Persons and Homosexual Persons- 2023

Saint Augustine, by Philippe de Champaigne, 1650

So, what the Church is saying through its own mouthpiece is yes, we don’t support your actions, you are still an abomination but why not join us? Join us and maybe the Catholic guilt will free your soul to an everlasting liberation. Don’t find salvation in yourself, they say, because within the pride of one-self is only sin, find salvation instead in the sacrosanct of Jesus.™, join us for Sundays and pay your tithe. Look how progressive the Church is, they would even consider letting some queers in through the front door!

I say consider, because “considering” leads us to point two; the latitude given to ministers to exercise their sacred rites. Let us dive back into the letter and pour through the details of how these ceremonies are considered.

“However, since such a task does not constitute a right, pastoral prudence demands that it should not be allowed if there is a danger of scandal, undue legitimization or disorientation in the educational sphere of the church community… due pastoral prudence demands that every situation be wisely weighed, in order to safeguard the sacrament of baptism”

Answers to Several Questions from His Excellency, the Most Reverend José Negri, Bishop of Santo Amaro, Brazil, Regarding Participation in the Sacraments of Baptism and Matrimony by Transgender Persons and Homosexual Persons -2023

Jurisdiction of who is let into the church is left to the hands of the local priesthood. They are the frontline soldiers of the churches, soldiers who have been and still are told that a queer lifestyle is a sinful lifestyle. In 2021 the Dicastery released a declaration stating that blessings could not be applied to same-sex relations as...

“there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”

-Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium regarding the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sex- 2021

The Catholic Church's power stems from a moral authority built on a long standing catalogue of theological texts and declarations. It’s not just the bible, but also the words of Saints and previous proclamations the Church has made to build up this catalogue. The Authority of the papacy drips from their ability to cling to the past.The Church considers themselves harbingers of the eternal word of God and when you consider your words as eternal it only makes sense that your reforms end up moving at a snail's pace. It afterall took the Church 359 years to apologise for threatening to burn Galileo alive for surmounting proposing the foundational fact that indeed the Earth really does revolve around the sun. 

The Church is by all accounts a conservative, not a reformative organisation and this reflects on their relationship with the queer community. They have said that no one should have the door of the Lord closed to them, and yet the church hands the key not the people but to their foot soldiers to carry out the orders. For decades these priests and members of the ministry have diligently listened to the Church’s words and teachings. They listened when they called homosexuals sinful and they listened when Pope Francis likened gender theory to nuclear weapons, and it’s to these people that the Dicastery entrusted them to allow a more “open” space within the Church. 

Yes Pope Francis is the most palatable Pope us queers have seen in a very long time. Yes, his Jesuit robes and teachings may be the teaspoon of sugar to the bitter elixir that is the Vatican but boy is it a big, powerful Church, and it's going to take a lot more than 4 grams of sweetener to hide its taste of something so pungent. 

“It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin,” 

Pope Francis on homosexuality, January 2023

It’s important for me to reflect on the role of The Dicastery, for in that I find my own role for myself as an artist. The Church is spending effort, money and time to release edicts to change the world in the direction they see fit. They preserve their power and their own authority by recalling the past. 

It’s not good enough for the Pope to sit down and break bread with people in the Trans community or let selected gay couples into their converted rituals. I will not be lectured that I'm a sinful creature, I simply expect more from a moral authority that speaks to 1.3 billion individuals. I’m not looking for change from within because it will never reach the pace I desire. The power structures of the Church rely on the slow moving of social tides not the wash and crash of a reformative storm. Well us queers are that storm, we are that destabilising factor that will come in like Noah's flood and wash these pontificated men out on their behinds.

This is my Dicastery, these are my edicts to inflict my agency onto the world, an agency that is truly filled with an undying love for my fellow human beings and sacrosanct of the self that any Abrahamic God wishes they could come near. My edicts are ones that indulge in the pleasures in humanity, from sucking cock to denying the shame of Catholic guilt. My soul nor my pride will never be held to ransom by the white robes of the ordained, I simply respect my soul too much. 

Keep rocking that boat, never accept that enough is enough till the Pontificate is on their knees begging us for forgiveness. x

Pope Pius VIII kneeling, St Peter's Bassillica, Monument by Pietro Tenerani, 1866

CBS San Francisco 2015 ,Pope Francis Compares Transgender People To Nuclear Weapons In New Book, CBS online news article, Feb 20th, accessed on 19th november 2023,< https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/pope-francis-compares-transgender-people-to-nuclear-weapons-in-new-book/ >

Columbia College, N/A, Saint Augustine, by Philippe de Champaigne, 1650, Core Curriculum Catalogue, Accessed on 26th November 2023, <Saint Augustine, by Philippe de Champaigne, 1650. | The Core Curriculum (columbia.edu)>

Dallas K, 2023, The pope’s latest comments on same-sex marriage, explained, Desert News Article, October 3rd, Viewed on 25th November 2023, <https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/10/3/23901388/pope-comments-on-same-sex-marriage>

Dicastery for the doctrine of the faith, 1995, SOME CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE RESPONSE TO LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS ON THE NON-DISCRIMINATION OF HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS* ,<https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19920724_homosexual-persons_en.html  >, accessed on 19th November 2023

Dicastery for the document of the faith, Translated by Lewis M, 2023 ,English Translation of the DDF’s Dubia Response to H.E. Msgr. Jose Negri (Oct. 31, 2023), 

,<https://reasonandtheology.com/2023/11/08/english-translation-answers-to-several-questions-from-h-e-bishop-jose-negri-of-santo-amaro-regarding-participation-in-the-sacraments-of-baptism-and-marriage-by-transgender-individuals-and-people-i/ >, accessed on 19th November 2023

Fastenburg D 2010, The Galileo Case, Time Magazine online article, 17th June,  Viewed 26th November 2023, <https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1997272_1997273_1997285,00.html> 

Luis F, 2021 ,Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium regarding the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sex, Dicastery for the doctrine of the faith , accessed on 19th November 2023

,<https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20210222_responsum-dubium-unioni_en.html  >

Winfield N, 2023, Pope suggests blessings for same-sex unions possible in response to 5 conservative cardinals, Associated Press online article, October 2nd, Accessed on 25th november 2023,<https://apnews.com/article/vatican-conservatives-synod-lgbtq-5c6e33d4d45aea1b0b5553d3acc799e1> 

Winfield N, Thomas T 2023, For this group of trans women, the pope and his message of inclusivity are a welcome change, Associated Press online article, 19th November 2023, Viewed 26th November 2023,<https://apnews.com/article/vatican-transgender-lgbtq-b3d67868504ba701cce09da9ecc94de0>

Vactican, DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Vatican official website, Viewed at 23rd November 2023, <https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_14071997_en.html>

Mortification of the flesh; The story of pain and pleasure, shame and power

He is the original toxic dom. A non-consensual expression of shame and sanctity. A control freak who demands that you must submit without sanction. Bend to their rules, to their sadism, not for your own pleasure or fulfilment but to remind you must never feel proud for your soul is tarnished by sin. The entity I speak about is his holiness, the God of the Catholic Church. 

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa - Gian Lorenzo Bernini
 Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome
Saint Teresa often is often inferred to be having an orgasm in her connection to God 

“Pleasure and pain were the earliest forms of emotion to evolve” 

Jaak Panksepp , American neuroscientist

(pg 320, Leknes, S,Tracey I, 2010)

Pain and pleasure are fundamental parts of the human-psyche. These sensations however are not singular auras on opposing ends of a spectrum but a webwork of neural pathways that interweave and intermix. Like any bodily sensation these feelings involve internal processing of the brain that rely on our own contextual history. Conversations between the frontal lobe and the posterior parietal cortex occur every time pain-potential nerve endings are fired. This deliberation sees these sections of the brain weigh up risk and context in order to create the searing feelings we end up feeling. From stepping on a nail to biting your lip your previous experiences may directly alter your current ones. We can acknowledge this by realising the same cause of pain can result in differing subjective circumstances between people, time and place. The interesting question arises as to whether pleasure can be found when pain is experienced. 

“To our knowledge, neuroimaging studies of pain have not identified a single brain region that has not also been implicated in aspects of reward processing”

(pg 322, Leknes, S,Tracey I, 2010)

Of course there are the physical structures of the mind, the highways and interchanges that make up the maze-like nature of the brain. Along these pathways opioid and dopamine chemicals are hauled as cargo to be routinely delivered to the pleasure centres of the brain. The modulation of pain and pleasure rely on the same roads and the same chemicals. It's no wonder after knowing this, why some humans may seek pleasure through pain. From sadists and masochists performing an impact scene together to joggers running till they have shin splints there are constant examples of human becoming elated by what others would deem as a “displeasurable experience”. How these two threads of pleasure and pain interweave are both varied and nuanced, but one thing is certain, these connections are natural, they are commonplace and they should not be carried with shame.

“So it is not surprising, given the weakness of our fallen nature, that some things can become associated with our sexual nature that don’t in fact have anything to do with it in its healthy functioning”

Friar. Hugh Barbour, Priest of St. Michael’s Abbey

Diocese of Orange ,California

Shame, hypocrisy and subjugation. These are the weapons of the Catholic church, an institution that deems to lecture on what is considered spiritually and sexually healthy. A pack of repressed clergy who dare to tell what is right, what is moral and what we ought to be ashamed of. The absolute richness and deception of these namecallers to defile us, queer, kinky, consenting fun loving adults as the perverts. They are a clergy of men who at the best of times must be described as sexually repressed and dysfunctional. These cloaked men of faith and intolerance will put their noses up to leather-bound adults teasing and playing in safe spaces all the while many of them participate in acts of self-flagellation in the name of the original daddy, God. No kink deserved to be shamed, but hypocrisy and intolerance does. 

Confessional - San Petronio, Bologna

Self-flagellation has been officially part of the church's idealism of self control since the 16th century. During this period changes into the practice were adopted where striking not only incorporated shoulders and back but also raw unclothed buttocks. This caused quite a stir in the church. Goodness gracious, could there be an element of sexual pleasure where these priests flogged their behinds till they bleed and their souls repented in ecstasy?!  Of course like any toxic dominant does, these questions of intrigue were quickly squashed and silenced. The catholic calls this practice “the mortification of the flesh”; A literal translation of bringing shame to the body. It’s a degradation kink that's based on doctrine instead of consent. There is no communication in the Diocese, only devotion and servitude,dedication to Daddy deity and the robed men who surround him. In their utilisation of shame and pain the church has grown power through controlling human expression through only the outlets it deemed fit. This power has gilded their golden towers at the same time it has created complexes for those who wish to explore pleasure and pain within healthy realms and exploration and consent. Shame controls people, it stifles self expression and enforces the status quo. People hold themselves back from what might bring them fulfilment in the presence of the teachings of the vatican. All the while these men of God flog themselves in private enjoying their fucked up doctrines in their own un-healthly ways. 

“We could hear it when we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he would flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own.”

-Descriptions of the late Pope John Paul II acts of self-flagellation that adhered to church doctrine.

(pg 10,Cirillo A, 2012)

Don’t shame the kink, shame the hypocrisy, shame the intolerance, shame the power. 

Shame to the church that stands on marble floors willing to condemn us for our pride and our lust. Find pride in your own existence, find pride in what they deem sinful, for with pride there is no shame.

BARBOUR, H ,The Attraction of Aberrant Behavior, Catholic Answers , Accessed on 11th November 2023, <https://www.catholic.com/qa/the-attraction-of-aberrant-behavior>

Cirillo A, 2012, Self-Flagellation as Sanctification in the Roman Catholic Church's Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, Academic Article, accessed on 10th November 2023, <https://sa.rochester.edu/jur/issues/fall2011/cirillo_rel.pdf>

Vandermeersch, P. (2009). "Self-Flagellation In The Early Modern Era". In The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Leknes, S,Tracey I, 2010,  "Pain and pleasure: masters of mankind." Pleasures of the brain: 320-335, oxford university press, New York City, USA

TEDx, 2011, TEDxAdelaide - Lorimer Moseley - Why Things Hurt, Youtube video, 22 November, Accessed on 23 November 2023, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs>

Sinful Taste

I never thought it would lack such taste. Yes, it's beautiful, the Byzantine inspired mosaics, the flowing drapes of baroque marble, the chiaroscuro composition of 17th century stretched canvas. Yes, it's there locked away in Saint Peter’s basilica. It’s all there and it's all a lot! Like 100 generations of Franco Cozzo* stacked atop of each, it's a temple to eclectic excess. There have been 266 popes and you can see many of them at Saint Peters wanting to out- grandize their predecessor. And boy through the gold, the polished stone they’ve done a great job at not holding back. I love the art in Vatican City. I just hate the fact it resides there. The finest art secured away by ancient doors with ancient seals. Its doors are locked while sacred men act as custodians of the keys. If only the keys were given to women or some queer surely the layout would be better and the message oh so less bitter. 

I could just be writing this because I’m tired and frustrated. I’m in one of those sleep deprived places where the emotions are feeling raw, they feel like they are buzzing just below the skin, just where the tendons and muscles meet my layers of fat. At any moment they could ride to the surface as goosebumps or tears, but for the moment they just sit there buzzing. 

I can feel myself becoming more radicalised at the same time I am embracing my true self. I’ve made art that matters, yes I’ve written artists statements but finally this artist has something that needs to be stated. We’ve got a lot of work to do, institutions to tear down and manifestos to build up. It's time to create, in order to rebel against a one dimensional patriarchal system occupied by clergy. If indeed my existence is in itself blasphemous my work deserves to be blasphemous. Assuming my life is a deadly lustful sin, then my art in order to be true needs to reflect that. It’s time to radicalise and expel those demons of the priesthood and fill them with the virtues of the queer, kink community. 

I think nipple clamps would suit the bare chest of Saint Andrew best x. 

* For those of you not from Melbourne, Australia, please watch this video. 

Franco Cozzo TV Commercial

- Edited transcript of visit to Saint Peter's Basilica from 30/10/2023

Heavy Rains in Florence 3/11/2023

The rains are here. Downpours and swells have met me at an appropriate time. For as this Tuscan city is washed and cleansed so too am I. The litter and baggage of youth  is being swept above by the fresh showers of an enlightened mind. New ways of imagining myself have solidified as I’ve gained techniques to process thought. 

With an internal monologue that speaks at the rhythm that mine does it’s easy to get lost in cycles of thoughts. I find these currents of ideas and emotions build up and up inside of me till there's no-where to go. Of course I’ve utilized these updraughts of mental stimulation for productive purposes. Every semester each one of my Uni subjects I always left my studio subjects to the last minute. Forced by over-aspinational plans for work and driven by an artistic sense of pride I would work feverishly into the final deadlined night. Dosed up on dare iced coffees and 6 Inch Subways subs I tinkered on till I was the last person working in the studio. I always remember a certain point I would become flushed with heat, it could be mid-winter in those Mebounre studios but i would be none the wiser, singlet clad I would run back and forth between multiple spots in the studio, yes I was spinning multiple plates to get the assignment done but baby that's how I did it, and fail me not once every time I got it done. 

It was only till years later I found out why the room had felt so hot, I had always thought it was my flexing muscles and active cardio that was pushing my body to further temperatures while what it actually was my body being in a mode of absolute panic. 

Our bodies have developed systems long ago to adapt to their surroundings, our flight and fight mode is such one of them. What I was feeling in these moments of heat was the hot-shot of Adrenaline that was being delivered straight into my bloodstream. They call it 

Vasodilation, the widening of blood vessels. If we understand that it is the constriction of blood vessels that lead your un-gloved fingers to feel cold, then we can easily understand how dilation could lead to that feeling of heat. It's a feeling that arrives first in the front of your face and washes through till it arrives at your toes. Menopausal women know exactly what I'm talking about, it’s the same dilation of blood vessel’s walls that causes the infamous “hot flush”. Yes anxiety has served me well, I think this is largely why I can think so well under pressure, because I’ve done so darn much of it. I’ve gotten a lot out of anxiety, probably more than most who suffer at the hands of a quick clicking mind.

But of course to every Ying there must be Yang and for every flight and flight there were also overanalysis and spirals. It’s a cycle that once it gets started comes with a momentum of its own. The heart pounds the, the cortisol spikes, the mind goes and chews through thoughts and inferred meanings. Each of the steps can loop back into the process creating a feedback effect of where your thoughts can feel so strong because they are being backed up with the most powerful chemicals known to the human body. 

For the first time today I did something I've never done before, I stopped the cycle. Yes I have previously clawed my way back from near panic attacks ,but today was different, today was the first time I stopped it in its own tracks before it had even begun. The thoughts started, the cortisol flowed into my bloodstream and yet I paused not to continue the cycle I’ve done thousands of times, I paused to breathe in and exhale. Three short deep breaths pulled through the diaphragm and boom, back and level-headed. It felt as if I’d almost flicked this buzzing fly away with one finger, poof and gone. 

I’ve known and done breath work for a long time, but it's only recently I’ve been able to manifest its positive qualities so successfully. I both know a lot more about my body as I do my own mind, both from internal and external perspectives. I’ve isolated my egos within my own mind over this trip. I can now see where the dispersions of mind stem from, what my motivations are, what is my conditioning, what makes me, me. 

I’ve also invested a lot of time into the external view, the studies, the chemicals, the analytics behind us all. Cortisol, often called the stress chemical, is primed and readied by systems within our autonomic nervous systems. Fight and flight responses that are holdouts from when we needed to get the heart pumping and blood sugared up in case a lion gave chase.

It’s quick breaths that symbolise the moment of panic while it’s slow deep breaths that symbolises calmness. There's no mistake there for the parasympathetic nervous system is shown to become active through slow, deep breath work. Your parasympathetic nervous system or PNS (yes, get the giggles out kids) is what your body uses to regulate your energy so that when you rest you can metabolise and process foods and liquids. By breathing in slowly and deeply you are actively triggering this rest inducing system, we can see this by the measurable drop in cortisol levels that occurs from breathwork. This is something we can see in the laboratory but it's also something I felt today. When my mind’s chemical structures intermeshed with my own mindful practices I found quietness; A quietness that can only be felt after a heavy rain. 

 

HK AIRPORT

What is it like to live in a fishbowl? It’s a question that has been stirred by one of my stop-over travels.  I never really got to see Hong Kong during my 5 hours stopover. Yes I saw the HSBC building, the steeped neon lit dim sum shacks, the hawkers, the vendors, yes I saw them all, not in person of course but plastered and stretched onto vinyl advertisements. Images displayed for mainland and western eyes. This is all I got to see of Hong Kong, a flattened projected image specifically devised for transiting individuals with their bum bags stuffed with cash.

I did see some islands, real islands.  As the flight attendant forced my fellow sleeping passenger to open their window seat view for landing I caught the thin sheen of light that pours over the south China sea during morning hours. Those glowing waters wrapped and framed the many peninsulas that emerged from Hong Kong's volcanic geology. It really was a glorious sight to indulge and lean into my from aisle seat. 

There are 90 boarding gates in Hong Kong Airport. Stretched into long segments a birds eye view of Hong Kong’s airports will elicit an image of a crudely drawn stick figure with 2 arms and 2 legs outreaching from a central body. It was here where I had 5 hours to ruminate, relax but most importantly above all, not fall asleep. I can’t say so far it’s been an easy task, it's been 7 years since i’ve flown internationally and the seats whose headrest I found excruciatingly uncomfortable did indeed turn out to be adjustable. This sublime fact that I could rest my neck in some normal conformation was alas only released in the 8th hour of a 10-hour leg of the journey.  So here I sit mindlessly typing away in the fish bowl that is Hong Kong airport. Don’t get me wrong it has beautiful views but a fish bowl nonetheless. It’s an air conditioned glass sarcahphocous whose only connection to an outside atmosphere is a 15 metre by 15 metre garden. This garden is not a relaxed respite but an overcrowded yard where smokers cling to the shaded edges of a sanctuary punctuated by corporate modern art.  In the marinating smells of Malboros and jet fuel you appreciate the fact it's luckily only a five hour stopover. Hong Kong airport, a layover ,a place to eat and an answer to a question. What is it like to live in a fishbowl?

21-09-2023 - edited notation from HK airport

Experimental Ideas from the V&A food court

“The modern sculptor is a man who works with instinct as his inspiring force. His work is emotional. The shape of a leg, or the curve of an eyebrow, etc., etc., have to him no significance whatsoever ; light voluptuous modelling is to him insipid—what he feels he does so intensely and his work is nothing more nor less than the abstraction of this intense feeling, with the result that sterile men of Auceps' kind are frightened at the production. That this sculpture has no relation to classic Greek, but that it is continuing the tradition of the barbaric peoples of the earth (for whom we have sympathy and admiration) I hope to have made clear. 

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Gaudier-Brzeska%3B_a_memoir_%28IA_gaudierbrzeskame00poun%29.pdf) 

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

I think I've struggled for so long because what I've done is exactly what I've planned to do. I set out goals and achieved them, the problem was I set out the wrong goals for my tastes. I’ve found my work to be cold and stilted because I set my goals to repeat and represent the form of a figure. And by centering the form I dispossessed the emotion. I can replicate form, I know that. I’ve studied anatomy and I can understand a figure's body as well as I understand my own. What interests me about art, is the extension of emotion into a material medium. I need to make that my goal and therefore I need to define my process by this. 

Unconfirmed process IDEA---- 27/09/2023

1. Get image of human form in expressionistic pose (could source others or photograph myself) 

2. Paint the pose in really simple movements (thick expressive painted brushstrokes) 

3. Use this drawing to create a form, remember to follow the lines most importantly, you can always fill in details later (toes, face, get the form and movement right and the details will add not subtract. 

Elemental Angles

  

Fire, Water, Earth and Atmosphere all play their role in ceramics. Igneous forgings that undergo hydrolysis form the compounds that make clay. Once again the forces of fire and the medium of water are utilised by human hands to render clay into vitrified forms. Nature and nurture, Fire and water, Clay being Earth. 

Video Work
2023- June 

16 seconds 

Don't be too precious

 

-Smooth even throw lines

-Appropriate weight at the bottom for a foot

-Countinous curve so the spoon wont clink the bowl

-Softened rim for pleasurable lip feel

-Large size for maximum soup capacity

Pot was immediately sliced and recycled for tomorrows classes.

If you make something great don't get too precious about it. Don't hold onto the past victories but revel in the continuous journey that is developing a skill. Recycle your work and wedge towards greater destinations. Thats the satisfying thing about developing your craft, it's about the journey not the vitrifications.

Spiraled Clay

 They are rhythmic in nature

Sweet spirals that dance in circles of pulled clay

Loops of fluid forms

Centred and calmed by outstretched motions

Twist and squeeze,

Stern tendons in contact with slip covered earth,

Press and push,

The clay resonates in the form it finds natural

The helix bends of thrown clay forms

The curved twists of outstretched silica

The potters favourite form,

Spiralled clay

Over Perfection

 

All artists know the pain of Over Perfection. An over complication of the composition, one layer of varnish too much, or a simple little touch-up that turns into a Mr Bean level fuck-up; we’ve all been there. 

The Potter's Wheel will laugh at you and throw your mistakes back into your face. Overworked pottery will eventually collapse, the thinness of the walls will tear itself apart between the spinning tension of the wheel head and your clasping hands holding onto the rim of the pot. Here I start and finish with a bowl, what is seen in between is a series of chaotic structures. Each time I recentre the collapsed walls of my failed creations more clay is lost and more air bubbles are introduced. It's a process that only gets worse till eventually you are left with the last remaining grams of uncorrupted clay. And with that small morsel of pure clay you will indeed create something, but that something is far more inconsequential than any of the grand forms you could have settled for. It’s your own hubris and ego that has landed you right here. From an empire of dirt to your tiny finishing bowl you realise what your dreams and desires have pushed you to destroy. You realise how the preconceived wishes in your own mind had obliterated the beauty of the art that had laid in front of you. 

Sometimes you will ride the line right up to the edge. Sometimes you will find that blissful balance between design and outcomes, balance and chaos. Sometimes though you will ride right past that line and straight off into the cliff face chasm of overcorrecting overperfections. This work is about the latter not the former, it's about when you go too far not when you don't get far enough, it's about Over Perfection.