Monks' souls

Cantatas at St. Mary's

Thanks to the generous documentation of Manami Mizumoto, the weekly cantatas I’ve been writing for St. Mary’s church on Grand St. are all available for viewing. Even though the recording quality is just that of an iphone, the gift of being able to review this material is incalculable. I have removed the readings and other non-cantata parts of the service, and labelled the movements as they occur. All other information (rosters, texts, liturgical readings which the cantatas frame) can be found in the document in this folder.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ffjt4GtUtRFpJGwHt8-rrUDW10rz1DZi?usp=sharing

It is very lucky to have an opportunity, during the pandemic, to make music in a safe way. St. Mary’s is an enormous church, and the choir loft is itself enormous. The congregation, far below us, is masked and distanced, as we are also in the loft. More to the point, we regular musicians consider ourselves a “pod”, and each week’s guest is distanced as much as can be allowed.

This project has changed my life, and I vacillate between extreme gratitude for the opportunity to compose and “perform” every week, and distinct disquiet, or even embarrassment, that I am perhaps imposing my creative voice on a population, or just taking too seriously an opportunity to offer music to a worshipping community. But I guess I am who I am, and while I can try to improve myself I can’t escape myself. Please be indulgent with both the compositions and the performances.

And thank you to Fr. Andrew O’Connor, who issued the invitation and makes everything possible. He is the lynchpin of this musical monastery we have founded.

All my love, Doug

A Julia Domna Dream

It was a passing dream as I awoke this morning, but very beautiful. I wrote a little poem about it, though I got some details wrong (to wit, it was Julia Maesa, Domna’s sister, who invited Origen to the court). Still, the feeling is maintained—what was this beautiful Syrian woman like when she hosted thinkers from around the empire at her salon?

I dreamed that Julia Domna was laughing

She had Philostratus and Origen before her.

They were arguing about the man from Tyana

and the other man from Galilee,

and who was lord of the universe.

And meanwhile, Julia Domna

was laughing and blushing

and bopping around

and keeping score in her intellectual playground.

12/15/20, Harlem River

Julia Domna

Her statue at the Louvre. Let’s go see it.

Anti-Natalism in Literature (Vol. 1)

As you know, I’ve engaged myself in a long-term reading project to better understand human history, and to read the great works of every century. As I go, I’ve been noting passages that express strong anti-natal ideas. I may write more thoughts on anti-natalism at another time, but for now I share this “sourcebook of anti-natal thinking”, or this “anti-natal reader”, if you like. It certainly does not exhaust the literature I’ve explored so far, but I have been making notes when passages jump out at me, and I intend to keep recording what I find as I continue reading (hence the designation Vol. 1). Some are longer, some are shorter, but they all somehow express the idea that it would have been better never to have been.

Job 3:3-4, 11, 20

“May the day I was born be wiped out.

    May the night be wiped away when people said, ‘A boy is born!’

“Why didn’t I die when I was born?

    Why didn’t I die as I came out of my mother’s body?

“Why should those who suffer ever be born?

    Why should life be given to those whose spirits are bitter?”

Ecclesiastes 4:3: But most fortunate of all are those who are not yet born. For they have not seen all the evil that is done under the sun.

Jewish saying: Life is so terrible, it would have been better not to have been born. Who is so lucky? Not one in a hundred thousand.

Gregory of Nyssa: The physical bringing of children into the world — I speak without wishing to offend — is as much a starting-point of death as of life; because from the moment of birth the process of dying commences…[A]ll the dearly-prized blisses, and transports, and comforts of marriage end in these agonies of grief. — On Virginity, Ch. 13

Herodotus: The Trausi, who in all else conform to the customs of other Thracians, do as I will show at the times of birth and death. When a child is born, the kinsmen sit around it and lament all the ills that it must endure from its birth onward, recounting all the sorrows of men. The dead, however, they bury with celebration and gladness, asserting that he is rid of so many ills and has achieved a state of complete blessedness. — The Histories, Book 5, Ch. 4

Seneca: If the dead retain no feeling whatever, my brother has escaped from all the troubles of life, has been restored to the place which he occupied before his birth, and, being free from every kind of ill, can neither fear, nor desire, nor suffer: what madness then for me never to cease grieving for one who will never grieve again? If the dead have any feeling, then my brother is now like one who has been let out of a prison in which he has long been confined…

Why then am I wasting away with grief for one who is either in bliss or non-existent? it would be envy to weep for one who is in bliss, it would be madness to weep for one who has no existence whatever … If you reckon it up properly, he has been spared more than he has lost … If we are to believe some profound seekers after truth, life is all torment. — Of Consolation: To Polybius

St. Ambrose: What shall I say of those two-year-old children of Bethleham, who received the palm of victory before they felt their natural life within them? — On the Duties of the Clergy,  Book 1, Ch. 41

Gospel of the Egyptians:

1: When Salome asked, “How long 1 will death prevail?” the Lord replied, “For as long as you women bear children.” (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 45, 3)

2: For they claim that the Savior himself said, “I have come to destroy the works of the female.” By “the female” he meant desire and by “works” he meant birth and degeneration. (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 63, 1)

4: Why do those who adhere to every­thing except the gospel rule of truth not cite the following words spoken to Salome? For when she said, “Then I have done well not to bear children” (supposing that it was not suitable to give birth), the Lord responded, “Eat every herb, but not the one that is bitter.” (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 66, 1–2)

Coptic Gospel of Thomas:

56 Jesus said, “Whoever has come to understand the world has found (only) a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world.”

79 A woman from the crowd said to him, “Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you.” He said to [her], “Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.’ ”

St. Ambrose: Let us compare, if it pleases you, the advantages of married women with that which awaits virgins. Though the noble woman boasts of her abundant offspring, yet the more she bears the more she endures. Let her count up the comforts of her children, but let her likewise count up the troubles. She marries and weeps. How many vows does she make with tears. She conceives, and her fruitfulness brings her trouble before offspring. She brings forth and is ill. How sweet a pledge which begins with danger and ends in danger, which will cause pain before pleasure! It is purchased by perils, and is not possessed at her own will.

Why speak of the troubles of nursing, training, and marrying? These are the miseries of those who are fortunate. A mother has heirs, but it increases her sorrows. For we must not speak of adversity, lest the minds of the holiest parents tremble. Consider, my sister, how hard it must be to bear what one must not speak of. And this is in this present age. But the days shall come when they shall say: “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare.”…

Why should I further speak of the painful ministrations and services due to their husbands from wives, to whom before slaves God gave the command to serve? And I mention these things that they may comply more willingly, whose reward, if approved, is love; if not approved, punishment for the fault.

Those men, though wicked, have one point at any rate, wherein they are approved even by the wise persons, that in speaking against marriage they declare that they ought not to have been born. — On Virginity, Book 1, Ch. 6-7

Plotinus: But if the mingled strand of life is to us, though entwined with evil, still in the total a good, must not death be an evil? Evil to What? There must be a subject for the evil: but if the possible subject is no longer among beings, or, still among beings, is devoid of life... why, a stone is not more immune…If, on the contrary, after death life and soul continue, then death will be no evil but a good; Soul, disembodied, is the freer to ply its own Act…Remember that the good of life, where it has any good at all, is not due to anything in the partnership but to the repelling of evil by virtue; death, then, must be the greater good…In a word, life in the body is of itself an evil but the Soul enters its Good through Virtue, not living the life of the Couplement but holding itself apart, even here. — Ennead 1, Tractate 7 (“On Happiness”)

Luke 23:29: For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

Tolstoy: "But," said I, with astonishment, "how would the human race continue?"

"But what is the use of its continuing?" he rejoined, vehemently.

"What! What is the use? But then we should not exist."

"And why is it necessary that we should exist?"

"Why, to live, to be sure."

"And why live? The Schopenhauers, the Hartmanns, and all the Buddhists, say that the greatest happiness is Nirvana, Non-Life; and they are right in this sense,--that human happiness is coincident with the annihilation of 'Self.' Only they do not express themselves well. They say that Humanity should annihilate itself to avoid its sufferings, that its object should be to destroy itself. Now the object of Humanity cannot be to avoid sufferings by annihilation, since suffering is the result of activity. The object of activity cannot consist in suppressing its consequences. The object of Man, as of Humanity, is happiness, and, to attain it, Humanity has a law which it must carry out. This law consists in the union of beings. This union is thwarted by the passions. And that is why, if the passions disappear, the union will be accomplished. Humanity then will have carried out the law, and will have no further reason to exist." — The Kreutzer Sonata, Ch. 11

Gregory Nazianzen: My body is in bad shape, and old age shows upon my head. I have a combination of anxieties: there are raids into my business, I have no trust in my friends, and the church is without a shepherd. Virtues bid me farewell, vices are laid bare; I am a ship in the night, nowhere is there a beacon—Christ is asleep. Why must I suffer? For me, there is just one end to vice: death. — Epistle 80

Olaudah Equiano: In the first expressions of my grief, I reproached my fate, and wished I had never been born. — The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Futurama: Bender: Dying sucks butt. How do you living beings cope with mortality?

Leela: Violent outbursts.

Amy: General sluttiness. 

Fry: Thanks to denial, I’m immortal.

Bender: Damn it, I’m supposed to be perfect. Inspector Five gave me his blessing! How could he bring me into this world, knowing I would die?

Zoidberg: So you wish you were never born, maybe?

Bender: Yes. Anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time. — Season 7, Ep. 6

Macarius the Great: The old man in tears said, “Alas the day when that man was born!” — Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Macarius the Great No. 38

Venantius Fortunatus: Adorned by these virtues you radiate brilliant light; possessing these jewels you too shine as a jewel…The virgin does not oppress her flesh, enervated by the child within, or lie heavy in pregnancy, grieved by her own offspring. Amid the seething turmoil of mind and body, enfeebled health hangs by an uncertain thread, when the womb is hurt by its own darts and swells up and the sick dropsy of pleasure grows larger in sizer. The skin is so extremely distended beyond the human frame that the mother is ashamed what she bears out of love. She flees and in shame removes herself from her parents, until her burden has released and laid aside its load. Who can adequately express in words the cries of childbirth, or who is able to weep so many tears in verse, when the frame releases the hidden load it carried, and the burden wracks the flesh with grievous pain? Succumbing to childbirth the gate of the body lies open, and an infant comes out to the light perhaps without life. The mother, forgetful of herself, asks if her son is alive, and sadly turns her weary eyes to the child. She looks at the fosterling laid out, no longer now his mother; she had such difficulty bearing him and now she has only a corpse. She was not entitled by her offspring to be called a mother nor yet a virgin; bemoaning these two losses she mourns her unhappy marriage. The snatching away of her hope did not…her strong grief, nor did she comfort herself with the tears in her son. She did not drink the sweet tears from the face of her child or dispel his tender cries with the flow of her mild. Sadly with feeble lament she denounces her womb; the breast on which that baby lay is, alas, stricken with grief. But what if the child survives, though not forever, to being too make gentle sounds with his voice, lisping halting utterances from his unpracticed tongue, when the whispers from his sweet throat nourish his mother—and then a tragedy should happen and his snatched from his mother’s breast? The increase in years has only added to the loss. Sadly the bereaved mother with disheveled hair presses her dry breast to the lips of the dead child. In a flood of tears she passionately revives her laments and waters the icy body with a warming spring. She tears at her face, pulls out her hair, and beats her breasts; alas, her grief takes up arms and assaults her body and bitterly gives that his age-mate has died. Whether another child cries, runs, stands still, or rejoices, the image of her own son plays before her eyes. The child she once gave birth to at every moment she misses and no child is intent on the wretched mother’s face. What if something still worse should happen, her husband himself should die? Now the newlywed is led to being a widow. From bridal chamber to burial, her white so quickly changed to black, she holds the cold body that previously gave her warmth, arranges a funeral and celebrating the reverse of her wedding vows, adorns a tomb, alas, with the spoils of her marriage bed. She often returns to her husband’s grave with her laments, and avoiding her house lovingly honors the dead. She falls on his grave in search of an empty consolation; in the past she clung tight to his body, now she clings to his bones. With floods of tears she mourns in an ineffectual refrain; in paying respects to the dead her love destroys her vision. Who can recount the evils that come to an ordinary woman… — Poems Book 8 Number 3 (320-400)

Tertullian: In addition to the reasons already advanced, some say they wish to contract marriage because they desire to live on in their posterity and because they seek the bitter sweet with comes of having children. To us this is sheer nonsense… Why did our Lord prophesy, Woe to them that are with child and that give suck, if He did not mean that on the day of our great exodus children will be a handicap to those who bear them? — Ad Uxorem, Book 1, Ch. 5

Tertuallian: And when will there be any end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living! — Exhortation to Chastity, Ch. 9

Tertullian: Let them then harvest the fruit of their repeated nuptials—right seasonable fruits they are for the latter days—swollen breasts and nauseating wombs and whimpering infants. — On Monogamy, Ch. 16

St. Gregory the Great: …and though both plenty of wealth and her young years were great allurements to a second marriage, yet she made choice rather to be married spiritually to God, in which after mourning everlasting joy doth follow: than to become again subject to carnal matrimony, which always beginneth with joy, and in conclusion endeth with sorrow. — Dialogues, Book 4, Ch. 13

St. Augustine: For it is not happiness to have children, but to have good ones. Labour in the task of nourishing them, if they be born; but if they be not born, give thanks unto God. — Exposition on Psalm 128

Cantata for All Saints Day

Below is a link for the video of my third cantata at St. Mary’s, for November 1st, 2020 (the Solemnity of All Saints). As Fr. Andrew had requested the Dvorak “American” Quartet for the occasion, I wrote the cantata not for the normal instrumentation of voice, violin, and continuo, but for voice and string quartet (altered: bass instead of cello).

This video is my first attempt to share my work with you. The video is “unlisted”, meaning you need the link to see it, but you don’t need special permission. I figure putting the link here, in my blog, is about the best way there is to keep it secret. We’ve already changed the way we do some things; I now set the Psalm myself, rather than writing an introduction to it, and I’ve separated the instrumental intro into a Sinfonia to introduce the first reading. But perhaps you can see that in a later cantata.

The video and sound are as good as could be hoped for with a little field recorder. You can hear the remarkable acoustic of St. Mary’s church, which I’m beginning to understand and exploit. I put the score to one side, as well as some commentary as the cantata progresses to elucidate some decisions and text choices. I hope this is entertaining. I wanted you to have the full cantata experience, so I’ve included almost everything. I put the scripture readings up briefly, but not the recordings of the readings themselves. You can pause and read them if you want. In a future iteration I may record them myself. I’ve also included Zecca’s entire performance of the Psalm, and Fr. Andrew’s entire singing of the Gospel—both quite beautiful—but if you just want to hear the new music, you can easily find those points.

That’s a lot of explanation for a very humble offering. But I can rejoice at Jessica’s voice, the enthusiasm of the string players, and the opportunity to exercise my creativity for a welcoming community.

https://youtu.be/NvjQD_3Cygo

12.1.20

St. Mary’s Church

Grand St. Manhattan

American Dad! and Deus ex Machina

Dear MR,

Why is it that I can’t stop thinking about the television show American Dad!, and how often it resorts to the dramatic convention of Deus ex Machina? Is anyone in the world interested in this topic? I have to record my thoughts. The absurdity of the idea is matched by the absurdity of the show; subject and commentary are united.  

There is a lineage of “prime time” cartoons, intended for adults, that stretches back to 1960’s The Flintstones (into cartoon prehistory, one might say). Fred and Wilma, plus two children (male and female) and a pet dinosaur. The Jetsons took this exact dramatis personae and set in the future: the perfect post-war picture of technological bliss, with human frailty mixed in.  Other “adult cartoons” have come and gone: Beavis and Butthead, Daria, Dr. Katz, Home Movies, and others. But it was The Simpsons that catapulted this new art onto the global stage, not just in popularity, but into the realm of genius and cultural relevance. 

For some time The Simpsons was the unchallenged ruler of made-for-adult cartoons, but in 1999 this supremacy was deeply and profoundly challenged by the advent of Family Guy. Family Guy has explicitly referenced its debt to The Simpsons, and the similarities are more than obvious. But for all its derivative nature in setup, Family Guy changed the rules, by making the cartoon topical (to a fault), impossible (especially with the cutaway), and extremely offensive. Family Guy’s creator, Seth MacFarland, a rare talent, spun the show into a cartoon empire, including the ill-fated spin-off The Cleveland Show, as well as the subject of this little essay, a show called American Dad!. [Simpsons creator Matt Groening also created another adult cartoon in 1999, the spectacular Futurama, which breaks the Simpsons mold completely.]

One could describe this format that gets passed around so much as a nuclear family paradigm: Parents (heterosexual couple), male child, female child, baby (wild card), animal. The wild card in the Jetsons was probably Rosie the Robot, but The Simpsons keeps it as a baby, and the animal is of course the family dog, Santa’s Little Helper. Family Guy keeps the baby, but gives it a voice, and a devastatingly resonant one too. The animal is also intensified with Brian the talking dog. The Cleveland Show makes a carbon copy of Family Guy, with a talking toddler, and replaces the dog with a bear. American Dad! fits the template like a glove: Stan and Francine, male child Steve, female child Haley, “baby/wild card” Roger the alien, and talking animal Klaus the goldfish. As we will see, Bob’s Burgers matches the Simpsons paradigm, as does Rick and Morty, an unusual instance where the wild card is Rick himself.

My own experience with American Dad! has been complicated. Initially, like most of the world, I hated it. But unlike the rest of the world, I couldn’t look away. What’s so wrong with it? The Simpsons mocks the show in one episode, in which the characters leaf through a book of wanted criminals: Peter, from Family Guy, with the caption “plagiarism”, and then Stan, from American Dad!, with the caption “plagiarism of plagiarism”. If you doubt the chain of inspiration, say all the names of the famous cartoon families in a row: Flintstone, Jetson, Simpson, Griffin, Smith. Smith breaks the iambic two syllable pattern, but it copies the family form in an embarrassingly transparent way. But apart from its 3rd generation feeling, American Dad! was panned almost immediately as just plain bad television. I remember reading an article that was titled “American Dad! is the worst show on TV”—I can’t find this article anymore, because if you google “worst” and “American Dad”, you get hundreds of results, mostly fans naming the worst episodes, the worst moments, and describing how it is worse than Family Guy.

In so many ways they are all right. American Dad! is kind of a terrible show. The storylines may be unpredictable on the surface, but underneath, their structure is cookie cutter to the max (see below). But before I take a crack at form analysis, let me mount a defense of this most unusual of TV shows: 

1. The characters do grow, and we actually find ourselves caring about them. Stan in particular is a markedly different character by season 4.

2. The combination of a CIA agent and a costume-loving alien is brilliant—it allows the show to go to any place imaginable while still maintaining the facade of “reality”—or at least a self-contained universe with laws.

3. The casting is unbelievable. Not only is McFarlane giving his usual brilliant best in every episode, singer Scott Grimes voices Steve, resulting in some stunning moments, and acknowledged theater genius Patrick Stewart (also of Star Trek fame) voices Avery Bullock, the deputy director of the CIA.

But what keeps me watching is the surface level writing. It reaches a Harvard-Lampoon-type absurdity and then constantly exceeds itself. In its absurdity it outdoes even Family Guy. The writing seems to come from that kid in your elementary school class that you hated, but was genuinely funny. A whole room of these kids writing jokes. Sometimes I laugh so hard that I can’t breathe.

Aristotle, in his Poetics, famously writes that the worst ending a playwright can employ is the Deus ex Machina. This is the device in which a god literally appears above the scene, on a machine, to set everything right. We see this often in Euripides, most obviously in plays like Ion, where Apollo shows up to explain the misunderstanding and set things right. But Euripides also makes frequent use of what I would call the “Prepared Deus ex Machina”, where an unrelated element ends up unexpectedly saving the day: think of Herakles in Alcestis, or Theseus in Herakles. At any rate, one tends to agree with Aristotle: we are happiest, and most moved, when the fated conflict is worked out by human means, even if it means immense tragedy and suffering. 

Nearly every single American Dad! episode fits the same story-telling form, and nearly every episode is resolved via the Deus ex Machina, whether explicit or prepared. Here is my understanding of the structure of just about any given American Dad! episode:

1. A principal character has a fatal flaw

   1. First form: the character hates something and condemns it irrevocably, but later discovers they love that very thing. That love goes too far, and the character has to cover up the new addiction (e.g. episodes where Stan is addicted to crack, or texting)

   2. Second form: character discovers something unpleasant and goes to great lengths to ameliorate or avoid it (Stan discovers the chaos of life and combats it by creating a tiny world)

   3. Third form: family based conflict in which character takes family for granted and/or wants time away, only to find that family was what they wanted all along (Stan’s all night pills to get away from Francine, his devotion to Spring Break when Francine stops laughing at his jokes)

2. The flaw is pointed out by another character, but the chance for quick resolution and redemption is refused.

3. The situation deteriorates until the principal character’s family or loved ones are directly endangered by the flaw

4. A lesson is explicitly learned and articulated, often in the very jaws of danger

5. Resolution, most frequently via Prepared Deus ex Machina.

This structure is so regular that one sometimes has the impression of painting by numbers. What of it? Isn’t a cantata form the same basic shape every week? It’s how each tile is painted that’s what’s interesting; and for me the endless absurdity of the writing makes each tile worth a second look. But perhaps the world’s animosity toward American Dad! comes from the fact that the writers really just don’t seem to care about exit strategy. Once the flaw is exposed and the lesson is learned,  they are totally willing to just pull the eject cord right at the 19 minute mark. What exactly does the Deus ex Machina look like? Here are some examples from recent seasons:

The Explicit Deus ex Machina: In the explicit situation, a savior unexpectedly shows up, sometimes literally from the sky, just to save the day.

Season 10 Episode 7: Big Stan on Campus. As Stan is being chased by the student mob, Avery arrives in a helicopter just in time to save the day. 

Season 10 Episode 17: American Fung. Fung Wah repeatedly interrupts the action, and provides an escape hatch ending

Season 11 Episode 10: The Two Hundred. Klaus arrives as literal Deus ex Machina, godlike in the sky above the action, and the story is sidestepped.

Season 13 Episode 6: The CIA shows up to save the day, as an explicit Deus ex Machina.

Season 13 Episode 8: The CIA shows up to save the day, as an explicit Deus ex Machina.

The Prepared Deus ex Machina: an element from earlier (or from the B-story), often an absurd one, returns to save the day. The art of the Prepared Deus ex Machina is setting the prop at the beginning of the episode in a way that’s still funny and stands on its own—like crafting a Mad Magazine fold-in. Here are some Prepared examples:

Season 10 Episode 8: Now and Gwen. Francine avoids jail time when Stan calls in a favor with a local judge.

Season 11 Episode 8: Stan-Dan Deliver. Klaus arrives and burns the problematic document, simply undoing the problem.

Season 12 Episode 5: Bahama Mama. The Kids Klub shows up to save Steve.

What’s crazy to me is that there really are American Dad! fans out there. Not only that, it is, at the time of writing, in its fifteenth season. That’s an extremely successful record by any metric. I personally hope that American Dad!, as well as its two major predecessors, run forever, or at least until their creators decide to pull the plug intentionally. In the meantime, in the last few years several more majorly successful cartoons-for-adults have been minted, some of which are very much on the Simpsons model: Bob’s Burgers, an explicit homage to the Simpsons (down to the rabbit ears on the Maggie-Louise character), BoJack Horseman, undoubtedly the most tragic of all the cartoons, and Rick and Morty, which in its towering philosophical genius puts itself in an entirely separate class. 

11.24.20 NYC

My Colorado Journey: A Visual Letter

Dear MR,

During my trip to Colorado I took photos and videos with the intention of documenting my trip—especially since I knew you would have enjoyed so many aspects of it. Yesterday I finally had the chance to string them together. It is not Scorsese, but it certainly gives the character of the trip. Please enjoy.

A Vision of the Buddha

Dear MR,

It started on my run, just after I decided on the shorter 8 mile loop. It was like that thing I used to do on the bus in 1st grade, rub my eyelids until opaque golden donuts appeared. The patience of watching the two ends slowly connect, the inevitability of completion, the inability to control it once it started. It felt a little wrong but was beautiful. Tonight this sensation came to me, uninvited, during my run. It started as two globes of light side by side, like huge headlights. The first thing I thought was sun and moon, or a pair of breasts. They were getting bigger and bigger, like an enormous truck on the highway. I recognized the sensation and could see the inevitability of completion. It was a little scary. I thought it could be a stroke, so I spelled my name backwards to myself. The circles grew, merged, took shape. When I closed my eyes I could see the pattern, already Buddha shaped, filling in. But I was still running. Even with my eyes open my vision was obstructed by the opaque patches of light. I was nervous. Finally I decided to enjoy it. I allowed myself to close my eyes for a few steps at a time, and it became fantastic, with ornaments and flashing lights. Finally, the shape came to fullness, fully opaque in the form of Buddha, with only one gap: a heart shaped hole in the center, slowly drifting. It was extremely beautiful. After the fulfillment peaked, the whole image slowly faded—I was sorry and a little relieved. Even now, maybe 30 minutes later, there are traces that I can see when I close my eyes.

10.20.20 7:19 PM