Sunday, June 25, 2006

AUTOGNOME 8 TWEAKED DIGITAL IMAGE/SELF PORTRAIT AT STOP SIGN JOIN THE SELF PORTRAIT MARATHON 12:12:09 PM    comment []

THE MANY BRIDES AND BRIDEGROOMS OF DR. OMED I had a dream in the summer of 1995—before I went on lithium, before I came back to Oklahoma, before I got married. In this dream, my friend Clarissa and I go to the Mercury Cafe in Denver, and go into the kitchen, where the owner, Marilyn Megenity, stands guard like a Celtic Gorgon, at the entrance to the caverns—the underworld.   Marilyn lets us pass into the pitch dark cave. We grope and feel our way through the dark, sometimes on our hands and knees in the tight spots, until my hand falls upon a little box—a rounded triangle made out of what feels like pebbled leather. I open the box and it is full of glowing rings that give a little light to see by.   Out of the darkness people come, and say “I was the bridegroom” or “I was the bride," and take a ring, and go back into the dark. Clarissa and I pass through another narrow passage, and we see another light, and I put the lid back on the box.   In the center of the chamber are people, some of whom I recognize, dressed in rich, elaborate vestments, performing a ritual over a glowing goddess lying prone on an altar. After much chanting and solemn ceremony, they chop her to pieces with an gold axe. It makes a sound exactly like cutting opening a watermelon. Her glowing flesh is full of dark seeds.   Somehow, though I know some of these people in life, and know that they are not bad people, I know that this ceremony is wrong. I open the little triangular box, and again, people, dressed in mourning and smeared with ashes, come out of the dark corners and take a ring, and say, “I was the bride, I was the bridegroom,” and recede back into the darkness. This sequence repeats itself many times, the glowing goddess sacrificed wrongly over and over, the brides and bridegrooms coming out the darkness to claim their rings. I saw many people, some I recognized, and some I have since met.   For years I could not think of this dream without crying. Many are the brides and bridegrooms, but I did not choose the mission the dream represents, I accepted it. I don't toss rings like confetti, I open the little box that came into my hands, the little heart of darkness filled with glowing rings, and the brides and bridegrooms come to claim what was, and is again, theirs.   In the virtual world of the blogosphere as well as the wide world Dr. Omed has many brides and bridegrooms. In the waking world one woman is my wife and wears the wedding ring.  Others have from me other tokens, other talismans.   I plighted these differing troths, and I keep faith with them in my way—the way as I am given to see the way. That is the best I can do. 2:49:19 AM    comment []

DIE HARD 1:30:35 AM    comment []

SPEAKING TUBE: ALSO WITH YOU 12:07:27 AM    comment []