About
Experiments in self-compost.
(Lalah is known in the family for being “a little bitchy”. It’s just the way she is. But she’s also sweet and lovely. And none of us wants to put “bitchy vibes” into the world, especially on a Saturday. Salam to all.💖)
Verses of chickens, cats, crones. // We get her to the vet’s clinic and I swear Lalah jumps out of the carrier, nose glowing pink, and exclaims, “All better!” Maybe it has something to do with the trauma of the drive here, as she carries on like she’s suffering endless sorrows in the style of Italian opera. Or the memory of having to stay overnight, a few weeks ago, due to ear infection, when she learned about how cats live, “in the Real World”. On the drive back home, she is the sweetest, slow-blinking angel.
“Do you know Enya?” (A better test for whether a tribe is uncontacted by “civilization”.)
In the Indonesian language, “un-contacted” (tidak terkontak) is said differently than “not-yet-contacted” (belum terkontak). I find this characteristic of the language already influences the way I think about the world, getting into the habit of considering temporality with every negation. (Even when writing/thinking in English. Do I mean “not”, simply? Or rather, “not yet”?)
Future (“InsyaAllah”) is (just) another kind of presence.
Prayer is a practice of humbleness, humility. Then also, any practice of humility, including serving, giving, offering, supplication, cooking or baking for someone, taking care of someone, including yourself, in body and/or soul, translating, loving, you could say these all fit together under the broad (outward-leafing) umbrella of “prayer”.
Every new/different person that you meet is an opportunity to express yourself in a new and possibly beautiful way. To become a new verse/version of yourself. But what this means is, it’s a new opportunity to learn from someone else, which requires a certain flexible but deep listening. Re-sponding, re-plying, re-versing. Well, that isn’t trivial. (And “self”-ish is the opposite of “selfish”?) We “keep” Grace and Frankie because we are interested in learning something from them, about their selves, about ourselves. And we “keep” them, and take care of them, as guests. We follow, if we can, certain rules regarding guests, and strangers, or anyone we don’t know who “shows up”, ancient rules of hospitality, that you could really, in “the old stories”, be punished for violating. We don’t know who that is, the homeless beggar that shows up at our door. But we treat them as an honored guest.
(I also am a guest. And in many circumstances, I also find myself “speechless”.)
As an aside, in a present and experiential way, it does seem to me like, if I eat other animals, it becomes hard (even just for my body) to hold onto the idea, that I can learn from other animals, too. The scales-falling-from-my-eyes moment, which I felt first in 2008, (when I stopped eating animals and “animal products”), was very moving. One of the most deeply-felt moments of my educational life. I will always be (humbly) grateful for it, and toward everyone involved.
(There are so many ways to say this same thing, and every time I say it, I feel the need to choose words anew. But/and again, “Alhamdulillah.")
Looking up the etymology of “version” (through French version for “a translation”, from Medieval Latin versio, “a turning, a translation”, from Latin vertere, “to turn, turn back, be turned; convert, transform, translate; be changed”), which led me to another really wonderful Proto-Indo-European root, wer- (2), meaning “to turn, bend”. Odds are, if you are reading this… Well, I was going to write, “if you are reading this, you probably use many words that are descended from wer-.” But I stopped, because it blows my mind into diagonals-of-squares to contemplate readership, whatsoever. Any readership, between zero and one hundred (percent, of what?), and further, who can say what and how (your, my, their, our, the) logos will evolve? Or numbers, for that matter, or time itself? Some people believe that t=0 is a constant, or the speed of light. But stability remains mere hypothesis, without which certain favored things (people, worlds, blogs) fall apart. Life requires shelter, not the direct blast of a sun. I know not even a fraction of what a shelter could look like, (for example, of an “uncontacted tribe”), but I know that I can’t survive without it.
And yet, she considers herself a translator. So she rests in the shape of wer-.
(“Are you there Heraclitus? It’s me, Elizabeth.”)
The beggar could be Odysseus, interminable, come home like a wanderer, red with the blood of innocents slaughtered in Ilium. Or it could be Pallas Athene, eyes grey with motherless calculation. Nice to have some non-human kinfolk around, whose opinion you can trust, chickens, etc. Or the crone, the devoted, elderly woman, who remembers the baby who suckled from her breast, however many years have passed. So, she knows the master of the house before almost anyone else. She too rests in the shape of wer-.
(Wer- is also, excellently, the source of weird.)
By the way, the first thing Grace did, when I let her out this morning, was to circumnavigate her entire territory, with chicks, including through the hallway. My husband woke to the riotous sounds of their passage. Which is just the weirdness of a bule di rumah.
Peace on earth and salam to all.
Emoji dictionary. // Sometimes I feel a wave of visceral dislike for emojis. I use them to express feelings with almost everybody in my life, and I feel like I have to do that, for good-enough reasons. But that’s not how I look at all, when I’m expressing those feelings. I resent the disconnect. Out of curiosity, I made this emoji dictionary, which started short, but got long, including more symbols. The faces are all just what I imagine, I don’t know how I personally look.
(I update this periodically.👻)
//
Emoji dictionary:
😊 is like Janis Joplin smile, genuine.
😁 is show off-y or cheesy smile, sometimes clueless.
☺️ is small, modest, or special little joy or sweetness, a little tart, or cute.
🙂 is a happy fish.
🙈 is unsightly.
😯 is wonder, large or small, usually quiet or thoughtful wonder, gentle, noncommittal.
🙃 is… possibly my real face. Or the end of the world, or XII. The Hanged Man. (I don’t use this for “irony”, in the sense of sarcasm, but in an earnest sense, sure.)
😂 is like Angela Chase laughing, or Rayanne laughing, or anybody from My So-Called Life laughing.
✨ is magic, stars, good vibes, dreamy niceness, or Diotima.
💫 is destiny, a divine message, or arrival at a destination. Karma or nature as cyclical motion.
🙏🏻 is thank you or you’re welcome, sama-sama, namaste or salam. Three of them is shanti shanti shanti. (I am grateful for you, whoever you are. I am, because you are. Interbeing. Etc.)
🌈 is kind of a miracle? But I’m not sure what that means. An alternative to despair (or suicide).
😀 is one I usually just use with my mom, if I’m excited about something in a dorky way, but also when other people tell me happy things about their children.
😜 is another one I just use with my mom.
🥰 means that I feel loved or taken care of, used with family and friends, or just lovey vibes. Also used for lovey feelings toward other people’s children, especially babies.
💖 is extra special love of some kind, usually not romantic. Sometimes casual, friendly, a little exaggerated or intentionally over-the-top, or gallant, chivalrous love, then it is romantic.
😎 is the feeling of being cool, taking it easy, getting away with a crime, and all of these simultaneously, Bob Dylan on the cover vibes.
🤩 is like “wow” in a kiddish, showbiz, or cool “visuals” way. Loud wonder.
🥸 is the feeling of being a stranger, of being in disguise, or hiding in plain sight, or not being seen.
🤪 is one I try not to overuse, it means a feeling of chaos or being out-of-control, or feelings of (approaching) insanity.
🫥 is a feeling of invisibility or impotence or non-being.
😟 is if something isn’t going well, I feel bad, or wish I could help.
🫠 is feeling overwhelmed by a situation, can be for hot and humid weather, too much rain or flooding, or just too much anything.
😵💫 is too much coffee or feeling exhausted at the end of the day, nervous exhaustion.
🥴 is another mom one, for when something makes you feel weird or uncomfortable, especially bodily functions, also faux-pas in social situations.
💩 is human or cat shit, or other shit, but always literal shit, not figurative.
😰 is if I’m really overwhelmed, this is rare, often involves worry over cat health.
🤷♀️ is a shrug, I don’t know, I surrender my desire to know, I’m letting that one go for now, whatever, or good riddance.
❤️ is love I use with family.
💛💙💚🩵 is love I use with junior boys or young men in the family. It’s big-sisterly approaching mom-like love. Might use for girls, also for girls 💖 or 💕
🩷 is weirdly under-used, by me. I like the color pink.
💕 is silly or dynamic love, or emphatic love, multiples to help somebody believe it.
💜 is love for somebody who needs it.
🖤 is love for my black cats, and witchy love.
🤎🧡🖤🤍💕 is Lalah, so she’s not left out by witchy love.
🤍 is love for something airy, like an idea or an image, or an angel or ghost, or something delicate like that. This one I would use for “my teachers”, including any who are still alive.
🌊 is le déluge.
🔥 is Heraclitean fire.
🌿 green emojis are green or plant-based nature, sometimes other “green” vibes.
🤑 is one I use in conversations about taxes or investments.
☀️ is morning, although I’m unsatisfied with both sun emojis, not sure why. They don’t look like the sun, to me.
☕️ is literal coffee.
🦄 is me, sometimes, sort of silly.
💀 is poor Yorick.
🌒🌑🌘 These might be my favorite emojis, because they really remind me of the moon. I think they’re nice looking.
//
When I don’t use an emoji, the mood that I am communicating is, “I am not in the mood to express myself with a cartoon right now.”
I’m open to developing new emoji-meaning associations for myself, or learning them from others. (Maybe writing this dictionary made me feel better about emojis, in general.)
Now is the time of the lunar month when I start having (noticing) the darker feelings. (Also. Random waking, trouble sleeping, heightened sensitivity to smell.) I never know how much of that (“the darkness”) I want to put into the blog, or how much choice I have in the matter, or even whether this is any different than my normal (purple and pink) word salad. (It’s a blog about my salad days.) And it makes me feel a universal guilt. So I would like to say I’m sorry to everyone (including those not in my life).
(Every poem is an apology, broken in one way or another.)
Aspiring to harmlessness.
Stirring the cauldron. // Today is the last day of the waning crescent and it seems I am borrowing her shape, words keep surfacing these last few days that just aren’t ripe enough to make fruit. So instead of putting out, I add them back into the whorl of thoughts, wondering, (about unruly kittens), if they can break down and remix into a shape more suitable for survival.
The Darwinist, with his recommendation of adapting, not for the present, but for the future, thereby advises that she who wishes to survive, become versatile. (“And do the right thing, as quietly as possible.”) We work on this project. What is more versatile, human life or the written word? What will prove itself thus? What words could survive us? Questions for history and technology.
Of course, the first (woman’s) question was (and always has been) what, if anything, is worth anything at all? What of this life is worth living, whether I am (always) anger or (possibly) grace, and whatever could it be that I am trying to save from the burning city. Because it isn’t my visible self, in the sense contained in these dying words. The heart of someone I have never reached, whose emanation I am sensing with every cell, for whom I attempt transparency, self-finding through self-erasure.
(Perhaps, one works to save fire.)
Tomorrow is dark moon, rest day. So the work of today is preparing for sleep, negating the slim shape, and mothering oneself with a soothing song. That there is nothing more versatile than the churning depth of a dream.
That was a little witchy, wasn’t it.
I didn’t include in this post another autobiographical note, that my whole life used to be all about books, and then all of my books burned in a housefire. That was fifteen years ago, a long time now. After that, I didn’t have the heart to replace them. Anyway, I guess they were never really mine, was my basic conclusion.
But I wouldn’t be who I am without them.
Also wouldn’t be who I am without that fire.
On minimalism and a paradox of technology
Five years ago, I left America. Now I live far away from universities and libraries and mega bookstores, outside the cheap shipping zones of online behemoths, in a climate unfriendly to the longterm preservation of organic material, including paper goods. My house is modest, my storage space is minimal, and there’s an active volcano right next door. I have neither the wish nor the practical ability nor the extra coin to get or have or keep more stuff. I guess I’ve learned this lesson in my life, that books burn, and houses burn, and cities burn. The whole world is a burning thing.
To be alive is to travel and it’s best to travel light. So I use cloud storage, digital photos, ebooks, online libraries, which are all lighter and cheaper than books and notebooks and pencils and pens. And I was wondering, is this the best use of technology, I mean for human beings in general, to help us travel light? Always to be ready to leave. Or does technology only give the illusion of lightness, not the reality of it? It has its own kind of weight, if it postpones an inevitable question. If it is a habit-forming postponement of the most important questions. No matter how light, it will still be gone when the network burns.
Good advice for living near a volcano: cultivate clear sight and the readiness to leave. (What have you done lately to get ready?)
Moonchild, mother of cats // “about”
Moonchild, mother of cats, mask-maker’s wife, call me Elizabeth, artist and poet and maker of things out of words, ashtanga yogini and translator of Plato’s Phaedrus, American woman living in Bali, Indonesia, with Javanese husband, E, my pronouns are as you/like it, I renounce my credentials, our religion is Islam, Eat, Pray, Love but in Ancient Greek, have I answered the question?, trying not or not trying or trying to be not clever, in person I come across as quiet, normal, a little weird/scary/oops?, but I believe in nature, and the Muse, and Durga, and Ganesha, and Barong, I am here for the god, and I play with ghosts, preferring the past because there is mystery in it, if you’ve seen the future the last thing you want is to talk about it, the sibyl knows, that’s why the drug, the rage, the singing, mermaid, unicorn, crone, weaving, unweaving, listening, practical stuff like gardening, herbs and vegetables and flowers and bugs, while there still are bugs, understanding this body, touching this earth, forgiving, grieving, loving, remembering, pictures, of cats
Must be a snake nest in the garden because the cats have caught three babies so far. Small, brown, narrow heads, E says not dangerous but how they rear their heads and face you off… Then I had a dream some deity, reflected shimmering gold and black, commanded I build it a temple. It was terrifying.
Touching the surface
I need to get more comfortable before I write an “about me” page. That’s a little neurotic but sometimes it’s the simple things that are hardest to do. I feel two equal but contrary impulses. One is, for the “about me” page, to get autobiographical and long-winded. The other is to say something somewhat aphoristic but basically true, such as “My main interest is in God.”
The most fun I ever had writing on the internet was on tumblr back around 2008. It let me do any of those things, depending on my mood, write something short or long or poetic or historical or whatever words could do. I don’t remember the platform nudging me toward a pre-conceived purpose, which tacitly encouraged a style of hypothesis and experimentation, which (about me:) I guess is what my writing style is.
Also back then, there wasn’t the backdrop of incentivized mob behavior, the viral compulsions and hair-trigger pile-ons, that make social media such a manipulative and ugly “place”. Which reminds me, I think there needs to be a different word for the internet than “places”, because that metaphor is really misleading.
Writing an “about me” page is problematic because the basic things “about me” are complicated. There are things about me that don’t require explanation, but the basic things definitely do. It’s hard to leave them in writing on an “about me” page when I know it isn’t enough. So maybe that’s one thing “about me”, that you can’t touch the surface without going deep. Or at least, I will try not to let you.
(About me: I am cancer sun, pisces moon, and scorpio ascendant. This is a journey of water.)
Another thing about me is that I’m skeptical of online “community”. I’d like to be proven wrong. But my feeling is, something about being physically together—in-person visits and conversations, touching, the nearness of family, sharing tea or coffee or booze or snacks or food or smoke or a guitar—is a foundation of community. I have that. Writing is not that. Writing is something different than that, let alone posting a blog (or microblog, or photoblog, or newsletter, or whatever it is they do on facebook).
So I’m not looking for community, maybe more like correspondence, but also neither of those. I hereby take pressure off of anybody who reads this to ever reply or communicate in any way. Maybe blogging (for me) is like when little coral polyps release their eggs into the ocean, how they could have some wobbly idea what outcome they hope for, but also have no idea at all. Potential is promising but also surprising. Like tiny spherical offerings to the moon. To the moon, they are perfect as-is.
Something wonderful about writing (including on the internet) is how you can devote yourself to the silence of it.
Anyway, one other thing about me is, and I’m as certain about this as I am about anything, that God can be found inside my own navel, ha-ha. There are however many easier places to look.
On Making Music (content warning: war)
I like to follow hurricanes.
I lose myself in it as the pressure system builds, as if from nowhere and everywhere at once. It draws water and fire from the overheated ocean, winds gather strength in organization, and a spiral emerges from splotches on the radar. There is a sense of something solid being born as the hurricane becomes self-centered and self-contained, an expression of elemental personhood. The spinning eye looks back at me, alive, with a similar sense of recognition.
Until it loses its atmospheric support and breaks, crashing into land or riven by another aerial dynamic. The eye falters, dissipates, dismantles, like Lear losing his mind, a principle of power expressing its final emptiness, wings of conflict without a body to bind them.
Into the same it passes away: earth clean, sky blue, sea silent.
I wonder if human wars are like this, as I follow the news of Israel and Palestine. The news is not good. A divine gift, a holy land for a blessed people, has become, through stiffening necks and hardening hearts, children of Abraham strangling the sacred names in rage against a broken covenent. Proportionality is chimaera, on this scorched earth, where we are tethered by finite commitments to the infinite burden of divine injustice. Rhetoric builds and forces spill over; violence gives birth to violence bloodier and broader still; as presidents, ministers, and kings fly jagged spirals around Jerusalem, there is something solid being born, with a similar sense of recognition.
It is a thing that cannot be stopped.
I too have fought, ever since I was born. I demanded care, crying like a babe when it didn’t come. I rejected injustice, spit it out like spoilt milk. I did my homework, knew multiplication tables by heart. I read books and learned from them, too. I conversed in the public square. I worked to save children from the maw of death. (Yes, I corrupted the youth.) I tried, over and over, to serve, to negotiate, to draft a treaty. (Okay, I was a bad servant, still—) I fell in love. I dreamed of walking without shame through the garden, on this, my beautiful earth.
But I also have fought myself. I have euphemistically declared myself a question, have orchestrated pogroms and nakbas and crucifixions against myself, have perpetrated crimes against humanity against myself. I buried myself deep in the dark of a labyrinth, my face was so ugly. I cursed my city, rejected so-called help from so-called friends, and drank the hemlock provided me. Then I was dead, but that wasn’t enough, so I put holes in the tendons of my ankles and, with a chariot, I dragged my dead body around and around the grave of my other dead body, through the dirt. Again and again, as it rotted, we rotted. I became anti-earth, black hole, a self-centered and self-contained thing, an unbroken expression of brokenness. Other Greeks watched, alien to me, as my rage drew time itself in the vortex. For eternity, if for forty-two years, that is what I did.
All as punishment for the following crime: that I am a similar sense of recognition. I am the eye of the daemonic storm. I know myself now, I am the war. I am the catastrophic energeia that reveals itself, destroyer of worlds, with so many mouths and so many voices. I am who cannot be stopped.
It is deeply and terribly hard, to let go. The earth is lost. Exhale the body and let it be lost. As everything sacred has ever been lost, in a similar sense of recognition.
Whence, this: Truth not in silence, but in singing.
Having become beautiful and young, Elizabeth writes blogs.