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Philosophy and Spirituality

We, little more than gods…

Monday, August 9th, 2010 | Philosophy and Spirituality, deepchild live and dj sets, reflections | No Comments

my hand. the table

After more than a decade of djing and performing, the experience still demands in me a catharsis, a death, a traversing of the Bardos and lamplit-ranges of my subconscious.

There’s a primal-exchange, which occurs, in these dark clubs, when adrenaline and booze and immersion in static have their way with with us, and we become found even as we are lost.

I think of the shamans and whirling Dervishes and Sufis…of sacrificial Voodoo rites, of scarification, Kundalini, Corroboree, and the white-knuckle fear of Peyote. The voices of the dead. The voices of ancestors, the voices of eternal becoming. The chanting down of Babylon, the pain of the Cross-, the sublime silence of the abyss, writhing under washes of bass, shards of hat-flam. Its all here, encoded in the repetition, the ritual, unremitting rise and fall.

House-music as homecoming music. Techno as ancient transmission, static, Morse code, travelling without moving. Strange to observe the emotions which rise and writhe within me. So often terror – not so much paranoia of technique, reputation, acceptance (though they surely figure too) – a fear, because, peering into the gates of starless emptiness is a humbling and significant task.

It is a task, which is vital, important, worthy cultivating and nourishing.

If performers and artists (from our so-called ‘ecstatic’ traditions) are to traverse this terrain, they are best forewarned – the spirit-world is as raw as it is transcendent. Even the Christ demanded time alone, in silence, in the blessed desolation of renunciation. Even the High-Lama’s Oracle collapses and must be held at the end of the arduous Tantric ceremony. It was, and always shall be.

The alternative? To jimmy open a cleft in the collective conscious – to herald in the blazing sunrise of Intention, without mindfulness – is to court self-destruction, and the destruction of others beside. This is the power, the myth, of ‘artistry’ – this is the perversion which REMOVING and artist from community risks.

Our great artistic-tragedies, suicides, and losses – these are/were a product of individuals who sought to become the Sun/Son, rather than realising that they always were – that we all are. – that what we see is our collective glory. Our task is to bear witness, to refuse deification. You cannot ‘become’ the sun, because its only though your seeing it, that it exists. There is no separation – to attempt to manufacture one is like trying to cut off your own arm.

Still…

There’s a wrestling,”working-out…with fear and trembling”, a ritual cleansing which precedes the artists work…or, at least, mine. It something, which still throws me to the ground when I least expect it….leaving me panting and awaiting renewal. You’d think that after so damn long, I would have learned to trust the obvious – that the resurrection occurs, and must. We are strange people.

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I played the Berghain, in Berlin several weeks ago. Several thousand present, and, even and 6am, at least 400 more waiting in line out the front of the venue to get in. As far as collective rituals go – the rumours are largely true. A convergence of partygoers, heads, gayboys, true-believers and and intrigued pilgrims who have come to seek blessing and forgetting, in order to remember again. Sacred and Profane – an exchange of stark duality, dissolving into blinding moments of transcendent unity.

I feel at home in the Berghain, in a way that few club-spaces have afforded me.

I love the queer energy, the safety it affords both my female friends and me. I love the sanctioned back-room sex-booths, the importance of safety and discression. I love that the space acknowledges and embraces the energy of the extreme – at the same time as vehemently protecting importance of a ‘safe space’ for all who enter. I love the no-tolerance for meatheads and drunkards who wishing to enter. I even love the somewhat overly-serious staff. Well, sometimes I do. I love the sound-system – but who wouldn’t? It is what it is. It’s an institution…nowhere like it in the world.

And so…I performed a live-set, original with machines and computer and hardware and mineral water and sweat…3-5am, mainroom (Berghain level). For me, there is little I can say about this…how can you talk about being the presence of gods? How can you describe being in the inner-sanctum of the temple? You can only give-thanks, I think. And so I shall.

For those interested, there are some excerpts from my live-set, debuted at Berghain, HERE

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Who dares ask why they are granted such invitations to witness the indescribable and sacred? Though, perhaps this is the story of all of our lives. Sewn up with Grace. Yet, the gods have long escaped the shackles of a temple; they roam the woods and wild places and shopping malls and community gardens. Sometimes we just need the focus of lofty experience to reveal the enduring Mundane Glory, which is our life. If we prepare a feast for the deities…if we wait patiently, they join us to share the meal.

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I’m back to perform, again, at Berghain in 3 or so months….and again also, for my families in Seattle (for Decibel Festival) and SanFrancisco (Endup), with more TBA for late September.

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“Yet you made them only a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.” - Hebrews 2:7, The Bible

Tags: Berghain, deepchild, Essen, GoldClub