clairo, buddhism, simulation theory, nyc, and queerhood (retrospective diary: 2019-2024) (audio: new recording 19; edited Friday 12/13 11:52 am est)
clairo frees me from the attachments chaining me to manhood / simulation theory discussed in audio / 6: moksha / 7: i love you Claire: you make my heart an art class (literally ❤️)
i love to walk with my friend B after work, although sometimes i am afraid she believes i am only using her for her marijuana, which we smoke in large quantities while walking down park place past franklin.
💖 snowflakeangelbutterfly 💖 is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
brooklyn (photos my own) i am in the habit of taking pictures of pink trees
B is a writer and a poet. what dazzles me: she is not afraid to say this out loud or write this on the internet. i want B to think i am cool: i believe that if i somehow get high enough, i will be able to overcome my concern that she does not think i am cool.
often by the end of these walks i am so high that i am stumbling into my apartment and barely capable of taking off my clothes for bed. everything is blurry when i walk into my kitchen: i am falling asleep and i could collapse onto the hardwood floor.
one night i tell B that i can see myself from the perspective of another.
in my mind i can see him, this man:
dark flannel, jeans, walking along, moving through the world. i watch him: i am another, looking at me: and i realize that that i am nothing, or that i do not know who this person is. i do not know what i am looking at. who is this man?
i have this sense that in the mind of another, i am simply a piece of physical material, animated with energy from the snapping bonds of atp molecules, and when i look at this person — short hair, dark flannel, jeans — i see a stranger.
i do not know who this person is, and i have this sense that if i were to collapse dead right here next to B, and my body were an empty vessel here beside her, she would look down at me and she would see this man: this man i see from the perspective of another, and the idea of this utterly terrifies me.
to think that this man even exists at all: this terrifies me.
because if this man exists, then i do not exist. because this man is not me.
and so i am always thinking about this man.
brooklyn
finally one night i tell B the truth:
i am terrified, i admit to her, when i think about myself from the perspective of another. “it makes me scared,” i say: and also i am laughing because i am high out of my mind: and also i am barely capable of preventing my body from colliding into the small fence between me and the tree past which B and i are walking.
the next night, deep into a joint, this man comes to me again — myself from the perspective of another.
i see this man walking by and i wonder: who is this man?
i tell B the truth once again:
“i am thinking about the man again,” i admit with an uncertain chuckle.
i am terrified as i contemplate this being.
“again?” she asks, also laughing. “yourself from the perspective of another?”
“yes,” i say. “who is this person?”
dark brown glasses, dark flannel shirts, dark pants, dark shoes, short hair, beard. i do not know who this being is, and i have this sense:
if i die right now beside B, i will not really die: because i do not even exist at all. this strange man has taken my life. this strange man has robbed me of my beingness. this strange man: he has suppressed me down into nothingness and i do not know what this means: i do not exist? what does that mean?? who is this man???
the more weed i smoke, the deeper i sink into these terrifying thoughts.
so i continue smoking large quantities of marijuana, as much as B will share. we walk for another half hour beside the brownstones and the trees as the sky grows darker.
when i get home, i am barely capable of getting into bed.
i am so high that i struggle to take off my belt. i put a little toothpaste on my brush, dab a little bit on my teeth with a few drops of water, and then i trip over myself out the door. finally i am sinking down into sleep: i am thinking about this man.
i am frightened. i do not know this man.
if death is oblivion, then i am already dead.
i know that B would know what to do, but how to explain?
B is a poet: she sees beneath the surface of things. she might know who this man is.
the next day i go to work where i teach teenagers all day.
the bodhisattva avalokiteśvara ”bodhisattvas are those who have attained enlightenment but have sworn to remain in this world to help others who are still suffering.” (world religions by john bowker)
cambodia (july 2019)
above and below: siem reap & vicinity, cambodia (photos my own)
“The state stemple of Jayavarman VII, Bayon is the most enigmatic of the temples of Angkor… its complex plan is dominated by towers sculpted with a head on all four cardinal faces. Although Buddhistic, it is ecumenical, having chapels and sculptures devoted to the Brahmanistic pantheon as well as to the Buddha, Lokeshvara and other Buddhist entities.
The identity on the face of the Banyon towers is unknown. Some suggest it is the bodhisattva Lokeshvara, some say it is Brahma and some perceive the divine guardians of the cardinal directions. Other believe it is the face if Jayavrman himself, or the king configured as the bodhisattva.”
art and architecture of cambodiaby helen ibbitson jessup (read spring 2024)
i have this sense: there are higher beings.
there are higher beings who can help me.
but i don’t know what that means.
higher beings in mundane places? (2019-2020)
i have been listening to the news for far too long.
every day i wake up in the morning and i read the new york times for almost an entire hour. i am always angry about republicans and i am always ready to argue.
sometimes i realize that i am talking about nothing but politics with the men around me. i have known these men for months and months, but (in a few cases) not once have we talked about our feelings.
sometimes with these men, i have a sense that i am disconnected from reality.
i prefer to be with the girls: B, P, A, and S.
P: she sees reality so clearly, pierces right through meaningless constructs, and when i am talking with P i feel like i want to be best friends with her.
A: she is so funny and is always laughing. we get drinks together after work and we scream inappropriate things in bars.
S: sometimes i think S is the most intimidating of all these girls because there is something about S that emanates coolness; the others emanate coolness as well of course, but S’s coolness calls to me in some way. i always want to hang out with S outside of work but i am afraid to ask. she is just… too cool.
but even when i am with B, P, A, and S: i feel like i cannot fully be myself because…
i still see that man walking by in my mind and i am afraid when i think about him.
that man is not cool, not cool enough for me, and not cool enough for S.
apparently this man is who S sees when she looks at me: i am obliterated.
i am seeking higher beings to help me un-obliterate, whatever this means. to help me escape from this man who is always with me, who stops me from calling S.
over the course of 2019 and much of 2020, here is where i seek for higher beings:
💖 chilling adventures of sabrina 💖 cable girls 💖 velvet 💖 el tiempo entre costuras 💖 isabel allende novels 💖 netflix christmas rom coms
i can feel how i am transforming while i connect with the beings in these mediums, but i do not know what this means. they are not even beings, are they? they are fabrications, representations of beings. although i am uncertain about this: in all honesty i do believe in the reality of fictional characters.
i only know i am drawn to these beings. i know they are only works of art, but i want them so badly to be the beings who will help me.
i believe in higher beings.
but i don’t know what a higher being is.
reading about the four noble truths (spring 2024)
“What the Buddha saw [in the true reality] is summarized in the Four Noble Truths. These are that, first, all existence is dukkha, unsatisfactory and filled with suffering; second, dukkha arises from tanha, a craving or clinging, which means a constant effort to find something permanent and stable in a transient world; third, dukkha can cease totally, and this is nirvana; and fourth, this can be reached by following the Eightfold Path.”
world religions by john bowker
rhye in the winter (2019-2020)
brooklyn
every day when i leave my apartment at 6:30 in the morning to go to work, i am listening to rhye in my headphones.
i am obsessed with the sound of rhye and i love to just sink down into the music. i listen to rhye the entire time i am on the subway and the entire time i am walking from the train to the school. somehow i know when i am listening to rhye that this man is not with me; this man has been evicted; i do not see this man anymore.
i stop seeing myself from the perspective of another.
sinking down into rhye, i see myself from the perspective of me: there is light there. what’s strange: my perception of the light streaming out from me is unrelated to the lyrics. this light is being activated by something in the gentle sound of the music itself, something in the light feminine feel to the vibes and imagery: there comes a point in time when i am only truly comfortable when i am listening to rhye.
when i have to take my headphones off for work, i am in agony:
i am that man again, S is sitting down next to me, i’m completely obsessed with her hair, and i’m filtering 99% of my thoughts. S does not smile often but when she does her smile enraptures: one night out she smiles at me like this. i do not truly return her smile: i am captivated by her smile but i am also thinking about that man.
when i get high with B, i can still see that man, walking into oblivion.
S smiles at me: an enrapturing smile: a mesmerizing smile shortly before lockdown.
afterward i do not see her again.
she is gone.
that entire world is gone.
prospect park (lockdown — winter 2020-2021)
you must’ve been looking for me (winter 2020-2021)
i am walking all the time during lockdown. i am going on walks for hours, for miles, listening to music, feeling like i am me in those moments, obliterating that man.
i decide to stop reading the news. i cast podcasts to the side.
i must sink down into music.
i must go beneath the surface.
i know this is what i am doing when i walk for hours upon hours in prospect park: but i do not know what that means.
these lyrics are always in my head: they mean something. they are directions.
and you you must've been lookin' for me sendin' smoke signals pelicans circling burnin' trash out on the beach
mm-mm
i buried a hatchet, it's comin' up lavender the future's unwritten, the past is a corridor i'm at the exit, lookin' back through the hall you are anonymous, I am a concrete wall
(phoebe bridgers, “smoke signals”)
the axial age (spring 2021)
eastern parkway (brooklyn)
i have been reading a novel called creation by gore vidal.
creation showcases a world in which the following beings exist nearly simultaneously and in the following manifestations:
the buddha
laozi (founder of doaism)
the earliest practicioners of jainism
plato
socrates
zoroaster
confucius
“The Axial Age…is the period when, roughly at the same time around most of the inhabited world, the great intellectual, philosophical, and religious systems that came to shape subsequent human society and culture emerged—with the ancient Greek philosophers, Indian metaphysicians and logicians (who articulated the great traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism), Persian Zoroastrianism, the Hebrew Prophets, the “Hundred Schools” (most notably Confucianism and Daoism) of ancient China….These are only some of the representative Axial traditions that emerged and took root during that time. The phrase originated with the German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, who noted that during this period there was a shift—or a turn, as if on an axis—away from more predominantly localized concerns and toward transcendence.”
Buddha Shakyamuni or Akshobhya, the Buddha of the East ”The robust body of this early Tibetan Buddha seems to derive from the art of the North Indian post-Gupta period (seventh to eighth century), while its physiognomy is based on Central Asian prototypes of similar date. Few works of art from tenth-century Tibet have survived, but what does remain seems to be an eclectic synthesis of elements drawn from the artistic traditions of Central Asia, India, Nepal, and China.” the met
i am constantly thinking about the axial age.
i am thinking about ideas and where they come from. what comes first? ideas or material? do human beings emerge from the assembling of material and then this material begins to generate ideas? or do ideas pre-exist material? do ideas somehow flow across the universe between our minds?
the latter possibility feels much more likely to me than the first.
even so, i find that i am always striving after a materialistic explanation for the phenomenon of the axial age. i find i am afraid to tell most people in the World about the ideas which are swirling in the ether around our beings. “we can absorb them,” i want to say to the World around me, me friends and my family, and i know this is something i could say to B — or really to virtually any woman friend i have — but not to many of the men of this world, and not even to some of the women.
over time i know: whether i admit it or not:
i am no longer a materialist.
the longer i dwell upon the axial age, the more convinced i become:
across human history, there is a force at work beneath the surface.
we are not material: we emanate from something.
consciousness comes before material.
not only music brings forth those cracks of light: but trees like this one also
“is it not better for a man never to have been born?" "certaintly not." the response was brisk. "just to be able to study the sky is reason enough to be alive." "unfortunately, i can't see the sky." "then listen to music.”
(gore vidal, creation)
sharing clairo with the world (spring 2022)
album cover: immunity by clairo
there is something about clairo’s music i find difficult to really embrace.
i want to share my love with the world;
i know what the world will say: “too girly!”
i want to say, “that’s why i like it”: the first statement that comes to mind.
but i know this world;
i know this world’s response:
lmfao
so i continue to discuss music on the surface of things.
tarot draw: january 2023
clairo: outside the world’s gaze (spring 2022)
album cover: sling by clairo
i listen to clairo in secret: i share thoughts about her music only with my female friend M. i am not listening to clairo in secret because i feel like i should, but because i know that if i am open about why i love her music, i will be made to feel ashamed.
what’s strange: i am trying to convince myself i do not like clairo all that much.
i am deliberately limiting how much time i spend listening to clairo.
i am trying to convince myself that clairo is too soft, too juvenile, too young.
at the same time i am not trying to convince myself of any of these things.
at the same time, i am watching some other entity at work in my psyche:
this entity, uninvited, planted in me from the world outside, attempts to convince my mind of these things:
clairo is too soft,
clairo is too girly,
clairo is too juvenile,
clairo is too young,
clairo is a girl.
these thoughts stream into my mind not from within but from the outside: i can see how they enter into my being, i can see that they are not me, and yet even so:
these thoughts are floating about everywhere inside me.
these thoughts are so dense that even once i recognize them for what they are — a kind of “false shame” — i am unable to see through them to my real thoughts.
there is a foreign entity at work when clairo plays:
the man is mustering defenses.
the man is walking around inside me again.
trapped inside that man again (may 2022)
prospect park
one weekend on a saturday when i am alone, i am feeling lonely so i go for a walk.
everywhere outside the leaves are glowing bright green. when i arrive at prospect park there are blankets and dogs and children everywhere: there are enormous groups of friends, groups of friends i don’t have, sitting together and smiling.
i walk around the park for hours, wishing i was a part of one of these groups.
B does not live in new york anymore.
i could call S, but she is too cool. i could call A or P: but.
i sit down on a bench and stare sadly out at the picnic goers. i wish i had friends.
suddenly i see her, I, a girl i was once friends with in india, walking with her dog, headphones on, and she is steadily proceeding up the path toward my bench.
i want so badly to say hi to her, but one thought captivates my mind:
the man she sees, the man walking into oblivion, the man who is nothing.
the man who does not exist.
i look down into my lap and wait for her to pass.
i don’t think she notices me.
i don’t see her again.
clairo in central park (spring-summer 2022)
central park
i am constantly walking my friend’s dog in central park for 30 dollars a walk.
it’s a pretty good deal because i usually walk this dog for about two hours. we enter the park from the south end: we walk all the way around the reservoir and back.
the little doggie is always so excited, choking himself until we switch to a harness.
i find that i am normally in central park during warmer months, and i do not listen so fanatically to phoebe bridgers here. somehow i associate phoebe with prospect park, and whenever i am walking through central park, i am drawn to clairo.
central park
clairo songs that steadily absorb me (2022-2023)
as i walk the little doggie through central park,
i am constantly listening to clairo.
shut up don't wanna hear it, now, i'm fed up wish i could say it was enough (oh) to make me walk away and i'm messed up 'cause every time i start to get up and now my head feels fucked up and i know it won't change
the things you do only make me want to get closer to you and the things that you say only make me want to stay
(clairo, “closer to you”)
at first i am simply swept into this song by the pleasant and calming sound: it feels like a classic love song at first, simply an expression of a need to be closer.
but the more i listen to the lyrics, the more i notice the tension: the song opens with a person in distress over the nature of her relationship with the very same person to whom she next declares: “the things you do / only make me want to get closer to you.”
what i love about clairo is how effortlessly she sits with contradictory feelings. clairo seems willing to express all feelings in conjunction with one another, embracing the contradictions between them with no attempt toward artificial resolution.
every night think of things i can't do or haven't done and does it make me weak? sometimes i feel like i can't breathe is it all you see in me?
don't you wait for something more i'll still be sinking to the floor oh, you can't help me now i'm all alone is it my doing? Is it my doing?
outside is getting colder why does it feel like i'm older than i asked to be?
(clairo, “sinking”)
“sinking” is another song where i find myself absorbed into contradiction: on the one hand there is the fundamentally happy tone of the music itself, and on the other hand there is the despair in the lyrics — the things “i can’t do or haven’t done,” the “sinking into the floor,” a sense of being “weak,” a feeling like “i can’t breathe,” the conviction that “i’m all alone,” and the suspicion that all of these things are “my doing.”
somehow listening to clairo, i am able to sit with my own despondence while simultaneously seeing something radiant inside myself: her voice, her music, her lyrics, the instruments she deploys — all seems to send me deep inside my feelings.
you know i'll do anything you ask me to but oh my god, i think i'm in love with you standin' here alone now, think that we can drive around i just wanna say how i love you with your hair down baby, you don't gotta fight, I'll be here 'til the end of time wishin' that you were mine, pull you in, it's alright
i think we could do it if we tried if only to say you're mine sofia, know that you and i shouldn't feel like a crime
(clairo, “sofia)
“sofia” seems to highlight in my mind that part of me i always must hide:
my bisexuality.
i recall watching a reality show with a man who believed he knew me. one of the characters revealed that he was bisexual, and this man said, “oh no! can’t have that!”
i am told there is no need to advertise my bisexuality.
“it’s just a sexual thing.”
but i feel like there is a real reason i cannot advertise it:
my bisexuality is a crime.
and clairo makes me think my bisexuality is not a sex thing:
my bisexuality is a feelings thing, which is to say… it is not a thing at all. it is me.
a strange thought occurs to me: sofia is a girl who lives inside me.
when clairo sings to sofia — “i just wanna say how i love you with your hair down” — i like to imagine she is singing to me.
didn't mean to get so close and i know that i should probably go but i got this feeling tell me, girl, i gotta know
touch you softly i call you up late at night know that it isn't right but you could be my one and only you get me in the mood know what i'm tryna do do you think that we can move closer, baby? i want you yeah, yeah
and i don't care what they say and i don't care what they say care what they say to me i'm doing it differently baby i'm doing it differently
(clairo, “softly”)
i love how clairo sits with desire and guilt simultaneously.
desire: “call you up late at night,” “i want you,” “you get me in the mood,” “do you think that we can move closer, baby?”, “tell me, girl, i gotta know”
guilt: “i know that i should probably go,” “know that this isn’t right.”
what i love about clairo most: authentic (and ethical) desire always wins.
the triumph of desire: “i don’t care what they say”, “baby i’m doing it differently.”
what i love most about this song:
clairo knows what she is doing is “wrong.”
she knows it’s wrong, but:
“i got this feeling”
and it’s the feeling that wins out over the knowledge of traditional morality.
i want so badly to live like clairo manifests in her art.
at a certain point clairo is almost like a prophet to me, whispering me directions.
💖 snowflakeangelbutterfly 💖 is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
“The Emptiness of things referred to by the Dalai Lama refers to the understanding that everything in our world is composite.All things can be analyzed into the components that make it up. The automobile is made of the various parts, wheels, engine etc. The engine, for example, can be further analyzed to its parts and the metals that make it up. The metals can be broken down to the elements, atoms, then neutrons and protons or particles that underlay our observed world. Finally the mind comes to a mystery as we are unable to penetrate the cosmic sources of the world of experience.”
it is not only physical objects which can be broken down to the point of meaninglessness, i realize. interdependent co-arising also applies to abstract concepts: man, woman, professional, adult, responsible, nation, religion.
the bodhisattva tara “In Vajrayana Buddhism, Tara is often presented as the spiritual counterpart to Avalokiteshvara and shares with him a premier role in Tibet as a compassionate protectress.” the met
the constructing activities giving rise to gender
“However, the conclusion of Buddhism is that nothing possesses its own irreducible self-nature but everything depends on something else for its existence. Therefore, all things are empty, empty of intrinsic reality and intrinsic value; all existence is relational. Whatever the ultimate reality of things, it is inexpressible and inconceivable; therefore Empty. All things arise through the co-working of many causes and conditions.”
gender, i realize, is not an entity which exists independently.
gender arises into existence from our own constructing activities.
if we remove our constructing activities, then gender disappears.
if i stop constructing myself into a man, i will stop being a man.
my own divorce from reality
“According to this process, we are influenced by the fundamental Ignorance and Delusions that blind us to true reality. It is our inability to see things as they truly are. We know that our senses can be deceived as in optical illusions. As a result, we develop deep feelings of hatred, greed and prejudice, essentially our basic egoism. Through our underlying consciousness and the activities of our minds and the senses, we carry out actions in the world, creating suffering or good. We cling to those things which we think benefit our egos or preserve them.”
am i delusional for believing that i am a man? am i carrying out actions in the world not because i have chosen those actions, but because i am attached to the idea of my male ego, and i have this instinct, drilled into me, that i must advance that ego?
is that why i am reading so many fucking history books? accumulating knowledge?
have i been living a lie my entire life? have i not seen my own true reality?
i have been avoiding feelings somehow, i think. i hide behind “fact.”
i am delusional. but:
clairo is guiding me toward the true reality.
clairo is focused on feelings. for clairo, her feelings triumph over her knowledge.
clairo is in touch with the true reality.
The Buddha Protected by a Seven-headed Naga ”This fragmentary sculpture can be associated with the late phase of Buddhist patronage in the vicinity of Angkor Thom, at Angkor, under the reign of King Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–1218), a devout Mahayana Buddhist. It depicts what must be assumed was the seated Buddha in deep meditation, resting on the coils of a snake that raises its seven-headed hood above the Buddha’s head. The cult of the animistic naga (snake-serpent) is an ancient practice in India and was readily taken up in Angkorian Cambodia to reflect a meeting of Indic and local cults that acknowledge the power of snake-spirits.” the met
conditioned arising
“The philosophical dimension of the teaching focuses attention that nothing has value in and of itself. Everything is composite and is impermanent. Everything undergoes a process of change, most evident in our own lives. Because things have no essential value, our desires and attachments cause us great pain when we encounter something we dislike or lose something we treasure. The understanding of the reality of change aids in establishing the spiritual life.
More philosophically, the teaching indicates the emptiness or voidness of all things. This teaching applied to history or nature indicates that we are all conditioned, historical beings, as are our cultures and civilizations. They are not absolutes to be uncritically valued and maintained. In connect with Nature, Buddhism is compatible with science, because it understands the principle of cause and effect and the evolving nature of things.”
“All reality is a flow whose essential quality is energy down to the smallest particle or wave in micro-scientific analysis or the evolution of life and the expansion of the universe in the macro-world.”
“decay is inherent in all compounded things, so continue in watchfulness.”
(last words of the buddha)
B sees beneath the surface of things (april 2022)
i am reading mary oliver and then i am messaging B.
(mary oliver, “first snow,” new and selected poems: volume one)
messages with B:
instagram messages with B (april 2022)
the tragedy: i do not keep B appraised because i do not pursue these recommendations.
although i see cracks of light through mary oliver’s poems, although i sense this poetry may take me beneath the surface once and for all, i have this idea that i need to be reading dense history books all the time so that i can be an intellectual person.
i have this idea that i must always be accumulating knowledge.
i have this idea i am insufficiently educated due to a list of unread classical authors.
and i am deeply concerned that i will not reach my goodreads goal this year.
even so, while reading, i am often listening to clairo.
clairo on the big screen (may 2023)
clairo has new recordings of old songs out and i am watching her videos constantly.
i am so fucking obsessed with her pony tail. there is something about clairo’s physical presence as a performer that sets me at ease and makes me feel so at peace; it’s as if the art is simply flowing out from her. for a long time i romanticize clairo as this person who created all this music alone in her bedroom.
i know this isn’t the full story; i even know this is partially marketing.
but i accept the idea anyway, as if clairo were a higher being. “bedroom music,” i think with a thrill, and i am vaguely dreaming of an alternative universe:
i am a girl like clairo making music in my girly teenage bedroom.
i am a girl like clairo writing about love and desire, guilt and objectification.
i am a girl like clairo with a pony tail and a soft voice and a jean jacket.
that’s what i think about when i watch her perform at electric lady studios.
album cover: clairo live at electric lady
i tell people in the World around me that i am seeing boygenius in queens in june.
“clairo is also playing,” i mention.
but for now i downplay my obsession with clairo, even in my own mind.
cracks of light: clairo in queens (june 2023)
clairo plays in queens
when clairo plays, there is rain coming down from the sky, and no one cares:
people all around me are dancing and everyone is smiling.
these smiles are like the smiles S used to give me: glowing, captivating, enrapturing. they are like the smiles i wanted to return to her but never could: until i am standing here, in the rain, dancing to clairo, wearing my phoebe t-shirt, and when people look at me and smile i smile at them like i always wanted to smile at S:
i do not sense the man when i am there on the floor with clairo playing.
i do not see myself from the perspective of another:
i see myself from the perspective of myself; i see light streaming out from me; and i see the light of other beings around me streaming into me. i am embedded while dancing to clairo in the rain, i am embedded in a current of emotion and feeling, i have been absorbed into a universal soul and all i know is that i love myself.
below: clairo is twirling and so am i
self-love: it’s a feeling i can hang on to sometimes when i’m listening to clairo.
i am “sinking” but not into the floor; i am sinking down into the girl i want to be:
the girl singing love songs in a jean jacket,
the girl in her bedroom with a pony tail and a keyboard,
the girl twirling around in her sunglasses on that stage.
clairo expresses the things i want to express but never let myself.
when i listen to clairo, i can feel my own soul somehow also expressing those things.
but this is not enough, and i do not know what to do about that or what this means.
💖 snowflakeangelbutterfly 💖 is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
a series of exchanges with the phantom man in my mind: he seeks to stop me from loving claire
“i’m just so worried about what other people think,” i say
“you can’t do that,” phantom says. “you have to live in your own head.”
“i want to wear butterflies wings and dance and twirl around”
“lmfao”
“i want to buy this pink shirt with butterflies and boygenius lyrics”
“dude”
“i want to talk about how the cards make me feel”
“how the cards make you feel?”
“check it out!”
“time for a haircut”
the phantom man lingers in my mind;
i must obliterate him.
fantasies about the next life (june 2024)
i have come to believe in reincarnation to some degree.
material does not seem real anymore. compounded things: they seem unreal.
all that seems real: consciousness, feelings, experience.
my own body, my own being in the world: a manifestation of something mystical.
i feel as though this is why i was able to break free from fundamentalism. i think i am continuing a project from an old life: a project to see beneath the surface of things.
what i am wondering all the time:
why i was born a man.
when i go for runs and listen to music, i daydream that i am reincarnated as a woman.
two lotuses, from the bharhut stupa ”These lotuses were part of a wish-fulfilling vine at the top of a high railing (vedika), which enclosed the sacred precinct of the Bharhut stupa (relic mound). This vedika was also embellished with some of the earliest reliefs illustrating past lives of the Buddha (jatakas), depictions of major life events, and local deities (yakshis and yakshas). The lotus is an auspicious symbol that alludes to the Buddha's enlightenment. The row of hanging bells at the bottom is likely a translation into stone of an earlier actual architectural embellishment.” the met
the yakshis (spring 2024)
i am constantly reading about buddhist and hindu art.
the yakshis stand out most of all.
they are feminine forest spirits who often flank hindu and buddhist gods.
i want to be a yakshi in a future life.
sometimes i walk around listening to clairo and daydreaming that i am a yakshi.
birth of the buddha ”Queen Maya reaches up to grasp a branch and miraculously gives birth to the Buddha. Emphasis is given to the representation of Maya, who affirms her status as both a yakshi (female nature deity) and the mother of the historical Buddha. The newborn Buddha is shown a second time, standing on flower petals receiving his first bath. Such an iconic representation of Maya reflects the status that Taras (female bodhisattvas) had assumed in the esoteric Buddhist communities of eastern India.” the met
Tree Spirit Deity (Yakshi) ”This double-sided bracket (vrksadevata) for a gateway (torana) is decorated on either side with a tree-spirit deity known as a yakshi, who holds a flowering tree as a symbol of her fecundity. Her pose is that of salabhanjika ("breaking a branch of the sala tree"): grasping a branch, she thus engages with the fertility of the earth, bringing the tree into flower. Such figures provided an auspicious presence at the entrance to a sacred site.” the met
reading about the buddha leaving his family (spring 2024)
“[the buddha] was brought up in a royal household, protected from the suffering in the world, but on chariot drives from the palace he saw a sick man, an old man, and a corpse. disturbed by what he saw awaiting him, he sought escape, and on a fourth drive saw an emaciated religious ascetic. leaving his wife and child, he threw himself into indian aescetisicm. during this period, he attained all the goals that extreme discipline can attain, but it was not enough: still he had not escaped from the world of suffering and death.”
world religions by john bowker
i am always thinking about the significance of the buddha leaving his family. i cannot imagine any reason why i would ever leave my child: the idea seems mad.
and yet this is what the buddha did: if he had not, he would not have attained nirvana.
this is because nirvana is a state of total non-attachment: nirvana is a state of nothingness.
complete non-attachment is a precondition of nirvana because it is attachment — to other beings, to things, to goals, to ideas, to religions, to nations, to socially constructed concepts — which causes suffering in the world.
to end suffering, we must ultimately end all attachment:
but if we end all attachment, is there anything to enjoy?
this is the question with which i struggle.
i do not want to attain nirvana, not in this life.
i do not want to end all attachment, but the more i learn about attachment as an idea, the more i learn how entangled i am by attachments to concepts used to dominate me:
💖 the moral imperative to have good relationships with my sisters, even if that means suppressing myself in order to conform with their standards of behavior and morality 💖 the moral imperative to raise my son according to the cis-heteronormative standards of my extended family 💖 the need to present as a “father” and a “man”, and to act as if i were a “father” and a “man,” and to accept these ideas as they exist in the heads of those around me 💖 the endless lists of things i do not allow myself to wear, look at, buy, touch, openly feel or openly say: each of these rules has some concept behind it, i realize, to which i am attached, and none of these concepts has any true reality.
i am suffering for nothing. i am suffering from attachments to nothingness, to compounded things which are already decaying, which do not exist at all.
i understand this well enough: but i am paralyzed.
when i try to make my body move or my mouth speak like i really want, i am thrust backward by the chains of my attachments to these empty concepts.
even as i see through their emptiness, i still feel the chains.
💖 snowflakeangelbutterfly 💖 is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
mid-life reincarnation? (june 2024)
there is a buddhist concept i think about all the time: mid-life reincarnation.
i read about this concept in peter harvey’s an introduction to buddhism and the idea is making sense to me.
all things arise as a condition of some other thing:
my own being in the world arises from the content of my own consciousness.
how i manifest in the world is not a fixed thing. how i manifest in the world arises from my own inner consciousness: consciousness, not external reality, comes first.
i see the man who walked beside me and B: and i see him now for what he is.
i break him down into all his little parts.
i disintegrate him like an automobile.
i crush him up into powder: he is a compounded thing, he is nothing, he is gone.
i can see that he is nothing: he does not scare me anymore.
even so, there are chains. weakening, yes: but there are still chains to my attachments.
sometimes, walking for hours, listening to clairo, i sense myself:
emerging into the world. arising into existence. come out in a way that is conditioned upon my own internal being rather than the external fabrications chained up to me.
“charm” by clairo: conditioned arising (july 2024)
it's when you're close enough to touch i've forgotten the point my train of thought destroyed it's when you're loud enough to cut in and through all the noise my train of thought destroyed
and once you get in my ear i see kismet sinking in it's second nature like the sap from a cedar rolling down to be near her it's second nature
(clairo, “second nature”
when charm releases i am listening to a girl giggling in the background of “second nature.” the moment i hear that laugh, the moment i hear her laughing alongside the soft sounds of “da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-dum”, well:
that is the moment when i see myself, for the first time, fully.
the man who haunted me as i walked with B is gone forever.
the chains have disintegrated: clairo has obliterated him in a single instant.
i am arising.
(you make me wanna) try on feminine (you make me wanna) go buy a new dress (you make me wanna) slip off a new dress
(clairo, “juna”)
clairo is the one who is in my ear:
clairo’s music has literally conjured me out of myself.
the man is gone because the conditions which created him are gone.
there is a new set of conditions now: my conditions.
the mid-life reincarnation is happening. the process cannot be reversed.
the more i listen to charm the more certain i feel: this art is a medium by which i have seen myself at last. this music is a magical web within which i am somehow able to pierce right through my attachments to empty concepts and see only my own light.
the cracks are gone; there is only light now.
i am light, pure light, and i love myself.
i will not keep that light inside any longer.
for the rest of july i am listening non-stop to charm.
and for the whole of august i am a butterfly:
💖 listening to clairo,
💖 expressing my own feelings,
💖 arising into the world on new conditions: my own.
and like clairo, i’m willing to lose my attachments in the name of being authentically me.
i'd run the risk of losing everything sell all my things, become nomadic i'd run the risk, and just in case, I might sell all my things and become the night
oh, it's hard to believe it's even irrational for me i'm cynical, a mess i'm touch starved and shameless mm-hmm
but i'd rather be alone than a stranger
(clairo, “nomad”)
💖 snowflakeangelbutterfly 💖 is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
