Street ecstasy

On a grey-skied, lightly rainy morning in the Autumn of 2016, I was taking the escalator down from the Inokashira Line in Shibuya, which runs above ground, to the Den-en-toshi Line subway. It's a common transfer, and I noticed those taking the same route as me further ahead on the crowded escalator were putting up their umbrellas for the short period in the drizzle between coverings over escalator and at subway entrance. The first stanza of Street Ecstasy occurred to me, and I worked through the ideas it contained for me over the following months to produce the piece below. A friend who I showed the draft to said the message it contains is simply "live", and I like that a lot. There are also some embellishments along the way that I feel make the journey worthwhile though, including a summary of Terence McKenna's stoned ape hypothesis that I'm particularly happy with. Also, the final point is serving me well during the cold of Tokyo's winter months this year.
​

Street Ecstasy:
A Paean to Perseverance

    Take down
    your umbrella.
    The weather’s
    the only
    embrace of nature
    we can feel
    in this town.

Become more comfortable
in inclement climes,
reminded of the time
we were at one
with Mother Earth.

Our original birthright
is profuse supply
AND lack,
pack communing
AND self reliance,
in equal measure.
These days
we’ve been trained
to see one of each
of these dichotomies
as pain
its opposite as pleasure.
To take both together,
to stow away whatever
ultimately ineffectual
umbrella it is
that you’re
protecting yourself,
unrealisingly dividing,
with,
is to invite communion
with something
vitally more than human,
to become a sometime lover
of the capriciously passionate Pan.

Try as you might
in the midst of this
numinous
yet still,
nevertheless,
less than consensual union,
just a casual mind-fuck for Puck,
you can’t help
but be swept
back in time,
and wide-eyed
find yourself
fleetingly identified
with the first
self-conscious
troglodyte.
She went outside to pee,
awoken from dreams
after orgy
caused
by psychedelic spores
foraged earlier that day
from atop the turds
of ungulate herds.
Now she stares upwards
at a night of stars
in wonder:

“What are they?”

“What am I that observes?”

What are we
blundering towards
in out techno-logic-only,
separating society,
when all joy
with any deeper meaning
is really the feeling
of being a part of,
belonging within,
a mind-bogglingly large
work of art,
each a song theme
in the universe symphony?
Could it be
that all we need to do
to reconnect
with first ecstasy
in the streets
of the cities
is to remove our shoes,
or refuse
the ceaseless food supply
sometimes?

Thereby stepping
into recognition
of ancient monkey situation,
casting off conditioning,
embracing
the traditional pain
of being an animal
hanging on
by teeth’s skin.
Seeing clearly
that we’re suspended,
mid-air,
from everything
for which we care
by a thin string,
the weight-bearing ability
of which
is a constantly keening
uncertainty.

Be at ease
with your difficulties -
body’s aches
and nature’s unpredictabilities
(which includes
other peoples’ vagaries too) -
not for a religion’s
theoretical cosmology
reasons
that’re often really
another means
of self-protection,
but from
an experientially rational
practicality
that states that
seeking comfort alone
is the path away
from the deepest
connectedness
it’s possible
for a lowly primate
to know.

So miss a meal,
be too hot or cool,
forgive a
foolish imposition,
feel love
refusing
to meet fruition,
underrate precipitation,
take on
the seemingly
impossible mission - 
forbear
the barely bearable.

For perhaps
it’s fair to say,
my fellow apes,
that in fact
the way to hell
is paved
with metaphorical umbrellas,
raised.


9th January 2017