A TIME: YARDSTOCK AND WHY IT RULED

(photo by James Sher)

Oswald Spengler, in The Decline of the West, coined the term “historical psuedomorphosis” to designate, as he explained, “those cases in which an older alien culture lies so massively over a land that a young culture, born in this land, cannot get its breath and fails not only to achieve pure and specific expression forms, but even to develop fully its own self-consciousness.” The figure was adopted from the terminology of the science of mineralogy, where the word psuedomorphosis, “false formation,” refers to the deceptive outer shape of a crystal that has solidified within a rock crevice or other mold incongruous to its inner structure. (Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, 1976)

All across the world, seemingly more than ever, there is an ongoing process of psuedomorphosis taking place and working itself out in rippling and congealing spasms of activity and contemplation. Information has exploded like a neutron star; the Internet is not a Web but a lightspeed evolving Octopian hydra with wires instead of veins and a billion computers for a billion neurons, synapses firing through new software rivers, with data from the real world feeding into the virtual and back out again in an endless copulating interchange; sensory information inhaled, digested, recombined and repurposed for higher & higher understanding – and it all came from the womb of that “older alien culture,” yet quickly turned loose. It’s becoming a sensory repository for the human imagination and is as much a culture in itself as it is a catalyst for cultural change, yea the boundary lines are impossible to discern. Stuff happens in, out, through, via, because of...

Occupy was merely the eyelids opening. What a world to gaze out on! It gazed and hammered back. Our instincts kicked in. These things always start politically but they must, if they are to survive their own internal transformations, step forwards lightly and mindfully. Mindfulness is the shield which both carves the path and brushes aside the thorns. If we lose ourselves to hate, then all our power is lost instantaneously, but not “to the other side” (there is no other side, no 1%, which is not an intimate part of who we are) – when we hate, when we can no longer forgive, then our power evaporates and even turns against us, deteriorating everything we’ve worked so hard for...

Yardstock (and any positive-creative gathering anywhere) is just one way in which Perth/Earth is oscillating wildly out of its own frightful psuedomorphosis and into a more fertile process of ongoing symbiosis. If psuedomorphosis is the secession of expression and independent thought to an older and more powerful cultural formation, then symbiosis is that newness of expression and thought which integrates the old, recombining and repurposing it for mutual self-transformation.

To put it more simply: there is no destruction taking place, only acceptance and mindful reformulation. Instead of complaint, we have action. Instead of critique, we have praise. Instead of taking, we have offering. Symbiosis.

The entire organic world is composed of smaller, inter-collaborating organic worlds, and has evolved through collaboration. This idea is called 'symbiogenesis' and is unravelled in great detail by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan over an extensive series of books ranging from 1970 to 2007. In Microcosmos (1987) they wrote:

From the first primordial bacteria to the present, myriads of symbiotically formed organisms have lived and died. But the microbial common denominator remains essentially unchanged. Our DNA is derived in an unbroken sequence from the same molecules in the earliest cells that formed at the edges of the first warm, shallow oceans. Our bodies, like those of all life, preserve the environment of an earlier earth. We coexist with present-day microbes and harbor remnants of others, symbiotically subsumed within our cells. In this way, the microcosm lives on in us and we in it.

Symbiosis is a kind of interwovenness, and at the human level it implies for me the idea of love. What I felt when I was at Yardstock was, at first, an ambience of sheer goodwill which, as time progressed, became something akin to a grinning and Platonic love for every human, dog, cat and creature in sight.

Love is a concept human beings have named, but what is the actual force behind the name? Is it some self-existent principle, some law of Nature, an actual energy or permeating field, like gravity or electricity? Is there simply an action performed with love, or can there be a thought fuelled by love? Or is love an invisible force which we must open ourselves up to, in order that it may flow through us? If love is an idea, then surely it must be all these things at once.

I believe love is an idea. It may be said that love is a fundamental, inborn idea, inherent to all of life. I say this because many would define primordial love as essentially a coming together, a unification, and we can see this process of unification in all aspects of the phenomenal world, from the microscopic to the telescopic. It is in the delicate balance and coming together of galactic forces which allowed for life on this planet to arise in the first place. It is the previously quoted biological symbiosis of our cells and bodies. It is there everytime a human being forgives another, accepts another despite ideological differences, everytime we dance, or jam, or collaborate in any way...

... it was there, at the end of the tangled wilderness in Yard Five, when the skateboard ramp was lined with onlookers and that one solitary board, piloted by an array of enthusiastic dudes of varying competence, drifted and crashed over the plywood turnpike, and no one jeered but instead clapped and cheered regardless of fall or flourish...

It’s there too in the way the organic world nourishes us when we eat it, and how we return that nourishment to it when we die; a coming together, a unity. It’s happening all around us, and indeed if we delve (both intellectually and physically) into the fractal fabric of time and space, we will see that the universe is inextricably, and infinitely, interwoven – and no organism, no mineral, no star or seed is exempt. I do not think this interwovenness is the same as love, but I think it gives rise to love’s sheer necessity. If everything we do has an impact, and we ourselves occupy the space of that impact (no matter how distant things may seem), then mindfulness is really key...

If love is simply an idea rather than some fundamental force bringing cohesion to the living universe, it loses none of its power. The 'fundamental force' thing is, at heart, just an idea. Ideas are powerful in this way because they are all-pervasive. I do not think there is anything in this world which exists without them. A termite is an idea; a plan of action to be enacted in the world in collision with an almost infinite array of other ideas, predator and prey alike. We ourselves are ideas, blueprint seeds bursting through the soil. Yet we extend beyond the double-helix and make conscious alterations to our own development when we draw from the realm of human ideas, i.e. collective imagination.

The collective imagination is like the internet; it is not a place of total cohesion. Our collective imagination holds within it many, many different truths. At one point in Yardstock there was a conflict: one world of ideas and another. Fitness and Fighting entangled with Music and Mingling. Surely there are no greater opposites? Yet if you refined each into a separate solution you’d end up with essentially the same thing: something distinctly human and desiring, somehow, to be happy in this world. When the two make contact, each infects the other, and we have to be mindful of what takes place. To understand what seems impossible to understand we have to travel back in time; everyone was a kid once. How does aggression fire aggression? Let it be, let it pass. Keep connection in mind.

He who knows others is clever, but he who knows himself is enlightened. He who overcomes others is strong, but he who overcomes himself is mightier still. (Tao Te Ching)

Thankfully the tension did not snap but passed like a cloud. I found my way into Yard Four and into the dense mass of smiling human beings all crammed into a tiny backyard reeling with the gnashing guitar, bass and primal drums of Fucking Teeth, beautifully cohesive, red-faced, ecstatic and snarling all at once, summoning up crowdsurfers and swaying bodies to n fro. Meanwhile, Miles the Party Dog is chasing sticks and tennis balls, loving life - and like pretty much every dog ever – serving as the greatest model for friendliness and acceptance you can hope for, setting the tone and platform for the rest of the party to launch from. Then came the galactic drift of These Shipwrecks, guitars traded out for synths and providing for a more ethereal vibe than ever but which, thanks to some casual & untempered vocals, was all strangely human and earthy Kraut-infected minimalism dividing the weed haze and baking in the fading remnants of the sun.

Yard Five next; arriving a touch late to the sound of Mental Powers. Sounds insane from outside, bouncing off streetlights and garden fences. I move to the backyard and spy bronze bells and steel lids mic’d up and clattering like centipede legs, rippling alongside repeatedly oscillating ribbon synths and Limbo’s usual kit replaced with an ancient-looking drum machine puttering away under firing lightning fingertips, all of it brewing up a kind of lunar junkyard atmosphere. Either this is the last song or the last movement of one huge song, either way it rules but ends about ten minutes after I get in. After that the partygoers drift into the yard which is actually a deep, deep jungle overgrown with enormous tangles of nasturtium, ferns and who-knows-what-else, so dark I can’t tell where the whole thing ends or begins. Social tribes intermingle and, as mentioned earlier, a neighbour’s skateboard ramp is occupied. The owner of the ramp comes out but she greets us with a smile and an amazing Irish Wolf Hound, telling us that the ramp belongs to her son who, when asked to build a storage shed, built this instead…

The police cut off the rest of the bands in Yard Five. It’s a damn shame. I didn’t talk with anyone about it properly, don’t know what the reasons were (noise complaints?) but they proceeded to follow us to the next Yard anyway… we can’t hate on them too much, the riots of the younger dudes the previous weekend got them standing on edge… though I'm a little worried about the new laws brewing against this stuff. Party Safe Posters might not cut it.   

At Yard Six the bristling energy of Hamjam kicked things off, real beautiful stuff. I was pretty out of it by then but every sound felt mixed to perfection; crowd got well into it, lights were pulsing, energy gathering, so nice.

It had to end there, though. The police had enough; maybe next time we can find some better understanding with them or, as plans seem to be brewing, Yardstock can hit Freo or, even better, go bush and become ForestStock. Truly that would take the whole thing to the next level.

Anyway, I’m deeply thankful to the organizers for putting it together, for cultivating some symbiosis and positivity all around. Again I’m thankful to all those who help to knit together the social and creative fabric of Perth (and, therefore, the world) Keeping everything inclusive, full of positivity and mutual encouragement is what’ll keep it strong and healthy for a long time running.

Beauty does not reside in the exclusion of certain realities, but in the absolute inclusion of all realities. (Friedrich Schiller)

Peace!

- Sneeks

WISE WORDS: STEPS 2 PEACE

The ancient people who desired to have a clear moral harmony in the world would first order their national life; those who desired to order their national life would first regulate their home life; those who desired to regulate their home life would first cultivate their personal lives; those who desired to cultivate their personal lives would first set their hearts right; those who desired to set their hearts right would first make their wills sincere; those who desired to make their wills sincere would first arrive at understanding; understanding comes from the exploration of knowledge of things. When the knowledge of things is gained, then understanding is reached; when understanding is reached, then the will is sincere; when the will is sincere, then the heart is set right; when the heart is set right, then the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, then the home life is regulated; when the home life regulated, then the national life is orderly; and when the national life is orderly: then the world is at peace. From the Emperor down to the common man, the cultivation of the personal life is the foundation for all. It is impossible that when the foundation is disorderly, the superstructure can be orderly. There has never been a tree whose trunk is slender and whose top branches are heavy and strong. There is a cause and a sequence in things, and a beginning and end in human affairs. To know the order of precedence is to have the beginning of wisdom.

(quote & translation taken from The Importance of Living (1938), by Lin Yutang)

WISE WORDS: LOVE & POWER

(Quotation source: Professor Hans Heinrich Schaeder, "Der Mensch in Orient und Okzident: Grundzuge einer eurasiatischen Geschichte" originally cited in Joseph Campbell's "Creative Mythology"]

Now the exercise of power is governed everywhere by the law of intensification, or as the Greeks would say, “greed for more than one’s share.” There is within it no principle of measure; measure is brought to it only from without, by counterforces that restrict it. So that history is the interaction of power, on one hand – its establishment, maintenance, and increase – and those counterforces, on the other. Various names have been given to the latter – of which the simplest and most inclusive is love. They are released when doubts arise (generally among the governed, but occasionally, also, in the circles of the ruling class) conducing to a criticism of the power principle. And this criticism may develop to the radical point of an absolute renunciation of power, generating then the idea and realization of an order of life based on brotherly love, and mutual aid. Self-confidence, and thereby the strength to influence others, accrues to those in this position from their belief that only in this, and not in power, which they reject, can the meaning of human existence be fulfilled. Meaning is then sought no longer in the organized powers of a state, the domination of the governed by their masters, but in individuals, giving and welcoming love.

When such an order prospers in its conversion of people, guiding them to new life, it may bring into being a spiritual movement that nothing can stop. This is passed on, from one generation to the next, and spreads from the narrow circle of its origin over lands and continents. It succeeds, along the way, in persuading even the holders of worldly power to concede recognition – either actually or ostensibly – to its truth and obligations, and lays restraints on their will to power that are not an effect of that will itself. Twice in the history of the world, in Buddhism and in Christianity, such movements have acquired the character of world-historical powers; and in the course of their development they have themselves become infected by the will to power and mastery, which has at times even darkened them to the core. Yet both are such that they can be restored to their pristine character, in the sense of the life and teaching of their founders.  

SOUND MIX: TIMECRAWL LIVING

‘Think that you are not yet begotten, think that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you are dead, that you are in the world beyond the grave, grasp all that in your thought at once, all times and places.’ – Hermetica.

‘The formless moves to the realm of form; the formed moves back to the realm of formlessness. This all people alike understand. But it is not something to be reached by striving. People everywhere debate how to reach it. But those who have reached it do not debate, and those who debate have not reached it.’ – Chuang Tzu, Taoist sage.

I’d like to pour a substance over the earth. It’d be an oozing, halting sap, as sweet as raw honey, and drawn from a secret and incredibly ancient tree embedded deep in the heart of a mist-drenched Japanese forest. I would mix this mystic sap in a cauldron with the clear and soothing goo of aloe vera, and then I would warm it to the temperature of freshly baked bread by infusing it with the superheated vapor of salvia divinorum. I would then add some magic crystals to ensure that the substance was highly absorbent and extremely colorful. After this I would place the giant bubbling cauldron of magic sap in an echo chamber and let it resonate with an array of sounds like the ones mixed above, gently simmering it together for twelve years straight. By then the substance would be fully imbued with an energy of raw healing slowness, and I would proceed to pour it over the planet. Clocks everywhere would melt into a highly nutritious and organic paste. Jobs everywhere would crumble into gardening and caring for cats. People everywhere would start thanking the sun. Kids everywhere would breathe a sigh of relief, and roads everywhere would give way to their living inner jungle. Cities would become playground skatepark canvasses, and offices would become homes. People would try and thank me, but I would wave my hand and say, “No, thank you for believing in the power of the sap!” 

Then we would all play a game of chinlone.

- Sneeks

01. WYLD WYZRDS - Forest Light (Free Magick, 2011)
02. Colleen - The Happy Sea (The Golden Morning Breaks, 2005)
03. Growing - Primitive Associations / Great Mass Above (The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light, 2004)
04. Function - Shards (The Secret Miracle Fountain, 2006)
05. Brightblack Morning Light - Friend of Time (Self-titled, 2006)
06. Mountains - Add Infinity (Choral, 2009)
07. Animal Collective - Daffy Duck (Feels, 2005)

WATCH: FULL OF LIFE

Utterly unabashed, how else to show it? Fish swimming in an eye-reflected ocean, true text full of life materialising; droplet piano keys, oceanic feelings, symbiosis in a thumb;

‘Life… stretches out before them,’ guided by the Earth Mother from the height of a stainless plaza; clouds drift, ocean revealed, smile child in pondering thought, new tears in a still lake: ‘This is their story.’ 

‘Be ready.’

No meaning veiled, no need. The early cultivation of an empathetic heart is the story; to imagine the self within the other, to see the rabbit in the moon. Who coupled sentimentality with foolishness? To feel grateful for what is given was once called wisdom. Listen, as the lyrics request, to ‘the seashell’s tale’;

Toshiro Kanamuri cools me out. In fifty minutes, four key lessons, helping kids swim the inner river, the guide, free passage to all who let go. Kanamuri is Education Walking, hence the meaning, e-ducere, “to lead or draw forth” – not a mere one-way authority but a releaser, an unraveller. Every inch of every simple truth closely examined, written about, spoken, understood. 

“Grandma was dead. She seemed to be asleep. But she was dead. When it was time for her to go, we put flowers in her coffin. Tears were pouring down my face, everyone was crying. We went by bus to the crematorium. In about one hour, Grandma was turned into bones. Grandma was gone. I was sad.”

In how many classrooms do such words resound? Death recurs in Full of Life, not shunned or swept away, but discussed. Through this event an even greater secret is revealed, and catharsis ensues. 

 “Of [the] two attitudes toward death, one views death as something to scurry away from and the other as something that will just take care of itself. How far they both are from understanding death's true significance!” - Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

After this, new lessons: bullying confronted, picked apart, resolved through ownership and empathy. Then: a chattering student banned from rafting, yet rescued as friends rise to his defence: “Yuto shouldn’t have been talking so much in class. But it’s partly our fault, too. We can’t just leave him behind. That’s not fair. If he stays behind, I will, too.”

‘A perfect victory,’ states Kanamuri. Friendship is viable, worth nurturing, and a realizable virtue.

Key lessons for every school, and with what is taught now, which subjects enrich our capacity for love? The question is one of emphasis. To strengthen bonds, Kanamuri encourages vulnerability, and guides each day with letters as a voice for inner thoughts. Death is a shared experience, and friendship the highest ideal. 

Kanamuri’s final words leave an imprint: “All the things we did together in the last two years. We were all doing what we can to understanding the meaning of life. We can all be proud of it.”

Can every stretch of school end on this note? 

Watch it here.

- Sneeks

SOUNDS: LEAFY SUBURBS / SACRED FLOWER UNION SPLIT CASSETTE

What? A cassette/digital release, stream it here

Where? Western Australia, via Future Past Records.

Listenthru Count? Probably about ten to fifteen times.

Best when and where? Cycling around at night.

In the haze of “Glow Bugs / Pool” the fluorescent altershaping light ledges encrusting Council House are slowly awakening. The usually turbulent lawnmowers are being drawn down through the soil by the rippling tendrils of grass they once manicured. Cars rust, trees writhe, pavement cracks. Unraveling vines of synth bubble and summon the first patter of drums. The night is young and the lights on Council House, now alert, are gathering energy. They fire slow, highly-concentrated neon rays at whatever seems most resistant. Traffic lights melt under the pressure, their steel beams bending over like dank bits of licorice on an intense summer’s day. Human beings are transformed into whirling fireflies, and a bright array of steel drums chatter away in celebration. As the rays soak the streetscape a cloud of creatures burst from the ground, little nocturnal-eyed reptilian-monkeys interlocking in a saliva-drenched kicks and yelps. About 13 minutes and 15 seconds into all of this and the chaos of initial transformation eventually subsides, yielding to the feeding habits of a newly formed array of creatures with capes of liquid steel and lawnmower blades for teeth.

“Strange Eden” is the still-bubbling residue of “Glow Bugs” licked clean by a bus-sized, metallic panther. It slinks through the city preying on a stray car, diamond teeth puncturing tire and axle in an effortless crunch. “Sumertime” warps forward another few hundred years. Little remains of Council House save for a single undulating miasma of light, the coagulated remainder of a hundred years of oozing neon packed into a 3 x 3 cube. Everything within a ten mile radius of this cube is just quivering dust. You walk over this inert outstretched mass, towards the light… the twanging guitar and rigid, inwardly-collapsing percussion should be warning enough, yet you venture on. You are somewhere in the sleepy borderland of a confused and blurry-eyed dream; grey clouds roll together to form a nebulous halo around the emergent moon and from the west a raven-feathered embroidery of nightfall drowns out everything else. Your subterranean imagination unravels, accompanied by piercing stabs of Mediterranean synth. Everything fades to black.

You awaken to the clamorous chimes and stop-start guitar of “Up, Enenra,” feeling dazed yet at peace. You are in an enormous chamber, its ancient stone walls are the colour of fading sunlight and they stretch as far as you can comprehend. A youthful chorus of human voices echoes in from somewhere above and they guide your mind’s eye to a dimensional rift opening just ten meters from where you’re standing. The widening rift spits out reams of trailing and gurgling synth-lines whose energy is tangible and coils around your wrists and ankles, pulling you in. You don’t care. Your blood is warming. It’s very peaceful.

- Sneeks

SNAX: KORNER CAFE

There is a hair salon in Inglewood called Klassy Kuts. It's right next door to Leonard Cohen's legal service. For some reason, those Ks-where-Cs-should-be have always amused me. My dad (who lives near Inglewood and is a big Leonard Cohen fan) always said 'small minds are easily amused'. Usually he would say this when my brother and I were teasing him from the backseat about a conspiracy we made up, the crux of which was that Dad was actually a cat who morphed into a human whenever anyone was looking. We would taunt him about it until he would give up and say 'yes kids, I'm a cat', in the hope that we'd get bored, at which point we'd erupt into cries of 'HE ADMITS IT!'.

There is a cafe in Perth called Korner Cafe. It's right near Dada records, but on Hay Street. For some reason, only the 'Korner' in Korner Cafe has swapped it's traditional C for a K. It's still amusing enough. They also do really really great Veggie Pad Thai for $8.95. Strongly recommended. 

- Tine

KORNER CAFE

546 HAY ST, PERTH

93253787

ADDENDUM: It has recently come to my attention that Korner Cafe have forsaken their klassy ways and opted for a curvy old C. Fortunately it has had no obvious effect on the quality of the Pad Thai.

For archaeological purposes, I present the following picture:

GOOD AFTERNOON

Welcome to Obstacle Illusion. 

YEP!