My mind’s been going places without me lately. . .really, with all this vortex stuff going on plus all the stuff that seems to be stirring in me just from the act of "waking up" from my summer’s hibernation is leaving me very disconnectedly detached and drifting through dreamscapes. . .I just got back from seeing Sheila, however, and we discussed my current work as well as my frame of mind and I have achieved a new clarity about what is going an in all my art and my psyche at the moment. . .it is exciting and terrifying at the same time as it appears that my once greatest fear has come to fruition – I have become a DECONSTRUCTIONIST!!!!! (feel free to run screaming into the night now)

Despite this immense horror, however I am also coming to something almost religious, thus I feel quite certain that you and I are embarking upon paralell quests at the moment.

You are seeking a new faith, and I am quite certain now that I am creating a new religion as well as synthesizing/reconciling my post-modern nihilistic inclinations with my romantic/imaginative leanings. . .I was always the Romantic really – I moved into Modernism at Uvic and now I think I am finally emerging as a post-modern entity, though I have done more than (oh the horror) become a deconstructionist, I have found the place, at least in myself, where paradoxical though it may seem, romanticism and post modernism can work together. . .and in doing so I have arrived at a sort of religious understanding of myself which paralells the ideas of Blake.

Blake created his own mythology/religion and I am definitely doing the same – a personal religion and mythology – not a cult for anyone other than myself to follow – just defining my own belief which is very reminiscent of Blake and also hightly post-modern in that I am very much in the process of defining my own reality and challenging any kind of certainty or selfhood.

I feel I have also established a new relationship to belief which paralell’s Blake's exploration of innocence and experience. . .Blake expressed a movement from innocence through experience into a state of Innocence which synthesized both innocence and experience, and transcended both. . .

I feel that in my personal mythology/religion, in my own little vision quest, that I have gone through a similar movement, though I am defining my progression as a movement from dysBelief through Disbeleif into a state of DisBelief which synthesizes and transcends the previous states. (*1)

I see dysBelief as a state of believing one specific thing is true/right (ie that there is only one correct way to interpret reality – Christianity is a prime example of dysBelief). I capitalized the B because it represents what is traditionally defined as beleief (ie believing in only one true God is usually considered belief by those who believe such things) but it is dysBelief because in choosing to believe in one thing one chooses to not believe in many many more things (ie if you believe in the Christian God there are a plethora of gods in whom you do not believe). I have spelled it "dys" because I feel this sort of beleief is, because of what I have just stated, a form of anti-belief. It is also a dysfunctional manifestation of belief – deluding oneself into beleiving one thing alone is true limits one’s potential to grow or gain new understanding as it limits thought to that which is circumscribed by an unhealthy belief system.

Disbelief is basically nihilism leaning towards atheism. It is a state of not believing in anything except non-beleif, where one rejects the proposals of dysBeleif, but tends to replace the absolute notion that certain things are decidedly true/right with the notion that the same things are decidedly untrue/wrong (ie an atheist does not believe there is a Christian God, or any other God. . .but an atheist does believe that there is not a god. . . – there is still an absolute statement made here. . .there is still some semblance of CERTAINTY – though certainty fades as the state of Disbelief progresses). Disbelief is an evolutionary step forward but it is also often reactionary. . .it can become devastating spiritually because in rejecting the notion that one thing is true and certain, that only one world view is possible, one invariably gets bogged down into believing nothing is possible – no purpose, no meaning, no hope for redemption – if there is no good or evil, no god, no design to the universe what is the point? Why continue to exist? In Disbelief one also grows to question oneself, one’s own existence, the validity of every thought or idea. . .the self is thrown into turmoil. . .it is the Slough of Despond, the Dark Night of the Soul. . .

DisBelief is the synthesis of the first two stages, it is ironically both a more "pure" form of nihilism than the nihilism of Disbelief (ie many nihlilists in Disbelief would state that there is no meaning to the universe while a nihilist in DisBelief would state that they do not believe that there is meaning to the universe but that they do not believe there isn’t meaning to the universe either – which I think is more true to the definition of nihilism as a nihilist doesn’t believe anything, thus can make no absolute statement as to whether the universe has meaning or not) and is also nihilism mixed with pantheism as it invariably moves beyond believing nothing into believing everything is possible. . . It is believing nothing yet at the same time believing everything. . .refusing to state that any one thing is true but in doing so also beleiving that all things are possible. In refusing to limit ourselves to a single rigid belief system we open ourselves to the notion of infinite possiblility. In DisBelief the despair of Disbelief subsides as we become aware that in an infinite multiverse filled with infinite possibility it doesn’t matter if life has meaning or purpose, the concepts of right, wrong, good, evil, true and untrue lose all relevence, all meaning. . .we cease to want them. . .cease to care. . .we finally allow ourselves to be liberated by our release from dysBelief and begin to soar. In DisBelief we begin to contemplate the possibility that somewhere in the multiverse all possibilities real and imagined Are. . .

There is still a strong nihilistic bent, but it is, dare I say it for its wealth of contradictions, a "spiritual nihilism" a state of transcendence of both reality and selfhood through negative capability. Thus in my current work The Vortex Collective can become anything because they are nothing, they can create anything, percieve anything because they believe nothing but in believing nothing they are believing everything is possible.

Their power arises from their acceptance/understanding/acknowledgement of the possibility that in a multiverse of infinite possibility all things both real and imagined ARE. . somewhere. Somewhere in the multiverse Star Trek is real, somewhere out there are Greek gods. . .and if everything imagined is reality somewhere then, perhaps, imagination CREATES reality. . .humans unconsciously create their reality but The Vortex Collective do so consciously because they understand this relationship between what is real and what is imagined.

And if imagination and belief do spawn reality, if all thing are possible and all possibilities are played out then there is no need to be right or wrong – no need to beat belief down other’s throats – no need to kill or convert – we are all both right and wrong depending on how we choose to percieve things, it fact the very terms right and wrong become meaningless and irrlelevant.

There is also a post-modern element to The Vortex Collective in that as a species they have not true form but assume the forms of beings in the various worlds they visit – they thus illustrate/reflect the post-modern notion of the self which is defined/created by context, though ironically/paradoxically I am using them to define myself outside of my own human context. . .thus I think the voice in Where Is My Vortex? Is a tad confused – it is trying to be the amorphous Random but the bitter voice of the contextually defined human self (ie Lia!) bleeds through in it’s bitterness and misanthropy – once again it is ironic that it is the human part of Random that is misanthropic, the vorticular entity is ambiguous, indifferent, non-judgemental but it has been influenced by context – by humanity into making a value judgement which arises more from her bitterness towards her context than from her true nature (except that she has no true nature. . .you see the post modern thing happening here. . .things get way too confusing as every statement I make deconstructs itself. . .damn you Jacques Derrida!! Damn you all to HELL hehe.)

Remember how depressed I got when first confronted with all this contemporary literary theory – how I couldn’t go home alone after Dr. Cobley’s class because – though I had already rejected Christianity I was still desperate to BELIEVE in something - anything – I was clinging to the notion of the self as the one thing I could believe in and Derrida was hitting too close to home because I was finding it more and more difficult to continue to believe – I had begun the descent from dysBelief into Disbelief. . .I was appalled by deconstruction but couldn’t dismiss it because the argument was so logical – it seemed so "right" – yet terrifying (though even then I was a bit excited, even then I caught a glimpse of infinite possibility).

Halifax sent me plummeting into Disbelief – and I arrived there when I "exceeded the reccomended dose" of melleril – I remember saying to myself as I approached that moment "Derrida was right" and thinking there was nothing to continue for – "how can I believe in myself when I don’t have one" was the statement I made to a deconstructionist prof at Dal only weeks before my attempt and even though it was a failure in one sense I think metaphorically it was successful – the last fragment of dysBelief died and I was reborn into Disbelief, it was in Halifax that I actually began to call myself a nihilist. (*2)

So after that I felt dead for so long – I was walking through the plane of Disbelief – feeling its spiritual devastation. . .but now something is changing, moving, stirring in me – up until now I have felt my art and poetry have been redundant to some extent, same old same old, telling the same story over and over again but now I am developing, moving from Disbelief into DisBelief. . .

And so I am revisiting things – coming full circle – I’m visiting Halifax in the week after next, I’ve named my species after The Vortex Collective, dedicated the fist bit of vorticular writing to you guys and to Toby Foshay, (ie "Where is Your Vortex?") and titled it after the first chapter of his book which we saw in the bookstore – that was soooo bizarre, and Java serving "whirling vortex cheesecake" that same day when we went there for coffee. . .we are just SOOOOOOO paranormal!! (btw I have decided to seek out that book – Macpherson must have it and I can order books from there through the NIC library – it is going to be my Holy Grail – after all Dr. Foshay is the ultimate post modern man! I see now that his presence on my committee of readers was prophetic! Hehe)

Anyway – all this revisiting is also reminiscent of Woolf’s notion of psychological time – she believed that the past and the present and future coallesced in the psyche, and my past is definitely bleeding into my present and pushing me towards the future. . .and of course in The Vortex time does not exist and all periods in history coelesce so now I’m merging modernism into my post-modern and romantic little stew. . .

Anyway with all this going on I am feeling torn asunder, at first I thought it was that I had gone too far – over the edge. . .like that idea of Michael Ondaatje’s about the artist standing on the edge of chaos. . .I’m sure we talked about this back at Uvic – Secular Love being full of those images of the poet on the edge of a cliff beside the sea representing the Artist figure’s position, at least in the romantic camp, standing on the edge of chaos – to step over the edge however tempting is self destruction, is madness, but to step away from the edge, though safer, more comfortable means the death of the creative impulse – so the Artist is always trapped in this precarious balance, trying to achieve "that razor’s edge of balance between opposing forces" as Woolf would say. . .I thought maybe I had overstepped that edge lately – I’ve been paranoid and anxious thinking no one wants to be near me because I have scorned humanity and gone too far but yesterday I got this cumpulsion, which I have never had before, to name and define the most prevelent "selves" that inhabit my inner landscape. . .perhaps a sort of paralell to my definitions I created to define The Vortex Collective (I have enclosed all the written stuff pertaining to this species. . .)(*3)

Anyway – this is what I got. . .

Lia!: The name the outside self is using at the moment: this title is subject to change.

Random: The Vorticular Entity. Hyper-intelligent, nie-omnipotent, pan-dimensional, non-corporeal. She has no true form but assumes whatever form she chooses in a given moment. Amorphous, decidedly non-human. She does not distinguish imagination from reality. For her Imagination IS reality as in the vast infinity of the multiverse all things imagined are so. If I could wholly be any self I would be she.

Sylvia: (aka The Beast, The Fury, My Demon, My Pet Monster. . .): The raging, bitter, spiteful, wrathful,bitter, self-loathing, malevolent hate-filled self. The red-haired demon who tears asunder the psyche hating all other selves and herself and the universe at large. The most destructive inner entity who appears as a flaming haired she-devil but unmasked is a bitter spiteful little girl. Beware Sylvia’s Wrath. (groan heheh)

Nihl: The supreme nihilist. She desires nothing: wants nothing, wants to be nothing, believes in nothing etc. . .she loves sleep and hates consciousness. She is Comfortably Numb – she wants death to bring her to oblivion, to silence all the voices of all the other selves and leave her in peace. . .she wants to lose selfhood entirely. . .sacrifice the ego to oblivion. She is the black-haired worshipper of negative capability.

Tempest: The synthesizer, the balancer the empassioned, red-haired artist who feels all things from all selves and seeks to reconcile them, express them. . .all other selves bleed into her and she transforms their energy with her imagination. She appreciates both dark and light elements of the selves – sees the beauty in all extremes and does not negate in her syntheses of selves. She is the one who "only connects" who achieves "that razors edge of balance between opposing forces". . .she is also analytical and intellectual. . .she conceptualises and analyses selves as well as expressing and synthesizing them. . .she tries to give each self voice in its proper moment but is often overwhelmed by the bombardment of conflicting voices. . .

Kat: Darkly cynical and sarcastic, intellectual, cold and calculating at times, subtle, excersises and enjoys black humour – she is the wry eyebrow-arching raven-tressed intellectual. She is also the rational element of the psyche – analytical, cautious. Witty, aloof – views life itself as a black comedy or some absurdist drama but laughs sardonically rather than being bogged down with rage and despair.

Mayhem: Manic, Irrepressible, intense, spontaneous, irrational, impulsive, out of control, dances and sings out loud, wears bell bottoms and platform shoes – immensely silly she takes absolutely nothing seriously – she is camp personified. The red-haired dynamo chock full of positive energy.

The Blonde: (died before I started naming and hardly nameworthy anyway. . .though Miranda might be approp.) innocent, naiive, optimistic, idealist, nicey-nice, The Beautiful Dreamer. . .believed the world was good, that people were just, that life had meaning, that she, or anyone else for that matter, could make a difference. She wanted to be "good". Derided (*4) by all the other selves, especially Sylvia and Kat – she died in 1994 and only Tempest has ever felt the slightest mourning at her passage. . .(actually I am a tad harsh here – Tempest does feel her loss because some part of her wishes The Blonde’s ideals could have been applicable, but accepting that The Blonde was really the stronghold of dysBelief her demise was really an evolutionary necessity. . .innocence cannot survive experience but out if experience a new Innocence arises. . .)

Actually I’ve considered The Blonde and her psychological significance. As for her demise - though Nil and Kat brought her down Sylvia definitely killed her – though , as I have already stated, I think it was a necessary occurance for the point of transition – her official point of death is of coarse the suicide attempt - the point at which I fully moved from dysBelief into Disbelief (she was, after all, responsible for my descent into Christianity). . .and now as I move towards DisBelief Random has been born in her place. . .Random is the new Dreamer, The Less Vomitous Dreamer, and is one who can make reality of her dreams. . .

Hmm – kind of a (ack) Christian metaphor – The Blonde being the innocent who died for the sake of the other selves, the Christ figure, or at least a martyr. . .making the newborn Random, her nie-omnipotent counterpart almost represent an apotheosis – The Dreamer self dies only to be reborn years later into something both more powerful and more plausable (and less vomitous, we mustn’t forget less vomitous) than what she had previously been. . .She is a phoenix rising from it’s own ash and transformed into a better bird (*5)

But I have digressed, my original point about all these selves and my current state of agitiation is that I was afraid I had crossed the threshold – stepped over Ondaatje’s edge but now I see that in waking up from my hibernatory summer of being Nihil and Nil alone I have awakened ALL my active selves including Sylvia and as always Sylvia is PISSED.

Once again I am compelled to quote Woolf. . .in Mrs. Dalloway Clarissa has a revelation about her own inner beast. . .
 

It rasped her, though, to have stirring about in her this brutal monster! To hear twigs
cracking and hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest, the soul;
never to be content quite, or quite secure, for at any moment the brute would be stirring,
this hatred, which, especially since her illness, had power to make her feel scraped, hurt
in her spine; gave her physical pain, and made all pleasure in beauty, in friendship, in
being loved and making her home delightful rock, quiver, and bend as if indeed there
were a monster grubbing away at the roots, as if the whole panoply of content were
nothing but self-love! This hatred!
 
 

I’ve also figured out my ceramics block – it parallels my feelings about my body at the moment.

The issue – I’ve gotten very Rubenesque over the last few years and am not pleased with this – it’s weird because I see other women with similar shapes and think they are very attractive, but the issue is not that my body is unnactractive so much as that it is not me – it is very earthy and goddessy and fecund but I am not – and on women who are all of those things such a physical form is beautiful, but my conflict with myself is that I look like an earth goddess but I am sooooooo not of this earth – my physicality defies my spirituality. . .

And this relates to clay because I am trying to make vortices out of clay but it is a very earthy medium, in fact it is earth really and how do I make of earth something that is unearthly. . .Lia! finds herself yet another paradox. . .all my vortices in clay are looking very Judy Chicago (ie they look like vulvas) which isn’t bad in and of itself but is very frustrating in that that is not what I’m trying to achieve (ie I like a good vulva as much as the next gal but when you’re aiming for vortices they get in the way). . .of course this is the root of my dilemma – trying to find the ethereal and being brought back to the physical reality of a woman’s body. . .ie a HUMAN body. .

Conclusion – I have to stop trying to make vortices in clay (or just start consciously making them vulvas), I have to somehow reconcile myself with the physical world despite the overwhelming pull of the imaginative – I must once again "only connect the passion and the prose" – find some beauty in the physical and worldly – in this damned human body, in the earth. . .then something will happen in clay. . .though I’m not sure I’m anywhere near that point psychologically. . .

Anyway – I’ve written a freakin’ book here – I hope this doesn’t bore you to tears but I had to work this through. . .I think there IS a book coming out of me – something with an assemblage of fragments about this whole vortex thing – poems, prose, images, stories, theory etc all rolled into one. . .something I may even be compelled to publish. . .(cringe). . .this letter will most likely be in it . . .in fact I’ll be forwarding it to my instructors since it’s pretty relevent to what’s happening at school, and of course Sheila needs a copy, just so you know. . .though I am sure of all beings in the multiverse right now you may be the only one who may truly understand all this. . .if any of this is understandable. . .

May you find validation in your own quest. . .

Random