So I'm tempted to experience desire as an impersonal thing. As an impersonal essence that flows through me (and everyone else) and which I make my own as if I had diverted a portion of the water from the river to run down the mill stream to turn my water wheel.
And, in diverting it to run down my own mill stream, I make that desire personal. But look. I have realised that not all my desire is my desire. That desire to live in an ivory tower is actually my mum's. That desire for a certain kind of hetaira seems to be my dad's. So it may be personal but it isn't necessarily mine. And then again, that desire elicited by the smell of freshly baked bread or the sound of seagulls or the sight of a stocking-top seems to be so familiar to so many others that it is neither personal nor mine but belongs to the collective or is simply 'on the ether'. Though it still feels personal. In my solo session with Sandra, I drew six shapes. I knew they should be significant, so I called upon my capacity for channelling sacred geometry to summon up these shapes. Honestly, a two-year-old could have done it. It's so easy. In the flub.shape, which represents the current issue, I wrote about my desire project:
In the electric hedgehog shape, which used to be the shape I associated with my son as a boy, and which represents a good outcome, I wrote about:
In the crossbow shape, I wrote about what could get in the way:
In the circle, which represents ???, I wrote:
In the heartshape, I wrote about ???:
In the triangle, I wrote about ???:
When desire suddenly or unexpectedly falls away, leaving a dull, grey swell, there must still be desire somewhere. Mustn't there?
If it's 'my' desire, it must be lurking somewhere, in an inner cavern or under a stone. Surely it cannot disappear because, then, where does it regenerate itself from? If it's a collective desire that I channel, then I am simply closing my channel. Either way, it seems that the dull, grey swell of an uneventful, desire-free Thursday actually contains all the desire that one could possibly want. Or at least the potential for desire. [The Georgians call desire: სურვილი, pronounced survili. That word seems to be just bubbling with desire in its written form.) Then it's easy to see how the swell of [potential] desire can be activated or actualised by a suitable object - a bacon sandwich, a rabbit-skin coat, a good book or a bad boy or a scarlet woman. But can it be activated or actualised without an object? Can I get the desire flowing through, as when one pumps vigorously on the little teat to encourage the petrol into the carburettor of the lawn-mower, without having any object for it? Well, yes and no. Unhampered by sentimentality, I suppose that I could more easily wield the shining sword of unalloyed truth. Or of unalloyed desire.
How absurd to think that there could be such a thing as unalloyed truth. Unhampered by care, I suppose that I could always cut and move on - leaving behind old values, ideas, beliefs and other clutter. Unhampered by a dislike of hampering, cluttering, alloying, connectedness, obligation and commitment, I suppose that I could be a far more generous participant in joined-up community. Or in collective desire. |