Nomad Ink

Thursday, November 29, 2007

rock star

Earth is my rock/star, melting fire and stone. When Chris Funkhouser remarked that Thich Nhat Hanh was a "rock star," i felt like, oh no he isn't, he's the exact opposite. But of course Chris is right; Thay gets up in front of thousands of people, gets his ego out of the way (if he has any left after all these years of discipline) and channels pure compassionate, life-giving energy. When I watch powerful music performances, something is also being channeled, something more human: creativity, sexuality, spiritual yearning embodied in a variety of modes: anger, lust, passion, joy, cynicism, etc. A good performance is a condensed version of what it is to be human. Watching Iggy's "Passenger" on youtube brought this home to me in an anguished and joyful way; you see the gamut of emotion and exhaustion, duty, disciplined performance, seduction, sweetness, despair, maskedness, etc., in a compressed time/space that is exceptionally powerful. What do Iggy and Thay have in common. It seems a bit absurd to even ask the question, but the way life and death interpenetrate, and the desire to calm desire...iggy my rock of gutterality, thay my star of aspiration: iggy my star incandescent, thay my rock of stability.