Fish In the Afternoon

Womanhood is all in the details.

Katie

It’s just after midnight, and you’re curled up next to me, your legs hooking my knees like roots in the earth. I’ve been thinking a lot about womanhood lately – mine, yours, theirs, ours. My womanhood feels quiet, lace weaving through my flesh, barely touching sense to sense. Gender doesn’t mean anything; it is meaning-making, mattering. Infant tactility in chiasmic contact with the world chords sense-itself and grows into fleshy symbolism. There’s thunder overhead. Tornadoes, maybe, hail maybe. Teddy and Luna hate storms, so they’re puddled together at our feet. Sable remains perched in her frog tower aloft the refrigerator, surveilling her domain. What does this have to do with gender? Everything.

Quiet is the full absence that appears when one encounters sense-in-itself. Silence is where we first meet Being. Our Being-Unique is to sense as essence is to energy. My skin is tired, muscles tense, dull-static singing electric. I’m glad we have the day off tomorrow. I need a hot bath, to un-tense and scrub with juniper berry and strawberry salt. We need more butter. When I encounter the table, I encounter myself at the table, I encounter myself-at-the-table, I encounter you. Let’s kiss on the kitchen counter, let’s make an evening of it. The world begins as unknown flesh; we emerge in echoic contact. Always-already entangled in the sea of intensities, we grasp each moment as an instance of harmonic texture. The skin of the cosmos has goosebumps. I wonder why?

A few days later, I’m back in the heart of Empire. National Guardsmen bog the metro. Where do you think they’re from? Do they miss their families? Lost children killing lost children. What do they see me as? Flesh articulates the inner sanctum, saying please: refer to me, see me, hear me. “Woman” signifies something always-present but not-quite-there, gender-being emerging as possibilia in the palace of the Archons. A man stared at me on the metro today. For what reason? Sellars mumbles something about space. If only philosophy could take a time out and sip the evening calm. I’m a woman, but let’s not talk about that. Leviathan cuts everything into function, penis and vulva becoming machines of (re)production, teleologically oriented towards self-generating jism. Woman up and stop measuring yourself against others. Man up and take off the badge.

Being apart peels the outer layers of placetime, tearing ribbons of duration from the pulp of memory. It’s hard to sleep without you on my breast. You’re a savior: Luna rescued from a Walmart parking lot, leaving behind a cart of groceries to bottle feed her; Ted saved from being a stud dog at the puppy mill, now able to lay his scarred chest on a fuzzy pink bed; Sable brought home from a Coldstone dumpster, learning to beep and paw rather than survive off melted Heath bars. My angel. Philosophers make a mistake whenever they speak of the good, the right, the virtuous. All I see are people. The ethical is a style of being-with-others, a pattern of Being-Unique that synthesizes the Uniqueness of others into one’s own creative activity. Whenever you watch a play, I see your eyes alight and mist with other-knowing: to see the many come together, undiluted as one. If the Trinity means anything, it means kids putting on a production of Little Women at the community theatre and giving flowers to the director. You’ll be in your own plays soon. I can’t wait.

Gender is what we do when no one is watching; being gendered is being watched. Thank you for showing me how to be a woman by showing me how to be at home in myself, to take in the details and feel the warm amber hue of the solar feminine sigh gently in the hearth of my soul. A dove returns bearing an olive leaf, Mt. Ararat appearing in the distance. Forty days and forty nights is far too long. Just a few more sleeps.

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Image: The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge by Thomas Cole (1829)

Do not make an idol for yourself – no form whatsoever – of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them…

Exodus 20.4-5 (CEB)

First, we act. Grasp, walk, touch, taste. Then, we sign. “Grasp, walk, touch, taste.” Signs bring us closer; they pull us further apart. I can now say: “here’s what I mean.” To say, I must be one step removed. First, we’re flesh. Grasp, walk, touch, taste. Then, we’re bodies. “Grasp, walk, touch, taste.” Bodies come together and come apart. We are languaging bodies (bodies languaging), we wave across the deep. Some waves pull us close and some waves separate. Idolatry takes us away from each other.

We learn to sense by sharing at birth, the gift of care-to-flesh. The body clarifies the flesh, makes it legible ({2,1,3}). Our sense cosmos forms by successive interactions that congeal into coherence (this sense-contingency → this actuality). Coherence is qualitative harmony, the world a plane of harmonies punctured with riffs, gaps, and discord. Harmonies group together into signs, generating, reproducing, accumulating. Symbols are dense signs; narratives are dense symbols. I can now say: “here’s what happened.” To say what happened, I must be two steps removed. Signs emerge from the un-speakable essence, energies emanating up from Adonai. The logos is God’s speaking-to-us, hallowed by Thy name. The inner home is unknowable; only energy is known. God comes to know herself by the light of her creatures. I know.

We want to tell our ancestors hello and our descendants goodbye. We bury generational memories in our language. Generational memory is contested ground. I can now say: “let me tell you a story.” To tell a story, I must be three steps removed. The human species-being is imago Dei, joining in the rhythms of creation by expressing Being-itself in Being-being-itself, Being-Unique. In the beginning was the Word. Names emerge from the un-speakable essence, signs emanating up from Self. Language is self-talk. I am that I am. History is the diary of the human species-being, Being-knowing-itself. Being knows itself by generational memory. Generational memory is contested ground. Idolatry takes us away from each other.

The future is open but clouded with symbols. Prophecy moves backward-and-forth, speaking in signs the un-speakable. Prophecy always speaks against idolatry; one moves us closer, the other further away. The incarnation is a proleptic revelation of the union of God and creation in self-knowing joy, somewhere we will arrive someday, someday someday when the waves bring us home. Free will is ours by the grace of God, God’s willing-us in our Being-Unique, that all shall be saved though we tarry. Hell is being lost; heaven is knocking on the door. Eventually, all souls come home, though some spend a long time apart. The communion of bodies in time emanates meaning, the cosmos in erotic consummation. Idolatry takes us away from each other.

As there is no firm foundation for the love of our brethren, except the love of God, so there is no possibility of loving God, except we keep ourselves from idols.

John Wesley, Sermon LXXXIII: On Spiritual Idolatry

The above proposition is occasionally useful.

Bertrand Russell & Alfred North Whitehead, Principia Mathematica (below the proof of ‘1 + 1 = 2’)

Tentative. Always tentative. Structural and intentional features are conflated to some degree here to reveal their connections and to show how distinct structures generate distinct intentional features. However, more work is needed to properly bridge the two. Or is it the three?

1. ∅
2. {∅}
3. ∅ ≠ {∅}
4. ∅ & { }
5. ∅ & { } & {∅}
6. ∅ is nothing.
7. { } is emptiness.
8. {∅} is the emptiness in which nothing appears: absence-in-itself.
9. {∅} is the precondition of Being.
10. Being is presence-within-absence, or filled emptiness.
11. ∅ and {∅} are pre-ontological (Pre(x)), or prior to existence: Pre(x) iff x ∈ {∅, {∅}}.
12. Being describes the set generated by the successor function operating on {∅}: S: Ord → Ord, S(n) = n ∪ {n}.
13. Therefore, to be is to be in addition to ∅: ∃x iff (x ∈ Im(S) & ¬Pre(x)).
14. In Ord, ∅ = 0 and {∅} = 1; however, ∅ and {∅} ∈ Pre(x), so the first member of the set of existent things is 2: S({∅}) = {∅} ∪ {{∅}}, or {∅,{∅}}.
15. {∅,{∅}} is presence-in-itself, or Being as such: the first division in absence that makes absence present to itself as that which is in addition to itself.
16. 3, or {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}}, then, is presence-to-itself, a division in presence that allows for Being to become present to itself. This results from the asymmetry and irreversibility of the Ord sequence. {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}} is related to {∅,{∅}} in that {∅,{∅}} is contained in {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}}, such that {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}} is about {∅,{∅}} but not vice-versa.
17. For any existent x (x ∈ Im(S) & ¬Pre(x)) and any y ∈ Ord, x is about y iff (i) y ∈ x, (ii) y ∉ x* for any x* ∈ x at the same Ord level, and (iii) the relation between x and y is irreversible under S; or: R_p(x,y) iff y = S⁻¹(x), where R_p denotes a primary aboutness relation.
18. In any case where y itself meets the condition R_p(y,z) iff z = S⁻¹(y), then a secondary aboutness relation holds between x and z, such that R_s(x,y,z) iff z = S⁻¹(y) & z = S⁻¹(S⁻¹(x)). The primary aboutness relation determines the immediate ancestral context of x, while secondary aboutness refers to the chain of ancestral contexts of y, z, …, n contained in x via repeated applications of S⁻¹(x). (Note: the conditions z = S⁻¹(y) and z = S⁻¹(S⁻¹(x)) are equivalent given R_p(x,y); however, it is worth making explicit the connection between S⁻¹(y) and S⁻¹(S⁻¹(x)) in differentiating primary and secondary aboutness)
19. 3 generates identity, where Being takes itself as identical with itself. Presence-in-itself is contained in the present-Being of presence-to-itself, so that presence-to-itself is about its own presence-in-itself.
20. {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}} is identical with the set containing ∅, {∅}, and {∅,{∅}}, and this identity includes an element that is not pre-ontological: {∅,{∅}} (part of what is identical with {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}} itself exists).
21. 4, or {∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}, {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}}}, is presence-for-itself, wherein Being’s presence-to-itself takes part of itself as in addition, and so determinable by itself. {∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}, {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}}} contains presence-in-itself and presence-to-itself in such a way that {∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}, {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}}} is about {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}}, which is itself about {∅,{∅}}.
22. 4 generates subjectivity, where Being’s identity as its present-Being takes itself as oriented towards another-Being, as Being-beyond-present-being, or Being-toward.
23. {∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}, {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}}} projects forward from the initial identification of {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}} with {∅, {∅}} as something in addition to this identity that is then identical with the set that contains the members of initial identity: ∅, {∅}, {∅,{∅}}, and {∅, {∅},{∅,{∅}}}.
24. Time is the result of additions to 4, where Being-toward is realized in additions that have aboutness relations with their ancestors, such that Being’s prior determination (y = S⁻¹(x)) is a member of its present-Being (S(x)), and its prior determination has a primary aboutness relation to y = S⁻¹(S⁻¹(x)), and so forth, terminating in the initial identity of {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}}} with {∅,{∅}}.
25. A time slice refers to any individual step in the sequence (which contains all prior steps), while time proper is the whole sequence understood in its (always-already incomplete) totality. Time is incomplete because it is open by the non-closure of S, with each addition containing all prior members of Ord and so all prior primary aboutness relations, rendering Being-across-Time as always-in-addition-to. Each time slice is a unique addition; time is the whole of all unique additions without end.

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons.

Pythagoras, quoted by Iamblichus of Chalcus in The Life of Pythagoras

Image: Black Square by Kazimir Malevich (1915)

Tell me your relation to pain, and I will tell you who you are!

Ernst Jünger, On Pain

Content note: discussion of neglect and abuse

Sit with me in the hollow of meaning. Don’t look at me. Eyes forward. I’m sorry. Does it hurt when I ask for freedom? Why do you want beauty from my words? Why do you want suffering to become poetry? Isn’t it enough? Must I rebuild what was unmade? Are you listening to what I’m saying or do you just like how it sounds? All language is flesh torn away from the body. 

Heaven help me, I don’t know which of my memories are the minotaur. No one is impressed by your rationality. When you hurt is it for a reason? Would it matter if it was? My mom used to say I’m aloof. I’m not. Am I? Please, tell me what’s going on. A therapist asked me to share a time my parents showed care. I couldn’t think of any. They’d say that’s not true. Years ago I would have just assumed I’m wrong. Now I know the minotaur is there. And I know you did nothing to stop it.

I have few memories of my childhood. The ones that appear are by myself or with others who did show care. I miss you, Nana. I miss you, Pappy. Sometimes I wish I knew what happened. I know I don’t want to remember. Why was that room full of broken glass? Why couldn’t I get to the doorway? Why did I not have a bed? You had an extra bedroom. Why wasn’t I allowed to sleep? Why do you think I deserved it? Why won’t you answer me? Answer me.

I used to draw on my walls. I wrote “Braille Teeth Bite” above the entrance. I wrote a poem that spiraled across the wood of the closet door. I drew spirits behind the cabinet. I kept my meaning hidden. You didn’t ask anyway. Those signifiers don’t exist anymore. Does a sign remain significant when it only appears in memory? It was significant to me. I tried my best. God was bored one evening I guess. 

I keep saying things I didn’t realize were traumas. My baby was concerned for me when we lost AC for half a day in the summer and I was home alone. I reassured her, we used to go without AC all the time. This is the norm many places, but not back home. You learn to adapt to a hundred degree house, sweating in the marshy air. If we had ice, which was rare, I could always chew it or rub it on my skin. If we had electricity, I could lay naked on the bed and point a fan at me. Most of the time it’s just endurance. You get used to it. 

Trauma forces adaptation. You learn to adapt to not knowing where food is coming from, to scrounging for ingredients that can be smashed together for calories. You learn to subsist on instant mashed potatoes and nothing else. You learn to adapt to the dark, to empty rooms, to rooms full of shit and piss. You learn to adapt to the screaming. You learn to adapt to sores and blisters and bruises and dirt and no running water. You learn to adapt to dangerous men. You learn to adapt to take the brunt of it. You learn to adapt because you have to. 

You learn to hike piles of trash to get to bed. You learn to crawl on the floor when you hurt so bad you can’t stand up. You learn to lift yourself up three feet off the ground in excruciating pain. You learn your body isn’t yours and you’re selfish for believing you owned it. You learn to fight back. You learn to surrender. You learn food is a privilege. You learn that sleep is a privilege. You learn that a shower is a privilege. You learn that clean clothes and a clean body and a clean home is a privilege. You learn that love is a privilege. You learn that it’s a privilege they didn’t kill you. You learn that no one’s coming
to help. You learn that you’re aloof.

Then, decades later, you learn it doesn’t have to be this way. You learn that love is a gift. You learn that your body is yours and it’s holy  and worthwhile. You learn that starving isn’t normal. You learn that dehydration isn’t normal. You learn that overheating isn’t normal. You learn that filth isn’t normal. You learn that being deprived of sleep isn’t normal. You learn that being assaulted isn’t normal. You learn that no one is supposed to touch you without your consent. You learn that showing care isn’t something that only happens to other people. You learn that everything that happened wasn’t your fault. You learn it’s okay to cry. 

And then you do. And you learn that none of it had to happen. That they had a choice and they chose to hurt you. And that it will never happen
again. 

If everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture?

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Image: Untitled by Taro Yamamoto (1974)

At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth,
when the earth was wild and waste,
darkness over the face of the Ocean,
rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters -- 
God said: Let there be light! And there was light.
God saw the light: that it was good.
God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light: Day! and the darkness he called: Night!
There was setting, there was dawning: one day.

Genesis 1.1 (trans. by Everett Fox)

One is itself-in-itself and irreplaceable. One emerges from Zero and Two, no-thing and being-with begetting being. Everything is because Zero cannot help but become Two become One. Wait for me in every world. My soul cannot help but find you. Quality emerges from quantity. Quantity is a note, an interval in the flow of being; quality is harmony, coherence, a pattern of notes acting together in relationship, the being-with that beings make. A quantitative change is a shift in the pattern of notes, while a qualitative change is a shift in harmony, one being-with ending to give way to the new. I love how you love me. I love to love you. Let’s sit in the swing and forget there ever was a time we were apart. Changes in quality emerge from changes in quantity. Zero and Two beget One and this One becomes Two. Two begets a new One, crawling from Zero and Two back to One again. Three, Four, Five. And far, far longer.

Changes in quantity become changes in quality by tension and release. Being flows in opposing directions, generating tension. Something must change. Tension is released when one flow overtakes another or both loop together in one stream. Who do I write to? Some are for you, others are for me. Take a moment and hold it for longer. Write a letter to yourself and say hello, it was so nice to see you. Tension releases into dissonance and resonance. Dissonance forces resolution, flows in being grating against one another until the pattern breaks and one consumes the other. Resonance needn’t be resolved. Resonance is groovy, more a wave than a storm, flows overlapping one another without collapse. Sometimes trying is the wrong thing to try. Rest in silence. Then try again. Look in the mirror and ask, would you like a cup of tea? History is a rhythm of resonance and dissonance, resolving, dissolving, forming, and transforming flows in the human species-life.

Being-human is made anew again and again in apocalypse. The history of being is a history of the revelation of being. God sees herself for the first time in the image of Two, the divine recognition that ignites holy desire, the ache at the heart of time that wants to be closer, to listen and know and be seen. I miss my pets. I’ve apparently taught them to beg for cheese. There is serenity in knowing I’ll need to move Ted when I go to bed, that Luna will expect food in the morning whether or not she already has a full bowl, and that Sable will claw my arm to be pet at 3 AM. All joys. The One moves by the light of Two, when spirit becomes flesh. Tissue is thickly textured knowing. Children learn to sense by shared touch. In being held, the child knows what it feels like to be held and so what it feels like to feel. Sense makes sense because it is familiar. I’d like to learn to sew. There’s always something to mend. I miss my family. Family doesn’t mean the same today as it did yesterday. That’s okay. Ithaca was always home anyway. Three, Four, Five.

As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.

Homer, Iliad (trans. by Richmond Lattimore)

Image: Mound of Butter by Antoine Vollon (1875-1885)