its been a while folks...over a month of silence and all quiet on the writing front..ironically i have been scribbling like a speeding scribe in the private world of my journal...using the words there to light a torch to light the way through, up and out of the labyrinth that i had landed in...
a few weeks ago, armed with a bearded friend, i eagerly awaited the lights down, anticipatory hush of the gathered audience to watch the latest offering of 'supposed' horror at the local flicks...a couple of hours later, and slightly deflated, we left, the itch still unsatiated to be chilled to the core...as the quest continues to fill that void, i am interested in why the fascination with this spooky genre?
my love for these films shows no sign of dwindling, and, to be honest, the freakier and more disturbing the better!...i am not alone in my appetite, and, looking at the possible pull towards digesting the unsavoury, there are several reasons for their allure that resonate within and through me!
horror films deal with the dark side of life, human nature and the occult/ absurd/ mythology/ and nightmares...this part of life exists folk, thats a fact...in order for there to be light, there has to be dark...in order for the great artists of the past, for instance caravaggio, to explore and demonstrate his breathtakingly powerful use of chiaroscuro, these two opposites were the keys...for there to be god, according to westernised church religion, there has to be the devil, or satan...
in times past, the telling of tales, a la, brothers grimm, and fascinating universal folklore fables offered a slight twist to the safety of the disney-fied 'all lived happily ever after' fluffy fairy tales of modern day...stories of old were not afraid to put their hands in the pot of the macabre, the creepy, and the evil that lurked within the conscious and unconscious of the world
and their effect? to de-mystify this hidden side...to bring us face to face with our fears...fear being a universal human condition...the world we wonder within today often can feel too 'safe', sanitised and anaesthetised...in short, our consumer, lawed society, though seeking to protect and support our lives, often voids and avoids the necessity to face our shadows and all that goes bump in the night!
and so, how does this relate to the alchemist gone awol recently? well...post a recent retreat, delving to nudge and shake up the ole ego's masks, i experienced a powerful shattering of a well worn patterning...awareness is the key folks, and for that i am grateful...however, returning back to my life and i have been visited by an old old familiar...its name?..inertia
for many years, inertia held me in her grip...lost in her cave, resulted in low lying depression for me, and the climb out has been an on-going journey...she is my 'demon' in a way...drawing me down into a drowsy drugged bed of endless doped up dreamworld...fuzzy and heavy...death herself...suffocating me into numbness with the weighty embrace of her skeletal arms...she promised me safety...she soothed the need to be alive and engaged...and she provided me with stuckness needed to avoid taking responsibility for my life...its only really recently that the battle to free myself, and ultimately my energy and my whole goddamn life!, has begun!! for me, this battle is a daily one...the fight is anybodys..some rounds i have won, lifting myself into the delight and connection with my Self and my potential...and some days, that devilish demon has taken the title, sitting on me so i can barely move!
but you know what? something is different...for some reason (maybe i am gently waking up?), i dont actually believe her anymore...i am not losing myself and drowning in her depths...i can see...and so, instead of feeling like this cloud is a constant companion, her power is not as forceful...cracking up, breaking down, fragmenting and letting go...something is shifting inside and though uncomfortable,and sometimes painful, im riding the waves of this quest...
essentially, she is a doorway, albeit a spider webbed, gothic, creeking one, into facing what she guards...my fear
so with all my weapons employed, and armoured in my kick-ass guise, i get ready to face this foe...ready to fight for my life..and ready to face and touch, the dark side...
may the best (wo)man win!! ;-)
