stop for a moment, press play, take three breaths and look around.

Come back. continue being a witness…

Her office was already dark when I stepped inside.

Dimmed lights, I mean, suede turquiose pillows, soft carpet that makes one wanna live and love.

She then lied down on this black carpet.

With my hands, I prepared her body … for transition.

I lit the candle.

Her candle and Her golden nail behind her head crown.

I covered her all, her face last.

I let her be where I was not, her Time was ticking different than mine.

After Time, I uncovered her slowly

… so she could, so alive, take a distance to herself.

She was standing there, looking at Her from that Time some whiles ago when she was lying fully covered, her candle burning.

Then she spoke.

I listened, I witnessed.

Then when She finished the speech …

… I took three breaths and started to write what I had heard.

Sister’s symbolic Testament was donated to Sisters Hope Home Archive on 23 November 2021 by Iwona Rejmus

as part of her art project

Life ~ Death ~ Testament

Now.

wherever you are, stop and press play, close your eyes and then close this page

…when you feel it’s time

Recently I got fascinated by a Polish philosopher Anna Teresa Tymieniecka, my new discovery, my homeland phenomenologist.

She writes spot-on about the power of an experiencing individual – which is specially interesting in the context of workshops and exploratory rituals I’ve been creating…

the horizons of experience are movable and infinitely extendable, depending on viewpoint, situation in space and time, and on the powers of the experiencing subject, his/her reception and appreciation. (*1

You might have experienced that too?… imagine you are given a “gift”, possibly an inspiring lecture or a mesmerizing concert or a love gesture from somebody. Sometimes your body and mind are so receptive that the experience becomes profound. Other times you do not notice, you do not feel much, while exactly the same gift is lying in front of you. It’s suddenly less accessible, as if your ‘horizon of experience’ is (temporarily) limited.

Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life revolves around an intriguing notion ontopoiesis.

Viewed as a “mechanism” of consciousness operating within the individual psyche, ontopoiesis underlies the human development, and serves not only as the foundation for development after the deep spiritual experience, but also as the basis for life transitions, transformations of meaning, and reconstruction of the human self affected by trauma. (*2

Significant life- and meaning-transitions are constantly (re)shaping ‘human self’ (one’s ‘overall’ identity). Those triggering moments of transformation – and this is a core addition to my Master Thesis – happen so often when experiencing something for the first time …or in States of Disorientation. Queering moments.

I have met a lot of ‘queer’ people on my recent path, I have however never really identified myself as ‘queer’. But my fascination for the concept started again when reading ‘Queer Phenomenology’ (*3. If queer as a spatial concept is a deviation from a straight line, I thought that I am maybe not queer, but my lifestyle and life path I chose (or was thrown on?) is quite queer. And there is more people living differently. Artistic research started. Here is a little film from our last project ‘Mermaid Oracles are walking the Line’ – together extending the notion of QUEER…

(*1 ‘The New Enlightenment:
Cosmo-Transcendental Positioning of the Living Being in the Universe’ by ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA

(*2

(*3 by Sarah Ahmed

I will not translate this interview. She’s brilliant just like that and it’s almost as much honour as pleasure to do one of these 7 interviews in our mother tongue.

Some chambers are only to be entered by a few with the key…

what is sexy to you…

‘Animal tenderness’ she said. I understood. Yet, only much later I realized that it means ‘zwierzęca czułość’ …and that extended my world even more. “Language creates reality” wrote Sapir & Worf and that – I remember – was one of sociological hypotheses that influenced me the most during and after my studies.

I long deepest for …that kind of love

Musi być “obłąkany, obdarzony i hojny”

that must mean ‘obsessed, skilled and generous”?

… until death tears us apart.

her (unexpected) question to me

Then she sat ME on the hot seat. And I told her about Virgilia.

Virgilia is a character in ‘North and South’ (1985) film. If I was ‘carte blanche’ with freshest eyes, I might have chosen another female figure. But years ago I was asked (or asked myself) which character I’d play in that film … and I got surprised by my choice. And I think today that exactly that past feeling of self-surprise, a sudden realization that I am actually different or more than I used yo think of myself…made me answer: Virgilia. Maybe significant inceptions unmanifested just need to manifest! Maybe it’s in their nature.

my (unexpected) question to her

It’s neither a question nor it was unexpected. And it happened one day before the interview happened – and I even started recording before I asked. But it was ok.

It was a confession. I’ve been carrying this intention for 2 years to tell her…that she was one of these women I would look up to because they’d reached a level of advancement, where they are so confident and so trusting a man and so seeing a bigger picture, that they are not jealous. One day her husband told me a story though: that summer where she sent us two to Norway, she was jealous! I suddenly felt both naive and affectionate towards her and her side I’ve never known before. And my perception of “advancement” in love relationships – it has changed forever.

The final harvest

Following a tradition, each interview brings some intertextuality. This time my free association to a film/philosophy/phenomenon  {inspired by meeting with her} is…

OWCE

I can’t think of anything other that SHEEP now. How they smell and how they are tenderly in love…

This interview series revolves around two core questions: ‘what is sexy?’ and ‘deepest love dream’, as in unique life scripts of a human being, 

7 interviews. 7 encounters. Experience them here.

but that day we’ve landed in this room to manifest something concrete.

sexy to you…

I asked the first question.

I learned about micro-sex and the truth lying in energy…

I long deepest for …that kind of love

I asked the second question.

I heard what really matters…

his (unexpected) question to me

then he asked me something.

It was a personal trip backwards and back in the now: through dynamic images and narratives.

between the lines

a reminder to-the-core came out-of-the-blue.

…and?

my (unexpected) question to him

…and then suddenly I knew how we proceed

In the very end

,,,he asked me about the objects.

He: “what are these?“

Me: “this one here is a n authentic wooden “nail” for building traditional boats. It’s like a core to design, to stability, robustness. But there’s always “more” to traditions than we know… historically. Cause every object is deeply rooted in a rich context it belonged to.

And that one is a stick of joy. Used for BDSM and sexual rituals.“

He: “wait. so these two… it’s actually the other way around to what I had thought?

Interesting!!“

this is not a conclusion

… rather my free association to a film//story/philosophy  {inspired by my meeting with him} 

I have been processing, editing, living this interview during my bus trip to Berlin.

The image came. Heart()Ego. Light()Shadow. Endless overlaps in the shape of an almond. The almond is the core. I first heard of the word in a book by Robert A. Johnson ‘Owning your own shadow‘.

In Berlin I was going to Xplore… and meet my beloved friend that once gave me the book… and stay with a friend I’ve been creating immersive performances with. Overlaps of Gold. Berlin made an imprint that rooted itself deep under my skin.

MANDORLA

“(…) they can both be there at the same time.” – he said.

And that’s what I’ll take with me… – to the next interview.

This interview series revolves around two core questions: ‘what is sexy?’ and ‘deepest love dream’, as in unique life scripts of a human being, 

7 interviews. 7 encounters. Experience them here.