MORTALS and PORTALS: A
Morphic Resonance Montage
PORTAL: JostFoto
The term [morphic fields] is more general in
its meaning than morphogenetic fields, and includes other kinds of organizing
fields in addition to those of morphogenesis; the organizing fields of animal
and human behavior, of social and cultural systems, and of mental activity can
all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent memory.—Rupert
Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past (Chapter 6, page 112)
Manhattan, 1988, dressed to the nines while negotiating eight plates
spinning mid-air, dreams about the skyline of the city falling like dominoes
recurred with alarming frequency…
It’s not unusual for me to have OBEs, angelic, even ET
visitations. (Don’t you!?) As far back as I can remember, I commune with
the departed in dreams---they often offer the most pithy, remarkable tidbits
accelerating my spiritual evolution.
Then there’s the repetitive leit-motif, flapping my arms, becoming
air-borne, sometimes soaring out into the vast reaches of outer space, past
Alpha Centauri at light speed. On
occasion, I venture through a worm hole, a kaleidoscopic spiral of 3D Platonic
Solids. (Don’t ask.) More than this, the numinous, prophetic
dreams take me by surprise without fail. Friends, family members, public figures, and
world events each have made cameo appearances foretelling prescient narratives in
the Orphic Realm. (Do tell…)
We mortals like to believe choice—free will at the wheel, steering the
course of favorable events—determine our destiny. Yet, a spontaneous, impersonal shock wave can
ripple out setting an avalanche in motion, toppling our best-laid plans, making
a mockery of our precariously situated constructs…
Friday, February 26, 1993, 18 minutes after 12
noon, a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of The World Trade
Center. I was at work in the box office
of the Joseph Papp Public Theatre on Lafayette Street, East Village. My colleagues and I were noshing, more than
likely engrossed in dissing the upper administrative echelon, happily ignorant of
the terrorist plot unfolding. Without
any courteous preparation, the floor gyrated, the windows
rattled, our nerves frayed.
Mind you, the blast reverberated up the streets and avenues from two
miles away, downtown!
The ensuing moments, amidst the wailing, hysterical fire
trucks careening by, I knew: In an explosive flash, New York had changed. Granted, the city can dole out its fair share
of lurid tabloid fodder. But, a
terrorist attack!? Perhaps, I over-reacted a la Chicken Little mode;
nevertheless, heeding an intuitive flight instinct, “Get me the hell out of
here!” was foremost in my frontal lobe.
Within a year, I would come full circle escaping with two
bags in tow similar to my arrival thirteen years before. I dearly departed, in the wake of a debris
trail strewn with discarded possessions and splintered identity fragments.
Suppose, for example, an idea, or a suggestion has the quality of an
evolutionary undertow, pulling us forward into the future…
Even though, I swore up and down, I would not set foot in
Manhattan again, New York will always be home to me. I forgave and forgot the lofty aspirations
that crashed and burned. Time did heal
the heartbreak of betrayal, the all too familiar dynamic of unrequited love
affairs. And, as for the devastation suffered
by too many close friends lost to AIDS---with or without you, the Hudson River
of life will poignantly roll along gathering no moss. Inevitably, a return to the city that provided
refuge from the Bible Belt constricting the burgeoning artistic verve of my
youth, was indeed, predestined. (Never
say never…)
Underlying the seemingly randomness of multidimensional existence, the
Universe provides portals which awaken us to the unity of interactive
probabilities…
For those of us there
at its messy, yet inspirited emasculate conception, we will attest and aver,
WIGSTOCK has an unabashed, overt, in your face impelling allure. The power of drag compels you. WIGSTOCK is an apotheosis of biggest hair,
highest heels and grandiosest [sic] camp.
The annual Labor Day event helmed by The Lady Bunny and a pre-Gaga
gaggle of outrageous, innovative drag queens (including RuPaul), began in the
early 80s as a fierce and fabulous fete eulogizing the end of summer. I had been a devotee from the beginning. Ergo, there was no hesitation: when my friend
Gary called to tell me the cityscape was festooned with posters announcing, 2
September 2001, WIGSTOCK 2001: THE FINAL EXPLOSION would be the end of a
chapter in New York City Gay Culture---“Oh, my Diva Goddess! I’m there!”
Besides, I had been musing about a provocative subject for the next
photography exhibition. Come on---the
thought of New York drag queens garnishing the Deep South walls of a
Tallahassee gallery was titillating, to be sure.
"Once you decide to titillate instead of illuminate . . . you
create a climate of expectation that requires a higher and higher level of
intensity" (Bill Moyers).
[NOTA BENE: Similar to the
indefatigable farewell tours of Barbra and Cher, WIGSTOCK has subsequently been
revived and resurrected like Lazarus rising up (quite appropriately)
lip-synching the irrepressible anthem, I WILL SURVIVE.]
On that grand and gloriously gay of all days, it was at
least 110 degrees in the only available shade provided by towering bouffants,
bee-hives, rococo parasols and other such feats of architectural artifice. Wading neck deep in an undulating,
uber-accessorized current of sub-woofer beats, gold lame’ and mascara, pectorals
and biceps strategically sculpted into chiseled precision, glistened and flexed
to distraction. Abreast a wide
assortment of liberated bosoms ranging in sizes from tea cup to the silicon
and/or helium enhanced, the excessively buxom served as floatation devices
keeping the sweat-soaked unified mass of humanity suspended on waves, upon
pulsating waves moving together in rhythmic ebb and flow. The ecstatic ocean of male, female, Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, Trans-, yes, even hetero- couples with
offspring, all randomly tossed adrift, were buoyant on a burlesque high tide
rolling in hysterical pretendence and gender ambiguity. Yet, somehow, without an act of God scourging
the accusatory acts of abomination animated, quite naturally, we bonded
together in an authentic, unconditional solidarity. (If only everyday were like this.)
MissThangInAction: JostFoto
Like
the pull of the moon on tides… Could it be, thought forms, intuitive
hunches, and prophetic dreams possess an endemic gravitational property that defines
the energy parameters in matter manifesting?
What if there exists an energy field linking all probable realities, an
energy matrix behind physical form on the 3D time-space continuum tapestry of
possibilities?
Emerging from the undertow pulling at our lower three
chakras, Gary and I pried ourselves free from the incessant beat of the
disco. Surfacing out of the seductive amalgam,
we sauntered downtown, along the banks of the Hudson River toward Battery Park
and The World Trade Center. In no hurry,
without a particular place to go, it was if we were propelled toward an
undetermined destination. Wherever,
whatever it was that beckoned, the still, small voice of a siren’s song spun,
turning and turning us into the center of a concentric gyre.
Unwittingly, my companion and I were swept up in the
centripetal force around the perimeter of old Pier 26. We approached the south side of the boat
hangar. An appointment with destiny
directed us to a precise intersection of latitude and longitude. There, prepared before us, in the presence of
an undisclosed enemy, laid a blemished, yet white, round, plastic picnic table. Atop, placed dead center, was an 8 oz. clear
plastic cup approximately ¾ empty. Two
straws were leaning against the northeast rim.
Much to my horror, albeit mystified just the same, it would
soon be exposed nine days hence. Pier 26 positioned as a premonitory
promontory, had become a portal for a portentous photograph projecting a metaphorical
morphic resonance field onto the unsuspecting Twin Towers.
Seemingly unrelated events are all pixels comprising an orchestrated
larger picture…
On a sunny, beautiful, pre-autumn morning, September 11,
2001, 9-11, at 9:59 AM, the South Tower of the Twin Towers collapsed and
disintegrated. Approximately 29 minutes
later, exhibiting a dystopia demolition in similar manner, the North Tower
collapsed and disintegrated at 10:28 AM.
A day out of step, time stood still and the shocked world congregated, unbeknownst
of the insidious grand illusion.
Millions, billions, glued to TV screens lost all rationale to the
obvious, hypnotized, falling under the spell of persuasive, recurring, surreal
newsreel loops, sound bytes depicting a surreptitious, covert diabolical
sleight of hand.
“Number 9, Number 9,
Number 9”…
The two stalwart sentries that had once emblematically protected
Battery Park, the historical arsenal of artillery batteries positioned there
during the city’s early settlements, were leveled to Ground Zero by weapons of
destruction they symbolically guarded.
1-1 resonated in a dream memory databank: an image distilled nine days
earlier, left me with painful lingering, a relentless sensation, bereft of both
legs upon which I stood in a former world.
WTC 2 Sept. 2001: JostFoto
