hyperprosexia
“We should be afraid! The reason that we suffer from anxiety is that we are unable to live with our fear. Anxiety is something created by adults. The dancer, through the butoh spirit, confronts the origins of his fears: a dance which crawls towards the bowel of the earth.”
The dry desert sun dissolved into ice. Hail storms kept me tossed in too few bedsheets. Aikido on my tongue. My dreams were of hawks with wings dipped in silver. Their plumage matched my eyeshadow. Iridescent.
It’s 2 AM. The veil thins, and smoky whispers of the dissolved appear. In the darkness, I cannot see the wooden desk chair. My socks on the floor. In the darkness, I can only feel.
Cold. Small. Porous.
I make tea and crawl back into bed. I light a wand of Ritual Smokeless Incense. The fan whirs in the room next to mine. Hail patters on the windowpane. Flagstaff follows strict light restrictions governing the use of outdoor lighting to protect the Dark Sky. The first city to be identified by the International Dark-Sky Association, Flagstaff roadways are bordered by sodium streetlamps that cast red and yellow spectrums.
Stars appear with a cold translucence.
I haven’t seen the sky like this since I was a child, camping at Banff National Park. Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory hosts astronomical research, and, as a notable STEM city, Flagstaff boasts the title ‘America’s First STEM Community.’
Peering at the vastness through a crack at the window, I wonder what could be winking at me from so far away… why am I awake?
I brought one journal with me—one of thirty notebooks bearing the musings of my past. I recycled the rest. I chose the first black, moleskin notebook of 2022. The year of Hope Is Ahead, according to numerologists. I saved this one journal because it contains the ramblings of my last heartbreak. It’s satisfying to revisit experiences once the pain’s digested.
My vision is out of focus as I flip through the pages. The stars sharpen their tongues, watching me. I use narrow pink post-its to mark the pages I want to come back to—I make my selection based on the slant of cursive.
Aikido rises from one page.
Out of context, it just sits there. Circled in black ink. Squashed between a paragraph about The Persona and a list of people I need to invoice. It’s dated January 11/12th. In the preceding pages, I’ve turned my notebook horizontally and written landscape form. I purchase notebooks without lines so I can write multidirectional.
Aikido: ‘The Way of Harmony With Universal Energy’
It is a Japanese martial art that blends with the energy of an attack to redirect the force rather than defeat it. It is a dynamic and flowing form of non-violent self-defence.
At the core of Aikido training, there are two fundamental threads: (i) a commitment to peaceful resolution of conflict whenever possible and (ii) a commitment to self-improvement through Aikido training. — Source.
The essential nature of Aikido, which is akin to yoga, is that it’s a practice of facing the Shadow. The focus is inwards—to acknowledge our fears and aversions, to surmount the insecurities and limitations holding us back from seeing our true Selves.
I put the journal down and slip beneath the sheets. It’s nearly 4 AM, and the bite in the air has numbed my toes. I finally sleep, and when I wake up, the stars disappear by the grace of the sunshine.
Yoga, a brief breakfast, a bit of writing; around noon, I take a walk to the grocer for blackberries and cream. I am listening to a lecture I’m transcribing called Cultivating Your Life Force Energy: optimize your health and energy by aligning with time and nature. I’ve trained my eyes to the pavement. I like to watch the flicker of light and shadow.
I look up, compelled by an inner motive unclear to me. I feel foggy; I haven’t slept enough. I stop walking and observe where I am.
I’m standing outside an Aikido Studio on the fringe of downtown Flagstaff.
Photo source.
