the unfathomable

I sit somewhere at a confluence of many, but perhaps most acutely my understanding of our struggle in the world and in art is colored by my (mis)readings and interpretations of on the one hand, the “Godfather of the American avant-garde” Richard Foreman, and, on the other, one of butoh’s founders Tatsumi Hijikata. I see each as having charted quite different paths to, as Richard named it for me recently, “the unfathomable”.

I have decided I like that word, “unfathomable,” in part because of the tension inherent in its etymology — understanding and measuring as well as the more visceral ‘something that embraces’.

They light the way to places we cannot comprehend with our modern categorical minds, nor join with in any kind of warm primal embrace.
It is a kind of fog, a kind of purity, a potential – touching the real.
One we are able to explore with due reverence.
One that will teach us time and time again how tiny and fragile we are.