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ZAZEN  SEPIA

BodySoul Print©

 

Zazen and sepia ink

October 31 - Nov 8, 2022

Three days ago, I lost a loved one. Outside, the children are preparing for the great feast of the dead. I learn of the death of Pierre Soulages. I stop for a moment. At night, sadness embraces me, the Mystery keeps me awake. In the absence of an answer, this creation as a way of celebrating the joy of living, joy intrinsic to the force of Life, a living moment in the fact of Being. ​

 

Zazen: “Zazen is a posture of awakening. During its practice, one should not try to reach anything. Without an object, it is only concentration on the posture, the breath, and the attitude of the mind. Sitting in zazen, one lets the images, the thoughts, the mental formations arising from the unconscious pass like clouds in the sky - without opposing them, without clinging to them. »

Master Taisen Deshimaru ​ ​

 

Sepia: “When you put the cuttlefish out of the water, it spills a black liquor through a small channel that ends in the anus; this liquor is enclosed in a bag whose outer walls are white [sic]; […] it contains enough liquor to dye several buckets of water black. […] If you receive this liquor in a vase straight out of the bag, it coagulates and hardens in a few days; then it cracks and splits into pieces which, when crushed, give a beautiful black color. Swammerdam claims that the Indians make India ink from the black liquor of cuttlefish. »

Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert, 18th century.

 

 

At the junction of Zazen and sepia ink,

I testify with my body and my spirit,

inseparable,

of the Mystery of being alive.

 

​Joie de Vivre

 

 

I live the psycho-corporal experience and I leave its imprint, day after day. I testify to the uniqueness, the impermanence, my fragility and the strength of this energy that has been going through me for 41 years, for thousands of years. In this moment, I live the ultimate experience of being, in the intensity of the "I" and at the same time its withdrawal. Transcendence of the living over the dead, I witness through the act of creation.

 

Daily protocol over 7 days: 1 hour of Zazen practice + 3 minutes of body tracings in squid ink + 3 minutes of psycho-corporal impression on canvas + 3 minutes (if any) of intuitive gestures on canvas.

 

 

Each day will see the creation of a canvas "Zazen Sepia", organic and spiritual landscape, testimony of Vivance, Shroud of Life. Sound recordings, photographic and videographic documentation will also be made. ​ ​

 

Oijha

October 29, 2022 ​ ​ ​

 

 

 

RESTITUTION  ​ ​

 

Phenomenological variations

and eidetic reductions

 

Zazen: when there is no more intention, is it still Art? The testimony of a state of being by its print in sepia ink.

 

 

Yes.

Because squid ink is my Outrenoir.

Because Rotraut Uecker is my witness.

Because "Zazen Sepia" is designed with an artistic intention, there is this protocol, the workshop, this framework, the brush sometimes.

Because my life is that of the artist.

 

In practice, in the abyssal experience of the moment, in this infinite breach, what remains? ​With my body and my mind, inseparable, I say.

I testify.

Of non-being.

Of pre-being and death.

Permeability between the visible and the invisible.

Of fellowship.

Of fusion and transcendence.

I say "Life" experience as a phenomenon. ​

 

"The Essential is invisible to the eyes" (St. Exupéry). Here we are. Nothing spectacular here. Everything goes through the breath. However, what opens is of the order of the Essence, of the Foundation. ​ In this experience, I don't have my own identity. I am nothing but the extension of a primary entity. The ray which crosses me is not distinct from the sun.

 

What is written in squid ink is an apparition. In the continuity of Auroras Corpus (Greenland, 2018), the imprint by my body-consciousness of invisible phenomena.

 

1st day

openness / rediscovery / freedom

 

2nd day

diving / air / letting go

 

3rd day

abandonment / risk / connection

 

4th day

Silence / Pierre Soulages / communion

 

5th day

iodine / channel / visible

 

6th day

permeability / protective gaze / Peace

 

7th day

end / primal energy / beginning