The Corona-Virus Has Melted the Timepieces Again | Poetry of Mankh |Axisoflogic.com

“The Persistence of Memory” (1931) by Salvador Dalí

“MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark All the sweet green icing flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain...”

— from “MacArthur Park” by Jimmy Webb

“Tryin' to make it real, compared to what?”

— from “Compared To What?”

– lyrics by Gene McDaniels

“While you are wasting your time on your enemies
 Engulfed in a fever of spite 
Beyond your tunnel vision reality fades
 Like shadows into the night”

— from “Lost For Words” by Pink Floyd

Raise your middle hand if you prefer to work by the clock with fixed strict measurements, or if you prefer to do what feels appropriate for a length of space-time-experience then pause either from fatigue or because of an intuition or, for example, a bird is suddenly looking through the window at you so the computer screen becomes not the center of attention ― time to shift attention.

That multi-layered question defying a logical answer is, like one of the most well-known paintings of all, ahem, time, in the genre called Surrealism, which by root definition is: “over/beyond real” … which begs the question: What is “real”?

One definition is “actual or true,” or a kind of mass agreement as to what exists, for example, that highway is real . . . those trees are real, and so forth. Yet and still, the begging for a real answer because decades ago I heard a story of some people who were driving on the highway and got pulled over by the police, and they asked “Were we speeding, officer?”... “No, you were going 5 mph.” They happened to be doing LSD, point being, so-called reality is a natural shape-shifter and one commune's ceiling is another individual's floor but we're all part of the land-water-scape with misshapen watches.

So here's one answer. “Real” is from the Latin res “property, goods, matter, thing” and Sanskrit rayim, rayah “property, goods,” Avestan raii-i- “wealth.” Think, real estate, extractive industries, and consumer culture. Also, “Latin regalis “royal, kingly” from reg- “move in a straight line.””[1]

So-called reality, the way many see and label the world, is a world governed by the arrogantly elite where property and material objects rule.

So-called reality is the world seen through the eyes of those who consider themselves superior, the moneyed Reichs, Empires and trans-national corporations whose profit charts are straight lines and whose goal is to keep the masses in line, metaphorically and literally.

As is said, there are no straight lines in Nature, and, except for the clock hands and tables, none in Dalí's painting. Nature and most art is sur-real or beyond empires and feudal hierarchical forms of government and social structures.

Considering all that, I'm now unofficially a freakin' surrealist!!

The corona-virus has changed most if not all peoples' perceptions of time & space, changed expectations, changed ways of relating, and the list of changes goes on. Many people would call what's happening surreal but in an extremely disturbing fashion usage of the word, and, because of said elite, for much of humanity it IS disturbing and challenging. Yet attitudinally, could the discomfort with surreal be because many are not used to or slow to adapt to a state of being and living that is not glued to, not ruled by the timepiece?

The clock-god way of life has linearly ruled since the Industrial Age began and further back since the Julian then Gregorian calendars. Is it not 'surreal' that September refers to seven, October eight, November nine, December ten yet those are the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth months of the year?

But what does that matter just as long as you stay in line September Labor Day, October Halloween, November Thanksgiving, December Christmas. Yet who knows how the latter three of those holidays will transpire this year, now that the clocks have melted and activities have seemed like Halloween since Springtime when almost everyone started wearing masks.

One might think that Dalí had been tapping into a deep well of awareness before painting the “The Persistence of Memory,” yet the following, presumably not tongue-in-cheek, says otherwise:

In reply to a question of what inspired the painting, “Dalí replied that the soft watches were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert melting in the sun.”[2]

While oddly amusing and perhaps surreal for cheese lovers, there's also a lesson in Dalí's answer, one that children, artists and those with a good dose of common sense know, one that mystics, Buddhists, Sufis, Indigenous/Original Peoples and others of ancient traditions know and live, have known and lived for timeless millennia: observe and learn from what's happening around you, think about what's happening & why, and allow yourself to be guided and inspired by any manner of surreal state of being — whether from dreams or fasting, whether from spontaneous tree-hugging or a spiritually-scientific discipline . . . all the while aware that the next inspiration, the signpost indicating what to do or where to go could come in any shape or form, such as bees in an attic, a feeling in your heart, a twitch in your foot, a forest fire, or a chunk of “Camembert melting in the sun.”

And what feeds those present experiences and decisions is “The Persistence of Memory” . . . memories that are beyond timepiece-time, memories of how to live each season, memories of guidance spoken by or exemplary behavior from relatives, teachers, and friends, memories of whatever you've experienced that stays with you like a scar or a running joke. Traveling the hard lines of day-to-day survival and existence can be eased with “soft watch” consciousness.

NOTES:
[1] See here.
[2] See here.

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic, as well as a correspondent-poet for the WUSB 90.1FM radio segment “Radical Words”. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. His website is here.

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