On Sunday March 20th, 2016, Ken Baumann, Lorian Long and M Kitchell gathered in secret at an undisclosed location in New Mexico. It is said they could see the vapor trails of invisible UFOs in the sky. They drew a card from a deck of ENIGMA STRATEGIES, created by The Institute for Erotic Vertigo. The prompt on their chosen card was “LITERAL SUBTERRANEAN ACTIVITIES.” The following text is a result of the days activities.
See other posts in this series from Lorian Long and Ken Baumann.
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[ refuse the above, only to speak for the below ] [ insistence upon a presence, or, perhaps, the darkness ] [ if everything could tunnel down, beneath, what we could do ] [ could only become a secret, or ] [ nothing at all ]
The night offers protection from the dark but below ground the form generates. Pushing into and out of earth, the snake or worm is a figure of approbation offering a route. Resisting the dirt. Pushed into cave. Cavernous activity, coyote howl into the dark. Open wound, the hole the cave the ass the gash the push the pull the in the out. If only being considered for the voice it might speak we can assume a silence that hides in S’s. This is the sincerity of the earth.
We quote, 'the earth loves cold bodies.' Line whispered cthonically—
language is never anything but a lie.
To crawl into the earth is a separate
movement than to simply close your eyes.
Don't close your eyes, the dark looks much more vibrant when you pay
attention. Refusing the thought that to continue below will eventually
amount to a going through voices the true meaning of night. For if all
that comes after is the other side, there's no reason to continue.
Insist not upon what comes next, but rather on what hovers beyond.
language is never anything but a lie
lungage as nuvur inyateng bot uh aye
lunged martyr inverts both eyes
'live more inside our bottoms,' says the earth,
'live more below.'
AND SO
We built the structure beneath the house, lower than the basement. There are steps made of stone and dirt and we expect them to crumble and disperse some day. We expect all to cease to exist. Our home has become the signal of a transmission, the radio static that permeates blank air. Communication is always an excess, and one we hope to sacrifice.
The structure beneath the house, lower than the basement, was built to hold the sacred. There are herbs and stones and dirt and chalk and meteorite and a fire we refresh regularly and a pool of water and dried blood and dried come and wet blood and wet come and a neon glow that we believe we created when we stared at the spot on the wall where we thought we saw the light. The geometry of the crystal garnet echoed our declaration and this was how the world we inhabit was born. Within the sacred we push into the air and hold.
Breath in, breath out. There's an exercise to consider:
1) Build the box using dimensions you believe too small to inhabite
2) Use your eyes to look at the box
3) Push your face into dirt & whisper the secret that your body fits inside
4) Let time continue (this is an important part of the exercise)
5) One day, you will inhabit the box.
This exercise should be carried out between the inhalation and the
exhalation of a breath. (Time never functioned adequately to begin
with, but here it is near impossible).
Breath in, breath out.
Another exercise:
1) Pat the earthen wall until it is flat and sturdy
2) Use the chalk to draw a door upon the wall
3) Open the door and walk through
This exercise should be carried out either before breathing in
or after breathing out, never in between. Inside the new room
you have entered you will see only a dimly illuminated howl of
wind. You are now being carried by the earth. You are like dust,
you have gone beyond your form as human. This is not a metaphor.
This is a transmission delivering you from everything else.
Communication as sacrifice, speech as the sacred act. Language is as useful a tool as any, especially in considering the earth rooted in physicality instead of history. As if you could understand the route the tree’s branches follow simply by knowing when the tree was planted.
We expect our structure to begin its decline long before we are finished with it. This entropy was predetermined and built into the design. Completion depends upon a complication of finitude. We have installed a mirror so we can always understand that the wall behind us either is or isn’t there. Between what we can see and what we can’t is the center of the room. The center of the room takes on the shape of a diamond and we cover the diamond with the fluorescent glow we created by staring at the light. The shape takes up more space than would be expected, but has successfully ordered our life with its bleating repetition and rhythm, the way it pulses like we used to remember our bodies doing.
It should come as no surprise that we are neither live nor dead, but rather beneath the surface of the earth. Listen to us when we tell you that there is nothing hollow about density. The whole is fucked by the part but a cave can never talk like an asshole. Just rub dirt over everything because the stairways have become a tunnel too steep to climb back up. Fed into plastic tubing our sweat powers illumination.
We can’t help but believe the lies we understand.
We can’t help but sacrifice the meaning of our actions.
We can’t help but to encounter presence only through absence.
We can’t help but understand what it means to be below the earth forever.