Two white feathers just floated down from the sky. It has been a strange day so far. Persistent early spring rain falling, the clouds bleed water profusely. Woke up for the first time since i can remember with a bounce of energy. Not lethargic. Yet, after i meditated, became very emotional and exhausted so went back to sleep. Woke up with a start because i heard a name being called very clearly, pronounced with precision and command. It was as though someone was being formally approached for something. Felt like something had shifted profoundly, like end and new. Probably not making a lot of sense right now. Became emotional, lots of tears flooded down my face and fell back into a deep sleep. 

In the Sisters Hope Home there is a segment of the programming called Inhabitant Flow or something like that. Inhabitants come to stay for 1-2 nights and this is where clocks, mobiles, all electronics are taken away. People panic about this. The place is completely and heavily curtained off. The windows are nightshade tinted so no one can look in and from the inside, the outdoor light is muted to a soft shadow. Kind of a psychedelic wizard of oz vibe to the whole place. I think it’s meant to dis- and then reorient people from everyday experiences, to subvert their habits, stumble and ultimately reach for those in close proximity. It works, actually, but to live in such conditions humanly alone is quite challenging, claustrophobic, super bad feng shui, man…i can tell, and am not even Chinese. It’s like am moving between a series of coffins, to the point that have begun to question my own continued material existence. 

Have tied back the curtains between the passageways so that the rooms can visit and breathe. There is now a flow of air, sound, and memory swirling through the space. Have created a new routine of dancing with Mitsuo-senpai’s handmade washi through each room every morning. You can feel his equanimous love in the very fibre of the paper. It is fun, enlivening. With music blaring! The Weeknd, my new music crush!! This is the secret squirrels invisible labour of たれing the shit out of the Sisters Hope Home. I wonder if anyone will feel the difference? No matter, the walls feel it, and the birds and insects too. Magpies are hanging out in abundance, beautiful companions, and the aphids hover like a stream of incense - never alone or lonely. Love them. Jaider is nearby, so close i can almost see him. Love him too. He, the master shapeshifter, am the mere apprentice.

In the final day of the past Flow period, there was an inhabitant there who hadn’t found his poetic name, and he wandered from room to room listlessly. Not many people approached him because, well, he gave off really sad bastard vibes. He seemed deeply depressed, kind of like i was in Banff during the conference of birds residency. He sort of lingered around me on different occasions so finally gently invited him over to chat. Asked if he had ever meditated, and he said no, that his mind was racing too much. Told him not to listen to all those assholes who called themselves gurus. (Seriously, if i come across another fucking “zen” yoga instructor with that self-satisfied permasmirk plastered on their face, am going to smack it off like a good buddhist apprentice. You should totally watch buddhist monks debating on youtube. Talk about putting your body into the argumentation: truly embodied intellectual discourse.) No fucking rules to meditating the right way, btw. Let his mind race, just extraneous thoughts, like dead skin, sloughing away. Also surmised that the only reason monks would sit to meditate in the first place was because they were so goddamn physically and psychically exhausted from begging for food and succour, moving endlessly from community to community. He smiled for the first time, that i noticed anyway. He is a dramaturg, dramaturge, don’t really know how to spell it. Just found out with auto-correct, haha. Don’t know how to pronounce it though. Is it turgggg or turjjjj? Guu? Are Danish and English pronunciations different? And what is the difference between that and a script-writer and playwright? Didn’t have the chance to ask him these questions. Wanted to find out what kinds of things he wrote. Have such a great idea for a film, and Juka and i recently received Canada Council funding to, well, explore and create so have all these questions about filmmaking. Eventually, want to make a feature film with Juka. 

Juka is the IAMD (Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design) graduate student i worked with and god, he is so brilliant i just wanted to keep working and learning with him. He is a capoeira master, makes incredible sculptures and masks with cardboard, plays the candomblé, composes poetry, songs, and writes children’s books (many published). He is now attending Vancouver Film School. Am just the idiot abider, truly. Well, i can run…one, two, one, two, one, two, a fairly simple activity, most simple, perhaps. Juka had learned English only a couple of years prior to moving from his home country, Brazil, to attend graduate school. His project, The E(X)U Behind the Mask, won the Gold medal for the school year. Fuckin brill. 

This is the basic premise of the uncontainable unfolding in The E(X)U Behind the Mask: Exu killed a bird yesterday with a rock he threw today. Rock thrown today, lands yesterday, lands tomorrow’s today. Time travel bending into future past future present non presence infinitudes here now. Who is the trickster? Who is the Orixa who abides and the one who turns away? 

The most powerful spells cast are never spoken aloud. We know this…do you? 

Here is Juka’s thesis film, Encruzilhadas, for you to enjoy…https://en.jukaart.com/animacao?wix-vod-video-id=2dc3a4b30983442fad43def838605f03&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-jdqcvpe3

(oh and Juka’s on insta, in case you want to contact him @juka.artist).