The Handstand II
Hand Harder
The request felt odd drifting from progressive lips, and jarring because it wasn’t based on anything I had said or done. The whole thing reeked of working-class fascism, not from the top tiers of power, but self-infected. The parasite controlling the art world's collective mind has a name: Loss of Funding.
I tried projecting my way through a thicket of expectations but couldn’t find the trail through unspoken rules. Blame it on California, psychedelic journeys alone in the woods, or countless near-death experiences. Blame it on too many books or simple confusion. Offense felt like a tangle of thorns snarling at the unknowable edge of a manicured lawn. Wring my hands as I might I was never going to find the line.
The concepts I planned to share were rooted in connection, respect for the land, and art's unique ability to fuse the broken cracks of a modern heart to living ecosystems (art as kintsugi), weaving contrasting origin myths and the promise of nature’s embrace. Throw in memes, pop culture references, and a wildfire-chasing story. It even has a goth joke. When was the last time you heard a goth joke at an art talk? Sigh, no one understands me. See?! Anyway, I had no idea what to censor, so I didn’t.
To my surprise, the lecture was well-received by a maximum of six people. I didn’t think it would be that bad. A rich cowboy in a black hat wouldn’t even make eye contact with me at the fancy dinner afterward. He wasn’t the only one. A wealthy lady hunched under the weight of an oppressive spray tan insisted on lecturing me on how racist Navahos were to her. Others said it went over their heads, or I was too nervous. In truth, I think they were unnerved by what I dared to hold out to them: a mirror of entangled responsibility, of human hearts braided into the more-than-human world. A debunking of the myth that we live in the best time. Do we? Hunter-gatherers likely worked an average of 20 hours a week. I’m learning how ferociously people defend structures they’ve never even thought about.
They wanted a teddy bear for their tea party, and instead, they got the feral motherfucker who made California on Fire. I can’t imagine being asked back, which is a shame, really, because almost everyone was lovely. Even the one who told me to censor myself was more flighty bird than iron-fisted censor.
That said, the six people who liked my talk really liked it. Their eyes lit up, and they told me the unpredictability was thrilling. They delved into specifics. They spoke as if it was fresh air through a cracked window. The excitement in their voices was undeniable and made the months of effort worthwhile. More humble than I hoped, but a seed I can cultivate.
Edward Steichen said an artist should clear out their studio at least three times in life—throw everything onto the pyre, watch old notions burn, and start over. This is one of those moments in my life. My internal world is very different. I’m taking a very different direction from a conceptual standpoint. Experimental periods can be unbearably awkward. As Rick Rubin put it, ‘The problem for unknown artists is getting the work seen. The problem for known artists is they know the work will be seen.’
In each cycle of the art life, you kill yourself just getting anyone to give a damn, and just about the time they start to, you get restless and start reinventing yourself. I tell myself nobody cares, which isn’t true, yet it isn’t completely a lie either. Maybe this is the price of honesty. All I can do is follow through and hope that it will resonate on the other side once I find my footing with aesthetics, concepts, and mediums. I’m not there yet. It’s agonizing. I can’t be the only artist on this treadmill.
Rejected and discouraged, I returned to the trees. Isolation is a howling feedback loop for insecurity and rumination. After several melodramatic days, I got bored with my own shit and started redirecting the energy. It sounds contrived, but I had to “practice” being my new self. I still do.
A journal entry from that time reads, ‘Be the tree you want to see in the world. Stripped of internal chaos even as storms rage. Rooted. Protective of peace. Slow when the world is fast, and quiet when the world is loud.’ I ask and wait for the answer. I use neuroscience hacks to rewire my mind, ask the river spirits if I can enter their cold currents, whisper to the trees before photographing them, and strike bargains with the spiders in my travel trailer: “Don’t come into my bed, little one. Stay up high, where we can coexist with grace. Eat all the winged pests you can catch; I will never fat shame you.” This silly pact feels more sacred than any dusty sermon ever could.
I began blowing kisses to the trees every morning, talking out loud to every last creature I stumbled across, and gave wildflowers glowups with LED lights while playing dreamy romantic songs by Cigarettes After Sex on my bluetooth speaker. The more I nurtured the connections between all living beings and my heart, the more nourishment they gave. Some days were spent violently switching back and forth between new and old as entrenched neuronal pathways ripped apart and new connections formed. It is a messy process. I backslid into old habits plenty of times, which was demoralizing in the moment, but nature holds no grudges and demands no moral contortions. It only asks that I come as I am and listen.
There is patient alchemy in unhurried interactions in the forest, a promise that if we listen long enough, we might relearn how to belong to one another. Self-love can arise in the wilderness of one’s own heart when you stop trying to manage the perception of others and lean into ancient patterns of reciprocity. In the quiet company of pine needles, I let regret and insecurity climb and fall away like dead bark. Harsh receptions became compost, a small jagged line of soot compressed by time into the sedimentation of my mind.
I stopped chasing down wildfires for the California on Fire project in 2021. An end to nine years of smoke, death, and sprinting into the flames. The last two summers were filled with fresh air, green trees, curious chipmunks, and the occasional invading mouse. Nurturing whatever green tendrils I can coax from my broken places transmutes fractures to strengths with a slow-growing steadiness.
Talking about finding spirituality makes me slightly ill. It’s not cool, and I generally don’t like it when other people do it. I remain allergic to woo and groupthink in any setting. Religion is mostly bureaucracy, conformity, and self-perpetuation with a side of community rather than treating people with decency. I like things that can be verified and repeated. Yet here I am, pulled by a strange gravity into a realm where something beyond coincidence and synchronicity hums at the edge of perception. Sorry, science, but I am cheating on you. Can we open up our relationship? I’m horny for meaning.
Even writing this newsletter feels new, stressful, and annoyingly clumsy. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I had a dream last night that felt oddly reassuring.
Godzilla and King Kong were rampaging through the city, stepping on buildings and beings. I was in a yoga class. The students gathered in clumps around a muted TV mounted on the gym wall, exchanging worried looks. The instructor piped up to announce that they would give us back a sense of control by teaching us how to do handstands. I was a natural, repeatedly balancing on my hands with my legs arched over my body like I had been doing it my whole life. I ventured into the city to spread this knowledge to others and found a group of similarly distressed people standing on a hill. In the distance, smoke columns rose as a massive angry lizard bodied high rises. At this point, the dream took a turn for the musical. With trembling voices, the people sang, ‘Please don't crush us, Godzilla, please do not crush us!’ Clearly, these were people in need of handstands. They smiled and laughed as I instructed. Everyone began to relax. The sounds of explosions and sirens faded, and no one noticed the monsters anymore.
I woke up laughing. What a contrast to my teenage self, who consciously chose to stop remembering dreams because every dream was a nightmare. Every morning, I woke up exhausted and anxious. Dreams can activate trauma triggers. If you wake up in states like that, you may want to look into Complex-PTSD. After nearly three decades of suppressed subconscious memories, the ability to remember dreams returned.
“The Handstand” is a title that suggests inversion, a playful refusal to stand upright and follow convention. Trees, rivers, and the shifting winds teach me to hold space for myself even when I cannot please crowds. The world is larger than their approval, and communicating with it infinitely more rewarding than cheap dopamine hits. Perhaps I should learn how to do handstands in real life.
-Jeff
