Overview

In my reBirth Ceremony of 2022 (I still have to document it) I shaved all of my hair and planted new goals of life. Historically, the goals can sometimes be very disruptive and completely change the trajectory of my life. For this reason, I incubate these ideas and goals for 3 months until the Hair Merging Ceremony.

During those three months, my hair grows (a record of passing time) and I style it into two peaks where one peak represents choosing 'status quo' and the other represents choosing 'change' and implementing the goals and ideas. At the end of the 3 months, I do the Hair Merging Ceremony where the two peaks are merged into a single peak which represents a singular focus to lay the foundations of my new goals. In this phase, which lasts another 3 months (usually until the first day of spring) I enter into a maddening frenzied state of absolute focus. I become like a salivating demon with fangs deeply sunk into the flesh of moving time as I burn on the jet fuel of absolute intensity in the cold incubating darkness of winter. In this form, there is no relaxation…only the agonizing bliss of absolute drive and devotion for the creation of art, science and my dreams. Then, when finally, springtime comes, I return to human form.

This year's Hair Merging Ceremony was different than previous iterations. It was three days long (12/30/2022-1/1/2023). During that time I created a short creative film and invited anyone who wanted to attend to come and feed the beast.

Meaning and Symbolism

Introduction

On the cold wintry earth of my backyard, illuminated by a solitary light spilling through my dinning room window, I recorded my contorting back submerged in the engulfing unknown abyss. The back represents the animalistic drive to survive, the back-breaking work, the struggle, the ambivalence of life through deep tragedy, the focused perseverance to keep pushing forward, and the frightening beauty of the dance of life slowly consumed by death. The first part of this short film also refers to my grandmother, who had a life of struggle, tragedy and beauty.

The music in the first part is of me singing while playing the sitar, which I then stretched out so that it sounds choral, ethereal, and with complex superimposed emotions.

Near Death

I spent a month by my grandmother's deathbed in Mirzapur (Feb-March 2022) which profoundly affected me and is represented by me laying in bed with the camera viewing me from above, as I used to look at my grandmother. Sometimes, to cherish my life in the moment, I visualize myself on my own deathbed.

In the video I desperately gasp for air. This represents my grandmother's asthma which she had for her whole life and would sometimes bring her into the emergency room. When I was in India, sitting by her side or sleeping next to her, I could tell that she would often struggle to breath. We would give her medication and try to adminster her an inhaler but none of it really worked. The gasping for air also represents how I felt during the first several days when I visited her. I felt panicked and suffocated, seeing my grandmother's body completely shriveled where her ribs were exposed and fused together.

As I sat next to her, she would often nucleate beautiful smiles and it would create complex emotions within me. Sometimes I would feel happiness and a sense of peace and beauty, but sometimes I would feel this uncomfortable feeling of vomiting. In the video, after struggling to breath for a while, I finally take a breath and it is euphoric, terrifying, and a mix of complex emotions that represent the complex group of amorphous emotions that I felt.

One day I hope I can reach her meditative state of being able to nucleate smiles when in that condition. I did not replicate that in the video because I don't feel that I am there yet.

Death

My grandmother died after I had returned back home. When I was in India, I attended the funeral of a neighbor and saw his body burn on the pyre and saw his skull being broken by a bamboo stick by the Ganga, as is part of the ritual. In the video, I represent my grandmother's death and transition as the spiritual smoke arising from the physical body being burned. This spiritual smoke is represented by my shadow which dances and fades while being projected on a blue, ocean-like, wall that has drawings of my spirit world (SOMDEland).

ReBirth

While some parts of this video were premeditated, other parts I recorded spontaneously and then figured out how to bring them into the storyline. My mother, my main collaborator, and I went on a walk through a conservation area in Lexington. My eyes naturally drifted towards circular and vaginal shaped holes which represent the gateway through which rebirth occurs. My mother represents the reborn spirit of my grandmother.

In February 2022, my mother and I went to Mirzapur to be with my grandmother as she lay on her deathbed. To bring the joint family together and to really add depth to the feelings and thoughts I had, I organized a Beard Ceremony (which I still need to document). For this ceremony, I created vessel made from the earth of Mirzapur which is where my grandmother raised my mother and aunt. This vessel was created with my mother, aunt and a potter who we found on the side of the road. The vessel represents my grandmother's reborn spirit.

On the pot dare 3 eyes, the 2 normal eyes are painted with sindoor which represents Life and fertility. The third eye is covered in cremated ashes and represents Death and rebirth. On the back are my two Creatures of Destiny, one which represents Life and the other which represents Death. During the Beard Ceremony (which I still have to document) people had placed symbolic items that represented themselves in the vessel. In this way, the vessel represented my grandmother because her family resided in there. Then, in July of 2022, during my Rebirth Ceremony of 2022 (which I still have to document) people placed ideas on how to make the world a better place, which was my grandmother's wish and therefore the rebirth of her will.

In the video, my mother sings the Hunuman Chalisa which my grandmother would often sing.

HeartBreak

I started my journey into romance at the age of 39 and at the age of 40 I entered into my first romantic relationship that lasted for an entire year. I am grateful to my wonderful former girlfriend, Elizabeth, for all of the memories and experiences. Around Novemeber 2022, in the most artistic, gentle and beautiful manner, Elizabeth broke up with me. My healing process consisted of making a bower (as a bowerbird makes) and then documenting the deep and meaningful memories on my website. During this healing process, I battled with feelings of my inadequacies. In this video, the male mannequin represents these feelings of inadequacies. The female head represents Elizabeth and it is shot in the attic because we had once talked about making a video with the title of "Attic Woman" which would take place in the BasementMan Universe.

In the next scene, the male mannequin that represents my inadequacies is haunting my bower which originally was meant to attract Elizabeth (and also meant to represent the threshold between my subconscious and conscious minds) but ultimately probably was one contributing reason for the breakup. Maddened by the hurt and the feelings of inadequacy, I transform into a creature of frustration. I savagely attack my inadequacies but find no relief and instead find that the more I attack, the more I spread the inflammation of self-disappointment. And then I look deeply into this mannequin and realize that it is none other than Symbiosis Null! Symbiosis Null is me...he is a representation of my subconscious. I realized that I was only attacking myself because all of the feelings of inadequacies and hurt resided in my mind...and because of that, these feelings were part of my identity. Nothing exists within my mind other than myself. All demons that haunt me and loop my thoughts are expressions of myself. Instead of hating them, I should love and care for them and then these 'demons' can become agents of self change and realization. By nursing SymbiosisNull I represent the restoration of the bridge between my conscious and subconscious minds, with the unified realization being that the breakup is beautiful because it is leading to new art, thoughts, self reflection and ideas. The milk that Symbiosis Null is drinking is this very video because its artistic expression exists only because of the breakup.

The piano piece is one that I composed impromptu and it is mostly based on C#m which I am obsessed with.

Healing Friendship

One month after the breakup, during my Hair Merging Ceremony, Elizabeth returned to my universe to collaborate on the short film. We had always made the intention of being life long friends. One part of what made her breakup process so artistic was this promise of friendship because it made me feel that I was still valued as a person.

After our introductory conversation, I could not help but ask her why the breakup happened. At first, Elizabeth found it difficult to convey the reason, however once we began designing the artwork and brainstorming the scene for the short film, the artwork manifested the reply. The reason for the breakup was Randomness...which, when I initially heard it, left me bewildered but after digesting it for several minutes, I found it profoundly and poetically beautiful. Always gentle and artistic, I think Elizabeth was conveying that it was not any inadequacy in me that caused the relationship to fall apart but instead it was something much larger and abstract such as the inherent incompatibility of our different personalities. In her view, we were two lovers uncontrollably adrift in the river of destiny and the randomness of the universe that brought us together also broke everything apart.

Elizabeth had brought me a present which was a glittery rock upon which she painted 'Vulnerability' which is one of her favorite words. We foraged for beautiful pieces of nature and created a sort of alter where the Vulnerability-rock (representing me) was perilously balanced on a sheet of glass (representing our relationship). The milkweed is something I use in many of the ceremonies that I did with Elizabeth and she is the one who had foraged it. The homemade candles were made and gifted by Elizabeth and have the patterns of insects on them, since I like insects.

My vulnerability was obscured by wood and protected by a wall. In our early relationship, Elizabeth felt that my ceremonies were a type of wall. In the video, Elizabeth and I dismantle my wall and exposure my vulnerability.......and....then...all of a sudden....randomly...a river rock (that we had collected on an adventure months ago) violently shatters the relationship. The river rock represents the randomness of the universe.

For me, making this artwork with Elizabeth was deeply healing because it soothed my feelings of inadequacy and also showed us how we could still be life long friends.

Hair Merging Ceremony

Because the main focus of this ceremony was the creation of the film, the ceremonial part was much more abbreviated than prior years. I began the ceremony by making the 2 peaks (symbolism described in the overview). Then, I filled the Spoon of Destiny with water which my mother poured onto my head while I am in my symbolic nastypose wearing my ceremonial pants. Water was chosen because of its close association with birthing. Then, my mother merged together my hair into a single peak (symbolism described in the overview). The song is one that I composed when I was an undergrad and it is my theme song.

PUSH PUSH PUSH DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE

In the coming 3 months until my Hair Coming Down Ceremony (near the first day of spring), I will enter into a maddened frenzied state of absolute focus. This focus is further heightened by the breakup which adds an extra volume of jet fuel. I call this mode 'demon mode' just because I am pushing so hard and nourishing little else. The video shows some of what I will do.

The video begins with me having transformed, styling the single peak and wearing my SuperJacket#1 surrounded by all of my artwork in my Basement of Mystery and Magic. The pump phase begins by blaring the wooden horn-mask that I finished just a few days prior to this ceremony. The horn heard in the video I had composed to represent the BasementMan theme.

My first maddening push is nonstop and raviniously working on my Research. This is because I have to pump out a paper to see if I can get a second year of funding and also prepare my presentation along with 2 other posters for the upcoming NASA conference.

The next push is allocating huge amounts of effort and time to documenting my Beard Ceremony (that I did in Mirzapur for my grandmother), my reBirth Ceremony 2022 and this page. The website is an extension of my soul and identity.

After documenting, my next huge push and the focus of all of my energy will be realizing the dreams and goals set in my reBirth Ceremony of 2022. In this ceremony, attendees wrote on slips of paper what types of positive impacts they wanted to do and then impregnated the vessel with those ideas. I will first artistically cluster all of the ideas and then I will form collaborative groups and start implementing these ideas. I will also make a separate tab on my website call "Make Positive Impact".

In addition to the collaborations for the Positive Impacts, I will continue to make collaborations with anyone who wants to create beauty. In the video, this is represented by collaborative artwork. Before the Hair Merging Ceremony, I had sent an open invitation for anyone to come and help with the film. The idea was to spontaneously record something with them and then, later on, figure out how it would go into the short film. When Brian, Avi and Rachel came, we had deep discussions on topics such as "How do each of us create a bridge between our conscious and subconscious minds?". We then made artwork. Brian's piece represents the rings of a tree, time, childhood, life, cells, creation and math. Avi's piece represents consciousness, perception (colors), free will (bird), and whether there is a connection between consciousness and free will (?). Rachel's piece represents feminism (vaginal shape, pink), the sun (clit), sky, ocean, land (green), deep desires (volcano), and menstrual cycle (red). I have not done a good job of recalling the symbolism and will ask them again for a better description. My art consisted of a piece of paper that I had painted with pokeweed ink which is toxic. After it had dried for a month, I put it in my mouth and bit down on it and I tore it up and then I trampled it with the cuddle buddy, all to represent the breaking process of art creation and the pump phase.

Finally, as Hair Coming Down Ceremony comes closer, I will finish my bower, finish my costume that will represent Zzymbrr, compose the music and cheorograph a dance meant to bring me through SOMDEland and into an altered state of mind. The altered state of mind also represents getting deeper into meditation.