2020s Meditation: A Tantric Practice to Prepare for the Coming Decade (7 minutes)

Pascal Terjan Pink Pony, 2007

Pascal Terjan
Pink Pony, 2007

text by Gideon Jacobs

Settle into a slightly uncomfortable position. For example, hold your arms above your head as if you’ve just finished the ascent of a rollercoaster and are about to begin the descent, or bite your cheek hard the way some nervous people do when they’re nervous, or cross all of your fingers like a child desperately hoping to avoid retribution for telling a lie. Most meditations suggest the meditator find a neutral posture, but neutrality is a halcyon myth for our species. So, today, we’re not even going to pretend, not even going to kid ourselves.  

Instead, we’re going to be realists and practice a version of what the charlatan at your local yoga studio calls “self-acceptance.” That is, we’re to accept that this is going to hurt, that the Buddha was right about dukkha, that Saint Paul was right about original sin, that your mother was wrong about everything. So, again, settle into a slightly uncomfortable position, some way of being that is vaguely tolerable now but will almost certainly, if held for the duration of this meditation, become unbearable. And close your eyes.  

Let’s try a traditional visualization exercise, except in place of a deity, guru, or mandala, let’s visualize the famed Byzantine emperor Leo III. Or, more accurately, let’s visualize the digital image of an old painted portrait of him that the Google algorithm spits out first when you search his name. Study Leo’s solemn, poorly-scanned face with your mind’s eye. Observe his expression: a worrier, a warrior. Use all your empathic powers to feel the sorrow he must have felt when an enormous volcano erupted in the Aegean Sea in 726 AD, causing tsunamis that brought catastrophic death and destruction to his kingdom. Put yourself in his royal red shoes—only the emperor was permitted to wear red footwear—and imagine, in the wake of the disaster, a lightning bolt of clarity hitting you in the middle of the night: your people’s misfortune was a judgment from God for their veneration of images.  

Try to know deep in your bones, as Leo knew in his, that the disaster was punishment for a pervasive societal disregard for the second commandment, for an obscene collective flouting of that sacred directive that has passed via broken telephone from God’s lips, to Moses’ ears, to the Church of England’s pen, to Wikipedia’s servers: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth.” Think of innocent Byzantine children drowning in their beds with a gulp, gulp, gulp, and let Leo’s guilt wash over you.  

Now, we’re going to further embody Leo by turning his edict of 726 AD into a mantra. There’s actually no record of the exact wording of the edict, but historians do know that it was written in Latin and that it called for the destruction of all objects adorned with the likeness of religious figures. So, let’s practice for a few minutes with a rough English approximation of the edict, utilizing it as a semantic object that can help us focus our energy and attention.  

First, just think the following phrase in your head over and over again—No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. Now, without losing your rhythm, keeping continuity with the internal verbalization, mouth the words without speaking them—No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. Now let’s move this mantra into the sonic plane by whispering the phrase repeatedly—No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. Now push it a little further by saying it at a normal speaking volume, and speed up a little—No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. And now get loud, screaming the words as hard as you can, as fast as you can—No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. No more phonies, just real ponies. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. And then, when you feel your entire body reach a breaking point, when there’s no breath left in your lungs and no thoughts left in your head, shut the fuck up.  

Take a few seconds to let your heart rate normalize. Unclench your sphincter. Relax. You’ve just experienced an intense rebirth of sorts, a rearriving into the present. So, we’re going to wrap up this meditation on a tranquil note, and put some spiritual balm on your natal wounds. Keeping your eyes closed, imagine you’re on the world’s most beautiful beach. Feel the sand between your toes. Hear the waves lapping against the shore. Smell the sweet and salty air.  

Look out into the ocean—the sun is setting. Admire the colors in the sky, the impossible shades of red, orange, and pink that would compel any sane person to stop what they’re doing and attempt to have an experience of awe that reminds them of what really matters. Stare directly into that blazing ball of fire as it approaches the water, following its incremental movement down, down, down until its bottom edge is eclipsed by the horizon. Watch it lower further until it’s halfway gone. And then, when the very last ray of its light disappears from view, take a final deep breath. On the exhale, listen carefully and you just might hear a guttural rumble, an earthly growl that could either be your stomach experiencing some minor indigestion, or something much larger, louder and, for now, further away.  

This essay was included in Autre Issue 9: The Decade of Influence Winter 2019/20

Chapter 11: Penultimate Chapter Meditation

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A Meta Method for When the End Draws Near (7 minutes)

Over the course of 2020, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments will go up on the 15th of every month. Click here to read Chapter 1: G and B.

text by Gideon Jacobs (and Brad Phillips)

People emphasize the importance of beginnings and endings. One always wants to “get off on a good foot,” “go out with a bang,” “start strong,” “leave them wanting more,” etc, etc. These truisms are, at their core, about manipulation, and manipulation is, at its core, about control. If our “exquisite corpse serial novella” has taught you anything, which it really shouldn’t have, it’s probably that control is for suckers. 

With beginnings, we go from nothing to something, crossing the threshold into the experience in question. Examples: meeting someone, walking into a room, opening a book, etc, etc. We all know that the nature of this threshold crossing is the foundational stone on which the experience will be constructed. Change is what we notice. This is why we feel acceleration and deceleration, not velocity. This is why we place such a premium on first impressions. 

With endings, we go from something back to nothing, crossing the threshold out of the experience in question. Examples: breaking up with someone, exiting a room, finishing a book, etc, etc. We all know that the nature of this threshold crossing is the taste left in our mouths as we move on to other experiences, including that of telling the story of the experience in question to ourselves and others. In a sense, endings are valued because they so heavily inform the beginning of what’s next: our processing of what just happened.  

All that said, it’s the moment just before the ending begins, the gray transitional zone that marks the conclusion of the chunky middle, that tends to go underrated and overlooked. It’s here that people are most comfortable and, therefore, vulnerable, with the finish line finally in sight but enough race left to run that there’s no anxiety about what lies on the other side. It’s here, when we are simultaneously hyper aware of the finitude of the experience in question and still very much inside it, that we can really relax. 

So, relax. Soon, when things are officially almost over, you can start thinking about what you’re going to do when it is, in fact, over, but for now, just relish the purgatorial peace, the limbotic lull. Did you know the word “lull” has roots in middle english and latin that mean, “To quiet a child?” Whether you knew that or not, let your collicky inner child be soothed by the calming energy available in this unique moment of our greater narrative arc. Bask in it. Suck it like a fucking pacifier. 

Good. Now that you’re sufficiently relaxed, your defenses down, we can focus on the real goal of this meditation: to prime you in a way that allows for optimal enjoyment of the final chapter of our “exquisite corpse serial novella.” This process isn’t simply about getting you into a good mood so that you’re more likely to enjoy whatever comes next. No—what we’re going to do is have you prepare a positive expectation of how incredible the final chapter will be, and pair that expectation with a positive sense memory of how good it was. In a sense, we are going to create a mold in which your near-future experience of reading the final chapter can be shoved into. 

This might make it sound as if by predetermining the quality of your reading experience we’re robbing your future-self of agency, but that’s paranoid thinking. What could be more empowering than choosing your fate? What could be more enjoyable than guaranteeing your future enjoyment? Don’t be spooked—this is just what guru’s are really talking about when they talk about “manifesting.” 

So, let’s assign the final chapter a color. It can be any color, but be sure to choose one that you associate with good feelings, maybe love, excitement, comfort, peace, strength, etc, etc. Once you’ve chosen your color, imagine the final chapter not as a bunch of cold words on a page or screen but as a kind of warm, amorphous ball of energy that is, inside and out, your color. Anticipate how good it’s going to feel to enter the ball of energy, to cross the threshold between the penultimate chapter—your current experience—and the final chapter—the ball. 

Now, once you feel like you’ve spent enough time immersed in your color, once you feel your body and mind have been totally saturated by it, imagine exiting the ball of energy and finding yourself plopped into a beautiful home in the middle of a dinner party. There are a handful of your favorite friends there, and a few very attractive strangers too. The table is lively with conversation but you’re having trouble finding an opening to throw in your two cents. This makes you feel self-conscious, weak, timid, impotent, childish, etc, etc. 

Just as you’re about to give up, about to resign yourself to spending the evening sulking rather than participating, the most charming of all the dinner guests, maybe sensing you’ve been a little quiet, redirects the flow of the conversation toward you. Now, you have the floor as all eyes and ears at the table are wondering, “Have you read anything good lately?” “When was the last time a piece of writing really moved you?” and most specifically, “What’s a novel or novella that really nails its ending?” 

Normally, this much attention would cause your voice to tremble a little with doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, panic, etc, etc. But when you open your mouth, you suddenly feel like you’re back inside the ball of energy, or more accurately, it now feels like it is inside of you. When you speak, your voice doesn’t tremble. Much to your surprise, you sound confident and self assured as you tell your little audience that it is so funny they should ask because you have, in fact, just read something good, something that moved you, something that managed to both end with a bang and leave you wanting more. 

For more from Gideon Jacobs, follow @GideonsByeBull on Instagram.