… because this is what freaks do. they're the silent ones who speak worlds
simply with their presence, they’re the jubilant ones who are clanging bells,
rolling in the mud, dancing until dawn, staring into mirrors, throwing clay,
throwing paint, devouring and vomiting wild poetry, casting their poems down
wells, shouting out love in the supermarkets, who are burning, boiling, living,
moving, flowing, dying - doing whatever they happen to be doing with bold, honest,
awake hearts. they're the ones who wake up housefulls of sleeping people -
not because they want to, just because they're awake and their kind of awake
is contagious, spreads like fire, fire that liberates the heart by burning
away everything that imprisons it. of course, we all wake up in our own perfect ways
and do with our awakened selves whatever it is we came here to do. the point is that
freaks
catalyze
life
and they can't help it, can't stop themselves, can't hold it back.
we're all freaks, but sleeping freaks are hard to recognize because they don't
recognize themselves. i'm still trying to recognize and discover my own self.
this is my process. isn't it your process too? isn't this the great
journey you've been talking about? isn't this really the same thing?
if we all woke up, we'd all realize how much we're all freaks, how
unique, shocking, alive, molten and unknowable our souls actually are. but we spend
so much of our time sleeping, at least i know that i spend so much of my time
sleeping, waiting, waiting in line for things i think i want but don't really
want or need, things i actually detest because they're keeping me here,
petrifying in line, waiting, holding my breath... but of course, i'm
actually detesting myself, my own sleeping self in this dream of loathing
the dream i'm dreaming. what i'm really doing is waiting
for someone or something around me to wake me up. what i'm
really doing is yearning for life again, yearning to get back into life,
to feel it again, to move with it and be moved by it. what i'm really doing is
waiting for some other freak to save me, having totally forgotten that the
only freak who can really save me is myself.
being a freak is perfectly simple. what's difficult is being a freak who
oversleeps. freaks are defined by their bold, honest, conscious actions, whatever
they happen to be. oversleeping freaks tend to have fitful sleeps. they know
something vital is passing them by. they want to get into it, but they're
stuck in sleep. what they most want is for someone or something around them
to wake them up... anyone, anything: another freak, a terrible accident,
the scream of a jay, the plunk of a stone thrown into a pond, a jet ripping through the sky,
anything...
freaks depend on nothing more than the power that created and sustains them. they
surrender to this power, and in surrendering, express something much greater than they
could ever generate on their own. maybe this isn't true of all freaks. maybe this is only
true of the freaks that I know and love. but it doesn't matter. freak is a question that every
freak answers with his or her own life.
we all have freak's hearts, but how many of us act from these great hearts of ours,
these great, shocking, unpredictable, burning, awake hearts of ours?
how often do we follow the guidance of our hearts regardless of the opposition
that's facing us, the opposition that will always face us? how often do we act
without first measuring the possible reactions to our actions, without forming
contingencies, without looking to protect ourselves and our tenuous positions in
the world? can we act in the face of the judgments and confusion of others, in a world
that's out of balance with itself? do we blame the world for being out of balance or do we
restore the balance within ourselves? do we live in the center or at the periphery?
do we slumber? how long will we keep slumbering? when will we stop protecting
the comfortable illusions we've wrapped around ourselves?
freaks answer these questions each with their own lives, following what they
love, being what they love, getting carried away, eating life whole and raw.
freaks are revolutionaries because they follow no rule that conflicts with the guidance of
their hearts. how does the heart guide? each of us discovers this for ourselves,
and what we discover we cannot violate without violating our own selves.
following the guidance of the heart is the most revolutionary act i know,
the only act of revolution that endures, that isn't toppled by subsequent revolutions
or opposing ideologies. there's no ideology about freaks' actions, nothing to believe
other than the unified force of life itself, this constant flow of life that moves life
forward, that fills every sail, that leaves nothing out, scants nothing, follows no rules
other than of its own perfect nature. this is what i call love - the great, unpredictable flush of
life deeper into itself, uplifting and transforming itself, every transformation perfect and
necessary, no matter how painful, no matter how imperfect and arbitrary it may seem: this
i call love, the common language and celebration of freaks.
freaks know that the more love they give, the more they have. they know that love
is blind to all the boundaries that we've spent so much time creating and
preserving, boundaries that divide, define, over-simplify, that separate me from
you, separate my set of beliefs and customs from your set of beliefs and customs,
that fuel illusion and misunderstanding... all of which melts away with a single look of love.
freaks see life as it is, not as they wish it to be. they understand the indissoluble
relationship between what they see and what they are. they don't isolate, blame,
or react. they just see life as it is and act as their hearts bid them act.
they see all the codes, customs, conventions, laws, norms, habits, trends,
inequities and needs of society - they see these things as much within themselves as
within society - and they jump up and shout-out what they see, or they throw things
or dance or clang bells or break down and sob. they do whatever arises as it arises
within their hearts... because they're in relationship with life, because they are life itself
and they are whatever they see and whoever they help, because their own suffering is
relieved when the relieve the suffering of others... this is what my heart tells me
and this is what i do, or try to do - sense, act and flow all at once, in a single sweep of love.
i'm not trying to create a new division, a new elite. i'm not trying to say that
freaks are better than anyone else, that freaks are bodhisattvas whose only goal
is the salvation of the world. if they are this, they are this whether i say so or not.
freaks don't try to distinguish themselves, don't want to create more divisions. freaks fly
against divisions and the suffering that divisions cause. freaks can't choose to be other
than freaks. once they've realized they're freaks - even before they've realized it - they
surrender to the movement of life through them however it arrives, trusting that the great,
unknowable power that brought them where they are now will lead them wherever they
should be, to do whatever should be done. freaks know that to act any other way is a
death much worse than death; it's a soul-death, a death within life, an extinction of
everything but the wrapper.
no, i'm not trying to create a new elite. i just have to tell you what i yearn for, what fills
my life with life, what I can't live without, what has always kept me going, even when
i had no idea what it was.
it's so simple, really: seeing clearly awakens the heart, which revolutionizes the self,
which revolutionizes the world - this is the process of the freak. this is what all the great
poems, sermons, paintings, explosions, plays, songs are for: to trigger this
necessary revolution, to trigger it within our own hearts, the only place where revolutions
really happen.
having said all this, i feel how far i am from living it.
right now, all I have are mountains of yearning for this, mountains and oceans of
yearning. but everything is teaching me. being where I am is one of the best teachings
ever. so here i am, being here, full of yearning, ready to explode, waiting for someone
or something to shock me awake. will you shock me? will you explode a few bombs
around me? please? i keep forgetting what's real.
> Thanks to Emily and all the other freaks who helped catalyze this piece. <
