So – to crack straight in then – how do you perceive the relationship between alchemy and creativity
Oh fuck – don’t start me off……. It took me a long time to work out that I was an alchemist – and not being funny but I was sweating my arse off in a Bikram (yoga) studio this morning thinking about the same question. It’s something that plays through my mind every single day. Alchemy stems from two core elements – the creative and the conscious – and consciousness is really the underlying foundation of that dualism. It can take a lifetime to work out who the fuck we are – with only the constant presence of the ego making us believe we might be something other than who or what we fundamentally are, but by pushing through those surface levels of ego driven consciousness, you start to seriously fuck with the dark arts – and that can be a dangerous game as well as a profoundly enlightening one. Now when I say the dark arts - I’m not talking about sitting round some poxy Ouija board – but dealing with transformations on shadowy, subconscious levels that you’re entering into almost blind – with intuition and the hidden aspects of yourself feeling their way through rather than the standard, self- control based, daily realities of the ego side of consciousness. And that can be dangerous, because you’re never quite sure where the fuck it will lead or what it will uncover. I’m an artist who didn’t know he was an artist for a massive chunk of my life - I fell into music almost accidentally and within the spheres of audio and visual, I’ve probably experienced everything that I’d ever want to experience, and then broadened those ranges into the physical…
How does that stand up as a metaphor for your life
My life has always worked backwards. It’s like I’ve been walking backwards – and that’s not just a directional thing – it’s actually walking backwards – tripping up all over the gaff - making it difficult for myself both as an artist and as a person rather than just taking the simple, obvious route. Drugs – rock n roll – you name it – there’s always been gaping pitfalls created along the ride – by my own hand. But there’s a process in that…. If I’d just gone and done Madonna’s album or worked with Puffy or whatever – gone to LA and taken all those ‘obvious’ opportunities I was offered, I’d either have been found dead with a needle in my arm, done a Phil Spectre , running round with a 9mm trying to shoot someone or ended up on my hands and knees searching for gear in the back garden at 5 in the morning cos I’m off me tits. All of which was always a milimetre awaythat much is obvious. But then as he said – there’s a process in that – those darting liquid patterns of molten chrome that ebbed and flowed through every conceivable angle - where the alchemist’s hammer can only hope to impose form on chaos – not order – cos who the fuck wants anything quite so dull as order –no, definitely form. The balance that keeps unity synched if not structured.
I had to have a certain amount of resistance – trust in a certain spirit that’s had to hold me back from riding extremes into apocalypse. I’ve had to be muted , and muting for me was about going out and getting completely out of my nut – and that was a very dangerous liason. If I look at all the Bikram I’ve been doing in the last 18 months, I know it sounds weird, but I feel like I’m now balancing into a natural drug with the yoga where that muting is organic and the insights are slower but infinitely more powerful. Makes total and utter sense – drugs of their different stripes- the outright sledgehammer hedonist rush to the psychedelic journey are modern culture’s short cut to elevated or numbed reality – invaluable bursts of experience intrinsically cursed by their own short termism – as if the effort they absolve you of making ultimately fucks you until you realize that those benefits are only sustainable naturally and with an awful lot of hard work put in. But back to the backwards rewind…..
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LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE 8 (FREE)
LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE 8 (FREE)
