My next aspiration.

Many thinkers purpose that we as humans are in a continuous, life-long struggle to become extraordinary. Theorists often give various solutions to exactly how one conquers this dogmatic feeling. For it to become attainable, one must leave the profanity of reality to reach a suspended level of sacredness. Victor Turner, a cultural Anthropologist, produced one of the most well-known processes featuring the “liminal phase”, in which discovering that sacred place is possible.

“Liminality” is derived from the Latin word “limen”, which means “threshold”. Fittingly named, Turner theorized that after separating from the profane, an individual (or group of people known as communitas) could cross a boundary, and if only for a moment, reside past the threshold of divinity. Mircea Eliade wrote of sacred places as obtaining many of the same attributes. He and a number of other credible theorists add weight to Turners theory with relative concepts.

Whereas Turner believed that one could experience each phase on his/her individually, sociologist Emile Durkheim, contests that all cultural societies are unified based on their collective clarification of “sacred” and “profane”. Thus Durkheim would argue that an individual cannot enter liminality without the camaraderie of his/her community. However, Turner does not refute Durkheim’s dispute that it takes a small populous; instead he embraces the idea, strengthening it by labeling the group communitas.

Durkheim speculated that it is necessary for humanity to create rites in order to keep balance and conformity. Like all else, those rites come in negative and positive. Negative rites install taboos in society, separating or otherwise predominating sacred from profane, in turn molding social order. On the other hand, there are positive rites, which allow the supernatural to take place. Durkheim’s notion of positive rites goes hand-in-hand with Turner’s idea of the liminal phase. Should the concepts be fused, they would birth a statement along the lines of: at the right time and place, positive rites may grant permission to move into liminality. At this time, and this time only, communitas may break the negative rites without disrespecting the objective of their worship, but only as a whole.

Most commonly associated with psychology and sex, Sigmund Freud, would simply reduce Turners spiritual liminal phase to very basic and instinctual desires. To him, nothing could become taboo if humans didn’t secretly crave it, thus, allowing one to indulge in a taboo generates sexual satisfaction. Sex drive is found in the id, or the subconscious part of the mind, at the root of all desire. The superego tames the id, and being comprised of societal expectations, is comparable to God. Superego, therefore, is remedied perfection. But we live in reality, so we are all not perfect. Our conscious, according to Freud, mediates between the two extremes of the spectrum (the id and superego) and each decision it produces creates the world we live in.

The founder of the Oedipus complex theorizes that: deep in the subconscious of our mind we wish to consume what we have created to be taboo. Such practices can strike as absurd from a distance. If a taboo is available for consumption then it was never truly off-limits to begin with, deeming it profane, not sacred. Though senseless it seems, to some these practices possess thresholds that only the worthy may cross. In this liminal place, once ordinary people may feel the grace of the supernatural, which ultimately alters the fabric of their lives. We find evidence of these rites in almost all religion. Christianity (to be familiar) exercises this taboo-eating ritual during the ceremonial communion, when bread and wine are consumed in place of the flesh and blood of Jesus so that the Christians may partake in His divinity.

Karl Marx, amongst many other titles was a sociologist, economist, and philosopher. He proposed that rites, such as those described by Durkheim, instilled “moral codes” which lead to alienation. These guidelines keep the person feeling guilty and shameful for behaving unconventionally and/or yearning for the taboo, which in turn creates dependency. People come to need God, believing that they are defective for feeling longings that make them animal and human.

Self-alienation occurs in the average man because of two essential human aspects which he is forced to give over to the “higher being”: the id and self-efficacy. It is here that we find correlation between Turner’s pre-liminal separation phase and Marx’s alienation idea. Both intellectuals note that this is the phase in which the individual sacrifices his/her previously fixed point, to move into a new, higher status. Marx, however viewed this in a much more negative light because he believed that powerful people used these rites of passage in order to keep the poverty-stricken beneath them. One way to do such a thing was to take away self-pride. Should a man give his ego to a higher being, he is then unwittingly stripped of his birthright to dignity and personal gratification. That is exactly what is done between the liminal and post-liminal re-aggregation phases. Left without a sense of security, the individual has less time to contemplate anything other than basic needs for survival. You can see how this might place a stigma on mankind as a whole… all the luxuries being reserved for whomever is holding power, where the majority of the population simply tosses their rights to equal power over their shoulder, as they are repeated told that they can never achieve such highness without retaining post-liminal wisdom.

From the combination of all four, prestigious, well-known thinkers, I have come to conclude that the liminal phase can construct itself to a number of situations and has no fixed definition. Liminality is abstract. It can be defined by one’s own interpretation of extraordinary. You create your own sacred threshold.

Anonymous was the best movie I’ve ever seen. 

All Writers are advised to watch.

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, for girl-time fun.

Eight Theories of Religion, if you like to expand your horizons this book by Daniel Pal comprises various controversial theorists in a light and interesting read. 

Sextrology by Starsky and Cox. You will be addicted to “What’s your sign?” no matter who you are.

Yo, do you feel clever?
No, forget what everyone else has to say
Do you feel clever?

Subliminally, subliminal
Subliminally, subliminal
Subliminally

It’s like, I live in whatever like is
Always raining, similar, never the same
See the game don’t play that, so I speak maybes and if onlys
Instead of I ams and fallen memories

All that don’t feel to good to be
But my genealogy registers adaptability and that bitch
Feels like it’s fixed
‘Cause my great grandmother spoke of this exact same thing

I use rhyme but I think she used to sing
Or just bring her force to a circle of women
And they be aligning chakras and meditating
Bad vibe vaccinating, evil energy eliminating
As well as debating on how to raise the children and love the men

But today we’re more caught up in Ricki Lakes and Jerry Springer
Becoming Numb, now that’s the title of my narrative base, novel of fiction
But still my fascination is loyal to how we manage to stay, we, human
A once civilized nation, or so they told me, yo

Just seeing how we fight to be
Instill it in your sight to be
It’s subliminal, subliminally
Subliminal, subliminally

Just seeing how we fight to be
Instill it in your pysci
It’s subliminal, subliminally
Subliminal, subliminally

You see, breast was a blessing so I owe no shit
Obligation is a choice, but this choice I select
Who to share my love with, love me and be in
‘Cause I believe that I am leaving with most are submerged in

It’s a messed up situation
So stay stationed is the advice that I leave
To those who can’t come to those you won’t proceed
You can stay right here

And if you ever pass go, do not collect 200, I repeat do not collect
So I’m this disputing being openly happy
When it serves so well to be depressed

Any attempt of smiling needs impeccable timing
Make the suit sweet by allowing them to feel
That they suited the situation to the masses, to the market
Keep them pushing Beemers

My friend I may not be able to deliver a Benz to you
But I can give you piece of mind
Piece of mine

Define ownership, now will your mothership take with it
What you purchased at your outlet
So my friend once again I’ll just give you piece of mind

I made light of last night

by sorting the gems of my life

into categories:

The lessons I’ve received

and

The feelings I want to take from our last time together.

Nothing was discarded.

Though polarity presented itself

amongst magnetic energy,

…leaving my brain in befuddlement

of how you really feel…

I absorbed every ion and sent them surging through my synapses,

Collecting every aspect in my personal anecdote.

I needed to. I may never see you again.

… … …

Suffering seeps through the cracks of your rib cage.

Since I filled your chest with the substance

I allow you to pour it into mine.

Pain causes swelling, so I don’t talk much.

That basketball seems to hit the ground more frequently,

going at a higher velocity than usual,

and your lungs are exasperated

though you’re not running around…

Spill it in the air before it ferments,

I wish to believe that

I could never leave your heart hardened.

Elevation deflates with your endurance,

Emotional stamina staggers to a halt

bringing you down to my level.

I will, however,

Respect the distance between us.

While staring into the face of the Earth

you fit yourself to wide array of masks.

This time I won’t try to lift the thick bone in your chin.

Where did I go?

I will never make you feel good again.

Talking dwindles.

My voice box quivers in my throat

as does the soul of a man who dies a thousand deaths.

Like an organ grinder with a monkey on my back

and a broken instrument

I will continually crank at the inkling of the words I left unsaid.

If only you knew what was in my head…

“You’ve done enough.”

No, I’ve done too much,

and it’s getting late.

How did I come to be here?

With my eyes on your skin

watching the friction

surface from within.

Birthing mountains

that you melt with a graze of your palm.

I want to warm you like that again.

You extend a hand as if giving me another chance

and pick me up off the ground.

“Why do I like you so much, girl?”

All along I had asked myself the same thing.

If for once I would have believed

That you could love me…

If for once, I would have loved myself first…

Epiphanic chills erect the hair lining my occipital lobe,

opening my eyes to what I’d done.

Infecting you with the disease of distrust…

Never knowing I was so contagious.

My shoulders are delicate under your arms,

holding them up strengthens my back

and always has.

While I perpetually pray for one more moment,

you gladly give me time

to evaporate in pheromones

and condensate in the crook of your neck.

“You need to leave me alone.”

your mouth says.

A cool compress for my headache appeases me to stay.

It is the perfect prescription.

Such a natural medication:

Human’s kind way of healing.

Was it the cool curvature of our foreheads, or gravity

that rolled our faces into salutations?

However it became

that the curl of my upper lip

directed the flow of your breath onto my tongue,

a Golden river of Honey.

I have no complaints.

Beyond the bridge of my lases are two supernovas,

Dark, mystifying,

deep, magnifying,

With a soul suspending aura

so inspirational and gravitational that even

luminescence cannot escape.

I dare not open my eyes for if theories ring true,

you possess portals to the beginning of the universe.

Tremors invade my nervous system.

Every animalistic instinct is telling me to

Go for the Gold,

at the same time

I want to stop. I don’t want to do this again.

It feels too fierce,

it ignites too many indulgences.

A wide span hand coats the small of my back

in attempts to calm the trembling vertebrae.

Without warning 

I am hit with a cold wind

Left holding myself up.

“I can’t.”

plays like dejavu on the percussion’s of my equilibrium

before hammering into my auditory nerve.

It wasn’t until you were long gone that I even heard you bid me

Goodnight.

I’ve probably never been so proud to have a song on my Blog as I am to have this one grace its pixels. It doesn’t matter who you are, you will most definitely relate. This is your world. Our world.

Feel free to share (:

Gettin’ back to The Roots,

with J Dilla,

because most of you need a little Common Sense.

The Fugees dispersed artists who found it a necessity to speak their individual messages.

Sarah Barielles is actually pretty darned good, as is Ingird Michaelson, Norah Jones and Fionna Apple.

Adele, Duffy, Amy Winehouse are beautifully broken in such a variety of ways.

Del The Funky Homosapien.

Some modern, lounge your lips on a salted martini rim, metallic-feeling music I’ve come upon:

Fleur Earth

Ryan Leslie

Miguel

Cloud

Childish Gambino

Frank Ocean

Tonedeff

CunninLyinguist

The Weeknd.

India Arie has tied her soul to mine.

A Tribe Called Quest has lead their journey through my mind.

Joss Stone.

Floetry vibes are of the warmest wavelength.

Lessons from Mary J. Blidge are blessings.

Jill Scott.

I heard Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill were crazy. That only proves their IN(credible)SANITY.