Sun and Fire.
a note on writing and walking #2
The Sun is shining - the weather is sweet.
This object in the sky - everlasting fire.
Warmth in the night, clarity in the fight.
Who knows what is right?
The mountains or the rivers?
Is it wet or stonecold?
Who guides me - knowing i will pass?
Is it me or ist you? Who will guide who?
Well - let me warm your tea and give you a clue.
There is a difference that opens up when i can stay with difference.
This “Or” i mentioned in the last article - is a door opener.
Sitting in the mountains, looking down and far, seeing the horizon i will be faced with the cold. I know this - sometimes even in the broad daylight - but for sure in the night.
This thing we discovered - fire has been THE great problemsolver. From cooking water, to providing warmth, light and the stories the crackling of the burning wood is telling us. The mountains are rigorous - they do not give in - they demand you to be aware of your steps. They demand you choose rightly - there is not much space to play. They demand you to learn - there is not much around.
The rivers - are full of green, full of aliveness - here you are forced to be aware and awake of different faculties. But Fire - although the same - has a different significance in the rivers than in the mountains.
Here again - we are faced with the “Or” of altitude. A difference, different circumstances, different constrains.
Can i respond here from the gap again? How do i go on with writing while keeping the gap? The moment i write about the gap something appears. But this something is a sort of nothing. It is without a direction.
What is this something? I do wonder what the reader does with these words. This gap leads no-where. And no - i won’t use now-here. No-where because the direction of thought is being halted. Yes i do write but the direction remains open. I do keep the “difference” “halted”. Does it make a difference for the fire in the mountains and valleys?
Can i relate this gap towards the topic started? Maybe it is a kind of supposed zero-point to proceed writing from.
This Gap resembles more a place of void and abyss. It can feel nihilistic in itself - no direction. Is this numbness? lethargy? ignorance? There are things i could do - but as i dont think about them and do not make an effort to be aware - i wont. And there is no drive for anything. Is this “Das Ding / The thing” as Freud calls it? The vicinity to it is nothing less. Lots of anger, the wish to be antisocial, retreat, not be bothered about other people and especially their demands and wishes. A big fuck you all.
Again - is this the gap? Cant be - i suppose it is something else - something i am touching or being exposed to which i can not articulate correctly. Different points of tension, incongruencies that are not possible to be in relation. There is a negation at work - and the tension i talk about is the one between. It seems to be a different way of experiencing “OR” - or dare i say the bardo/chinwat. But as it is not neutral - it is filled with different streams of tensions - which are experienced as impossible to be solved. The reason why they stay is unclear - hence there is an ignorance at this place.
Is a choice really possible to be made here?
I wake up and suddenly am confronted with these tensions. After making a coffee i want to retreat again.
My idea in this post was to write about fire but i cant go there. I cant write about fire and its significance. Right now its a sort of lie - something i am making up to look good, wise, knowledgable. And this sort of behavior has absolute zero benefit to no one. Except - Actors - they will say something to portray the theater of the thing but do not reach the being of it and thats not the point of it. The point is for them to get as close as possible so people can relate to the image they portray.
A Ritual done properly does something very similar - and the line between theater and being the thing are very blurred here. A long time ago that was the actual purpose of theater - to expose dynamics at hand. What is left of this intelligent method today?
The Gap, it seems, has no direction at first. Staying with it will reveal the direction. Now what happens when the gap exposes material to oneself that is triggering, difficult to digest and suddenly the perception of ones own experience becomes difficult? What happens when suddenly one notices one can not function as used to? What if you suddenly are confronted with noticing that the pro-ject itself dissapeared? You are bombared with a variety of thoughts, images and disregulations in your day to day experience with no end in sight? There is a truth emerging that is more close to a chaotic environment. Even trying to frame it is rather difficult as it rather feels and thinks messy. Suddenly the direction, as started in this paragraph is all over the place. Lacan framed a vicinity to this kind of content - dating back to freud’s ideas - “The Thing” - which is quite an interesting field to touch upon. Uncomfortable, similiar in qualities to psychosis and can lead to psychosis as well.
e thing. There is no, absolutley zero guarentee for the experience and vicinity towards the thing to bear any fruits. And again - both views do work together. The question is rather what one does with the experience of the thing - if one is capable to produce new information out of this. It may be one of the most brutal ways of gaining a view upon ones own pieces of truth. It can be liberating in a specific way - it can be disturbing. And most definetly it will be both. For some reason this kind of confrontation does something.
Now i am drawn back to the idea of “Or” - the bardo / chinwat bridge. The space before a gate is opened - a direction is chosen. What is exactly happening here? This piece is exploring “the thing” - as it appeared in and around my writing in my life. I did not have a choice about being confronted with its dreadfullness and dark ambience. I noticed i had to sit through it - to walk with it and
Just writing about it creates discomfort - the andean cosmology has a different word for this “Ukhu Pacha” - the lower world/realm. While the indigeneous conception of this realm(s) have always a purpose - lacan’s “thing” is just that least make sure i don’t cause havoc to others and myself. It is quite interesting as - the moment i write - the thing is knocking on my door.
The work this inquiry comes out of — practice, personal research, psychoanalysis and community — lives at www.turiyosho.net. The next retreat — Coming Back to Love — opens this September 2026 in the Peruvian Andes, co-led with Lesley Myburgh and Kannon.
— Turiyosho