Observations on Orchid Offering rituals

One lovingly unlocks the golden cages where fears lie trapped and allows for the unsavory spectacle to parade down the cobbled Main Street. These days one bows to no gods save for his own fears. They whisper in the ear. They trace the outlines of nightmares, with long bony fingers, on forearms and spines. Hair standing on the edge is a reminiscence of our primal nature - our body's need to react to fear's embrace and to the devastating thought that one's mind allowed for its creation.



Too often have i, the mortal not I the God, lost sight of what is important in favor of what is convenient. The days have been kind and the world has come to terms with the matter because it knows that, in the end, we all react in such a positively savage fashion. Tacit agreement, it is so courteously entitled. Two gazes cross paths - their mutual understanding unassailable.



There is that one moment, however. The split second when the lines are clear and the fog rises and one is allowed to step back and admire the whole picture. However, like waking up from any other dream, when the moment passes, so does everything it brought. The undeniably cruel anguish of having been offered the absolution of pure truth cannot bear comparison to any other feeling in our repertoire.



It is only so, with heavy mind rather than heart, that we take it upon ourselves to retrieve and conceal these beings in Nelda's baltas kastites. Come morning, all traces of the sleepless promenade would have been erased. The poles have long ago reversed and shall forever be kept in this fashion. They have done so to such an extent that the words that need saying are shamefully hidden from sight in a whirlpool of dissociated fragments while the demons that need be enshrouded in silence are proudly allowed to develop their distasteful practices out in the open, like extraordinary children whose parents allow for their virtues to be shown to the stunned audience.



The thick red curtains are drawn yet again (one of the curtains is burned in a corner, from a previous show perhaps). Nineteen orchids are thrown to anyone on stage who might still take them. A camera snaps the last few images of the actress walking away. "The concert is either too long, or not long enough", he thinks while carelessly letting the camera tumble in the bag. On the road to the exit, he steps on roses that missed their mark. Waste of a good intention.