KENOGEN
"I am in this position because I wish to be. It is I who cut off the branches. I have freed my hands of the desire to seize, to own, to cling.
Without abandoning the world, I have retired from it.
...I have the sensation of eternally falling toward myself.
...I cross through pain to discover the strength of sacrifice. Little by little I undo everything in me that could be called 'me.' I reenter myself incessantly as if into an enchanted forest. I own nothing, I grasp nothing, I know nothing, I want nothing, I can do nothing.
...The 'I' becomes the axis of a total dance, the holy water where the thirsty come to drink.
It is at this moment that I am the pure air that drives away the poisoned atmosphere.
...I become the peaceful gentleness in all pain, ceaseless gratitude, the door that leads victims to ecstasy, the sloping path on which we slide toward the heights…”
from And if the hanged man spoke?
Alejandro Jodorowsky
___________
Kenogen is the resting phase of the follicle during the hair’s lifecycle. It occurs between the shedding and the regeneration, when the follicle remains empty for a period of time.
___________
The man, as male being, is forced to, or tirelessly attempts to, hide his vulnerability, to appear strong and fearless.
But he has always struggled to accept his weaknesses and to turn what he considers a flaw into a strength.
A koan zen says:
“Show me your Original Face, the Face you had before your parents were born.”
In the Zen practice the koan are problems or riddles which are apparently insoluble. They challenge the logic and they cannot be resolved by a rational mind.
Like solving a koan, Kenogen symbolically represents the drive for inner change and the release from superficial masks.
Kenogen is a crucial pause (stop) that embraces the sacrifice of an illusory wealth, of an apparent identity bonded to memories, and often also to strength and sexuality.
The cleaning ceremony leads the man to begin a journey - inner spiritual elevation - headed towards reaching a new awareness.
Changing perspective leads him away from the view of the ordinary world, digging deep in the existential dimension, discovering his personal truth.
To reverse our gaze and plummet into the abyss of our own subconscious, we need a double rope, a knot that tightens the heels, a receptive mind and a strong attraction to the underneath and its roots.
Like a dive, suspended between heaven and earth, he slowly moves away from something he has decided to abandon. His energy slowly runs out, to approach, and make space for, a new consciousness.
Change is a tricky position, sometimes it’s painful, but it’s also a victory.
The whole performance swings in precarious balance, through two extreme positions, the inner strength and the apparent one. Two strengths that come from the same body, and may be a mirror of each other.
Kenogen is the intimate meditation of a man who prepares himself to know and receive his fragilities, facing a revelation with no end, like the hair in its lifecycle, ready to be reborn and fall again.
The piece is designed as a part of a collaborative project: a bigger collection on the theme Masculinity, like a journey where a man gets rid of his superficial masks.
