It’s interesting how deeply the structures we grew up in get entrenched in our bodies and psyche. As a 90ies child, raised in Vienna, I can see how the supermarket culture and the fetish of consumption left a complex and confusing mark on my consciousness. My parents, Georgians, and ex-Sovjet citizens were trapped and betrayed by their government, like so many in the totalitarian socialist regime. Their longing for freedom grew through the decades-long of authoritarian oppression and restriction of people’s free will. They left the Sovjet with the hope for a better life. Capitalism was waiting with open arms. It offered individualism and sold it as freedom.
I grew up in an environment that confused boundarylessness for freedom. The capitalist vision of limitless access to products wherever, whenever, however easily collapses into the path of sarcastic nihilism. The ultimate upturn of Nitzsche. Life has no meaning, so let’s enjoy it to the fullest. Where enjoyment is equaled with immediate material satisfaction. There was something profoundly wrong, I could smell it. Skillful marketing masked the promise of freedom, and the pledge for sensual satisfaction never satisfied the truly sensual. It only left a hole in the heart.
My generation grew up confused, overwhelmed, overloaded, numb, lacking direction, and utterly fragile though blunt with boundaries. The very asset of the soul – freedom – was sold as a marketing tool.
I recognize how the capitalist structural dynamics have influenced my screwed-up relationship with money and the material. My psyche saved the following equation: Capitalist values such as money, success, progression, etc. equal manipulation and binding of the soul. That nudged in me a little Puritan lover, which made sure, that by restricting myself, I wouldn’t get trapped by the invisible strings of false promises. Of course, the puritanical opposite is no solution either. Refusing pleasure is not a gateway to freedom per se. Interestingly enough, both extremes are anti-love, anti-flesh, and anti-soul. They both create a similar disconnection with the sacred. Their difference is only that one does so by exploiting matter and the other by negating it.
Hi there, life, I want true freedom. I want true limits. I want to grow when growth is right and I want to be held in rest when I’m only a seed. I want a deep sense of touch within my body and the body of my loved one. That means pacing, that means slow, that means regressions, and that means time. I want to regenerate the relationships with the other-than-human beings in my environment. I want true intimacy. Because that’s what magic really is: True intimacy with our surroundings. Whispering to the winds, merging with the waves, listening to the birds, reading from the skies, sensing through the roots, conversing with the trees.
I hope that my future children will create magic around themselves, be deeply in touch with nature, and listen into the mysteries and wisdoms dwelling in places. Magic doesn’t need to be externalized into a fantastical virtual reality. Magic is within and around us. Magic is nature. Magic is in the relationships that we are woven into. Magic is the relationships with other humans and with other-than-humans in our surroundings.
Greet your neighbor tree from me,
To a magical future,
and to our children,
With Love,
<3