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Part I — Night Sky With Entry Wounds
feature film, in production
current cut: 1h 5m
Slowly in the works since 2018, Omphalos is a two-parts audivisual meditation centered on the figure of the oracle.
email slowosmosis[at]gmail[dot]com to request a preview screener
In the hottest hour
of this endless blaze
I, wisdom, dwell in prudence
and possess knowledge and discretion
I love those who love me
and those who seek me find me
It was in the tenth year of preparation, in the garden of the country estate, that this conversation took place.
His lover found Chuang-tzu sitting in the garden, watching the flowers with a strange expression upon his face. "You have been at this work now for ten years, Chuang-tzu, and still you have not put brush to silk. The emperor awaits his crab. What occupies you so?"
“My will, my love," Chuang-tzu said. "There is a sweet will in my soul, like the brave, precarious force of a flower. I am trying to let it bloom."
"You speak as you always speak, in images. But I know you well enough by now to sense when something troubles you beneath the surface. What is this tenderness you name, and why does it burden you so?"
"Because sweetness and terror are not so distant from one another. I have been watching the way power moves in the kingdom, the way it flows from hand to hand and centralizes, and I am considering our way forward."
"Tell me about this way.”
“There are two futures. In the first, we become adepts of a different kind of resistance, more technical, preemptive, one that may ensure abundance can be generated independently from subjugation" He paused. "The second: we prepare for violence. For violence is becoming the only coin that holds its value. Our critical voices keep falling short of complete demystification and in so doing sing demons into being, rending the anathemas of our time only stronger, more bitter and absolute. As the distance between the wealthy and the destitute widens into a chasm, violence appreciates just as all other currencies lose their worth. We may need to be ready, if we wish to keep any position at all in what is coming."
His lover considered this. "These are troubling alternatives you present. But before we examine them further, tell me: when you speak of abundance, what exactly do you mean? Since there are many for whom abundance in the spirit suffices."