The Transfiguration of Shame

A vast sea of indecision has always raged before my eyes for as long as I can remember. I have always viewed it through my lens of detachment. An observer’s perspective, the eyes of a third person, a third entity; call me the holy ghost.

I have been greatly undecided on which side to lean towards and anchor on forever. My body has always oscillated between carnality and stoicism in extremes. I strongly feel that I have made the right decision at last.

You see, recently, I have been surfing a sky-high wave of euphoria that seems never-ending.

Well then, is recently the proper word? Perhaps not. After all, it has been days. Weeks? No. Years perhaps? I cannot seem to recall exactly how long ago it dawned on me.

Is time even real anyway?

Once we all decide to stop checking the clocks, will time stop moving altogether? What if we all closed our eyes for a moment? Would time cease to exist entirely? It appears even clearer that someone somewhere must always have their eyes on a clock lest humanity loses its firm grip on reality as it is.

But I digress, it has been quite a while since I came to this euphoric realization. As I speak, I am presently observing from an altar as a presiding bishop. I preach pleasure and indulgence to the masses, sending incessant lasting whispers to their sleeping ears. Venturing into their dreams and urging them to seek out all that is pleasurable. This is the true purpose of living or at least that is what I have come to believe after all these years.

I am a messiah of delectation, come to me with your body of shame and let me show you the way to kill it. Let me guide your emergence from your cocoon. Come, let me show you the transfiguration of shame into pleasure oh lost one, let me enlighten you. Step away from the clutches of pain, free will can be yours.

Pleasures are to be enjoyed, groveled in, and savored immensely. They are to be made greater, more surplus, expanded, stretched to their limits, and finally flayed from their subjects and hung up to dry. They are to be preserved forever to be shown to the members of my congregation. Depictions of pleasure are beautiful. Music, art, and literature born atop the peaks of pleasure are like gold in this house I have built. I am Midas incarnate.

Pleasure is art and art is pleasure.

I believe this revelation came to me on the twenty-seventh day of my voyage around the Atlantic. I was just a simple youth back then, desperately trying to find my bearing. I vividly remember having a nosebleed as I lay on the hot deck of the family yacht. I was menacingly high as blood came from my left nostril in rapid spurts. My nose was mostly numb but I felt the blood run down my cupid’s bow and into my mouth, staining my teeth red; its taste lingering at the tip of my tongue.

At that moment, I decided that I especially loved the taste of blood on my teeth. It was slightly anxiety-striking but comparably more exciting. Is this what cannibals experience? This surging rush of conflicting emotion, the lovely metallic taste clanging its horns against the horns of the pressing desire to spit; to run away from a body turned food. Is this what they feel once they overcome the urge to spit and instead indulge in the consummation of a fellow human being?

There is pleasure in aberrance. Sweet, dark, and blindingly potent pleasure. No greater feeling than this. I would never eat the flesh of man but would consume one whole in other ways. I could eat his heart whole on a platter, I could drain his hopes and dreams while overseeing them as if they were a specimen, I could do so much, consummation is diverse.

On the hot deck, I was dangerously bordering on an overdose but that did nothing to increase my desire to come down from the wave I was surfing. I felt my soul finally understand what exactly I had come to do on this earth. I seemingly became one with the cosmos and understood that I would never regain this feeling if I did not resort to chasing after it for the rest of my life. If I started my pursuit early enough, perhaps I would at least glimpse its coattails. Who knows, I may even get to touch them just as the bleeding dame touched the hem of Christ’s garment. Maybe then I might surf this wave once more, to experience this oneness with the universe.

As I sat there with a bloody mouth, I asked myself whether I wanted to dry my teeth under the sun. It was a sudden thought that made me try opening my mouth but I could not move. It would be easier to pull them out and lay them on the small plate next to me that had scattered powder on it. I almost giggled. It was an absurd question to pose even to myself internally. I realized then that I could do anything at all. Anything that I desired to do at that moment be it pulling out my hair from my skull, setting out into other lands on a neverending voyage, jumping into the sea, or setting the yacht on fire, I could do anything at all.

I thought then that perhaps I would build a church for pleasure, a congregation of devoted believers; make myself a god; be exalted; watch heads bow before me.

How appealing it is to be above a congregation and to be worshiped earnestly.

A gust of humid air had swooshed around me disrupting my thoughts as well as the line I had set with the small card that had fallen onto the wooden surface. I bent to pick the card which was seemingly stuck to the wood, humidity, and seawater playing a role in this. I almost lost my balance but held onto the side of the deck chair, finally grasping the corner of the card between my thumb and my index finger.

I lifted the card and got back to the chair, my back flat against it and my face towards the sky. The sun was high in the sky as the yacht swayed slightly on top of the water. I felt amazing lying there, feeling my body heating up gradually. I had outstretched my hands above me then as if to say the grace. Basking in the sheer perfectness of the moment.

Opening my eyes, I squinted immediately and lifted the card I had picked to cover my eyes from the blaring sun. Printed sparsely on its back was the name of a woman I had met some days prior at the airport.

I vividly remembered locking eyes with her and feeling a small spark of interest when she smiled and came to chat with me. She had also been coming to the islands for some time off and jokingly suggested vacationing with me to which I politely declined. She had left me with her card which I had almost entirely forgotten about till I needed to make my lines. I had not noticed it or remembered who had given me the card when I pulled it out of my purse but was now intensely thinking of the woman. There was something peculiar about her. I thought of how I should have accepted her offer then.

After my voyage, I got back to weaving. The trip helped me with reconciling my art with its purpose. My love for creation was renewed entirely.

Daily, I thought of the feeling I had experienced on the yacht on that day and how much I wanted to replicate it. I thought of the woman as well.

I never threw the business card away, it sat snug in my purse up to the day the urge to see her pressed me unbearably. It was a whimsical urge, mostly baseless, and was barely held up by the proximity of the event to my voyage. I did not know her after all.

I called the woman. She spoke to me with a knowing tone and invited me for a drink. I did not decline this time. We shot up in the backseat of her car and I almost grasped the coattails of the feeling once more as we spoke. I could swear we had ascended into space and the desire to stay there was intense.

I stared at her then, telling her about how I desired to know so much but there was so little time I had to exist. She was just like me. She told me that something drew her to me that afternoon at the airport. Some unconscious camaraderie. She had looked into my eyes and she immediately knew we were similar. She wanted to be a god, just as I did.

I have always known that this curiosity of mine would be my undoing but that has done nothing but made me hasten my steps into the unknown. My desires are so vast that I fear one day I will implode into a sea of stars. Did the creator know so much that they imploded and created the universe? This desire to go even higher and plummet back to the ground rises in me daily. I want to know so much.

The deck of the ship of exploration beckons to me so I might stand atop it and think of how I am small. To think of how the expanse of the sea of pleasure before me is to be swam in. It is all mine to be immersed in and to encompass my body the way the earth is immersed in the cosmos. This sea is mine to know wholly. To experience all of its phases and to be one with it. To know existence inside and out.

I want to sink to the bottom of this sea and caress the sea bed with my bare hands. The sea has forever been a mystery and so I want to coax its secrets out. To fill my lungs with this sea and float back up to the surface in euphoria, there is euphoria in flight, so much of it.

We feel shame in the pit of our stomachs. That uncomfortable feeling settles in like an annoying rash and whispers unpleasant things to us. I heard them the first few times I saw her but with time the voices were deafened.

I have come to learn that there is a very thin line upon which shame transforms from discomfort into pleasure. The more I have talked to her, the more she has validated my absurd and shameful desires and held my hand through the sea of indecision, helping me anchor myself in all that is pleasurable. She has hoisted me above her and urged me to transcend space and grasp eternity.

She has helped me understand that the peak of euphoria is godhood. Together, we occupy our seats on this altar of pleasure.

All are welcome; come to us and we will show you a glimpse of godhood.