The Poetic Diary of Ramuntcho Matta (Excerpt II)
Ramuntcho Matta May 30, 2024
I.
How to become a better me?
But first, what do you call me? How do you call me? There are no special lines, no direct lines. There are only paths mades of confusions, pains and distraught. Paths mades of encounters, dances and sleeps.
In the South of France there is a land that does not want to be a country. The people there do not want borders. Are there borders anyway?
I am here with a Basque cake, I sit on a bench and they come, all dressed in white, in red and strange hats.
All dressed in white?
It reminds me a song,
All dressed in black?
They come and they dance, each village has their own version. Does your body remember the dance? It does but you can’t recall.
Basque Identity is a moving cross, a representation of the four elements. But we know we have five elements. We have five fingers because we are five elements.
Every day, I will practice my five elements. Water > earth > wood > metal > fire. 3 times, sometimes more. This is the first exercise. At the beginning you will feel very little but after a few weeks you will start to enter in a new dimension and after 4 years you will be water, earth, wood, metal and fire.
You already have this in you but you are not trained to feed yourselves with those sensations.
II.
As a child becomes a flower when they see a flower…
you have to be water that becomes earth,
earth that becomes wood,
wood that becomes metal,
metal that becomes fire,
fire that becomes water,
water that becomes…
That becoming is the essence of being.
Being an animal,
being a human,
being a chair,
a nice meal,
an old stone.
The other day I was invited to present my drawings. In my life of brushstrokes, sometimes words show up. Where they come from is not relevant, where they drive me… that’s the point.
I started to play with my guitar and a dog showed up, so i wanted him to sing, and here we are, a dog’s song… the blues of a dog.
What is “me“ for a dog ? What is his “self“, his “I“? What is the balance between “I“ and “me“ that could make a better “self“?
A dog does not care about this because he does not care about knowing more: instead, he feels more. Much more.
I remember the song.
All dressed in black,
walking the dog,
being a dog…
III.
I can show you how to enter into that dimension. There are exercises and practices but if you are not ready it will be useless. Brion Gysin and Bill Burroughs wanted to create a school but very soon they felt that this kind of knowledge is not for everybody. So transmission should be more maieutics.
Back to the drawing: you see the triangle… “me“ is the body. “I“ the mind. How much of your body is your self? How much of your mind?
Do you mind?
Do you body?
“I don’t mind“,
What a curious sentence.
The rhythm of the phrases is at least as important as the meaning of the words. This is what Bill used to say.
Now you can feel more,
Feeling is not a knowledge
It is a dimension of being.
Ramuntcho Matta is a producer, sound designer and visual artist.
