WHEN DEATH COMES TO INSPIRE.
Credits: The ladybug that inspired.
ladybugs. an omen of good luck. but what about if the lady bug is dead. not wholly dead. ripped apart. not every individual segment but the left side wing. torn from its body revealing a complex structure underneath. i never knew it looked like that. so mechanical. mathematical. so seemingly opposing to the spontaneous surface of the ladybug. the one i saw today had an orange hue. black spots. similar to a leopard. i wondered how that ladybug got there. how did the wing get ripped off? what's its story? did it get attacked? or did it just succumb to life's natural processes? i just wonder was it a gruesome death or a gentle one. i didn't know what lied beneath that lady bug's wings until i saw it up close and personal. until i stared death right in the face. reflecting on every moment that led up to it. death has met me orgasmically. it's phallus penetrating me until i came. it has also met me decrepitly. the times i felt i had nothing to lose. death follows me. a makeup of experiences that are riddled with the constant reminder of my mortality. that lady bug had no idea that its death would inspire me to write this post. i had started a bunch of writings but i knew i needed to wait for something that could truly capture the epiphany i’m having. nature always seems to give me words when i feel i have none. when i am quiet. death inspires. it alters unseen sequences. it catalyzes transformation. death speaks. i've heard its whispers.haunting....intriguing.
i've always had a fascination with death. my mom encouraged it by sending me to CSI camps (lol). i wanted to be a forensic scientist. it was never about the profession itself but the way death unlocked me. my curiosity. intuition merged with raw material. here i am seeing myself mirrored through the lady bug's torn wing. the beauty and the wound. the surface and the structure. i'm aware that something is coming to an end. i tend to speak the language of endings. we meet time and time again. certain times more devastating than others. death is why i've managed to turn a valued symbol of positivity into gore. into pain. it's why im fascinated with museums. a structure that houses things that outlive death. its why i love books. words that outlive death. words that outlive anything ever spoken. well i guess that has sort of changed since the involvement of the internet but that's beside the point (lol). when we're dead all we leave behind is our creations. whether it's the creation of feeling. or lineage. or physical art. art is why i can dive into the nature of death without losing my footing. it grounds me. to choose to investigate the unknown comes with committing to the experience of a bunch of death. death to old ways of being. death to psychological processes. death of relationships. death to identities that had 10 inch claws dug into it...those nails had been there a while.
and what about the death that women experience on a cyclical basis. the shedding of energy. womb recalibration. any other time someone is bleeding out in the way women do cyclically brings upon fear. I find it fascinating how society creates all these little bargaining chips with death. it feeds off of our fear of death not acknowledging the fact that we all came from someone who has death built into her body. the times when babies were commanded out of my womb without the need for a middle man. death is so ingrained into every facet of life yet we fear it. seeing this lady bug today made me think about how much significance is in death. and maybe even insignificance. an inevitable feature that accompanies evolution.
if life hasn't taught me enough, death will.
nature’s cycles will.
so maybe that ladybug was good luck after all. especially in death.
she moved something within me because i saw her in her most raw form. not simply admired because of her flight or her beauty but what was beneath the flight. what it looked like when she landed forever. death moves. it shifts.
it creates an osmosis of perception.
