David Lynch went back into the void this week, into the breath, into the question. As Amy, who has a tattoo of a still pulled from Fire Walk With me, wrote in our Coven Circle:
As David Lynch passes to the other side, please light a candle for a man who was foundational in my world-building. A man who granted me access to the surreal and unknowable and changed how a little kid saw life.
Celebrity deaths don’t usually affect me that much, but damn. Thank you, David, for making the world a weirder place.
Kyle MacLachlan wrote about his friendship with the legendary surrealist director:
David was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed to be the best version of human. He was not interested in answers because he understood that questions are the drive that make us who we are. They are our breath.
David Lynch tuned himself to the universe and drew out the questions from beyond the shiny surfaces that pretend to have the answers. He slipped behind the way the world can feel closed and complete and - if you are of a certain state of mind, furious at inequality, aware of the dark - deeply stifling. He brought images and sounds from that place beyond, and it was full of humour and humility as well as a vast and delicious imaginative questioning.
He refused to concretize meaning.
In the last music video he directed, for a musical collaboration between himself and Chrystabell, he offers "The Answers To The Questions" in the form of a grey cloud in the middle of a black and white room, a lady in a red dress, a deconstructed clown, while the lyrics, layered and repeating, mourn along with all of us that we'll never know the answers to the questions... but then:
There was a feeling
A feeling of falling
She felt she would never find the answer
The answer to the questions
The questions she asked him
When he was here
She thought they had a bond
An unshakable bond
But was it too good to be true
She fell into a dark dream of despair
Oh
Dark clouds roiling above in a dark wind
But then she saw him
She saw him in light
She saw him in love
The missing witch prescription for this week is to spend time with David Lynch.
If you are feeling suffocated by the cognitive dissonance of a convicted rapist and insurrectionist being inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the overwhelm of sorrow for the innocent people who will be caused pain by the policies and cascading cruelties of this presidency, spend time with David Lynch, and let him help you turn toward a deep uncanny knowledge of all that exceeds, all that is weird, all the cackling power of what's beyond the surface. Rewatch all of Twin Peaks, or Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, or Dune. Feel Wild At Heart as you sing Love Me Tender, or sit inside the quiet tenderness of The Straight Story. Gift yourself a damn fine cup of coffee with a slice of cherry pie.
Or sit with David Lynch's blues music, the song 9.1.1 from his first album BlueBOB is my villain era entrance music. Yes, I am a monster thank you.
Or soak in this footage of David Lynch explaining Transcendental Meditation, by way of the deliciousness of doughnuts.
For Lynch, this was a practice central to the last 50 years of his life, a way of following sound to a dynamic peace, a growing ball of consciousness. He believed that if we came together to seek this universal consciousness we could amplify each other, like how two speakers next to each other create constructive interference and get louder.
He believed that life continues after we step out of our vehicular bodies. Part of him, the important part, is still alive in the universe.
So let's add David Lynch to our patron saints, and keep on with the work of embracing the strange, finding our dynamic peace, and finding each other.
Invitations
Conversation with The CryptoNaturalist 20 Jan, Monday, 1:00 – 2:30 PM EST
Poet, philosopher, wildly popular internet-er, and friend of the podcast Jarod K. Anderson aka The CryptoNaturalist returns to share kindness from his new book, Something in the Woods Loves You. Listen to our first conversation here. This invite to participate live is exclusive to coven members, and the resulting conversation will be edited and published on the Missing Witches podcast. Hosted by Risa.
Weavers Co-Working Cauldron 3pm 20 Jan, Monday, 3:00 – 4:00 PM EST
Missing Witches coven members at the Weavers level come together around a virtual cauldron every Monday to nurture each other's work and spirit. Hosted by Amy and Risa.
7AM and 10AM EST Weekday Body Doubling Circles
Every weekday coven members come together to work quietly, in community. These sessions allow us the space to focus, with timed 5-minute breaks every 25 minutes to move or tend to our bodies. Hosted by Reed.
A Pleasing Midwinter Terror 25 Jan, Saturday, 8:00 – 9:30 PM EST
"During the dark of Winter, let's share some ghost stories! I’ll have a couple of classics to read to you. And, if you’d like to, please bring a story to share, as well. No pressure whatsoever to bring anything, though - this event is every bit as much for those who have the talent for listening to and appreciating good stories.
I’m hoping we can also spend some time in between the telling to just chat about this genre and what it means to us, how it affects us, what we do with the topics we encounter, etc." Hosted by Tess.
New on Missing Witches
We're back on the podcast this week, it's just Amy and I, introducing ourselves to this new year and sharing stories of flying squirrels and finding each other in the dark. Did you know they bioflouresce neon pink at night under UV light? You're welcome.
EP 251 - Community Glows In The Dark
The Missing Witches online zine has been lighting up with incredible submissions from you, our fiercely magical community. Check out this spell for resistance and re-enchantment by Jazimina: Give Everybody Everything. This poem that is Hekate calling you towards radical change by Jill: Charged by Darkness. This story of finding the voice of the universe, God, He/She/They in a labyrinth by Celeste: Release, Receive, and Return: Walking the Goddess Labyrinth, and this spell of mourning and ongoing by midwife witches in Canada, as told by Jenna: A Banishing and a Binding.
Thanks for supporting Missing Witches, finding each other, being fierce in your care. We love you in all your mutations.
oxR +A
