Drowning in Golden Pleasure
Hedonism has been misnamed as a sin in the same way that eroticism has been mistaken for the pornographic. We are taught to separate the erotic from most areas of our life other than sex. We have turned away from the erotic as a source of finding pleasure in many things. The erotic manifested as the capacity to find joy in life, in the way one’s body responds to the sound of a Tchaikovsky string section, the way the violinist’s bow is drawn and shot, sending its arrow into the human soul and making the heart beat like a seismograph. Without the stimulation of the senses how can one experience passion in life? Passion as the physical, emotional and psychic expression of what moves us deeply. Passion experienced as the creation of something new. Passion as the inspiration and the ultimate quintessence of being.
The body is infinitely affectable, „unendlich”, affectable in a way that has no end. Our senses can open to a ballet dancers movements, the tension behind a painter’s brush can be felt, poetry can caresses the skin, we can be touched by expression. Art creates a lascivious atmosphere, containing all of the subtle gestures of lovers who have not yet touched in fear of breaking that holy invisible substance, lust.
Lust as a means of capturing and sustaining the tension created by allowing the senses to open to life. Not lust in the classical sense of the word, but lust in a universal sense. A lust for life. A kind of lust experienced while leaning into the warm mother-of-pearl light of the sun, and feeling the dizzying voluptuousness of pure enjoyment.
Life is to be enjoyed. What could be more holy than immersing the body in the world. I want to be received like Queen of Sheba, in abundance; with camels filled with spices and precious stones, dressed in velvet, drowning in golden treasure. I will walk barefoot in damp gardens filled with the scent of orchids exhaling their perfume into the night, and i will know the pain of too much pleasure.
Words & Photograph by
Shannon May Powell