By Irving Gamboa
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Ext. Cave in Willendorf, dimly lit by a fire.
The camera focuses on the fire: entrancing cascading amber waves dancing in the middle of
darkness. We hear a strange sound, the sound of a repetitive motion like the muffled pounding of flesh. Moans, howling.
The camera zooms out slowly and tracks focusing on the ground where we see fractured bones, fruits, roots, nuts, and a shadow moving back and forth frantically: the moaning and howling echo through the darkness.
The camera tilts up: we see a naked man whose body is covered in mud and scars. The camera moves around him and we see that the man is masturbating. Moving up, we see his face in delirious ecstasy. The camera pans and we see the beautiful natural pattern of the stone walls within the cavern; water cascading down the walls in dream-like rhythm: the camera tracks the wall, and slowly pans down until we see the object of sexual infatuation.
The Venus of Willendorf.
The beautiful statue stands atop a small mud mound, caressed by the tender movement of the flames, casting strange shadows upon the wall.
Fade.
Genesis:
The tender darkness of safety fades
Slowly as the great sky fire above
Begins to tremble from the far away
Land that we do not know,
Light seeps and touches the ground
And the entrance of our dwelling place
Becomes a mouth from which we must
Return to the place where everything is,
There are no names for things yet,
Morning and night and time
Are not yet codified by their elusive duration
But rather by intrinsic instinct:
“Blades of grass the same hue as
The head of a tree
Touch the feet roughly
Unlike the softness of the hair tree
Upon the hand:
Sharp stone the color of rain clouds
Make pain rush to the hand
If one is not careful
And help end the movement of beasts
To end danger or make meal
When thunder grows in gut:
Sky fire moves through ocean above
And water never falls
Unless the white mountains
Darken and rumble
When bright white snakes
Appear and roar
Only to disappear
There's awe in watching
The way winged beasts swim
In ocean above
As when they fall
To the place where we walk
Their movement does not end
And they aren’t wet
The way we are covered in water
When we enter oceans below”
... the man sat patiently behind a small bush, speared firmly gripped by a calloused hand; his eyes fixed upon a herd of red deer drinking water from a shallow riverbank in total stillness.
The man signaled with a simple gesture and moved forward with a group of younger individuals; naked bodies with muddied feet moving in fierce rhythm towards the riverbank.
The startled deer scattered through the vast field of tall grass; muffled groans converged with the sounds of bodies rushing through the grass and savage feet stomping the moist soil.
Several Spears pierced flew through the air in unison like a stream of darkened wood searching for the same target.
Silence.
All motion and sound seized congruously.
The hunters gathered and stood in a small circle, witnessing a shivering deer nestled against
crimson stained grass. They uttered a fearful howl in unison, thrusting the successful Spears with precision.
Extinguishing the life force of a deer, not fully understanding the process of death, a ritualistic interpretation of taking something from the Earth from which it sprouted, the Hunters paint their bodies with blood, breaking the unsuccessful Spears and leaving them behind upon the very same place where their hunt collapsed.
Dusk descends like a crimson curtain above, the evening winds brush against the leaves of the trees like a roaring ocean.
Naked feet rush back towards safety, bringing back food for the others who await huddled
around a fire with anxious hunger.
Night falls and the sounds of darkness reclaim the vast fields and the Earth.
The only sound that signifies safety is the robust crackling voice of the fire: casting shadows, as meticulous hands imprint a precise impression of the events that took place earlier that day.
The Womb:
(Smoke that blackens on a cave wall
Makes shapes as suggestive as clouds in the air above when we hunt and forage
But firm where clouds are drifting and shifting
Nights when thunder and lashing rain are too hostile
No skein of stars visible above us
The lip of the cave shelters
The deep of the cave hides our past and future
Picture galleries moving,
The first ever made by human hand
Beyond our perfect ken and
Smoke shapes, cloud shapes that mimic the world we walk through daily
The storage place of past and future)
Birth:
In this stark emptiness
Hands stained blue with caustic dye
Wrapped around a blade
Like a garland of cerulean warblers
Leading the choir of the abattoir
A fruit with the taste of blood
Plucked before it ripens
Like a storm of withered wild roses:
Your name written on stone
On the walls that lead to the gates
Of the garden where feathers grow fearful and free,
Guarded by Translucent arches
Under the bulbed canopy above
Where vague forms move against the light:
It is a moment outside of space and time:
Where we come from
And where we return to
Once the brightness reaches a point
Of spectacular culmination
Only to implode into the vast darkness
That surrounds, shelters and nourishes
All the memories that have yet to take place:
In this stark emptiness,
A void that is either too bright
Or too dark to be deciphered,
It’s neither cold nor warm,
But the perfect temperature of arrival and departure:
The precise moment of mystery
Is unimaginable
Like having a bonfire in the plateau of outer space:
We wonder if we might be dreaming
But there’s never a time to be awake:
Because We know that time is always time
and place is always and only place.
And what is actual is actual only for one time. And only for one place.
Death:
We rejoice things as they are:
We take our child for a walk
And witness a small avian carcass
Flattened crimson upon the ground,
Feathers still rustling in the breeze,
And the first understanding of death
Becomes present:
Ode to womanhood:
This sinuous Earth reverberates
Like an echo whose sound
Has not yet returned
To its point of origin:
Sentences whose bloody phonology
Is not rooted in language:
But rather an ensemble
Of primordial desperate clamor:
Intrinsic admiration
For hallowed objects
And phenomena
That are yet to be contained
In the landscape of rationality
Through the codification
Of name and classification:
Fire,
Smoke,
Rain,
Blood,
Birth,
Sex,
Death,
Lightning,
Sun,
Moon,
Night,
Day,
Stone:
A mother-figure collecting
grasses, tubers, fruits, and seeds,
Instructing the younger generation:
A sudden anxious gasp
Disturbs the collective silence
Of the female gatherers:
Incapable of expressing
Her frightened discovery,
A young woman whimpers and shrieks,
Pointing at the crimson-stained thicket
Upon which she stands:
The murmur of collective surprise
Unifies, becoming a cacophony
Of condemning fear:
The group of younger women
Form a circle Around the surprised woman
in silent unison,
Instinctively driven by the
Primitive intuition of abhorrent fear:
Ready to attack and slaughter
Their sister as her menstrual flux
Cascades down her trembling thighs
Onto the cool shivering viridescent
Ground below her:
The mother-figure raises her arms
With a sense of protective authority
And her thunderous howl
Petrifies the young women
In confused stillness:
Fearfully poised like a newborn fawn,
The young woman
Lowers her head in a thankful
And submissive manner,
Her arms wrapped around her
Upper body, as if attempting
To cover her body in Shame.
The mother-figure kneels in front of
The young woman,
Gently running her index and middle fingers over The blood stained grass:
She brings both fingers
Up to her nose,
And inhales the scent;
She spreads the girls legs
With both hands whilst
Kneeling down,
Slowly moving her bloodstained
Hand inwards,
Leaving the imprint of her calloused
Hands upon virgin alabaster thighs:
The mother-figure stood up,
Raising both hands towards the sky:
There was a moment of brief silence,
Followed by a loud, sharp piercing
Cry of victory:
The young women
Followed reluctantly:
Wailing in unison like a savage sisterhood
Surrounded by the vast green ocean of the wilderness:
The young woman was welcomed into womanhood,
Not understanding exactly what
Took place in that fragment of time:
Without the obfuscation of language,
They understood the significance
Of this strange experience:
Dusk arrived unannounced,
Like a crashing wave
Of undulating amber and lavender
Light ebbing towards the horizon,
Engulfing the dying western sun,
Crested with scattered clusters
of lilac clouds;
The last Streaks of light
Fall like a golden veil,
As the gathering women
Return home in solemn silence,
Unified through a new experience:
The sacred mystery of womanhood.
Irving Gamboa is a Mexican immigrant living in Chicago. He’s also an experimental filmmaker and Chicago Public School teacher. He loves black metal and wishes he could time travel to drink whiskey with Octavio Paz.