The Writ for Volume 2, CEREMONY

We are odd creatures. Every day we make ourselves anew, redrawing our own outlines, reestablishing who and what we think we are. Others see the product of our work, and the presentation might as well be what we are. But we are much more than an outward appearance, than laboriously assembled parts. We are the act of creation itself.

We need ritual. Without it we feel our edges dissolving, the boundaries between the self and others breaking down. What you are is not what I am, or so I have learned to think. Every morning as I make myself I repeat that I am not you, nor am I anyone else but me. This repetition is born of self-preservation and survival.

We make the world by making ourselves. And if we stray in our creation, the lines between our carefully made selves and the world may begin to fall apart. The world will come rushing in, obliterate our work, and there will be nothing left of us. What then? And what are these rituals of creation? What if they fail us? What if we fail them?

 

-Sarah Kemp