Shedding

Today’s recurring theme seems to be all about shedding of identity and growth. This first cropped up when I went along to the Royal Academy’s Masters of Colour exhibition – this was after a recommendation from G’ette and as a change from mine and Helen’s normal drunken sundays. Bit of cultcha, init.

Since the queue for tickets was so long I ended up buying a year membership to the RA which lets you and a friend in for free to all exhibitions. We wandered from the colour exhibition which was interesting, especially some of the Kandinsky work, but it was totally packed and you couldn’t really enjoy it. So we left fairly quickly, but then wandered downstairs to the new Aztec exhibition – something that always used to be a favourite subject of mine. This was much more fun – fairly quiet and with some beautiful examples of Aztec art.

Learnt two new things about Aztecs today that stuck in my mind – firstly, their temples are actually layers built on top of old temples. Each temple is successively bigger and contains the older temple. Noone’s quite sure why they did this but there was a clever computer animation that showed it off well. The other thing was that they revered snakes (especially feathered ones) for their ability to shed their skin and continue on to grow bigger and stronger.

The second shedding reference was in the film ‘Morven Callar’. This is a wonderfully shot film telling the story of a girl who comes in one day to find her boyfriend’s committed suicide in the kitchen. Well, awkwardly in the door between the kitchen and the living room actually. He’s left behind a manuscript that he wants Morven to publish post-humously but things don’t quite go to his plan. The story revolves a lot around what people expect of you and you of them and alongside that how you can step away from what you are. This is coupled with a superb Warp records soundtrack and amazing photography – extreme close-ups and subtle colour palettes. Go see it.

I believe very strongly in synchronicity, but I also know I often fight things that happen. I also believe that synchronicity is your brain filtering out what it needs you to ‘see’ from everything that happens every day. This is actually the basis for NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) which is where you actively make your brain notice things you want it to see. So I guess this is some part of my brain telling me I need to shed some part of myself, or maybe even my whole current self. Answers on a synchronic postcard to the usual neuron please.