Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Piercings, Pain and Being Alive

I love Bjork and was watching some of her music videos the other day. Remember the beautiful love song, Pagan Poetry, that ends with a woman getting 6 piercings down her back so that she could have a "corset" laced up for her lover? Kind of a surprise ending.


It seems strange that someone would do that for someone they loved--or even for themselves. But there's something about pain, be it physical or emotional, that you miss when it's gone. There's something about the aliveness that you feel while in tension with pain, that makes it somehow bearable. There's something in that much aliveness that some friends with tats or piercings, say draws them back to get more. There's something in our crazy friends, or waaay-out there lovers, or even extreme adventures, that make us lean forward in fascination while poised to lurch backward in pain.

Hmmm. As I think about the barbs in my head, I wonder, "How alive can I feel without the pain?"
You? How does pain help you to feel more..

2 comments:

Walker said...

Apropos you mention this, I'm a fan of this track but hadn't seen the video, and strangely a mutual friend had suggested I get a piercing as a cathartic process. But personally needles give me the willies

river rider said...

Maybe catharsis can come another way? What is the catalyst? Overcoming needles? Feeling physical pain? Evidence? Focus that comes with such a task?