#34: Make Dem Bones
Get under the skin in the Spooky Season
Instructions
Find some reference materials of bones — don't dig up any graves, please.
Look closely, and remember that you (and everyone you love) will die.
Remember also that you should try to live your life now and appreciate it.
Pick a medium to make a skull or skeleton — draw, jack-o-lantern, cupcake, whatever.
Skulls Aren’t Just for Goths and Yale Cults
It’s the Spooky Season, when the calendar shifts into late Autumn and the decrease in sunlight shifts our days and our moods. Heck, even the adoration of changing leaves is a celebration of leaf death. (Okay, sure sure, it’s just a decrease in chlorophyll — but we also don’t say “Ugh, I have a decrease in serotonin”, we say “I HAVE A/THE SAD”).
Skeletons are a common artistic motif, and not just in plastic kcotckes in the Halloween decoration aisle. I had a good laugh at this early van Gogh painting when I visited Amsterdam—no, not because of that, it’s legitimately funny!
Image: Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette. Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Antwerp, January-February 1886
Growing up in Southern California, there was an influx of culture and heritage from Mexico, including a ton of iconography of calaveras. On a recent trip to Mexico City I was shocked at the prevalence of the icon – from indigenous art, to Frida Kahlo’s creations, and modern day street art.
Bones are also great to draw/create because we all have them and it’s one of the few sources that we can literally push against with our fingers to figure out — how does that connect to that? OH.
The Knee Bone Connected to the Impermanence Bone
Dem bones are especially powerful as an artistic motif because they bring us to the reality of death, which is not something we normally talk about (at least not so much in America). There’s a set of five daily reflections in some Buddhist traditions that forces the issue:
I am sure to become old; I cannot avoid aging.
I am sure to become ill; I cannot avoid illness.
I am sure to die; I cannot avoid death.
I will be separated and parted from all that is dear and beloved to me.
I am the owner of my actions, heir of my actions, actions are the womb (from which I have sprung), actions are my relations, actions are my protection. Whatever actions I do, good or bad, of these I shall become the heir.
Uplifting stuff, no? ;) There’s a good interview about using these reflections on Vox
as well as a good explainer from my pal Kaira Jewel Lingo on the 10% Happier podcast, where she describes it as like a crisp blast of winter air in the morning to wake you up to gratitude and appreciation for this moment. For the record, I don’t do this daily—though maybe I should? I’ll add it to the list next to flossing. ;)
So take a moment to enjoy the usefulness of having bones and the gift of being alive, and see if there’s some way to create that captures that.
And Finally: Music
Okay, fine, I guess we’re sticking with the ‘90s. This demo version of The Pixies “Break My Body” is pretty great. (There’s an earlier demo on the album “Frank Black Francis” that’s pretty haunting, and on Spotify).
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