Kate Tempest and kintsugi

Extract from "Brand New Ancients:"


In the old days,
      the myths were the stories we used to explain ourselves

but how can we explain
the way we hate ourselves?

The things we’ve made ourselves into,
the way we break ourselves in two,
the way we overcomplicate ourselves?

But we are still mythical.

We are still permanently trapped
somewhere between the heroic and the pitiful.

We are still Godly,
that’s what's made us so monstrous.
It just feels like we’ve forgotten
that we’re much more
than the sum of the things that belong to us.

Every single person has a purpose in them burning.
Look again.
Allow yourself to see them.

Millions of characters
Each with their own epic narratives
Singing, ‘it’s hard to be an angel
Until you’ve been a demon’. 

We are perfect because of our imperfections,
We must stay hopeful,
We must be patient

with thanks to Kate Tempest & co. 

I think there's a lot in this. "We are perfect because of our imperfections" - kintsugi.

And we do, each of us, have a narrative, epic perhaps to each of us. If we "look again," we can allow ourselves to see them. Working with the families of people who have just died - that gives us a privileged view of each personal epic.

And we are so much more than the sum of the stuff we own; as consumer capitalism cranks up into overdrive, it gets harder and harder to realize this, harder to see the unique story under the stuff s/he owns.

And each of us is both angel and demon. If we externalise the demon and project it onto others, we release true evil into the world.

You can see Kate Tempest at work on YouTube, where she will bring the above printed words to life, and some. 

Is she a descendant of William Blake, I wonder?