Written with his blood

interactive jesus (robotic installation, 1997)

Understanding Friedrich Nietzsche enough to comment on his great allegory Thus Spake Zarathustra feels to me, at times, a utopian project, the unsatisfied longing for an unreachable goal. Almost a year ago I barely mustered courage enough to begin a sometimes faltering journey through Zarathustra's strange interiors. Those I dared to wander, so far, are here.

Now I come to chapter seven, labelled Reading and Writing, and wonder if I can really write with my own blood.

OF ALL that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood.

There is perhaps no journey more perilous than one through a human mind. "It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood", observes Nietzsche, who urges readers to learn by heart, to grow long legs, and to leap from mountain peak to peak -

The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and the spirit full of joyful wickedness.

Affecting delicacy, as Nietzsche predicts in this chapter of Zarathustra, I guess a leap from mountaintop to mountaintop will take the weight from my trembling legs. And I have engaged with the demanding and perilous chapter before, in a comment upon communication called Interactive Jesus (First Site Gallery, Melbourne, 1997). Here, in part, is Nietzsche's dancing God, communicating in blood.

Years after, and still wondering if I can, really, muster the courage and passion to write in my my blood? I put one faltering foot before the other and wonder am I there yet? Becoming, can I ever arrive?