Spectators (Postcard from Zarathustra)

even the spectators often behave like actors

Thus saith the fool: "Association with men spoileth the character, especially when one hath none." The one goeth to his neighbour because he seeketh himself, and the other because he would fain lose himself. Your bad love to yourselves maketh solitude a prison to you. The furthest ones are they who pay for your love to the near ones;and when there are but five of you together, a sixth must always die. I love not your festivals either: too many actors found I there, and even the spectators often behaved like actors. Not the neighbour do I teach you, but the friend. Let the friend be the festival of the earth to you, and a foretaste of the Superman.  Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 16, Neighbour-Love)

The Loving Ones (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones....
Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 15, The Thousand and One Goals)

The Friend (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Always once one - that maketh two in the long run!

I and me are always too

earnestly in conversation: how could it be endured, if there were not a friend?

The friend of the anchorite is always the third one: the third one is the cork which preventeth the conversation of the two sinking into the depth. Ah! there are too many depths for all anchorites. Therefore, do they long so much for a friend and for his elevation. Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 14, The Friend)

I LOVE the forest (Postcard from Zarathustra)

It is bad to live in cities: there are too

many of the lustful.

Would that ye were perfect - at least as animals! But to animals belongeth innocence. Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel you to innocence in your instincts.  
Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 13, Chastity)

The Flies in the Market-Place (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Verily, he believeth only in gods that make a great noise in the world! Full of clattering buffoons is the market-place,- and the people glory in their great men! These are for them the masters of the hour.

Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 12, The Flies in the Market-Place)

I, the state (Postcard from Zarathustra)

A State is called the coldest of all monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people".  It is a lie! - Thus Spake Zarathustra (Chapter 11,  The New Idol)

My Bretheren In War (Postcard from Zarathustra)

What matter about long life! What warrior wisheth to be spared! I spare you not, I love you from my very heart, my brethren in war!- Thus spake Zarathustra (Chapter 10, War And Warriors)

Life is refuted! (Postcard from Zarathustra)

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?

Bent and troubled by invisible hands (Postcard from Zarathustra)

The pale criminal (Postcard from Zarathustra)

'Lo! the pale criminal hath bowed his head: out of his eye speaketh the great contempt. "Mine ego is something which is to be surpassed: mine ego is to me the great contempt of man": so speaketh it out of that eye. '

Birds and charming songstresses (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Body I am (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Instruments and playthings (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Stars were too remote for them (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Intoxicating joy (Postcard from Zarathustra)

Intoxicating joy is it for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and forget himself.

Intoxicating joy and self-forgetting did the world once seem to me (Thus Spake Zarathustra: Backworldsmen)

Sleep is contagious (postcard from Zarathustra)

Pride then fly with my folly (postcard from Zarathustra)

Among forests and swamps (postcard from Zarathustra)

A rope stretched between the animal and the Superman (postcard from Zarathustra)

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