The Viscerasite

2026
Assemblage with glass perfume bottle, brass snake chain, jojoba and holy oils
3.5 x 4.5 x 1.5 inches

The title combines the words visceral and parasite. The Viscerasite is not you, but the undeniable inner turmoil is, or is at least hard to not associate oneself with. One of my favorite philosophers, J. Krishnamurti, has said that “suffering is like a jewel … you marvel at it, you see the beauty of it … In the same way, if one can hold that thing, sorrow; not get morbid, not run away from it, just to hold it and look at it … That jewel is not part of you … But sorrow is you, you are not separate from sorrow … And when we separate that sorrow from you, thinking you are different from sorrow, then you want to escape from it … but when you are that, because you are that, then you hold it, without any movement away from it, hold it without any thought interfering with it … Just watching. Then you will see, if you give your whole attention to it, that sorrow ends, never to return again.”

Sadhguru, like many gurus, tells us that, “you are not the body, you are not the mind.” Philosopher David Chalmers’ famous “hard problem of consciousness” asks why is there a central me knowing what it’s like to be me at all. Physics is beginning to merge with philosophy. Prominent physicist Max Planck asserted that consciousness is the fundamental matrix of all matter, while modern physicists like Roger Penrose are exploring how it is deeply woven into the fundamental quantum structure of the universe.