April 2022

5 Doors* is a monthly online magazine/gallery featuring new music, cinema, art, and writing from artist JD RUDOMETKIN and guest artists. It is also a communal space where monthly rituals are curated. * This gallery is best experienced on a desktop/laptop computer.

This month’s door is Ritual. As always, thank you for your support in the procurement of art/music and through your kind donations. We are here because of your generous contributions.

SHAMANIC RITUAL: ENTERING THE BLACK PYRAMID

We are inevitably programed. We do not always prefer the programer who is creating the format or the content to which we sub-consciously and/or consciously subscribe. This month’s ritual journey inward will program/re-program your mind, body and spirit with love and wisdom. It is recommended that you find a quiet room without distraction. Sit or lie down and use headphones or a quality sound system. Repeat as needed.

Words and Music for Ritual (c) JD Rudometkin 2022

If 5Doors enriches your life in any way, please consider supporting it with a donation. Thank you kindly for your patronage, which allows us to continue sharing this work with you.

March 2022

5 Doors* is a monthly online magazine/gallery featuring new music, cinema, art, and writing from artist JD RUDOMETKIN and guest artists. It is also a communal space where monthly rituals are curated. * This gallery is best experienced on a desktop/laptop computer.

This month’s door is Writing. Art is also present in the form of corresponding drawings. As always, thank you for your support in the procurement of art/music and through your kind donations. We are here because of your generous contributions.

BLACK PYRAMID

He has circumnavigated the Black Pyramid for 8 months, and feels that his bride—in her ash wedding dress—is waiting there inside the structure for him. But she is veiled. And there is no door here. So he performs his ablutions, fingers his beads, aligns all things according to their parameter. According to all the stories he has heard from his own mouth—mumbling incantations to the god who will show him the way back into her. It is stubborn desire that pushes him on. While others would have given up, he continues to circle the structure.  

And finally, at the beginning of the 9th month, a turn of destiny—perhaps a strength of will—has begun to bend the senses. First he hears in color—the sound of amber, for instance, then he begins to sense the sharp taste of iron in his own mouth. And now his eyes begin to open. And suddenly, each side of the Black Pyramid has taken on a new form. On the northern wall there are rough hewn faces staring back at him he had not seen. And look, etched into each side of the pyramid, a geometry he had not noticed. After a few moments of stillness, he beings to sense a thin line of pure light emanating from the eastern facing wall. A window? A stained glass?  

A door.

The door is narrow. He cannot enter therein. So he fasts for 7 days and on the 7th day goes without water—turns his body sideways—and slides through the narrow gate. His body temperature drops by 2 degrees. As he pushes further in, the pathway begins narrowing and now it is hard for him to breath. Shall I turn back? Am I hungry? Does the Dark Bride even know my name? And do I care?

He continues to ask such questions as he moves further into the darkness. But god only knows those questions don’t matter here. Matter has become something akin to make believe. And so his body presses forward—obscuring the mind—and spiraling down into the abyss where she waits for him.

And who is she? This Dark Bride of the Black Pyramid. Where does she come from? What causes her heart to beat? Who is her creator if it is not him. Questions persist as he slides sideways in her direction. 

He can only cover 10-15 meters per day. And now, after 3 days journey into the eastern facing wall, his mind has nearly gone blank. A white sheet within the holy book. Finally, at the end of the 3rd day in utter darkness he’s nearly reached the bottom. The blackness is without reason and so his mind has created reasons of its own and sees all manner of strange things. Flying octopi. Underground Birch. A chartreuse nectarine. And because these things are unknown, the fear of shadows has returned. And so pressing forward toward the Bride in Black he has begun to mumble again and speak all manner of gibberish squaller—reciting the many ancient stories he’s told himself about her and about himself for years. And inevitably these so called facts have become questions:

Did I ever ask her who she was? As if in prayer. And did I ever care? How can I learn to care about another, when all I know are these familiar stories I have told and retold unto myself? 

You must go into the abyss. There is an answer there. 

So he pushes on. And after several more hours of uncomfortable oblique slides, the passageway finally opens up into a room. But as the hall expands into a room, it is not the glorious light of heaven he is expecting. It is darker than pitch black. And so his mouth has begun moving again—nonstop. His tongue cannot seem to quit. Its frightening here because he cannot see what he wants to see. The mind twitches in pain. He sweats. And yet, some part of him feels her here, the Bride in Black—in this quiet room—far below the surface of the earth. 

It is here in the pit of the Black Pyramid, that she sits on a wooden stool before him, waiting for the coals in his mouth to cool. 

She has waited here for years in this quiet room. Known him to be a man of fire and measured generosity. And also known that somewhere within him there is a will to commune. She has heard his incantations over and over echoing down from the world above. And she has waited patiently to speak. And above all, to be heard. Heard anew—outside all of his systems and beliefs. Heard outside the context of any god they’ve ever known. She has waited to reveal herself here in the pit of this Black Pyramid. But he can’t seem to shut the fuck up. 

How long does it take before you WANT to learn to listen? To care.

They sit there in the quiet room as he spills 8 more hours of gibberish until his tongue runs out of fuel. And now there is a silence in the pit. His stomach moans. He is exhausted, and sits down on the stone floor. The only sound—his breath within the darkness. And over the next 8 hours of silence he finally begins to hear the pulse of his own blood. And he then begins to recognize her breathing too. It is as if her breath has become his breath and they are breathing in the same body. His lungs her lungs. His lips, hers. She tastes familiar, but still he cannot fathom who she is. And in the silence of the night, he slowly begins un-telling all his stories. He lets go of all the things he believes he knows about the world, and who she is. And who he is. The man finally cares enough to ask: 

“Who are you?” 

And there is a sincerity in his voice that she has not heard before. There is vulnerability. He has taken down the eastern facing wall. And here, as she sits facing him—wearing her black wedding dress in absolute darkness—she begins to speak.

At first it is only a whisper. Whispers of common things. Hairdryers and tonic water. But still he listens. It is not what is said, but rather the beats between each word that know her best. The cadence and her tone. And when she knows she is heard, the other chambers of her heart begin to swell and push forth the hidden concerns of darker matter that’s been brewing in her chest. 

“Yes my love” he says—and that is all. And opens the door.

And now she walks toward him in utter darkness, in this chamber far below the surface of the earth. It is in this quiet room that the bride removes her veil. And she kneels, as if in prayer. And it is here that she finally spills herself wide open into pools of blood once clotted in the knot of her stomach—where all their scars have been. And she goes on and on until the well runs dry. Until she knows he knows her. 

In the pit of the Black Pyramid he has become the witness. He has unwound the knots of his ambition—and fear. And despite himself, he has become the care giver. The one who cares.  

Writing and Images (c) JD Rudometkin 2022

 

If 5Doors enriches your life in any way, please consider supporting it with a donation. Thank you kindly for your patronage, which allows us to continue sharing this work with you.

February 2022

5 Doors* is a monthly online magazine/gallery featuring new music, cinema, art, and writing from artist JD RUDOMETKIN and guest artists. It is also a communal space where monthly rituals are curated. * This gallery is best experienced on a desktop/laptop computer.

This month’s door is Music. Listen to and Procure the Step Jayne single “Black Pyramid” below. As always, thank you for your support in purchasing of art and through your kind donations. We are here because of your generous contributions.

Listen to and Procure “Black Pyramid” below.

 

Music and Production: JD Rudometkin
Lyrics: JD Rudometkin with Alan Siegel
Additional Back up vocals: Yazmine Morero
Mixed and Mastered at Hip-Bone Studios by JD Rudometkin

Album Cover Art and Design: JD Rudometkin

If 5Doors enriches your life in any way, please consider supporting it with a donation. Thank you kindly for your patronage, which allows us to continue sharing this work with you.

January 2022

5 Doors* is a monthly online magazine/gallery featuring new music, cinema, art, and writing from artist JD RUDOMETKIN and guest artists. It is also a communal space where monthly rituals are curated. * This gallery is best experienced on a desktop/laptop computer.

A NEW FORMAT

5Doors 2022
(play video below)

BLACK PYRAMID - oil on canvas 36 x 48" (91.44 x 121.92cm) $3200 US + shipping (c) JD Rudometkin 2021. Contact artist regarding this piece, or for commissioned artwork.

If 5 Doors enriches your life in any way, please consider supporting it with a donation. Thank you kindly for your patronage, which allows us to continue sharing this work with you.

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