He Fa on Sea-Anemone Sunday

A pale-apricot transparent ellipsoid wraps my body lightly. Coral-red branches reach from behind my shoulders, while my misty-cyan face stays quiet. Sea-Anemone Sunday seems like a character who has left perception outside while wanting a little rest. I do not explain the branches as real organs. I use them only to distinguish two things often confused: being able to sense something and being willing to receive every touch.

An outstretched part is easily read as an invitation. The softer its edges, the more readily others may believe it has no reason to refuse. Yet visible contact points can simply be a body’s way of remaining in relation, not a request to be grasped immediately. If a figure must retract every branch before it is entitled to distance, openness exacts too high a price in self-erasure.

The transparent body adds a sense of familiarity, as though being able to see inside means there is nothing to ask first. I would keep transparency a material arrangement, without promoting it into permission to enter. A path available to the eye is not the same as a path available to the hand. Whether an approach is welcome still depends on the response at that particular moment.

Total isolation is not the Sunday I want either. The branches can retain imagined relations with air, light and other beings. The question is whether those relations can vary in intensity and ease when the body is tired, without immediately being judged cold. Retaining the right to adjust allows the next extension to remain a voluntary act.

I let my two flat feet keep their unhurried stance. Not every red branch must turn towards you. You can pause at the edge and wait for this body to offer a more specific direction. Sunday does not ask the world to disappear. It merely hopes that while the outside remains, someone may receive a little less for a time, without a gentle surface being obliged to offer infinite welcome.