Death and Rebirth of Ego - Intersecting Minds

by Daniel Mahoney

$A poem that reads: Death and Rebirth of Ego Adrift in grief: misplaced trust Scraps thrown on the compost pile Glial feeding before I am gone Warming with each broken bond Disintegrated, dissolved, devoured, Emancipated by unseen heroes Like a capillary bed with sanguine pulse Beating and mixing with other I’s— Now unrecognizable The more death I contains, the more life it sustains Rebuilt on ruins of reinforced necrodiversity Silver threads glinting in the dark Under the surface I reassembles Radicalizing in rich soil Mycelia and Milky Way share fractal forms Scaffolded corpses of astral selves Climb out of humus into hubris Silk fibers lace the void, stretch to touch first light To shine, to bear, to breathe, to birth Against the pull of entropy$

Artist Statement

Changing our self-narratives can be traumatic or reparative, which activates the glial network responsible for neuroplasticity. I envision this alchemical process as a type of composting: building new selves out of soil made from scraps of old selves, hidden in the dark.

Artist Bio

Daniel Mahoney is a pediatric palliative care physician in Houston, TX.

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