In which I am pierced through: The stigma is a little magic uterus. In the cavity resurrection is hatched….
Photos of the Musée Dupuytren in Paris, France.
“Stigmata are traces of a sting. Piquer in French, to prick, to sting, to pinch, pricks in order to take, in order to prick piquer steals, strikes and removes, sows, speckles signs its blows, leaves behind and takes away, serves the interest of the thief and the police.
Piquer has the resources of Figaro in French: it has innumerable aptitudes and identities. One can be stung by the bug of (se piquer de) literature or philosophy as others can shoot (se piquer de) drugs. With piquer and stigmata we have what we need to explore the scene of writing.
In this volume I chose to cultivate the stigmata. In the first place I take it by its roots. Its etymology, let us follow the sti. What a stupefying multitude starting with the Greek stigme, and the Latin sti-! Stigma sticks, stings in English. Pique in French. Sticht in German.
Stigma stings, pierces, makes holes, separates with pinched marks and in the same movement distinguishes - re-marks - inscribes, writes.
Stigma wounds and spurs, stimulates.
Stigma hallmarks, for the best and for the worst: stigmata on the body are as noble as they are ignominious, depending on whether it is Christ or the outcast who is marked.
Stigma always kills two birds with one stone. The person who is properly or figuratively stigmatized has traits of the saint (Saint Francis of Assisi) and the outlaw, of the martyr and the condemned. The stigma conveys the strongest message, the most secret message, the one that is the most difficult to obey: whether good or bad, the stigmatized person is signaled out for exclusion and election.
The stigma is a trace of a nail’s sting. The mark of the pointed object. the stigma is a scar that is difficult to efface. The stigma resists being worn down. the hole enters into my skin. The scar adds, the stigma digs, excavates.
I want stigma, I do not want the stigmata to disappear. i am attached to my engravings, the the stings in my flesh and my mental parchment. I do not fear that trauma and stigmata will form an alliance: the literature in me wants to maintain and reanimate traces.
Stigma is gendered masculine in French.
But now I discover the supplementary trick that stigma plays on us:
In another reign, in another scene, that of vegetation, stigma is not a sign of destruction, of suffering, of interdiction. On the contrary, the stigma is a sign of fertilization, of germination.
Stigma is the part of the pistil, the female parts of the flower, where the male pollen germinates. The stigma is a little magic uterus. In the cavity resurrection is hatched….”
Helene Cixous - Stigmata
