Abijah Zwiers
12 May 2025
Turning; as Metanoia
It is cyclical and yet results in change.
Photo by Abijah Zwiers, Graphic design by Cam Presseault
In turning towards something, you’re always turning away from something else. In turning away from something, you’re always turning towards something else.
In my view of things, life is a sequence of these turns. More often than not, we (in opposition to what we feel or know we should do) turn towards things that are harmful and away from those that are good. I think this is the central meaning of turning in the project.
In the Greek New Testament, the word for repentance is metanoia. The prefix meta- in Greek means “beyond” or “changed” - think metaphysics, which deals with that which is beyond the physical. The component -noia, on the other hand, comes from the root nous which means mind[1] - think paranoia: para- meaning “irregular” and -noia meaning “mind”, an irregularity of the mind.
So metanoia, then, refers to a change of the mind (specifically of place or condition). You could then read metanoia as a changing of the directionality of the mind. A turning, if you will, from a tendency towards harm and destruction towards that which is actual and good.
I think, ultimately, this is the concept that’s at the heart of the EP. The recognition that how I’ve been living is not sustainable. Turning; primarily asks the question of whether it’s in my power at all to make the shift.
In the song Over + Over, I say, “it’s hard to turn it while you’re in it”. I’m considering whether this change is even possible to make by only one’s own power. I think the thesis of the project is that it’s not. but it doesn’t answer the question explicitly. it leaves it open to interpretation: “is it always the life that I’ll be living over and over?”
Each song finds me, the narrator, looking for some external power to shift the way I exist in the world. For example, in Tear Me Down, I “tried to breathe in and out, but there’s some things that I can’t possess”. This line references a self-centric approach to spirituality in the form of breath work or meditation. And even with that, there were some things that I couldn’t take control of. I can’t grasp everything in my life and subject it to my will and even if I could, that will would still not be a fully right one.
The only direction in Turning; that remains consistent is outward. Everything else is cyclical, but the hope is that as the cycle repeats, the disposition of the mind slowly shifts from an inward focus to an outward one. This is the basis of how I understand metanoia as “turning away”. It’s not a one time shift. It’s a cycle of recognition, surrender, and resolve that slowly turns you outward over and over and over.
References & Further Reading
1 - https://orthodoxwiki.org/Nous