Today is Easter. Wednesday night we went into town, Susan and I, and as we sometimes do on our Wednesday date night and after having a light meal, we wandered around a bit. We went past the Parróquia and decided to look at what the church might look like inside just a few days before Easter. There was an event going on, a procession the day before Holy Thursday, the day in the Christian calendar where Jesus washes the feet of his apostles and essentially hands over the reigns before his arrest. There were young adults who were the torchbearers, boys dressed up as apostles and girls dressed as angels and looking far more angelic than the boys looked apostolic. Parents were fussing around them both. Closer to the church there were men dressed up as Roman soldiers and it became apparent that some aspect of the Passion of Christ was about to be reenacted. Soon a litter slowly appeared carried by 8 men upon which the figure of Jesus stood bent and in pain. This statue “lives” inside the Iglesia de San Rafael, a church adjacent to and even older than the famous Parróquia. The Parroquía is to San Miguel what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. He slowly emerged from San Rafael’s portals shrouded in dark purple, and his countenance sorrowful and burdened. A crown of thorns was placed on his head and a small cross was behind his head symbolizing the crucifixion awaiting him. A mournful brass band and choir played solemn, sweet and sorrowful dirges as he was carried slowly down the stairs, his hands tied by a rope. The other end of the rope was held by a gigantic man dressed as a Roman jailer. He carried a whip. These Passion Plays are more important to the Mexican faithful than Christmas. I have heard that parishioners play all parts of the mythic story so that they can know within themselves that they too have an inner Judas, Pontius Pilate and “just following orders” Roman soldiers attributes within them.
It struck me very profoundly how weak and humble was this figure of Jesus. It was Jesus defeated, sorrowful and suffering. This is the Jesus that Mexicans worship far more than the Risen Christ image prefered by many American Catholics, who, with outward gaze and raised hands is abundant with symbols of hope and renewal. There is an understanding to be had there and I’m sure that the understanding is different depending on people’s state of minds. One thing that is for sure is that Mexicans know life is tough and that failure is frequent and that, because of this symbol that they have taken to heart, they feel in their hearts that their suffering is seen and personally understood and that they are loved despite whatever feelings they may have or deeds they have done. It is if the incarnation story is a giant parable saying, “I love you through it all” and that the point of life is not to acquire and succeed but to love, through every moment, regardless of victory and defeat. The parable is saying, “I am always connected to you, caring about you, carrying you from birth, to death, and that “winning” and survival are going to be found against an unavoidable backdrop of failure, mistakes, losing and death, always. The point of view is not how successful you become, but how you accepting is your experience of both joy and sorrow.
Nowadays I relate to a divine creator, whom I have no problem calling God, although many do in this modern age. I connect with God not as some entity distinct and apart from me but as me being in relationship with that around me. Perhaps if “being in relationship” were to be spelled with a capital B it would be the best word for that “God”: a “verb that becomes a proper noun by virtue of the verb being “a consciousness in the act of relating”. As just a proper noun it separates from us and becomes so branded with so many meanings as to become top heavy and virtually unusable. That is the problem of the word, “God”. My definition and usage is different from yours, but you see it as the same. You know how people talk to themselves and you think, “they are odd” but when we talk to ourselves it seems perfectly normal? I feel the same way about relating to a God that is both outside and inside of myself: both distinct from me and who I am. I have always had a personal relationship with this Creator, inside me, as a part of me within me and something I can see without and all around me (when I take the time to look). It is not a belief, dogma, etc., it is a non-intellectual “point of view” or witness state.
To project a god who is without me is something I do, along with most everyone else who is somewhat theistic, but I am not sure it is the most mature and well-rounded perspective: to view a relationship with God as Someone Other. Why not? Much as hero worship can lead one to say, “That person is strong, but I am not” it can impede our sense of self-worth. In a similar vein infatuation of another is an unreal projection and one is most likely seeing beauty or other qualities in the other person that one actually has but cannot see inside oneself – just yet. While it is great, and necessary to have an idealized role model, it only serves if we find those attributes in ourselves. To some extent, any decision about what a Conscious Entity, Creator, God, etc. is or is not is best left to the realm of experiential reality, understanding we are of limited ability to experience the totality of any dimension. Talking to an external God, rather than seeing God as something within perhaps is like someone talking to themselves. It is a relationship with the various parts of ourselves, and that is what I respect, and who better to be in active conversation with than the many parts of ourselves? If I am relationship to another person, or relating to a flower, or a bee: aren’t we all parts of the same Consciousness? Some would say not, but experientially, that is where “god” can be found, I experience the connection and hence believe. A philosopher friend of mine, an ardent atheist, defines himself as fallibalist, meaning: no matter how sure he is of any concept, the only thing that he can be more sure of is that he might be wrong. I am an experiential fallibalist. I will give strong emphasis to my experiences over another’s belief systems, and from that will form my beliefs, until further experiences once again show the limited nature of my beliefs and I once again change gears.
This experiential based mystical bent has exposed me to manifold exposures, from ashrams to ayahuasca, and has included a deep contemplation of the meaning of Jesus’ life and death. 20 years ago at this time I was meditating in bed, contemplating where non-violence as a means of social justice first showed up in history, and I saw Jesus going to his crucifixion, carrying along with his cross only love and forgiveness towards his enemies. It struck me that if one raises even a pocket knife to defend the powers that be, they have a right to use any violence at their disposal and think no more about it, but to say to someone: I love you, and I will ask God to forgive you because you do not know what you are doing, well, that arrow of love is more powerful, ultimately, than any bomb in creating long term change. At the moment I “got” that, not a bomb, but a tuned drumbeat, like I was inside a kettle drum explosively sounded in my head and I was launched across the room, stunned. As a gesture of recognition to that (for what its worth) 18 years ago on Holy Thursday, coincidentally, I was baptized a in a Catholic Church. I was (still am) a Jew, who had a mystical experience of the power of Jesus as an example of the power of non-violent resistance, love and compassion in the face of oppression, and torture to the point of death. I saw it then, and see it even now as a purely symbolic ritual. Any true, life changing conversion that we have is always an internal process, does not need a name and any external declaration of allegiance is laughable unless it is internalized. Any affiliation we claim have to any religion at best is always just a statement of which symbols we gravitate to. For instance, while I am a citizen of America, it does not mean I AM one as a meaningful identity except to denote cultural origins and privilege, and perhaps a greater responsibility to lift the burdens of society where I can, given my carbon footprint, education, and other perks that came with the package. In a greater reality there is no Hindu, or Jew, Christian or Muslim. That said, symbolism frames who we are as humans at the deepest levels. Forrest Gump’s mother said, “Stupid is as stupid does”, so one could say, “Jew is as Jew does” or “Christian is as Christian does”. And since most of us fail more than succeed at being what our religions say we should be, few of us can call ourselves anything beyond fools doing the best we can.
I get glimmers that we are all God having a human experience and are choosing the way in which we go about that. Part of that human experience is the development of the ego and a feeling of separation from the whole. These two “realities” are unavoidable and necessary, otherwise creatures wouldn’t care two bits about whether or not they lived or died, and in order for Life to exist, it will fight for the right maintain itself alive for as long as possible. Perhaps even a single celled organism has some semblance of an individual identity, I do not know. What we do know is that this organism, and even more primitive motile bacteria will flee from noxious stimuli and therefore both are trying to stay alive. Separation identification is necessary for survival. It does not mean that it is real, however, just as we create the false separation lines of country and state as lines across the landmasses. We perceive from these lines: I in Mexico and family in California, but we are together as family. How is the bee separate from the flower? One does not live without the other. I am sure they feel separate from one another, but that is what being a creation entails. As soon as the Whole fractionates into many parts, then the feeling of separation accompanies that creature, yet, that creature was created from the whole. Even if one does not believe in a creator, and believe that life is a fluke, it does not change the fact that we all were once the Big Bang and undifferentiated.
Conversely a feeling of union and unity with all things, rather than separate isolation, gives us a sensation of peace with what is. It is an acceptance. Acceptance brings on the peace that most people feel when they come to terms with their own life and death, so: the feeling of separateness of our own life is essential for playing the game of an individual on this planet and conversely feeling one with the universe is essential to letting go into really feeling our moments of life, and also to surrendering to death at the end of our days. In this sense the atheist who is satisfied with their journey here on Earth and is ready to secede into death and is at peace because they have lived a good life is in a similar state of mind with someone who has faith in a Creator and is ready for whatever comes next. Both are ready to surrender to the mystery without clinging to any preconceptions or requisites of what that might be. My own father lived and died this way. I think I am correct in making the broad statement that people who are ready to surrender to the mystery of death are, interestingly enough, the people who have been most willing to enter full tilt (surrender) into the mystery of life. Those who are afraid to live are equally afraid to die.
20 years ago I had an experience, a liminal dream a couple of weeks after that rather dramatic explosion in my head contemplating Jesus’ life of non-violent resistance. I consider the message in this dream perhaps the seminal message for my life. I try, and often fail at living this message, and always give myself a second, and sometime third or fourth chance as I stumble and begin again. In this dream I was an amoeba and I was surrounded by other amoebas. These entities were out to devour me. Their spirit was the same as those that taunted and haunted me when I was four years old (but that is another story). I wondered what I was going to do, how could I escape? I knew that my old understandings and patterns of reaction were not going to help in this situation. I wondered to myself, “what if I love them? Would they change their minds?.” Strangely enough, I got an answer from what appeared to be a source other than me and the answer was, “Well, you can try it, but it’s dangerous”. I decided to love them. They immediately began to devour me, unchanged and undeterred and did so until there was almost none of me left. At that point I had a choice to make: I could try to save myself by fleeing, to wake up from the nightmare, or I could love them even more, even at the expense of my annihilation. I decided to do the latter. Love had become more important than my personal, small survival.
Immediately they vanished. I had no idea whether I had any influence on them whatsoever. I found myself in a black space. In that darkness I knew that I was seated in front of a Master. This master spoke to me and said, “Imbue with love”. I woke up and wondered what it meant. It was not a word I used much. Did it mean that I was assigned the task of putting love into everything I did, saw, et cetera? I tried that for a long while. It was a lot of work. Then it occurred to me that whoever this master was they were already doing “it”imbuing” and this master had to be a subset of a greater whole that was already imbued and saturated with love, or I would not have gotten the instruction. Did that not mean that the whole world was already impregnated, permeated, tinted, and saturated in love and all I needed to do was to perceive it? In that light the new “work” cut out for me was simply to keep my attention towards the intention of surrendering myself to perceive that which is already all around me all the time, everywhere: accept it exactly as it is and through that acceptance love it just as it is. In fact, acceptance has to be a prerequisite to love true love. Whatever we do not accept we struggle with. My relationship with Susan follows that pattern. We enjoy a peace and love that arises when we accept each other as we are. By acceptance we see each other more clearly and there is space for affirmation and appreciation. Through this we become closer year by year. Marriage that is transactional is a job. Marriage that is transpersonal is transformational.
Yesterday I was talking with a friend of mine who had recently resolved herself to the fact that her life was going to be without someone whom she had loved dearly, and instead she was to be with someone whom she loved dearly but who was in many ways emotionally and physically unavailable, and lived oftentimes far away: and yet she was finding peace. She was finding peace in accepting that this one person who loved her in an emotionally and physically limited way was nonetheless true and there for her. She was accepting the fact that the other love – the one who was emotional but conflicted – was not going to be there for her, in any committed way, and accepting that she had to, and already had, cut the cords. She was finding peace and love in her own company, the beauty of her surroundings and her very adoring dogs. She said that, in Spanish (because we were mostly speaking Spanish ) there is a big difference between “amar”, to love, and “enamorarse”, to fall in love. She said that the words in Spanish are used very differently and that “to fall in love” was not used as an expression because it did not really mean real love. It is implied that when one falls in love one falls outside of true loving and is actually off balance and in love with the projection, a fantasy, a person on a pedestal or a castle in the air that does not really exist. There is not real acceptance, but an idolization of a projection. We can only really love someone when we love others just as they are and likewise we love ourselves just as we are. That is true love. That is “amor”. That, to me is what the symbolism of Jesus being led to his death means: that he loved humanity despite being misunderstood, misjudged, and scapegoated. He was somehow able to love and forgive, even through torture. The story of the resurrection has mythical significance in that once we lose, fall apart, “descend into hell” and achieve a healing acceptance of what just happened we are free, in so many ways, to re-create ourselves as something fuller, wiser, and feel new life (aka: rise from the dead).
In a strange way the projection of scapegoating and villainization of an individual bears an uncomfortable resemblance to being infatuated with another person, doesn’t it? In both cases we are putting on to another what we refuse to see within ourselves. The magnitude of becoming aware of this is enormous. As long as we blame others we will continue to not see the faults within ourselves and stay stuck in righteousness and hubris until the whole world burns, and in the same fashion, until we recognize the beauty and love within our own souls we will seek to possess another with those qualities and not express our own wonderfulness it and share it with the world.
A couple of days ago I spoke to my mother, who was in a fairly decent mood despite the fact that she is going blind, has difficulty walking and is experiencing virtually every inconvenience of body and mind that being 93 can throw at her. She said something that brought me a quiet sort of joy. She said simply, “I am resigned to this”. While this may seem like hardly a joyful statement it is a huge step forward for someone who has been graced with talent and beauty: popular and cared for all of her adult life. Loss only came later, starting with the loss of her husband of 50 years some 25 years ago. I’ve seen her grow through the stages of denial depression anger and grief and now she finally is at acceptance, (mostly: acceptance has to be a relative term, no? It must be chosen and re-chosen again, kind of like marriage). Being at acceptance she is (mostly) at peace and shows love more readily. She does not seem to have the need, nor the energy to maintain much of a harsh, critical edge. I hope it brings her peace, if not joy as well. I think it does. She was an art professor born and raised in the era of Socialist and rationalist thought and post Holocaust atheism. Highly prized was the ability to be clever: to take apart someone else’s argument meant one was right, as if to find the speck in another’s eye was prioritized as intelligence rather than focusing on removing the log in one’s own. She now appreciates simple things more, including the things that she fought against, such as spending money on caregivers or just sitting and listening to the radio and audiobooks. She’s enjoying things like listening to music more whereas before she was a perennial doer. It is an acceptance of herself, just as she is, and from that viewpoint she is at a better vantage point for finding peace and love. She appreciates what she still has left. Is she actually allowing herself to enjoy life more now than when she had all her capabilities, faculties and standing? Maybe so, and this seems to me the way the world goes. People say youth and beauty is wasted on the young. I rather think that it takes maturity to see the hidden forms of beauty and vitality that are all around us. Beauty and vigor are freebies while we learn the ropes, and they slowly recede, like hairlines and hormones, when we don’t need them as training wheels any longer to construct a secure identity.
I recently got back in contact with an old friend whom I had not contacted for a couple of years and found out that her husband of over 20 years had come down with Alzheimer’s. I asked her how she dealt with it. Her answer made me think a lot about love and acceptance of what is. She sent me a quote from a friend of hers had who witnessed her father’s decline into dementia. Her friend found she was able to ”sit within” his state in the moment, and within that state of just being present with him there was joy (via acceptance, not hope in the future nor despair of what has been lost). When there is loss we naturally lean first towards despair. It comes with the territory of being living beings trying to do that living thing we all do: stay alive. Her friend says, “I look for what transforms despair to grief, which is often: curiosity, love, and a semblance of grace. When grief cracks me open, wonder fills me up. Grief and wonder contain a ferocity, a strength, a deep curiosity, a sense of responsibility, and no small amount of joy. I find none of these traits present in despair or hope.”
I would add to this that I have never experienced a sense of wonder, joy, or love without the deep sense that there is a greater mystery, what the Catholics name the Magnum Mysterium going on in this world and win, lose, or draw, this deep sense, and trust in the Mystery always gives me hope as a whole rather than a set of preferred outcomes I might be attached to. Through acceptance there is no more struggle or fear, and where fear was, love, and love based action can fill the space. Through love, in love, there is hope.
Happy Easter 2023 to all. By the way, the concept of renewal does not have to be all about springtime, lambs and bunnies. There are all kinds of new beginnings, things to crack open the old shell and create a fuller fractal of oneself. I was the DJ this Sunday, April 9th, 2023 for Danza del Alma at The Nautilus Chamber and the theme was “Be Outrageous”. Every title is outside the box, and like the music or not, the music is intended to shift you out of your regular box and discover something new, born for the first time or perhaps reborn after coming out from hiding through a long winter of the soul. Here is the music, and if it moves you to move, move it! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7JRNTVdJpuuriYQtRC7nzo
Mexico is Magic 