Before I came down here, I made a deal with God (I’ve also had several conversations with the Virgin Mary - nice lady - but I’ll come back to that some other time). Not actually a “deal” per se. More of a pact. A promise. A blood oath.
Yeah, a blood oath.
That sounds cool. We’ll call it that. But yeah, I’m not talking about that stupid phony “God” that people pray to who don’t know any better. I’m talking about the Real God™. The One Who Liveth Forever Inside the Heart™. That God.
I don’t want to call it a “deal” because that makes it sound like I did it for my own gain. That’s sort of antithetical to the nature of this particular spiritual blood oath. Because this oath, this promise goes something like this: to lay down my life, so that you might survive. Not just survive, hopefully, but be uplifted in rejoicing and gladness and togetherness with God.
I’m not talking about I=Jesus style ego inflation here either. I am simply just talking about Love. Love for One Person™. A concept which needs to be trademarked because it is quickly going out of style. If elemental forces which hold together the universe could ever really be said to be going out of style…
But the point of the whole thing is this: the ultimate act of love is to sacrifice your own experience of it for another. Although love doesn’t quite work like that. When all the electrical connectors are properly polished, then the shit jumps from one Heart Temple to the next endlessly and joyfully - the dance of creation, the sound of angels blowing their horns, etc.
But to get to that place (and stay there - the domain of Kings and Queens) first you have to pass through another place. In that place, the ultimate act of love is to lay down your life for another. And to not just do it once but to do it endlessly, so that it becomes a reflex (and not acid reflux). But that’s not to say that it becomes automatic, thoughtless, weak or somehow feeble. It’s instead a constant prayerful reminder to keep your heart light lit.
And it ain’t easy.
Especially since the Dark Force which will ultimately be the one to which you sacrifice your very life so that your Beloved may simply continue existing actively wears the face of that very same person. They are the one at whose hand you die. Again and again. And this is the reason you enter into Love: not to be happy endlessly and ridiculous, but to die every moment by experiencing it fully and painfully and joyously. Crucified to each moment. A nail driven through each hand as it touches the curves of your body. Swords through my feet so that I might learn to stand here and appreciate this moment of being painfully and truthfully alive.
The Spear in your side isn’t called the Spear of Destiny for no reason. Do not bother trying to pull it out. If it has stabbed you, then there is no place left to run.
Another thing I’ve learned about Love. When you Love another person in the True and Authentic Way™ (as opposed to the other way that comes from stores and magazines and advertisements), the Love you feel does not come from them. And hence they can’t do anything to diminish it or to destroy it (although that’s not to say they can’t hurt or piss you off). It’s not theirs to take or give though. That’s what I’m saying. [Like they say in that movie Adaptation, you are what you love, not what loves you.] The reason being that it comes Straight From God™ and God is in essence the core indestructible force which exists within the universe and which causes the universe to exist in the goddamned first place. Love is the gift God gives to humanity and which we can give to one another. Everybody looks at everything so ass backwards; it drives me fucking bonkers.
But I know it’s not easy to keep sight of, or to gain sight of in the first place for that matter. Because it’s fucking scary to commit yourself to Truth and Beauty and Love because then you have to admit to yourself the unreality of your hang-ups, your problems, your fears and your sadnesses. And you have to face just how much of your life has become clothed in the invisible tattered rags of addictive self-perpetuated illusions. Nobody wants to have to do that. But Love makes you have to do that.
Again and again. Every second. A nail driven through each hand as it touches the curves of your body. Make me remember this moment, O God. Remind me that sadness is not part of the human soul, but a reaction of the human biocomputer against conflicting sets of commands. Please hold the line, Lord. Let me know when we are out of the woods, my Lady - but don’t let me wish any of it away. Because this is living. All of it. Let me know when those verdant valleys speckled with farmhouses open up to us. Cause I am going to throw such a fucking party when they do. You will all be invited. Our beer should be all brewed by then…
- END -
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I came to this exact realisation last night, contemplating being a cuckold, and the poison dart that enters the stomach and slowly winds its way up to the heart and strangles it. Because it hurts but I like it, like that South Park episode where he won’t become a goth, because he’s saying yes to life and reality.
Oh, and check out this Jenny Lewis song, called You Are What You Love, which mentions your name (No Shit!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H5yOfRG-RE
there is only one god……….the Oh God!
(ask your girlfriend.)
the god of all creation.
the reason why we are all here.
Last night I dreamt it was several hundred years ago. I was a traveler or explorer or colonist or something. And we were reading a letter from someone which was essentially a promissory note describing the women (sisters I think) who had been promised to us in betrothal upon our arrival in the new land. The letter described first and foremost their Christian virtues as women and second their great beauty and kindness. There were no pictures, only a few scant words and through those alone I fell in love.
Each night I slowly and carefully read this blog. Sometimes it takes a long time. I never, ever rush. Thoughtfully, lightly and with purposeful deliberation I inch my way through it - word by word, image by image and often cheesy ’80s song/spamnet point/conciousness sharing iota-ic breeze thing by song. (though I admit the second Bon Jovi song was too much).
My point? I have practiced meditation for almost 20 years, (not in a row) and tonight I realized that even though this blog has switched back to direct speak (TM) the state it helped put me in long ago quickly reasserts itself as I merge ideas with words, images and song.
It’s like a slow motion gestalt. And it is a form of meditation. Some people meditate (I’ve noticed) during their mundane morning/evening commutes and some whilst watching TV. Me, I meditate in my comfy chair, in dim light once or twice a day. But now I realize I meditate while reading this website. Thank you.
By the way, I think I am getting it. That person, who I thought, (and hoped), was my wife turns out to be my youngest daughter. The love I feel is not from her. It is from God. It is much like that Buddhist well/fountain of happiness I have touched within myself. It is endless. It is awesome. It is all encompassing. It will swallow you without drowning you. It is a pure joy that makes you WANT to pull the spear of destiny from your side and impale your own feet with it so as to be unable to move from this moment until it is indeliable etched into the memory of your soul.
Last night I dreamt that I was hiking through Umbria and was going to Tuscany. It was essential that I enter the Tuscan region on foot and that the 80-100 mile trek be accomplished by my wife and I. Together we crossed a volcanic region with ease, fascination and pleasure. We saw the mundane side of Italy and we loved it more.
By the way, the painful quality of experiencing love isn’t pain as we have to come to thin of it. The painful aspect comes from the acuteness of the experiencing the moment fully. Letting all that in hurts so good.
When I say “WANT to” I don’t mean it metaphorically. I mean, if I could physically and not just spiritually wrench that spear from my side I would instantly and with all my physical strength impale my feet into this moment of time. Give it to me, I will do it right now. I am as serious as I have ever been about anything in this life.
On a lighter note, along with this melodramatic image I have in my head about this I also can’t help thinking of the film, “Yellowbeard”, where the poor guy gets his foot nailed to the deck. “First officer, nail this mans foot to the deck!”
The pictures in this one were incredibly beautiful. Good digging, sir Boucher. Speaking of that Jenny Lewis song with your name in it that HWHA mentioned, I found a news article about the whole “Jesus ossuary” thing a few months ago back when that had it’s day in the news-perceptual sun, that was written by…Tim Boucher.
The first post I read here since my breakdown. Very good, I see you haven’t lost your touch.
Saint Dymphna’s feast day is May 15, she is the patron saint of mental afflictions- maybe people could say a special prayer for all those who suffer from mental illness and nervous afflictions. Thanks
Nervous afflictions: I could say a whole lot about that. Maybe I will soon
So what do you say to the person you love who scorns you and loves their own misery instead. Where to take her? What to show her? Even after many years they still have not caught on, and like an idiot I keep trying … some may prefer the darkness, but there’s no reason for her to!
Well, shit. That’s the question right there, isn’t it?
If anybody finds out the answer to this question let me know.
I was thinking yesterday something very trite and obvious about how life isn’t another word for pain, but pain is certainly another word for life. That is, the point is not to be happy, but to experience life fully and not flinch from it. This scene in Fight Club I think may sum it up somehow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvwWxGaARHU
To apply this then to love goes something like: when I say, “I love you” what I mean is that I willingly accept pain and negative whatever caused by your hand, by your actions, by your words, by your lack of all of the above.
What it means is: I am willing to be an idiot for you. I am willing to chase you and beat my head against a wall and to destroy myself so that I can simply experience the world at your side. (The path of True Love begins with being a Fool)
It all sounds good on paper, of course. Bloody difficult to keep in mind at all times. All you want is like Ed Norton’s character is to distance yourself from the pain. To fly away from it into your cave and your forest and your power animal and all the imaginary defenses you have built up to keep you and reality nicely separated from one another so that you can live in your illusions and never the twain shall meet.
So that leaves me only with the conclusion of: stay with the pain. Your life is right here and you are missing it by trying to go off and do something else and to change it. It fucking hurts. But that feeling of hurting means that you are alive, that you are feeling the awesome ravages of love upon the human heart as it burns away the impurities clinging like body thetans to your soul.
Or some kind of shit…
Of course you could also read the above as an elaborate justification of my own failures as a person. But hey, I at least recognize that…
Eerie how subjects come in like the tide
worldwide.
The lives we live.
The part you’ve played, the chance you took. There’s no way out of here.
Have you yet posted cheesy 80s vid The Warrior by Patti Smythe? I keep thinking about that song today.
Bang Bang! I am the warrior
And heart to heart you win
If you survive …