Monthly Archives: January 2010

January 10, 2010 · 5:20 pm

We Forget to Die

I woke up to frozen pipes this morning. How boring. Then the furnace decided to stop working. A quick call to Scott, the air-conditioning and heating man, solved that problem. (He told me that if it conked out again, I could call him any time of day or night. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you freeze to death,” said Scott.) I have managed to coax a trickle from my spigots all around the house just to keep the lines from freezing over and breaking, but the hot water is gone. Not sure what I am supposed to do about my numb feet. Usually, I sit in a bath of scalding water to thaw out my extremities. That’s not possible this morning. I guess I could boil water on the stove and pour it in the tub with that trickle of frigid tap water . . . maybe I’ll get a little bird bath today.

Poor Lance keeps jumping on the couch (an act he knows full well is strictly verboten) because the floors are too cold and drafty for his little fairy feet. The curtains poof away from the windows with each breeze. Remind me never to adopt a century-old house again. Here we stand on that fine line between camping and living in New Orleans.

I spent the morning in a workshop offered by the Jung Society on the myth of Cupid and Psyche. So much to say about this story, but here is a short-hand review. Psyche shows us the evolution of the feminine aspect. Her name translates as either “soul” or “butterfly”. (Hmmm, just remembered that Mardi Gras is called “the butterfly of winter.”) The quality of Psyche that I most respond to is her relentless curiosity. She can not leave well enough alone. Her curiosity gets her into trouble every time. The fire department is constantly having to come and get Psyche down from the tree she has climbed on her own when no one was looking. And why? Because she had to find out what was up there, and didn’t think, think, think about how she was going to get herself down from the tree. That’s boring, right? Only the prospect of getting up the tree holds Psyche’s attention.

For example, most women would be perfectly content to be married to Cupid. Who cares if he only comes to her under cover of darkness? No relationship is perfect. This is Eros! The embodiment of Love itself, the most beautiful god in the pantheon, so charming he could sell shoes to a guy with no feet. A lot of women would just accept the limits and deal. But no, not Psyche. She has to light the lamp of conscious awareness. She must seek to know. She looks full upon the beautiful face of Love, as he sleeps. And what does Love do? He wakes and flies out the window. Because Love does not want to be seen and known and understood. He likes the dark. Damn him.

While problematic, her curiosity is also the thing that propels Psyche along her journey toward completion. Her curiosity gets her into a lot of trouble with her mother-in-law, Aphrodite. Sheesh! There’s a bitch on wheels, and what an unwholesome relationship with her son. Psyche’s own curiosity so shatters the structure of her world that she arrives at Death itself. Still, the fact remains—there is no story without her curiosity.

And without the story . . . why, there is nothing at all.

Not to leave you hanging. Psyche does turn out all right in the end, but it’s a bumpy ride. One of the tasks her mother-in-law gives her is to go to Hades and bring back a box of beauty from Persephone. Aphrodite doesn’t really need more beauty, but it’s nice to have, just in case. Psyche does as she is told, good girl that she wants to be. She follows all the rules of the underworld and makes it out with the box of beauty but then . . . arghh, it happens again. She can’t leave it alone. Her curiosity, that imp of the perverse, convinces her that she needs to know what’s in the box. Also, Psyche can’t resist a little territorial competition with her mother-in-law, the Goddess. She opens the box to take some of the beauty for herself. Psyche is certainly beautiful enough to make Aphrodite jealous, but she is still about as girly as a girl can be. She wants a little more. What could it hurt? Inside the box, of course, is not Beauty but Death. (Aphrodite tricked her!) Psyche falls into a Stygian sleep.

About this time, Cupid decides he is finished acting like an idiot. He can’t help loving Psyche still because he has stabbed himself with one of his own arrows. Hoisted with his own petard. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t make him love her. In any case, Cupid pulls his head out of his ass and flies in to save the day, (damn him, damn him) which he can do because he’s a god. He wipes Death from her eyes and restores Psyche to life. Then Cupid, who could charm the wings off an angel, goes to Zeus and says, “Look, I’m crazy about this woman. She’s perfect in every way except that she’s human. What can you do for me?” Zeus, who has plenty of his own issues with women, says, “Okay. Poof! Psyche is immortal. She’ll be less trouble that way.”

The masculine solution to all problems: “It’s cheaper to keep her.”

After a day-long talk of butterflies and death, Emily sends this poem:

#598, c. 1862

Three times — we parted — Breath— and I —
Three times — He would not go —
But strove to stir the lifeless Fan
The waters — strove to stay.

Three Times — the Billows tossed me up —
Then caught me — like a Ball —
Then made Blue Faces in my face —
And pushed away a sail

That crawled Leagues off — I liked to see —
For thinking — while I die —
How pleasant to behold a Thing
Where Human faces — be —

The Waves grew sleepy — Breath — did not —
The Winds — Like Children — lulled —
Then Sunrise kissed my Chrysalis —
And I stood up — and lived —

With this hard freeze, my garden has fallen into a Stygian Sleep. The bougainvillea and hibiscus are sick unto Death. The gardenia, camellia and jasmine are surviving, but the rest of my foliage droops dark and limp. The freezer burn got it. I was fretting over all this loss, and then I remembered: Things are supposed to die in winter. In the rest of the world, this is a normal cycle. Only here in New Orleans do we have this unnatural expectation of continued green and blooming around the calendar. We expect it because we get it for the most part. Until a hard freeze like this descends on us. Then we’re shocked. As if this was not what we signed up for.

This is our reminder. Much needed. We forget to die sometimes. That lapse throws off all the cycles. Cuts the story line.

Right now I am feeling as fragile as a butterfly in winter. My fingertips are made of glass.

This can’t go on forever. Right?

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January 7, 2010 · 8:42 pm

Curious Wine

So I spent the actual night of Twelfth Night with a dilemma. There were two events I wanted to attend. The first was a parade for Joan of Arc, whose birthday is January 6th. (Interesting side note: Her decisive victory at Orleans took place on June 18th, my birthday.) The second event was the meeting of a group that will gather regularly for the next few months to read Plato’s Symposium or the “Dialogues on Love.” So hard to choose: Plato or Joan of Arc? Sitting in the Latter Library, reading and talking about ancient Greek philosophies of love? Or a torch-lit, medieval tambourine parade through the French Quarter, following a woman wearing gilded armor and riding horseback? Yeah, just another Wednesday night in New Orleans. In the end, the frigid weather drove me to the library and the Platonic ideal of Eros. My spirit follows Joan always. She’ll just have to be content with my moral support this year.

There was a lot for my brain to chew on last night, but the portion I’ll relay here is the opening scene of the Symposium. Socrates and Aristodemus walk to the party at Agathon’s house. Aristodemus turns around to look for Socrates and finds that the “truth-loving eccentric” has wandered off by himself and appears to have fallen into a trance. Socrates is listening to his “daemon”, the inner voice that spoke his own genius to him, the voice that Socrates placed as an authority higher (to him) than the gods. It was Socrates’ faith in his own daemon that eventually got him condemned to death for heresy.

This is Joan of Arc’s story as well. Her steadfast allegiance to the voices that came to her from St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret, and her refusal to allow the priests to be her intermediary in an apprehension of the divine . . . all this was the evidence the Catholic Church used to convict her of witchcraft and burn her to death.

Emily too, placed her own spiritual authority above all others. She kept her mouth shut about it, though. And kept her skin. Was she afraid? Or was she simply content to know herself without being “public — like a Frog —/ To tell one’s name — the livelong June —/ To an admiring Bog!” She certainly refused any exposure to scrutiny and had nothing approaching the public life of Joan or Socrates. Maybe she was being smart and self-contained. Maybe she knew she was holding onto a few thousand pounds of dynamite.

Makes me think again more deeply about the advice I received long ago: “Don’t be afraid to know what you know.” More than anything else this fear of knowing what you know is the thing that stops a person from hearing herself. That’s all it takes: First, a focused, intentional stillness—stop, put away the world, be still. Then a sincere willingness to listen. Allow what wishes to be spoken to have its say.

Emily has this to say today:

#579, c. 1862

I had been hungry, all the Years —
My Noon had come — to dine —
I trembling drew the Table near —
And touched the Curious Wine —

‘Twas this on Tables I had seen —
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope — for Mine —

I did not know the ample Bread —
‘Twas so unlike the Crumb
The Birds and I, had often shared
In Nature’s — Dining Room —

The Plenty hurt me — ’twas so new —
Myself felt ill — and odd —
As Berry — of a Mountain Bush —
Transplanted — to the Road —

Nor was I hungry — so I found
That Hunger — was a way
Of Persons outside Windows —
The Entering — takes away —

This bread and wine stand on the communion table. Emily hungers for that bond through spiritual awakening. She offers a meditation on what is holy in the company of like-minded others. It’s lonely knowing what you know. The pilgrim seeks other pilgrims. The phrase I love the most here is “curious wine”. This is the wine that makes you more curious as you drink it. The wine that whets your palate for more, a deeper plunge into that embrace. The hunger for home, wherever or whoever that may be.

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January 6, 2010 · 3:40 pm

Twelfth Night

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany when the light of the Christ child formally appears to the world. This illumination lies just below conscious apprehension, in the peace of a sleeping baby. Just twelve days after his quiet arrival in the dark. Hence it is also known as Twelfth Night. And yes! The inauguration of the Carnival Season. (I boomerang into the Pagan Rites so fast, it’ll give you head rush.) Time to start working on my costume . . . which will be some variation on the fairy theme. My usual. This time with a sort of 15th century Tumbler/Magician feel to it. If you can imagine that. I can imagine it. I have a picture of it in my head. Only six weeks to make this a reality. I can do it!

Back in the day when I lived in New England, I used to sink into depression during winter. It’s the natural emotional response to the cold, dark season. Living in New Orleans has cured me of that trend. Here winter is the beginning of a spectacular celebration. And a great excuse to dress up in silly costumes. The Carnival infects everyone. It’s impossible to avoid and therefore impossible to be depressed in winter in New Orleans. (August is another matter.)

Emily sends a timely note from beyond the beyond. (Amazing how she does this, but I’m done trying to figure it out.)

#445, c. 1862

‘Twas just this time, last year, I died —
I know I heard the Corn,
When I was carried by the Farms —
It had the Tassels on —

I thought how yellow it would look —
When Richard went to mill —
And then, I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.

I thought just how Red — Apples wedged
The Stubble’s joints between —
And the Carts stooping round the fields
To take the Pumpkins in —

I wondered which would miss me, least,
And when Thanksgiving, came,
If Father’d multiply the plates —
To make an even Sum —

And would it blur the Christmas glee
My Stocking hang too high
For any Santa Claus to reach
The Altitude of me —

But this sort, grieved myself,
And so, I thought the other way,
How just this time, some perfect year —
Themself, should come to me —

Only cool customer Emily could report on her own death with such sang-froid. (I love that word: “cold blood”.) I don’t think Emily has ice water flowing in her veins per se. I do think her curiosity floats above the tumult of her heart. That’s her gift. To exist in a cool space of contemplation where everything is worthy of her intelligent scrutiny.

How like her to continue walking around and observing the world after she has died. Wouldn’t we all like to do that? To see if or how we are missed? In a peculiar sense she is both honest and resilient to say she died. That is the truth of her heart. What is also true, however, is that she has the mental clarity to review the impact of that loss. And to see how the world would fold in and fill the empty space. Not that her “death” doesn’t matter, but that the sun will continue to rise. Crops will come to harvest. Christmas will make merry. People will sit down to dinner.

Emily’s “Altitude” is too high for any of these mortal pleasures. Furthermore she has the power to imagine the resurrection. That “Themself” may come to her. That’s all it takes, the simple return. Not hope for retrieving the past. She knows she’s dead. She also knows that cycles are real. Although dead, Emily still guides her own thoughts. She determines the quality imposed on this scene, this loss, this end. Only She. The Creator and Destroyer.

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