Chasing The Asson

Friendship from Strangers

2012-02-03T17:07:00.001-06:00

Swimming in the Indian Ocean, I notice a man on a raft paddling out to a fishing boat I eyed when entering the water. We exchange waves. He starts paddling over to me while I bob up and down; in turn I swim over to him.

“That is my boat", he exclaims. “You come out and see it. I am a fishermen, those are my workers.” I haul myself onto the back of the Styrofoam raft and he resumes paddling out to the boat. Never mind the fact that his mother tongue is Malayalam, mine American English. Between us, we each speak a few words in Hindi. Even with 25% or less of the conversation getting across, we are communicating with each other.

It’s a nice boat, as big as the fishing boat from Jaws, perhaps a bit larger. He shows me the hold where fish are on ice, I assert I’m vegetarian before fish are given to me. They offer me food, drinks, smokes – what you do with a new friend and guest: hospitality. I politely refuse each, having just eaten, not drinking and not wanting anything else. However, I am touched by the claim of friendship and the generosity of these four men. Kerala has shown this to me time and again by complete strangers; I’m a guest in their county.

It makes me wonder about the way we see and treat complete strangers in my country, the USA. Would we offer to let a stranger in, give them food and drink? Whether I’m the one who’s better off or they are, it doesn’t matter. The offer made is completely genuine.

Travel becomes much more interesting when you step out of your familiar environment and get to know the locals; share ideas about each of your own worlds. Conversations, even limited ones go beyond expectations. Travel changes you in ways you never expect to.

Reaching Out

I’m watching a guest being rude to the staff. I consider the people working here friends. We talk about music, about countries we’ve been to and wish to see, about Jamaica – one has a lighter with the stripes of the flag on it. They bend over backwards to make sure everyone is relaxed and has what they want. The rude man finally goes away and I share some wisdom from Dr. Bob. “There is this saying in New Orleans,” I say, “be nice or leave.” This brings a smile ... if only the world practiced it.

During breakfast I meet a man from Belgium. I had noticed him speaking French last night, so I offer a Bonjour. He comes over to my table and we talk for a good hour. He’s a retired anthropologist, was a medical doctor in the Republic of Congo, during the change of government. He quit medicine to practice psychiatry, then quit that to become an anthropologist. He’s been to Benin, and all over Africa.

We talk about Vodou and Hinduism, religion and spirituality. He says us men can’t really know ourselves without the mirrors of the women we’re with. (Very French Saum says later.) He learned English from American GIs after the war [World War II]. He travels all over Asia during winter, it’s too cold in Belgium. I want to be this man when I’m 70, not him exactly but retain an open mind and adventurous enough to keep traveling. We don’t stop talking until he leaves, days later.

I Dream of a Boat

Travel is in my blood, so is the water. I have this dream, a secret retirement dream. In it I sell everything and trade it in for a boat, one capable of sailing around the world.

In this dream I leave Duluth harbor, sail the St. Laurence seaway and head out to sea. I sail to Europe, down through the Mediterranean, over to India, Australia, up through Asia, hit some south Pacific islands and head back to the USA. I dock in NOLA and reconnect with old friends. Then I sail off to Africa, maybe South America.

It’s quite a fantasy. Would I do this? I’m crazy enough to, but would I go crazy at sea? Could I give up my land, my animals? Would my marriage survive that long in the isolation of just each other’s company? Likely, but who knows.

It is a dream I have, but not one I’m sure I’d like to realize. In the meantime, I’ll settle for visiting as many places as I can – and making new friends along the way.

The Desire to Overcome

2012-01-30T13:59:00.001-06:00

“That is why you fail.” The words of Yoda are running through my head.

In my pursuit to deal with past hurts: anger, guilt, shame, abuse (to me and by me) I struggled to overcome; beating these things, a finality of dealing with myself and mastering them (they are not me, they’re my past). In doing so I ignore who I’ve been and who I am.

My scars, pains and hurts change me. They make me who I am today, color my reactions, change the way I think. My behaviors, conscience and subconscious have new channels set into my being, my self-definition; it makes me a different person. I attempt to eradicate them by a mental surgery of the self: covering up or eliminating my scars instead of dealing with them as part of my self identity. A recognition needs to take place. I need to acknowledge I am changed, finding a way to live with my new self identity and accepting my scars as who I’ve become. Failure and hurt will continue until I can see them as part of me.

There is a history of abuse, guilt and shame within me – I have been abused. There is a coinciding history of abusing, guilting and shaming from me – reciprocated like the tides of the ocean outside. In trying to purge and overcome, they escape in ugly ways. They need to be made a part of myself not hidden away, but as my identity. I can then start to understand them and who I am as a result.

This isn’t the same thing as overcoming it or mastering it. It’s acknowledging it and accepting it. It’s seeing myself not as someone unblemished, but someone with scars. Scars that define me. In this I can finally confront my history, understanding it instead of ignoring it.

I have a history of hiding it within myself.

Why is it so hard to face my abuse? Why must I hide from the pain? In cloistering it, I amplify it. I give it a power that I cease to observe, but it is there hiding in the shadows. It rules me.

I cannot master these things, I need to stop trying. I feel that in trying to overcome, I erase the history of myself. I need to see my emotional scars for what they are: a history that makes me who I am, if I am ever able to fully see myself for who I really am. Otherwise, I will continue to wear the mask that I show myself, one of perfection, calm false beauty.

Inside me there is pain I’m avoiding. In me it festers, spreads and grows. Without looking at it, it spreads underneath my conscious self. It finds ways to come through the cracks in anger, fear and continues to rule me through my own insecurities. “Will I be hurt? Are they trying to take advantage me? Are they manipulating me?” These are the ways my insecurities get the best of me.

Back in the daily grind, I find ways to avoid opportunities to take a good look at myself; see myself for who I am. I avoid the difficult work of trying to see these faults, fractures and fissures as a thing of beauty. We have the ability to synthesize a perfect gem, but the flawed gemstones we dig up are the ones we value as beautiful. Why must we try to show ourselves as flawless, since it is much less beautiful than the truth?

Soon I will return to the day to day of living with its demands; ample opportunities to run and hide with a million well-practiced ways to avoid dealing with and seeing myself. Can I keep an eye on who I am? Can I learn to live with seeing my pains, guilts, fears and shames as something of who I am, instead of trying to pretend they don’t exist, or hide from them saying, “I’m ok”, or “everything’s great”? Will I learn to see suffering, a part of life according to the Buddha, as something not to be endured, but embraced defining who I am and where I’ve been?

The future remains to be seen, the present hard to focus on at times. For right here, right now, I see my abuse as a part of myself and try to understand the effect it has on me – and become one with it. Maybe if I can make it a part of who I am, instead of burying it within myself, it will change it’s shape and ways. Or maybe I’ll just understand who I am a little bit better.

Everyone has this in some kind of measure. Have any thought on the subject? I’d love to hear some feedback on this one. Feel free to anonymously post, or stick a name to it.

The Feel of the Beach

2012-01-27T06:08:00.001-06:00

The waves crash upon the shore in a constant rhythm, sounding like the thunder of a storm close to home. In it I feel the thrust and recourse of the waves as they push me toward and away from the shore.

Afterward, that pulse continues living within my body. I feel the rolling of the waves pushing and pulling in the air around me. With the waves coming in, there is a stillness of the mind. The undertow brings forth a stream of ideas, quickly flowing out to sea, you try to grab onto them before they flow away under the waters lost forever making way for a new wave of stillness arriving in it’s wake. In this, many thoughts and images come from my own depths, only to be lost a moment later in the flow of energy.

The night here has a different quality. Back home, in the dark, I see black splotched with bits of red and blue. Here the nighttime has a mist of white everywhere like a shroud fogging the air. That same whiteness permeates the daylight making you feel like the veils are different colored dupattas, the red, blue and black at home and here one of white. The air teasing you with floating and tugging sensations.

Reggae, heavy metal, trance, dance, disco and Bollywood music shuffles in the open-air café and somehow, it works. Mainly because layer after layer of stress is washing away, in some cases sandblasted. Everything seems less important. We should all live like this.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve been visited by both the Gods of India, and the Lwa of Vodou, each time needing to come forth for completely different reasons. Much is active here.

I feel myself floating to the surface. I gather new perspectives with the tides flowing everywhere. I feel the hand of Agwe. Swimming, breathing, floating, sitting, walking everything around is alive, the brightness following couche.

We’ve named the geckos here, Twitchy and Upside-down Sally. We hide from the mosquitoes, who eventually own the night. The moon as a crescent chalice, Orion seems upside down – he must be an inspiration for Sally.

How can it be photographed? How can it be described? One must travel to see and feel. One must be changed by it to truly understand.

The Buzz of Food

2012-01-19T07:04:00.001-06:00

My mouth has awakened from a long slumber. I am eating cinnamon for the first time. You might be inclined to say I’ve eaten it before, a powder sprinkled on toast, in chai or on top of pumpkin pie; but I would say that was only a taste of it. This cinnamon is a chunk of bark, boiled until soft and carefully blended into the spices of the dish I’m eating. I’ve never eaten cinnamon before – only tasted it’s essence. This is a piece of actual bark. My mouth is awake and alive.

Traditional Kerala banana leaf meal. You eat this with your right hand, but not your index or your pinky fingers. Never ever your left hand.

Have you ever gotten a buzz from food before? You may have drank too much alcohol or even tried drugs. This food is giving me a buzz – and there is nothing illicit about it. The spices are combining in such a way as to create an euphoric state from eating.

I’m convinced my hosts are trying to kill us. The food so good we just keep eating, day after day after day.

I can remember the first time this happened, also in India. We were visiting the Mansingh Palace Restaurant on top of the hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan. In 1996 we ate a meal that was so good, we got a buzz. Served with a drink concoction topped with silver. The food was so good, we had to eat there twice, and we were desperately trying not to repeat anything to keep exploring. The food was that good.

From the front they looked like hedgehogs, from the side, sandcrawlers.

But this is different. We are on a houseboat in Kerala on the canals that run between villages. By day we boat around wide and narrow canals after leaving a lake near Alleppey (or Alleppy or Alleppi or Alappuzha – the translation is never exact and the British screwed up all the spelling in India). The houseboat looks like a hedgehog from the front, a Tatooine sandcrawler from the side; Saum imagined a bantha. I nicknamed them hogcrawlers. They have bedrooms, chairs, couches, a driver and a cook. The cook is currently the source of the trouble – he’s too good.

After freezing in Dehradun, we came to Kerala – and fell in love. Touring Jew Town in Fort Kochi was amazing. The prices: reasonable. Two days warming up before hitting the boat. Shopping and requisite attractions. They really want to show you the Chinese fishing nets.

I grew up on houseboats. One of the earliest photographs of me is reaching for the throttle and gear shifter on the Mimi III (my first family houseboat) in my father’s arms. This was one in a line of houseboats I grew up on, trolling up and down the Mississippi in my hometown of Dubuque, IA. Weekends meant we were on the river. We would go up annually to the Buenie Picnic through lock and dam #11. We would go down to 9 mile island, or occasionally 11 mile island (distance from Dubuque). We would moon the dinner cruise while tourists ate prime rib. We would toss clams. It was childhood as a river rat. The smell of the river, the moisture of the air, the coolness of the breeze, the sunset over Dubuque going under the East Dubuque bridge – these things are buried deep within my soul.

Saumya knowing this about me has booked trips on boats before. We saw Michael Franti on a Mississippi riverboat in NOLA. We’ve been in canoes on Calhoun, Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake in Minneapolis. We’ve been on Uncle John’s boats “Up North” in Minnesota. There were on boats on our honeymoon. For this excursion we booked four nights on the lake and canals of Kerala.

“You’ll get bored", we were told. Nothing can be farther from the truth. You know a trip is starting well when a flower mala is placed around your head and a water coconut in your hand. The mood set; we’re pulling out.

Kerala Canal Direction Sign

The scenery is amazing: boat, sky, lake, canal, rice paddies, palm trees, birds. We stop the first night next to a rice paddy and an amazing sunset. The next day, we enter the canals after a brief stop at a village water-side store for supplies: we want cookies and chips, junk food. Along the canals we see village homes, fields, more canals. There are canals everywhere. The system is so extensive, they have canal signs (like road signs, sans roads) that tell which canal to take to a village, and how many kilometers away it is. We stop the night in one.

The frequent cannon shots would keep anyone from falling asleep in this mass.

This goes on. The camera goes snap, snap as we pass Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, Muslim mosques and the many Christian Churches. We can hear prayer call, but are unsure of which religion is calling for prayers: first Christian with the shots of cannons going off, then Hindu in Malayalam. We’re being overtaken by a pair of girls on the shore riding their bicycles along a path asking us for a pen. They keep asking, they really want a pen. Not only is it impractical for us to pass them one, we don’t have any without tearing apart our luggage – all that stuff remained packed away.

This boat is not loaded up to the lip like the others. Instead, I’m showing a typical outboard motor with it’s amazingly long drive shaft.

I’m amazed by the system of waterways. We draw 4’ of water through the wide 20’ deep canals, 3’ from waterline to shoreline. In the narrow ones, it’s only 7’ deep. There are long narrow boats carrying fishermen and nets, others loaded up to the limit, water line to the lip of the long boat carrying dirt, or cement blocks for building homes on these islands between waterways. We see fields irrigated, others pumping out to be drained. It’s an amazing system.

Each night brings dinner along the shore, a sunset and precious warmth. Dinner! The food. I said they were trying to kill us.

Are we bored yet?

Each meal we stuff ourselves full: Kerala Paratha, stewed tomatoes, coconut in fruit, in aloo (potato), in everything! The food keeps coming and once we can handle no more, then comes the tea (they don’t call it chai here). Full of ginger and spices, the masala tea pushes us over the edge. All we can do is sit and watch the sunset. To the pain!

The day starts anew with breakfast. We go through more canals again. I feel like Saum in a spice store, wild grin on my face. The air reminds me of my childhood boating on the Mississippi. The humidity and warmth of summer. I can feel my soul lightening. I’m over joyous.

I may be on the other side of the world, but I feel like I’ve come home.

Vodou on a different kind of bayou.

The War on Travel

2012-01-09T14:34:00.001-06:00

Nothing is supposed to be this difficult.

We’ve been coming to India together on four prior trips. If you count Saum’s experience, five years living here and many other long-extended stays before we met with travel nation-wide – she’s a pro. In January 2000, she organized a trip through Rajasthan complete with three-day camel safari through the Thar Desert just outside of Jaisalmer. We’ve been through mountains, over plains; in cars, trains and planes. We’ve stayed in old palaces and forts, palace hotels, hunting lodges, ashrams, even in tents. In terms of planning a vacation in India, we’ve never had this much trouble before.

Until now.

We’re here in India for six weeks together. After arriving in our base of operations, the launching point of our previous travels, we set out to make way for Kerala. In the past, we’ve used a travel agent, at other times friends, occasionally just hopping in the car. We know what we want to do, our research done, plans – well trying to set. And here’s the problem.

We have struggled and struggled to reserve our stay with difficulty after difficulty. In times past, you could reserve with an American Express card, later times a Visa. No dice. We live in a time where everything must be carefully tracked. Paypal, nope, too loose. So how, exactly do we reserve a room?

Place number one wants a wire transfer. I know how to do this, but coordinating between one country and another with a 12-hour time difference and making all the details right took over half a week.

Place number two wanted a Western Union order. After giving up fighting their website (for three days), realizing that I had to pay in person at an authorized agent – and waiting for the weekend to expire, I find you can’t Western Union within the country – only cross-border into our out of the country is allowed.

The hardest thing about planning our vacation is trying to figure out how to get our money from point A to point B.

I don’t blame the places we’re staying. I don’t blame India. Many of these same obstacles I face at home trying to open an account in the US, or wiring money domestically there. But these rules are getting too cumbersome. Each new financial obstacle put forth in law is making doing business – and travel in our case harder.

After many calls and days of persistence, tonight place number one is squared away. Hopefully with a little luck we’ll settle number two tomorrow. Planning a vacation has never been so stressful before.

If our plans for number two fall through, we’ll just have to revert to driving around until we find someplace. It’s not the worst way to travel, but I’m concerned that if that’s how the shoe drops, how will I pay them – and have to start over.

Guess some prayers to Lord Ganesh are in order.

Return to India

2012-01-03T13:40:00.001-06:00

We’ve been in India for two weeks. The airports:, clean and modern. New Delhi, sanitized. Everything seemed much more tame than our last visit.

Last week, we arrived in Rishikesh from Dehradun via taxi, one of our most common forms of transportation here, especially when we have the whole family with us; taxies are less expensive than trains beyond a certain sized group. Our travels through Rishikesh and Laxman Jhula started to feel like, something. But I still hadn’t caught that feeling of being in India. Something about me was missing. Was I overly nostalgic in my romanticism of the India that I remembered from my last visit? Had I changed too much?

As we travel to Haridwar, the landscape and drive bring everything back into sharp focus. Suddenly India seems more: colors, sounds, people, vehicles. The villages smell like villages: diesel, sewage, animals and people to foods and wares. The traffic becomes a chaotic wave of cars, busses, scooters and other things (tractors, bikes, animals and people). Traffic in India is like a school of fish in the ocean: they dart in and out as one and can scatter just as quickly around an obstacle. They move like a hive mind. Tapping into that feeling, that motion is tapping into India itself: feeling the chaos of the place and making it a part of you.

Suddenly I am feeling like one with my surroundings again.

We arrive into the Haridwar’s parking with much of the family present. Immediately we are surrounded by smells from a shanty market to wade through before entering this river town, one of the main religious pilgrimage sites of the north. A tall Shiva statue in the distance stands guard over the holy city. We remind ourselves to keep a close hand on our gear.

The Ganga at Haridwar

My last two trips to India found me on pilgrimage into the mountains, this trip takes me back to the River Ganges. As we pass over a bridge into the city, it hits me. I finally feel like I’ve returned to India. It’s been 15 years since I’ve been to Haridwar, the last time to register our marriage with the local record keepers who have records going back generation upon generation of Saum’s family (hundreds or thousands of years – nobody unrolls the scrolls that far).

Canal of the Ganga at Haridwar

The river is to our left, canals to our right. People on both sides are dipping into the river to bathe themselves in her waters. They go to clean themselves in it washing away their sins. Everywhere you can see men stripped to their shorts in the water or out of it dripping wet. I’m told women will do it in full sari, but I don’t really witness any.

Beggars swarm us for handouts, but instead we donate to the people that will feed them all tonight after arti (prayers) are finished. It’s hard looking into faces of children barely dressed chanting chapatti chapatti (bread) and gesturing eating nothing in their hands. Knowing they will be fed this evening is a small comfort; we have so much.

Wares at a store in the market

Mala shopping

We cross another bridge over the canal and hit Haridwar’s main market. The agenda – we have no agenda. Buy a lohi (blanket) for Saum. There are gifts to be gotten – but India is one place we feel comfortable recreationally shopping. I can’t stand shopping malls in the US, I avoid them constantly. I hate their look, their feel and their experience. I can’t stand the consumption. But when I come to India, it changes. Shopping is different. It’s interactive, like a slow competition among friends – you socialize, posture, haggle. The wares are laid out, one by one, unwrapped before you like Christmas and splayed for you to see, only to be re-wrapped for purchase or the inventory shelves.

Aloo Tikkia

By the time you’re finished, you feel like your family is larger

On My first trip to India, I couldn’t figure out why people would buy an STD. It’s a place to make calls.

We shop. I buy a mala – impetus to begin my mediations again (which I have). We buy little boxes (choti dibbas) that you can put equally small things into – that we also purchased. We get street food – aloo tikkia – and eat it. We are having a wonderful time! Then for some reason, we’re overcome – Saum with an unexplainable desire to buy a Shiva Lingam the size of a small bench – and the rest of us unable to stop her. We now have this 100 lbs. thing we are desperately trying to figure out how to ship back to the USA, but so far it’s beating us.

Then we purchase fabric. Purchasing fabric is an experience like none other in India, except perhaps purchasing carpets which is its closely related cousin. Each piece is draped out. Then another piled on top of it, then another in a large pile of color. You run your hands over it. We take turns asking for this one or that one. Purchases are selected. It repeats with different fabrics or styles. Chai is served while you decide. Perhaps it’s this immersion in the experience why I can’t stand shopping in the US. Maybe it’s because I know these shopkeepers will directly benefit from my purchases. Whatever it is, it is an experience like no other.

We make our way out of Haridwar’s market and it’s fully dark. Scooters compete with pedestrians through the winding paths closed to cars. We make our way back to the water and see the lights of the city shinning down upon it. People stare at me because I’m white, and I’m rare from what I’ve seen today.

We make our way back, slowly among the same route we took to get here. Shiva is lit up with his back to us, and Gangaji. The drive home is somber. We’re tired and happy.

We may be heading back to where we’re staying in Rishikesh, but I finally feel like I’ve come home.

A Homecoming Long Overdue

2011-12-27T22:53:00.001-06:00

This is the longest I’ve gone between entries and I’m sure I’ve lost some of you along the way. Sorry, a lot has happened. In the last entry, I was sitting in New Orleans (NOLA) awaiting the Day of the Dead celebration with Saumya and Drew.

I was moved sharing the experience of Vodou with my friend and fellow priest Drew at such a major holiday. The ceremony packed people within the peristyle (temple) and out into the adjoining alley. Once the initial celebration ended, we capped it off with our annual walk and offerings at the cemetery.

This trip to NOLA was directly preceding a major surgery we hoped to avoid. The surgery came two weeks later – and being a major one – we holed up and worked on her recovery. This was my first impediment to ignoring my blog. There were times, moments I could have written. Others where Zelda: Skyward Sword consumed Saum’s recovery while I supported her by remembering where things were in the game. I may have spent a few hours playing myself.

For several months leading up to this, we had planned on returning to India. In The Ascetic, the Therapist, the Priest and the Possessed, you’ll recall I said it had been 10 years of ongoing surgeries since they began. It had been 10 years since I had last been in India, where this whole period started. It has been roughly 9 years for Saum herself. Way too long for both of us to be away.

Right before the surgery, I started laying the foundation for our return trip to India.

A Stacked Deck

As I tried to begin preparations for our return trip, I began to sense things were stacking against me. At work, the person meant to help me during my absence quit. The airline tickets seemed a major pain to book taking 4-5 weeks of hassle pulling them together. Saum’s recovery was progressing at breakneck speed – it was all going easy – too easy. Eventually there was a setback in her recovery.

Can you really let a dork like this go?

Then my dog Shiduri got sick, really sick, University of Minnesota school of Veterinary Medicine sick. We had to have a conversation on putting her down. It’s wasn’t that close yet, but after past experience we learned not to let the discussions wait until the last minute. In the last hours before our trip, trying to decide whether or not to cancel entirely, she recovered.

Preparing for a trip to India takes a bit of planning. There was Christmas. There was surgery recovery. There were things blocking my way. Finally everything started coming together. After one last obstacle to overcome on the way to the airport, we had one stress left – we were running late. But even that didn’t stop us. We were on our way; we were in transit!

That’s 24 hours of planes and airports. We live in a golden age.

The Return

Belvedere Vodka Christmas tree at The Park Hotel in Delhi.

Reflected off the ceiling of our mirrored and clouded elevator at The Park Hotel in Delhi.

The foothills of the Himalayas remain the same. The trees obscure a new Vodaphone apartment complex on the other side of the river.

The foothills of the Himalayas on the Ganges at Rishikesh.

So here I am returning to India almost 10 years to the day of the last time I was here, back then arriving right before Christmas in 2001. I am different. I return as a priest.

India has changed a lot since my last trek here. First, the airport in Delhi was devoid of the normal crowds of people – begging for money, demanding you ride their taxi. Delhi itself seemed transformed, cleaner. Our normal walk through Janpath to shop found some stores leveled to rubble for the pending metro stop (underground rail/subway/tube)under construction. Again, where have the crowds gone?

As we travel to Dehradun, we see the onslaught of change that occurred over the 10 years. Last visit, it was a newly minted state capitol of Uttaranchal, the state has since been renamed Uttarakhand. The road and surrounding areas that we rode horseback on, rural areas then are now housing developments, major roads. The river valley where my horse played in puddles of water in a seasonal riverbed, now sports a new bridge and road. The place seems larger, busier. It has changed.

After spending Christmas in Dehradun, we’re now with family and friends in the foothills of the Himalayans along the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh.

So what’s next? Deep meditation? New revelation?

We may trek through the mountains. I do long for a trip back to that special spot in 24 Hours On Top Of The World. Likely not on this trip, there’s too much to do and we’re stretched too thin. Likely we’ll take a short trip into the mountains for a day, perhaps a night, then we plan on heading south. I’ve been to Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, but never further south than that. Our objective is to head to a coastal area in the south of the country, leave family and friends behind and see temples, be warm and have time to ourselves.

We need a different kind of healing.

Travel Changes You

In 10 years, we’ve changed a lot. Many unseen, unpredictable ways. We’ve gone through some serious difficulties. We’ve practiced healing on many different levels. Now it’s time to reconnect, with ourselves, each other and this ancient divine that only India holds. OK, that may be true and untrue. The spirits of India are with us every time we pray at the altar, every time we sit to meditate, no matter what part of the world we’re in.

But it’s different here, not just because of the immersion, the intensity, but because of the spiritual presences in everything surrounding you. India, like Vodou in New Orleans, has a hum that’s almost impossible to ignore. Sure you can tune it out, if that’s the kind of person you are, but most people are caught up in it, as if it’s a wave carrying you off.

In the foothills, in the mountains, in the air, the earth, the water, the incense everything around you reminds you that you’re not alone. The spirits are everywhere. They may not even be your own, but they won’t be ignored.

If you’ve never travelled to another culture, it’s hard to understand how reality can just be – different. To travel to a place that’s foreign, especially a spiritual destination, is significantly altered from what you normally perceive the reality of existence to be. That’s the part that’s hard to describe in a blog post. How a place, a culture can show you how reality is different than what you thought of. Once you’ve passed that step, you begin to understand that reality does change more than the one I’m experiencing here in India, in Minnesota, in NOLA. Reality is malleable from one place to the next and additional travel shows you new things, new realities and existences, but like any learning you begin to realize that there is so much you still don’t understand about the world, reality and existence.

This is how travel opens the mind – one way I support my friend Drew, the Rogue Priest on his insistence with travel. One can experience it in one’s own backyard, but there is more beyond that, and beyond that and so on.

The idea is to break into a world or culture outside your own. Get into a place where you’re assumptions of the world break down. Once you’re outside your comfort zone where your original reality no longer exists, you can begin to see things differently. There’s no limit to how different things can be perceived.

I’m hoping our trip south changes me in ways I’ve never been changed before. I’ve never been to South India. Will I be able to visit temples and shrines – probably not. My skin might not be the right color for that. But even the place, the surroundings and the spirits, hum and buzz of the place will be an opener.

I can’t wait. We’ll make our plans next. We may even follow them.

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The Ascetic, the Therapist, the Priest and the Possessed

2011-11-01T15:41:00.001-05:00

What these people have in common is they’re all healers in a way. I’ve promised to write about the energy work I do, and I’ve been hesitating on either writing about it, or in some cases doing it. Part of my dilemma is I want to take it slow, the other is I’m still trying to make sense out of it. How does one write about such an important and huge topic and still sound genuine, when one doesn’t fully comprehend it oneself?

I’ve been truly blessed in my recent years to make the acquaintance of people who practice the healing arts. Genuine people. They hesitate to call themselves healers directly and I’m beginning to understand why. I agree with their choices for doing so. Their choice in some ways is my own. Why? In some respect, the practices I’ve been doing aren’t solely my own. In other ways, it takes two: a cooperative experience. It’s not something I do to someone, but rather something I do with someone. It’s also highly individualistic, what I do for one person would not work for another, but rather there would be a process of discovery to determine what the correct course of action would be.

So I’ve been hesitating for some good reasons and some bad. The good reasons are I’m taking it slow as I go through a process of discovery and understanding, the bad is I often neglect to be doing what I need to do, as often as I should be. This isn’t a talent that should be wasted.

The Ascetic

As I wrote in The Uninvited Guest, my wife’s disease has been going on for quite some time, almost 10 years in one fashion or another. Saum is one of the most wonderfully adventurous people I know. Camping every summer in the Rockies, love of hiking, an equestrian and an explorer: the woman knows how to live life to it’s fullest. Those of you who know her would not describe her as timid or shy. She loves to live.

This disease hit the two of us hard, making many adjustments in our lives as we worked around the disease. Along this course, we discovered New Orleans and Vodou. We have tried many alternative therapies, all of them failing for one reason or another. That lead us to the ascetic. This person was the first to make a huge difference. After a session with her, the pain would be gone – completely.

One does not need any more evidence than this. What she was doing could make a difference.

The problem was, she lived in a completely different city than us, one separated by thousands of miles. This made regular visits impossible. Yes the therapy worked, but there was no way we could do it often enough, unless we uprooted and moved. We both love where we live out in the country: the land, the home, the horses and our friends. This was not a possibility.

The Therapist

After discovering one practice that worked, we set out to search anew for something complimentary to what the ascetic was doing. We found another wonderful person much closer to home – within our metro area. This person practices cranio-sacral therapy, but to say that’s all she does is to call an artist a painter. Sure they paint, but we’re not talking slapping color onto a wall. She delves deeper into the energies of the human body to help find the rhythms and help free blocked energy.

With the therapist, we were also making progress against pain and the disease. With this wonderful woman and friend, we were able to take the cycle of surgeries from every three months to every 12-14. We had found something that was helping. We were blessed.

I see her as well. I have degenerative issues within my neck. I know first-hand the pain relief she can accomplish from a single session. I begin to understand how the freeing of blocked energy works for proper flow. In one respect I’ve come to believe that the blocking of energy is one of the contributing factors to the cause of many illnesses and diseases. Modern medicine is great for treating symptoms, not always so great at identifying root causes. I have begun to understand how these root causes develop into something much worse.

The Priest

This all leads to me, the priest. When I initiated as Sur Pwenn, I embarked onto a journey. I wasn’t exactly sure where that journey would lead, but the Lwa often push us onto new ground we didn’t intent to walk on.

I’ve chronicled some of this earlier, but I only skimmed the surface as I’ve also done above. Let me now dive into the depths.

For those of you who are worried, I don’t hear a chorus of voices in my head. That doesn’t mean the Lwa don’t speak to me. For my part, I have to listen to the various ways they do speak, and one of them is in dream. While sleeping one night last winter, I had a dream. In that dream it was revealed how I could help my wife. In The Uninvited Guest, I said I’d do just about anything for her, and in that vein the dream was revealing with some things I could do. Of course, one does not wake up from a dream with a sudden understanding of the world, at least not me. I had to make sense of it. I had to roll it around in my head. Once that was done, I had to take it slow, learning and experimenting along the way. One could also call this: hesitation part 2.

I also like to think of myself as a rational person, and some of this can at times seem a bit irrational. My rational self has a firewall of sorts trying to make sense of what I’m experiencing. That is hindrance to being open to what I need to do.

When I initiated into Vodou, I understood the practices of healing from within the tradition: herbalism and root work. These were not my forte. I had this working against me. I felt that in this area, I was lacking some of the practices that my fellow Oungans and Manbos possessed.

I’ve written quite extensively on how meditation has played an important part in my life. I’m not one to practice everyday, but when I do it’s intense. My meditation took a giant leap forward during a 10 day silence retreat back in 2002. I was deciding what to do next in life, quit my business of seven years or continue. I do not recommend 10 days of silence for everyone. I had worked my way up to it over a period of years. One woman exaggerated her background, cracked and had a mental breakdown. I strongly recommend the practice, just make sure you do the preparations first: seek guidance from those who are qualified.

At the conclusion, I had decided to end my business. This was the beginning of this path I am on. My meditation has passed from the peaceful calming presence to the storm of kundalini. Sit, meditate and breath is all it takes to raise the storm. At first I was concerned, I sought my guru.

My meditation has been an intensity of power and energy every since. Within me sits the fire, the Agni that blazes to life. At times it has caused me to abandon my practice, other times it ignites marathons of sitting within the divine around me.

Enter the disease, enter Katrina, enter New Orleans, enter Vodou: if you need to know more about these entrances, read the blog. All has lead me down the path to where I am today: and the dream I spoke of. When I had the dream, the Lwa spoke to me not of herbalism, not of root work, but of the skills I already possessed: the eastern traditions of prana, kundalini and energy. It spoke of the physical and subtle bodies. To me some pieces started to fall into place and made sense. It offered a deeper understand of the gros bon ange and the ti bon ange, the two parts of the soul we talk of in Vodou.

Within the dream the spirits had spoken to me: I needed to become a healer. Or rather: I am a healer – I need to practice it.

I started slowly practicing my art. I took it one step at a time, slowly discovering what worked and what didn’t. It’s a cooperative practice. It takes both people for it to work. Most healing practices in Vodou work this way, those that need something need to take an active role for it to work. This isn’t something done to you, but something you do with yourself. You must allow it to happen. In popular culture, this is deeply misunderstood. The priest or priestess never casts spells upon you, you open yourself to let it happen. You are the key ingredient.

You now begin to understand the work I do. With cooperation, I can help assist the release of blocked energy. I can help heal. The tools I have are an extension of the spiritual and meditative work I have done, the product of years of practice. None of it happened overnight, as if in a dream. The roads have led me to where I’m standing. I continue to walk them, every time I get over my hesitation.

I continue to struggle against myself. At times I lack confidence in what I do: this is when I hesitate. I need to be fully conscience, fully awake to gain any efficacy. The disease we struggle with directly fights against that. I must be completely present to be able to do the work properly. I sometimes struggle with my own self doubt, even though the evidence fully supports the work I am doing.

I am my own worst problem.

The Possessed

Skull on a Halloween journey in northern Minnesota 2010

The title of this piece has meaning in what I’m writing. Today is the day of the dead. This is the time of year when the veil is thin. Last year, I found myself alone in northern Minnesota, trying to come to grips in my own disease with alcohol. This year I’m back at our temple in NOLA. Day of the Dead is a special celebration, and I try to honor my ancestors, the dead who have departed before me: my father, my grandparents and all of those before them.

It’s also the time of year when we have our fundraiser for the New Orleans Healing Center: Anba Dlo, a celebration of the rebirth of the city after hurricane Katrina. The second celebration on this year’s trip was a wedding. A good friend and Manbo in our temple was married on Sunday.

Indian weddings are said to comprise several days of revelry. On this trip, the wedding was done in Indian fashion, not just in dress, mood and décor, but also as three days of festivities. A regular three ring circus.

The wedding beautiful, the mood enchanting, it brought tears to my eyes. A small private ceremony in their home – similar to the Hindu wedding we had in the back yard of our own house some 16 years ago. I wore the same clothes that I myself was married in back then. Saum dressed in full sari and wedding jewelry. After the ceremony, we paraded from the house to the healing center where no less than four live bands played in both Fatoush Restaurant and Café Istanbul, the very places that were festive a mere nights before during Anba Dlo. It seemed right that this wedding took place the year the Healing Center opened.

During a break outside I was accosted by a possessed man. He proceeded to get up into my face and tell me how I was failing in my duties as a healer. He was right. I was letting my own hesitations and self-consciousness get in the way of my practices. The man told me if I didn’t exercise my healing, it would eat me up.

This sudden wake up call was enough to jar me into myself. I had been waiting to talk to the Ascetic and the Therapist: I had been wanting to learn more about what I was doing to better understand it and make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The wake up call? There is no one that can guide me except myself.

Every person I strive to help will be different. There is no school that can help me learn; there is no one that can teach this art. I need to step up and start doing what I can to help those around me. I need to get over my insecurities and get to work. This isn’t something that I can allow myself to hold back on, I just need to do it.

Am I the same person I was 10 years ago sitting in silence? No. Am I the same healer I will be in 10 years? No. I need to start walking this road or it will destroy me. I am doing more harm to others by holding back, than I can do in practicing.

I know the power of the breath, the prana that flows inside me. I know how to wield it to help others. This isn’t something I can learn somewhere else, this is a gift, a talent that must be used or it will consume me. I have to stop waiting for guidance, for more self assurance. I have to begin my journey down this road.

I stand on the cross-roads waiting for the spirits to appear. Only they already have, and I’ve been sitting with blind eyes and closed ears to the instruction that’s already been given. It’s time to use my gifts, or I will be consumed within my own fire.

It’s easy to write, so much more difficult to practice.

The Uninvited Guest

2011-10-24T19:52:00.001-05:00

There’s been a lapse in posts. Now has not been a good time at home. When this happens, we attempt to focus our energies where they are needed. Sometimes the writing has to wait.

The trouble began while traveling in India in 2001-02. There was something wrong with Saum, my wife. During the holidays she wasn’t well. We both assumed she was sick, there are a number of strange foreign illnesses you can easily pick up there.

It cleared up in time for our magical journey to Gwalior and Jhansi. The magic being, for the first time in India, Saum and I traveled solo. We lavished in Indian luxury; spent time alone, reconnecting as only time away from everything on a vacation can bring.

I left for home, she stayed. Before either of us could prepare the real trouble started.

While I was back in the US trying to catch up at work, I got a call. Saum was not well. I had known she was not well – but this was different. Saum was hospitalized – in India. To be hospitalized in India meant this was serious, something of a last resort. They wanted to operate right away. I weighed my flight options while they weighed hers and she was suddenly on her way home.

The surgery was immediately after her arrival back in Minnesota. She was in the hospital, in surgery and recovering before she even realized she was back. But this wasn’t really the trouble I want to write about – this is the precursor, the prelude, the introduction to the last 10 years of our lives. This is where the trouble really begins.

The Guest Arrives

Before I begin I’m going tell you a few things about my wife. I value tenacity and spirit, I like to think I have a lot of them – she beats me hands down. She has clarity, vision, depth, honesty and a whole lot of love. After 16 years of marriage I am more in love with her than at any point before. I would do almost anything for her – it’s easier to consider what I wouldn’t do.

My wife struggles with a reproductive disease: endometriosis, we call it endo. (She also has it’s more advanced cousin adenomyosis.) This trouble started right after the emergency trip home from India. Well not right after it, there were a few months off. Let the surgeries begin. (She’s been fighting it off and on her entire life.)

The chronic reoccurring endo in our lives came like a guest that’s out of job, lost their apartment and has no place else to go. That guest that asks to stay for a few weeks and it’s six months later and you’ve exhausted all polite ways to say it’s time to go. We’ve tried to evict it, but it refuses to leave. It hunkers down, digs in. It screams and causes pain, mostly to Saum, but my heart breaks every time I see it. I can sense her pain like a parent of a child with asthma. I know the subtle signs.

Surgery is tough: they cut you open. It’s not like some broken bone or need for stitches, they cut through you abdominal muscles. People call this your core. You use these muscles for things like standing up and walking. It’s a lot like being stabbed, repeatedly. You’re starting to get the picture.

One surgery led to another. Their frequency increasing to a point where surgery didn’t even wait for recovery. We were both getting exhausted – and fighting. Then the doctor dropped the bomb (one of many). He wanted an organ. How dare he! She has made this offering several times.

The disease was showing no signs of giving up; it was barely slowing down. I was losing her.

Learning to Live With It

After seven years in 2004 I quit my business and we moved to the county. We bought a pair of horses and tried to make a relaxing place to improve our quality of life.

There’s only so long you can maintain an awareness and attention to pain when you’re the caregiver for a chronic disease. With long prolonged periods, her pain numbs me. For her, it never lets up. It is never-ending and unforgiving. Pain makes you irrational, sometimes you want to hide, sometimes lash out to get those around you to help.

Her health didn’t really improve. I felt angry, powerless against the disease. I was upset with her for changing my life, my constant caregiving. I was tired, stressed and drained. Both of us were having coping issues. This brought us to marriage counseling, where we realized how much each of us was in love with the other. We learned many new skills to use in our relationship.

I took a series of anger management courses that made me a much better man. Much of my anger had been directed at Saum. It took me a while to learn it wasn’t her, but the disease. The disease is not her. I learned when to process it, when to let it go and what I needed to do to be healthy myself. It’s difficult for me to admit and cope with. It’s taken years to write about it.

For our 10^th anniversary in 2005 we vacationed in the Bahamas. Even with the disease we had an amazing trip. Neither it nor Katrina could ruin our moods. The trip, the hurricane all led to a shift in our lives that we hadn’t fully understood yet.

In 2007, depression hit us hard. The disease was killing our spirits; we were in a funk. Thanks to an IBM conference trying to help post-Katrina, we discovered New Orleans. This engulfed us into the would of Vodou. Directly following the trip, Saum got into Harvard (the University, in Cambridge, MA). Chronic pain leads to many emotions: depression, anger, hopelessness. The school gave a new direction, using that tenacity I mentioned she started growing again.

When conventional methods failed us, we found alternative therapies that worked. The surgeries were finally drifting apart. We started getting a hold of the bastard.

I started to see this disease as the other in our relationship. There’s myself, my wife and the endo. Endo hurts us both – this is important because I now could see my antagonist. Endo was hurting her, it wasn’t her. She was a victim. Armed with this, I tried to contemplate my new wisdom.

Spiritual Strengths

My wife became a Mambo, myself an Oungan, priestess and priest of Vodou. If you follow my blog, you’ve seen a slow transformative process over the last few years. I spent a lot of time self-analyzing myself, I’ve had revelations.

One of my revelations led to my energy work. I can actually see this disease, I can feel it. I can help. The same techniques and methods I’ve witnessed, after so many years of trying different things (and we tried many), I started learning how to do myself. We’ve been working on it together. (It takes two.)

As we’re coming up on the 10^th anniversary of all of this (a different 10^th anniversary), we’re planning another trip to India. We haven’t been back since this all began in 2001-02. We need this trip, Saumya more than I. We’re planning spiritual pilgrimages, some together, some separate.

We’re also in the middle of a healing practice at home. During the midst of this, her endo decided to fight back and flare up. It’s still resisting leaving our lives. So we find ourselves once again, scheduling another surgery.

This one will claim one last organ. Our surgeon hopes this will be the last. We all do, but it’s not easy to agree to part with a part of yourself, an organ, or even your pain. You need to surrender on a deep personal level. None of this is easy.

One Hell of Woman

Saum has shown me levels of endurance I hope never to explore. She is in school earning a 4.0. She started a non-profit to help rebuild and forge new connections between different faith leaders up and down the Mississippi. She has been writing for the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, State of Formation, the Good Men Project and other sites. She’s doing it all simultaneously, while still in school, still struggling with this disease.

I admire her.

Behind every good woman, there’s a … man. (Not sure if I always qualify as good.)

It’s not easy caring for someone, for a farm, holding down a full-time job. It’s not easy staying steady, calm and let healing flow. It’s not easy separating the disease from the woman when its got its claws in her.

But it’s not her.

I am getting better at this. I am seeing things more clearly. We’ve paid our dues to get us here.

Eviction Notice

I don’t believe in evicting spirits from your home, as long as they’re not hurting anyone.

It is time to evict this endo.

This guest has stayed long enough. In many ways this 10 years is the completion of a cycle. It’s been 10 years of surgery, 10 years since we’ve been in India. It’s time to put this cycle to an end.

No one should have to endure this, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like I can see the end of it. The trip to India, the pilgrimage, this surgery: I know they necessary.

For the first time, in a long time, I feel like we can beat this.

We’ve learned so much, grown so close. This disease has made us a team in ways we have never been before. Some good has come of this.

As for the endo, it’s time to go dude. You’re no longer welcome here. We rescind our invitation. Now get the hell out.

There Is No Hell

2011-09-13T11:39:00.001-05:00

This is one of the many ideas that struck me during my couche (initiation). There is no Hell. I began rolling it around in my mind. It wouldn’t leave me. It seems to be the culmination of my philosophy that started back in college years ago.

Growing up Catholic, I was taught very early about sin and Hell: the place where I would go if I didn’t believe, if my sins were too bad, if they weren’t forgiven. It‘s a place of eternal torment: a place of fire, brimstone and suffering. It is a place that’s cold, a deep abyss. It has a ruler: the devil Lucifer, the bringer of light, the angel cast out of Heaven for challenging God. He goes by other names: Satan, the serpent. You may have heard of him.

There are the chosen people, the people of Israel. There are literal tribes of Judaism, and there are other religious people: the Christians, the people of Islam. They interpret themselves as chosen by God and with proper actions deemed worthy go to Heaven, others unworthy will go to Hell.

I remember sitting in philosophy after falling away from Born-Again Christianity. We were introduced to a theory called the malicious deceiver, a god who sets us up to fail. The more I rolled the Christian God around in my head, I concluded the majority of people in the world not being of the chosen, were destined to end in eternal damnation. To me that understanding of God was one I couldn’t ignore. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that the God I did believe in wasn’t one that would judge and discard. That is setting people up to fail. That is malicious intent. That isn’t love.

The God I did believe in was one of love.

When I read excerpts of the life of Jesus that is what I saw. I didn’t read passage after passage of a man who preached how evil people were, but one who accepted the beggars, the whores, everyone for who they were, even if they weren’t of Israel, even if they didn’t follow him like that good Samaritan. The conclusions I came to were of good actions and love of everyone. This to me is where people go astray from his message. Most just claim to be part of the tribe.

What I’m Looking for with Religion

So I’m in the peristyle (temple) thinking there is no Hell and where most religions go wrong. Becoming a priest compels me to deal with my issues and every skeleton seems to jump out of my closet. This night the two in particular were abuse and shame.

In considering what I didn’t like about most of the religions I grew up with, I deemed them abusive, oppressive or overly cruel. We are told from an early age all the things that will lead us to eternal damnation: guilted, shamed, in some cases yelled at about how horrible we are. We’re left scarred and scared. We are fed so much negativity about who we are as a person, who we are as a people and how bad everything is.

Many religions have too much negativity.

For the religion I came from, it was built around this concept of original sin. Somehow, I am born damned because someone I’m supposedly descended from committed a crime of knowledge and free will. The human race is destined to eternal damnation for that crime, which they personally didn’t commit. This is the malicious God at its best.

I can’t buy it. I couldn’t buy that God is love, but will damn my neighbor because he’s a Sikh. I couldn’t buy that God will curse the person devoted to love spending time, energy, money and much of their will making the world a better place because they’re Wiccan. I can’t buy that the Buddhist who has tried to free themself of suffering giving love to the world is somehow damned by that same God.

I can conceive of the notions of reincarnation and Karma. I can see where we need to better ourselves to free us from our past, but I see that as a freeing of the scars we self-inflict. If we lie and cheat and run away from our own issues, our own problems, we have a long way to go to find our personal liberation.

To me Karma in this sense isn’t the paying back of a loan, a balancing of the scales as in I’ve been very bad, now I need to suffer and be very good to make up for it. Karma in this sense is the liberation of these past errors by coming to terms with the shitty way we’ve been and actually changing ourselves to be better. It’s owning our responsibility in cleaning up the damage we’ve done. This works on an individual level, a collective sense as a people, as a world and on a greater level a creation. We may right ourselves, but we still have a lot of negativity we’ve unleashed upon the world that also has to be righted. We need to fix ourselves so we can send out the positive energy to make the world a better place.

So here’s how I see it: some limited ground rules laying out good religious attributes v. bad ones.

Good Attributes		Bad Attributes
Love	–	Hate
Healing	–	Hurting
Liberation & Empowerment	–	Oppression
Self Improvement	–	Sin
Inclusiveness	–	Exclusiveness
An After life or Reincarnation	–	Damnation
Positivity	–	Negativity
Protection	–	Fear
Education	–	Suppression of Knowledge

If only it was this clean and easy.

The topics of oppression and liberation are important here. In India, there are some fleeing Hinduism to Christianity to avoid an oppression they feel in the way they’re treated. In the west there are those fleeing Christianity for Hinduism to avoid an oppression they feel in the way they’re treated. The religion isn’t the problem: both Hinduism and Christianity are wonderful. When the religions become the norm and entrenched in society, when the politics of people enter into application of the way it’s practiced, oppression as a means of control seem to infuse itself. We are constantly striving to free ourselves of oppression that entered whatever our religion may be by turning to something else.

In my own personal experience, I turn to Vodou to free myself of that oppression. I’m sure there have been those in Haiti that have found that very religion politically oppressive at times. It seems that organization and politicization leads to unwanted results. For me in this time and place, it is an empowering and liberating religion as befits its roots.

In this way I have a respect for some born-again Christians, a system I myself turned away from. Many of them seem to be trying to free themselves from that same negativity many Christian religions suffer and return to those core principles of self-empowerment and love. Many practicing “Spirituality”, yoga and meditation, systems that I still practice today, also seem to be trying to shed the cloak of religion for the same reasons. Some people turn to other alternative religions. Maybe this is why they’ve found that permaglow I wrote about. They’ve liberated their lives from their past confines and found great joy in it.

Religion should inspire people to be better, not through fear but through positive example. Not only should it empower, it should also be inclusive of everyone: race, gender, sexual orientation, whatever the next big division is. It should pick you up, carry you along and then let you stand on your own (or dance). There should be guides to help you advance in stages once you have the capability to handle the next step.

Good religion needs to be as positive as possible. The world is in need of some healing. It’s polluted, it’s choking. Every day were faced with great negativity: murder, corruption, poverty and suffering. We can choose to make our world more beautiful.

The Reality We Create

The only Hell that exists is the one we create.

I don’t believe in the Devil, you might. To me it’s a deflection of the responsibility of our own actions, an external force to blame. The Devil made me do it. The only devils in the world are through our own individual actions, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can heal: as a person, as a people and as a planet.

We have the capability to make this world we live in Hell, or we can beautify it, make it better, more livable, less polluted. We can improve; respect all forms of life: plants, animals and ecosystems. If we treat each other better we won’t live in Hell, we’ll be creating Heaven on Earth. We have this power within ourselves: individually, as a people and as a planet. Religions need to cultivate this kind of energy, this kind of philosophy.

This is the true meaning buried at the heart of most religions. To me it was the meaning behind Jesus’s words, those of the Buddha and many others. Many systems have these teachings at their core. Life is a wonderful, joyous experience. I hope the religion you prescribe to supports that endeavor. If it doesn’t, strive to change it. Many religions often get bogged down with too much organization then they try to control: politics, information and people. We should all embrace the positive aspects more, help to empower and lift up those who need it most. We can heal the negativity we’ve created. It will take a lot of work: a lot of energy, time and caring.

Where to Begin

For me, I’m starting with myself. I need to heal myself from my own negativity. I need to not run away from my problems, procrastinating them to another day. I need to help those around me: initially leading by example, then by lending a hand. I need to work at making the world a better place. I’m not preaching; I’m starting with myself.

Working on myself is the hardest path. My soapbox is internal. The war rages within.

Oungan François Ashe (Me) struck by the permaglow after becoming an Oungan Asogwe.
Photo by Saumya Haas

I found myself laughing at God’s wonderful sense of humor. That Permaglow Spirituality I spoke about, I found myself struck by it during couche. It has since faded with the reality that there are major issues in my life I have yet to face. But honestly, for a few days, I was laughing and smiling – uncontrollably. It was genuinely real.

I have my own liberation from Karma I’m working on. As I free myself, I feel like I’m going around a curve in the road, one curve gone I can now see more of the topography and how much farther I have yet to go. The more I free myself; I am able to see how much more there is to be freed. I try to remember, it’s not winning but playing that makes life worth it. Each milestone is an accomplishment. The important thing is forward momentum, as opposed to stagnation or sliding backwards. Like Leela, there are snakes and arrows along the path. Even if I did get to the end, won the prize, reached enlightenment or whatever sits at the end of the road – I’d probably play the game again. It’s life! It’s fun to be amongst the living.

Once again, I find myself at the crossroads. I have finished Sur Pwenn and become an Oungan Asogwe. Now I get to turn this corner and discover what Asogwe means. The chase begins anew. This will be a long road, but I have many friends to join me along the way. I also have the Lwa. Come and join me, no matter what your religion. We’ll throw a great party – and we’ll dance along the way.

The End of the Chase

2011-09-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

Right now I am entering couche. I am partaking in the end of one journey and the start of a new one. When I emerge on Sunday, I will be an Oungan Asogwe. The asson will come home.

There are many posts in this blog marking the points along the way. I hope some of you learned a little more about me . I started this blog with the intention of people getting to know who I am. I rechristened it when I started the process of becoming a Vodou priest, an Oungan. Along this path, I marked Sur Pwenn, the first stage of priesthood where I was on point, the beginning of that road. This one marks the entering of initiation to Asogwe.

When I emerge on Sunday, I will be a different man. I will also be the same man. Initiation changes you, but it doesn’t invalidate you. You are still you, just more.

I will keep writing. This may be the end of the chase for the asson, now the road begins anew. I will be on the path to discovering what Asogwe means. There are some things I will share and some that I cannot. I can’t write about initiation – it is part of the mysteries that are guarded to those that have earned it. I will not betray other’s trust in matters related to the religion or other personal things. That’s just the way this works.

Looking backwards and forwards

I am pleased with some of my writing here. Permaglow Spirituality stirred some comments, some dissention and interesting points of view. I enjoy the discussion. I appreciate the private conversations and emails. Join the conversation, keep it coming. Be bold, comment on the blog itself and open it up to a wider audience.

Meditation continues to be a huge part of my life and I’ve done some extensive writing about it. Many of the subjects in the word cloud (Labels) on the right will show articles on a particular thread. The more often they come up, the bigger the word becomes. In terms of meditation, try 24 Hours On Top Of The World. It sums up the feeling of the here and now, the timelessness that I allude to in my last two posts.

An American Shakedown in London proved an immensely popular story, chronicling my trip to India in 1999 with our one week stopover in London. Sleep deprivation landed us in an ugly situation. It’s one of the strongest memories in my life and I cherish it.

Health Care Reform consistently generates readership since I wrote it. I’ve either been personally affected or have friends who have. I wish it generated the same deluge of comments as others, but maybe I make my point too well. The reform act passed a while ago and it was a first step. Many people wanted it to go farther, some wanted nothing at all. More steps are needed.

The Woman That I Love generated much more positive reception than I ever imagined. I’m glad others loved it as much as I did. After sixteen years of marriage, there have been bumps and bruises, it’s been one hell of a ride. I’m more in love with my woman Saumya than at any other point in my life.

In Death Ahead, Detour Next Right, I write about not going to the World Trade Center on September 11^th, 2001 as scheduled. It’s often surreal for me to even think that I would have been there (with Saumya in New York as well). Knowing my propensity then for starting work at 9 AM and being 15-30 minutes late on top of that, I likely would have been near the ground anyway. In that piece I explore many of the near death experiences I’ve had. We all have them. I won’t allow them to slow me down. Listen, we’re all going to die in the end. It’s just a matter of timing. I’m not trying to live with a death wish, I just refuse to live in fear.

In Let’s take the free ANW pillow and go I discuss ways to help in the aftermath of surgery. My partner in crime, the love of my life, the Witch of Endo herself has had to endure being a superstar in all aspects of her life while also bearing one hell of a disease. Not many of us are up to the task. Just try slowing her down.

So that’s looking back, I also have a list of things I want to write about looking forward. I have started and abandoned an article on energy work, not being in the proper frame of mind to write about it. I also have ideas around the spirits, sex (oh my, can I really pull that off without betraying anyone), layers (needs rewriting), sleep deprivation and couche (maybe after this one), another health care reform piece, corporate personhood, a friend who’s dying, haunted houses (seems to be a topic lately, well I am in the business), enlightenment, wishes, white privilege, celibacy (oh my again), sacrifice, taboos and lastly how Vodou makes me a better Christian (this one I hoped to have out before now). I was also informed recently by the Humanistic Pagan that I need to write a “What is Vodou?” post. Maybe that could be a collaboration piece with Manbo Saumya Dlo. There are other topics and current events always push the topics list downward until something rears its head to the forefront.

What about this couche business?

So I have been on this Oungan road between Sur Pwenn and Asogwe for 17 months now. I went through a lot of personal preparation for Sur Pwenn. Much has changed in me between Sur Pwenn and Asogwe. I have learned how to apply my talents from the Himalayan meditative tradition toward healing. I hear and serve the spirits. Times are a changing.

I can’t prewrite how Asogwe will change me, since I’m just starting it now. But it will change me. I am ready. I will say this; I wasn’t ready 17 months ago, although I may have vehemently argued otherwise. I can delude myself, but I can’t delude those closest to me. This has all taken a lot of personal growth. Time and effort well spent. My life has changed so much every six or seven years that I can’t imagine where I’ll be six or seven years from now.

What changes you may ask? I’ve had to delve deep into my personal baggage. Face those inner pains and shames that jumped forward in times of great emotion. I’ve dealt with much change going on in my life. I am getting better at sitting back and not letting my personal emotions rule whatever life flings at me. The spirits have churned the pot with death (of my father, grandmother and grandfather), life (with finding a birthparent), success (and the pressures of it pushing the limits at work) and many other challenges often going on simultaneously.

I used to dislike getting my hands dirty. I had a job in a diesel garage growing up where they stayed that way after 3 days off. I moved out to the country seven years ago and they’ve been dirty a lot since then. I’ve had to get over so much, I don’t mind anymore. Life is dirty. We all get dirty. It can be a great source of joy.

That dirtiness is a reoccurring theme here. It has been a longer, slower change in my life. That is who I am. I am dirty, and I revel in it. Some fears are good and healthy. They keep us away from death and danger. Others rule us, ruled me too much and held me back. I try and let each and every one go after careful examination. It’s harder than hell.

So couche will keep me off the grid. I’ll be unplugged. I’ll be away. I’ll be here and there, betwixt and between two different worlds. I will change, yet again. I will likely find myself there in that same place where I was 17 months ago, feeling like I never left. I’ll be in that same temple in India in the Himalayas sitting in meditation. It’s all the same place, it’s the same me – my other life outside of this one.

I will write more afterward. It may have a different tone, or it may be the same. There’s so much to write, so much to share, so much to explore. Thanks for being a reader. Thanks for learning about me and sharing your thoughts and opinions. Feel free to say it’s all a load of crap, feel free to disagree wholeheartedly. I’ll love you more for speaking up and being honest.

The Beginning of The End

2011-09-03T01:41:00.001-05:00

This post comes with a soundtrack. (@Rogue_Priest I know you did this once, but I’ve been meaning to blog about this songs meaning since before I met you.)

Italicized lyrics below by: Greg Dulli

Have you ever come across a song that you can’t get out of your head, a song that you might hit the back button at the end, more than once? Or perhaps you hit that single song repeat? The Twilight Singers have been a band I’ve been in love with for years, ever since Twilight came out (not anything to do with the books or movie, long predating it.)

Saum and I were discussing the other night on how we relate to people by the music we listen to. I can’t figure out a person by their job or their politics even. I get a sense, but not a good one and sometime not even the right one. But music, that’s how people are revealed to me. Do they like happy upbeat, or something with a bit of an edge to it. Does it sound like a party or something sexy? It is smooth and even, or is it temperamental and hard to judge? I love music. It defines me.

So what, you may ask does this mean? What is the beginning of the end, besides a great song I’ve been repeating over and over again all summer? Today I embark on my trip to New Orleans to couche, to kanzo. I will be undergoing the rituals of becoming Asogwe. So this trip is the beginning of the end of the chase for the asson. When the chase is complete, I will begin a new chase, one to understand what it means to actually be Asogwe.

Let the music begin.

You better shut your eyes, here’s where your life begins

I can’t think of a more fitting line to mark the beginning of couche, or a more fitting song. I will begin with my eyes shut and will begin the next phase of priesthood. This is how it’s done. Revelations will come through it.

There’s something gone, anesthetized again

I have spent a good portion of my life anesthetized either by alcohol, or by my own diversions to internalize myself inside my own head. Oblivious to the world around me, I could easily ignore everything and everyone. I don’t want to feel the pain. I want to hide, be gone. I can’t do this anymore. This is not the person I want to be.

I see you run, you’re never coming back

How many things have I abandoned without completing? How many things in my life were incomplete? This is a reoccurring problem I’ve spent time and energy trying to overcome. To face things and not run away, these are the demons I have struggled with: to not be defensive, to listen, attempt understanding. The time for running away is over.

You lost control, so easy to distract

The diversions in my life have been monumental. I’m facing my anger, abuse and pain. I’m addressing my redirection. I have had to focus my mind and energies on things that matter.

All come alive for the hesitant

It is time to come alive. It is a beginning and an ending. It is time for action; the time where intent matters has passed. Intent needs to be measured by our actions, not our excuses for what we meant to do, say or be.

The summer sun is blind and inveterate

Each day begins anew. There’s always tomorrow. Why not put it off, I’ll get to it later. These are the diversions of my life, the habitual diversions that keep me from succeeding. These are the diversions that paralyze me.

Some seek a light

It’s time to see what’s going on around me. This is the path that leads to the light.

Some creep at night

Timidness is paralyzing, stop being meek. Stand up and fight for yourself and what is right. Fight yourself. Fight for what is right. Fight for who you want to be. Fight.

Some run and hide

Stop hiding from who you are. You are great, just aspire to be so. It’s hard, but not as hard as you think. It’s much easier to run and hide. Stop. Stand and face the light.

I do what I want I want to, I calculate

Find your path and walk it. Stop talking about walking, walk. Figure out where you want to go, what you want to do – stake measurable steps. Listen, I’ve been a master of getting what I want. I have to use that same energy to get the positive things, not the distractions that hold me back.

Forgot you were broken, my mistake

We all have pain and problems, seek help. You’re not alone. I have pain and problems. I’m not alone. We all have those that can help us. Fix it.

I look in the mirror, time to pay

I’m the one to act who has to act. It’s time to take responsibility for all I’ve done, all the pain I’ve caused to hurt people and make reparations. No one else can do it for me.

Nobody knows me, I’m awake

When I started this blog, it wasn’t Chasing The Asson. It was to tackle a problem. I was told people didn’t know who I was. So I decided the best way to let them know was to start writing, publicly. I try to be honest. Who I am, and who I’ve become is the priest chasing the asson. This is a part of me, and all the other entries, writings. Some have nothing to do with becoming a priest, but it’s still who I am. I’m awake, I’m no longer sleeping. Read on, and you’ll get to know me.

I’m so sad, so keep it coming

When I face myself and see who I’ve been, who I’ve become, it can be very difficult. It’s much easier, for me at least, to clam up and shutdown. I have to face fear, sadness and shame. But it can be done. Keep it coming. I’m changing my life as the architect of my own destiny.

You’re falling down; I’ll get your money

I’ve got your number. I’ve got my number. I’ve got all kinds of numbers. If you don’t wake up, stand up, life will pass you by. It may be happening right now. People will take you for everything you’ve got.

Walk in the room, And I see your ass has gone astray

I’ve been lost. I’ve been agnostic, doubting, unsure. I’ve had FUD: fear, uncertainty and doubt. I’ve been astray and I’ve been balanced. I have to stay balanced to walk and ride. If you’re astray, the path is before you. See it.

We all start out with what we’ve been given. We at some point rebel, question and go astray. We get hurt. I’ve been there. I’ve been lost.

You’ve lost your way, come find your way

You can find your way. There are guides all around you. Just listen, feel, act.

All come alive, in the present tense

Stop living in the past, stop deferring to the future. Come and be in the present. The action, not the intent. If you can be in the present, even for a moment, it’s beautiful. Don’t worry if you can’t hold it, practice it. Get better at it. Strengthen the mental and spiritual muscles of being present in the center, the here and the now. Hold it a bit longer. Try again.

The summer sun has died of irrelevance

Summer’s fading baby. Things are always changing. You are always changing. It’s how you handle change that matters. Things will come around again. Things you avoid will definitely be back. Will they haunt you, or will you tame them.

Some see the light

I have to see myself for who I am, only then am I able to change the things I don’t like. See the light. See who you are. Change the parts you don’t like, keep the parts you do. Repeat.

Some sleep at night

Never! Nighttime is that special time when things are revealed, when the spirits come closer. You don’t have to do it always, but revel in the nighttime, don’t be afraid. Turn it into a metaphor. Don’t sleep in the night of your life, be present and awake.

Some take their time

Some do. Don’t worry if you’re not there. I’m not there. I may never be. It’s not important to become everything you want to be, it’s only important to try. If you’re not trying, you are taking your own sweet time.

I do what I want to, I calculate

I’m living with a direction and plotting my own course. I have to keep figuring out what the next obstacle and goal are. I plot again and again. I will keep changing. Ask me if I thought I’d be becoming a priest seven years ago, I’d laugh at you. Ask me what I’m going to be doing seven years from now, I have no idea. But what am I doing tomorrow, next week, next year, I’ve plotted it. I’m figuring it out. It’s deliberate steps.

Forgot you were broken, my mistake

We’re all broken. Stop using it as an excuse. Pick up the pieces, change. If I can do it, so can you. Change your life for the better. Do what you’ve always wanted to, as long as it’s healthy. Become.

The unbroken lyrics are below, as well as a player to hear the song.

Find more songs like Twilight Singers at Myspace Music

You better shut your eyes, here’s where your life begins
There’s something gone, anesthetized again
I see you run, you’re never coming back
You lost control, so easy to distract

All come alive for the hesitant
The summer sun is blind and inveterate
Some seek a light
Some creep at night
Some run and hide

I do what I want I want to, I calculate
Forgot you were broken, my mistake
I look in the mirror, time to pay
Nobody knows me, I’m awake

I’m so sad, so keep it coming
You’re falling down, I’ll get your money
Walk in the room, And I see your ass has gone astray
You’ve lost your way, come find your way

All come alive, in the present tense
The summer sun has died of irrelevance
Some see the light
Some sleep at night
Some take their time

I do what I want to, I calculate
Forgot you were broken, my mistake

Permaglow Spirituality

2011-08-30T00:32:00.001-05:00

Generally I view myself as a happy grounded person. Fifteen years ago I began to meditate in the Himalayan tradition. I’ve taken spiritual pilgrimages. Each night I light my alter and say prayers. My life rife with spiritual experiences. My career enjoys accomplishments and success.

In my marriage and personal life, I have attended counseling and classes to make me a better person. There are scars that show you the trials and tribulations I have gone through, coming out the other side after spending time to understand and overcome my issues.

While I am not perfect and not proud of my failings, I take pride of what I’ve done since then to mitigate the circumstances that led me there. I challenge myself to grow as an individual. My life constantly changes, I learn new ideas, philosophies and tools to help me better myself. I value each and every one of my friendships, new and old.

Last year I became an Oungan Sur Pwenn, a Vodou priest in the first stage of priesthood. Next week I will enter couche to emerge Oungan Asogwe, the last stage. One road ends, another begins. Another discovery of what it means to be Asogwe.

So tell me what I’m doing wrong?

I see people of other faiths and traditions who just seem too happy. They walk around with smiles fixed upon their faces and seem to be surrounded by this glow – I call it the permaglow. It’s not limited to one path or tradition. Some are Christian, some are meditators, other paths turn them out as well. They just seem so – happy. Too happy. They make me uneasy. I just can’t take it.

When I think of myself, I believe I’m a warrior. That must be the problem. The scars I have are real. They show the places I’ve been, the battles I’ve fought; the struggles I had to face, often within myself, sometimes with others. I am proud that I overcame so much that kept me from developing personally. But do I have that smile? That glow? Hell no.

Not everyone is the same. Some people are just made that way. The thing that grates on me, I often feel some of these people are trying to pull a ruse. This permanent smile upon their face is in some silent-film non-verbal communication way of proselyting their religion, beliefs or path. I just don’t buy it. Where are your scars? What are you hiding? Where’s your pain?

Listen, I hope I haven’t put you off. That certainly isn’t my intention. We are all different, I sign myself up for the more difficult path. It’s my bed, I made it and I fully intend to sleep in it. It’s so foreign to how I’m made that it comes off feeling fake to me.

I’m the one who asked for it dirty. I’m still facing my demons. I’m proud of it. It lets me know where I’ve been, where I’m at and where I’m going. When I look at that peaceful smile and that glow, I don’t get angry, I just can’t relate.

Maybe this is the failing on my part. I’ve done the pilgrimage. I’ve done the silence combined with intense meditation. I didn’t find peace, I found Kundalini. In my case that is the opposite of peace.

The truth be told, when I get down to it, I am also not looking for it. It’s the last thing I want. I play pool. I sit across the table from my opponent with my hand playing Euchre. I will look you straight in the eye and try to relate – honest empathy.

If you are one of those who has this – and you know who you are – I am happy for you. I may look you in the eye and wonder. Are you for real? Are you really that at peace? Are you one of the enlightened ones? Or are you just trying to convince me that you are.

There are people, when I look it seems – real. They do seem genuine. They may have found that peace. Those are not the Lwa I follow. They are not my path. I love you, more power to you. Peace brother.

If I ever do find that peace. I will not smile with that glow of affection. I will look at the world and laugh. I’ll laugh loud, boisterously. I will laugh a bit too long. I may even point.

At this point in my life, I claim I am the sum of my parts. I am the man who stood his ground in the shakedown. I stared down men in India who looked at my wife the wrong way. On some things, I am immovable.

When the moment comes, that time within breaths, when Kundalini grabs a hold of me, when I’ve found that point between the back of my nasal cavity and my brain, the point where I truly feel I am me, I will not be at peace. The smiling crowd may feel sorry for me, but I will not feel sorry for myself. I will be there, betwixt and between it all, stuck between time and between worlds, saying my prayers, my mantras, feeling all and nothing – and then it will be gone. Gone like I am from my pilgrimages, gone like I am lost from the here and now, gone and back to my other self. This self that writes. This self that is priest. I will guide others. You won’t see me smiling, but you just may hear me laugh.

New Orleans Healing Center Grand Opening

2011-08-28T15:55:00.001-05:00

Today is the grand opening of the New Orleans Healing Center on the corner of St. Claude and St. Roch in NOLA. While Hurricane Irene batters the east coast, the center is the culmination of the restoration of certain goods and services that were missing after another hurricane: Katrina.

For many it has been a labor of love getting it off the ground. There have been countless meetings, gatherings, planning and fundraising over the years to make it a reality. There has been outreach to communities surrounding the center to discover what services are needed in areas where much of the infrastructure was destroyed after Katrina. But it tries to do things a bit differently by aiming to achieve sustainability and healing to both immediate and long term needs.

One immediate need fulfilled is The New Orleans Food Co-op. In the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as several large sections of town, there are no grocery stores nearby in an area where many don’t own a car. A fitness center, dance studio, yoga studio, credit union and interfaith center also deliver needed services in an area that lacks this critical infrastructure.

For longer term needs and greater healing of the physical, emotional, spiritual and economic there are the healing arts, street university and green business incubators. The healing arts provides many healing services on a sliding scale. Others aim to help people help themselves with education and starting the sustainable businesses of the future.

There’s also dining and entertainment bringing healthy food and music to the area with a performance space. These last two synergistic businesses work with many of the others to bring people to the center to offer one place to accomplish many needs as once. Their cooperative nature would allow one to work out and shop, attend a class then eat.

For me, I’ve helped out in meetings, fundraisers and other events to help where I can. My main support has been to Saumya, who has written about it in her Huffington Post article. Giving occasional business and infrastructure support is sometimes as much as I can do holding a fulltime job and running the hobby farm.

I wish I could be a part of the grand opening occurring as I write this. I encourage all to stop by and see this fabulous achievement today at the grand opening, or on your next stop to NOLA. It is indeed a labor of love, blood sweat and tears as well as an unending dedication to the community of so many in New Orleans, a city I call my second home.

For more information try the following sources:

Spirituality in the North Woods

2011-08-09T00:13:00.001-05:00

I had the pleasure of going to a new friend’s cabin in the boundary waters canoe area, the north woods of Minnesota last weekend. This in and of itself is a grand adventure, a vacation complete with lake, canoe, sauna, fire and good friends. But the friends weren’t common, they were quite unique. This excursion was a meeting of the minds and the sharing of souls. Drew Jacob, a Celtic Polytheist priest, B. T. Newberg a Humanist Pagan (is priest or shaman a better description) and myself, Oungan of Vodou.

We not just spoke to one another around the campfire, we recorded it for all to hear. Come experience the north woods, the crackling of the fire, the canopy of stars and the three of us, talking religion and spirituality, man to man. All within the framework of what it is to experience, what our encounters of nature are.

B. T. Newberg’s blog Humanistic Paganism is the sponsor of this event. We’re releasing it as five separate segments all off the Humanistic Paganism site. The first one is Encounters in nature, part 1: Sharing of Paths. The second is Encounters in nature, part 2: Three eyes on nature. The third is Encounters in nature, part 3: Story Time. The forth is Encounters in nature, part 4: Going wild. The fifth and last is Encounters in nature, part 5: Bringing it home. If you have trouble with the website’s audio broadcast, you can listen to the iTunes podcast and get them for your iPod/iPhone/iPad. We’re going to release an eBook soon with a transcript of all the stories, as well as some excerpts from each of our blogs and further explanations of each of our religious traditions. I hope you enjoy, we had a lot of fun.

Photo © 2011 B. T. Newberg
From Left: B. T. Newberg, Urban Haas and Drew Jacob

An Unexpected Connection

2011-08-03T22:59:00.001-05:00

I will be getting back to my regular blogging soon, but something unexpected came up and it’s been occupying my thoughts.

When I was born, I was adopted. I came into the hospital with one set of parents and left with another. I was told at a very young age, as soon as I could understand. I’ve been pretty open about it with friends because it’s never been a negative in my life, a lesson I learned from my parents. My family is rooted as mine as much as anyone who is not adopted. I’ve always felt it reciprocated by my parents and siblings alike. I was a wanted child.

During the funeral of my grandmother in May, my mother quite unexpectedly started volunteering information about my birth parents. It was quite unprompted on my part; I believe the death of her mother was the catalyst. After a few weeks I decided to email her for the information so I would have a record. I sat on it and considered what to do. Is it right to contact someone who carried you and gave you up 42 years ago? What if reaching out is painful or opens old wounds? What if it’s better not knowing? What if they’re bad people? What if …. Many questions rolled around in my head as I considered what to do.

The agency that connected the people: my parents, my biological parents and myself was Catholic Charities. Finally I decided to look online and see what options there were. I debated filling out entries on adoption meet up sites. I downloaded forms from Catholic Charities (still sitting on my desk). I talked with other adopted friends and they shared their experiences on finding their biological families – they had mixed stories but not one of them regretted it. I was ready to fork over the money.

But for what?

The website for Catholic Charities states they make no promises on results. There were legal waivers to be notarized, sent in the mail. Again, I stalled and tried to figure out what to do. Then I turned to an old friend … Google.

My mother had given me enough information, details about the people who had parted with me. She also had my birth mother’s name perfectly remembered 42 years later, uncommon spelling and all. Google didn’t let me down.

So I found her and cast an email out. Time passed. I wasn’t worried, it took me two months to decide to reach out myself. Then yesterday, it happened.

Contact.

What happens next? We’ve been corresponding via email and are making plans to meet face to face. It’s exciting. Both of us felt shock at the sudden connection. Neither of us have experienced the pain that could have come. Not yet at least.

More will come of this. In the meantime, I have a very supportive mother, siblings and Saumya. My life is good, secure. It should be a good meeting.

Life never ceases to surprise me. Three months ago I would have never guessed this would be happening. Six years ago I would have laughed at you if you asked me what my life would be like today. I continue to be amazed at the curves that are thrown, but rarely disappointed.

This likely will be my only post on the subject, it was necessary to clear my head a bit. This was occupying an otherwise active mind for the other blogging I do. Next post should be back to deeper waters; I have something written, but I’m scrapping and re-writing it. Like this post, it has deep revelations within.

An American Shakedown in London

2011-07-23T20:49:00.001-05:00

Caution: There are some minor adult themes in this one.

I love Guy Ritchie films. My favorites are Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Both of these involve some kind of con, danger and lots of action. They’re fast paced. While I like these aspects in my movies, they strike a little closer to home because they remind me of some time I spent in London, a place where cons and fast money seem to run through the streets.

As the millennium was coming to a close in 1999, my friend Chad (aka The Chad) and I were going off to India to celebrate the change. (Please keep all technical references to the actual millennium date to yourself, nobody started counting our calendar at 0 or 1.) My wife Saum had already arrived there several months earlier with two other friends, they were leaving, we were coming. Our flight left Minneapolis around 4 am, which meant we stayed up and left for the airport around 2 after a long day of packing and preparing. The first flight went alright.

When we arrived in Chicago, we had a 2 hour layover with American Airlines. Waiting at our next gate, our flight to London became delayed – and delayed – and delayed. Seasoned traveler that I am, when the crew stepped off the jet-way, I was first in line to rebook. “Sir, the flight hasn’t been cancelled yet,” the agent said, “it’s about to be,” I replied; then came the announcement as I stood before him.

The agent offered to rebook us by flying us to New York, take a bus from one New York airport to another, and fly out from there. I asked when the next one out of Chicago was: 12 hours. When do they both arrive? Same time. I opted to wait at O’Hare. As the day wore on and we waited, JFK had a fire in the airport that closed the terminal (the one we would have flown out of). All those passengers were stranded again. We made the right choice. I called my friends we were staying with to let them know we’d be half a day late.

If you’ve never travelled trans-Atlantic before, drinks are free. Like Dennis Farina’s character Avi in Snatch, we tied one on. Another nine hours later, we arrived in London. After tube, train and walking we made it to our friend’s house and were greeted to a traditional English breakfast – it didn’t go well with the sourness in our stomachs.

London

Me sitting on one of many trains in London
Photo courtesy of Chad

It is getting on to late morning, and with the exception of two brief naps in O’Hare and on the plane to London, we have now been up for a long time. We clean up a bit and take the train into London. We end up in Soho.

I have never been to London before; Chad had been here for a summer a few years back for a theatre internship. We wander like a bunch of tourists (think Shawn of the Dead). Day stretches onto evening, and that’s when we have the brilliant idea of going to a strip club.

Chad’s been telling me about these legendary clubs. We set out our search: in Soho. The streets in London aren’t like American ones all straight and proper like someone put a ruler down, they wind and curve, meet at star-like intersections. It’s easy to get discombobulated. Add to that an utter and complete lack of proper sleep and now you can begin to understand how we feel: tired, disoriented, freshly over a hangover and in a new part of the world. After scoping out two or three places, we decide on the one that looks like we can afford it, it has a moderate line to get in.

The Shakedown

The wait isn’t that bad. We walk down a flight of stairs into the basement of a club. It’s dimly lit, tables with patrons, a bar and girls walking in lingerie. There’s a curtained off wall that looks like a stage and we appear to be in an anti-chamber, with some patrons being escorted into another room. It’s exciting.

We are very briefly shown a menu with prices way out of range of our wallets. I settle for a coke. An eastern-European woman offers to sit down and tell us about the club. She asks where we’re from, talks about London. We have our drinks. When it’s our turn to head to the other room, we quickly realize we can’t afford this place. We decide to leave and settle our bill. The price: around £200 (around US$350 then). Knowing that my coke and Chad’s drink wasn’t that expensive, we ask for an explanation. It turns out, our hostess’ company is worth around £150 for her pleasant companionship. This was shown to us on the menu they explained, showing us the small print at the bottom.

I refuse to pay.

At this point, we face “the manager”, and another two burly men. Suddenly, I’m wide awake. The manager demands the money. I argue I don’t have it. He threatens to call the cops; I call his bluff and tell him to. He tries to posture saying we’ll end up in jail, being foreigners, not knowing the local laws and all. I’m not buying it, this is looks like an illegal con to me and I welcome some lawful assistance. He asks for our passports to hold saying we can return tomorrow with the money, I lie and say they’re back at the hotel. He asks the name of the hotel, I make one up (so many chains). We are in a standoff and I’m not backing down. Things look like they are about to get ugly.

Chad wants to get out of here and offers $50 saying it’s all he has. They take it and show us the door, not to the back alley as it could have gone, but out the front. We pass by the line of people waiting to get in. I’m convinced that those people, that flow of cons waiting to be had are what saved us.

We exit the club both at nerve’s end.

It takes a little oven an hour and a bitter in a nice pub to calm our nerves. At this point, we take the trains back to our friends’ and sleep.

To this day, I can still recall the place, the feeling of standing eye to eye with the man. I recall the look and feel of him with my blood pumping. It’s a feeling that adds steel to my nerves when I stare someone down today (a rare thing but it happens).

Prologue

Me on a bridge in Paris
Photo courtesy of Chad

We budgeted about a week in London and the rest of the trip was a lot less stressful. We took a train to Canterbury, the Chunnel to Paris for a day. We walked in evening rain. Eventually it was time to embark to India, which has its own stories.

I shared my experience with Saum and she laughed: being taken in London is an old tradition. My brother and sister-in-law, being from London also laughed and shared some stories. It was a good lesson to learn.

My partner Chad on the same Parisian bridge

My story used to stop here, but recently I spoke to Chad warning him I was going to write about this. He shared with me that the same thing happened to him that first summer he spent in London, news to me. I've learned my lesson: get the low down from the locals before walking into such a place; I’m not so sure about the Chad.

When I watch these Guy Ritchie films, they remind me of that point, standing there with adrenaline staring someone down, ready. I remember what it felt like. I’ve been there. London can be like that. At least for me there was no Desert Eagle, and no pigs.

The Woman That I Love

2011-07-10T05:26:00.001-05:00

Saumya you turn 40 today. I celebrated your 30^th birthday by writing something for you. I didn’t know you on your 20^th or your 10^th, but I plan to write you a piece, wholly dedicated to you for each passing decade. I write this for you.

A Krishna Kind of Love

I know a couple where it’s often said they have a Krishna and Radha relationship. They exemplify romantic love. It has the makings of a storybook fantasy. A young girl falls deeply in love with the man of her dreams; he falls in love with her. They get married – an arranged marriage actually – it’s a smart match.

Krishna was a rake.

I hope that doesn’t sound offensive, but evidence points in favor of my statement. All the gopis would follow this rock star around and moon after him (making cow eyes). And what does he do, sit back, play his flute and women fall at his feet, if you believe the depictions in all the art.

He also played important parts in the epics. Then there is his epic love with Radha. The love that sweeps you off your feet, floats your boat and makes you do and say all the stupid things you do when you’re in love.

I am no Krishna.

I have made a point describing many different kinds of lwa – different spirits for different aspects of humanity to be celebrated. There are different kinds of priests and priestesses that all come with different talents, areas where they can do marvelous things that others just can’t. The same principle holds true with love.

The Old Bastard

In One Thousand Nights and One Night, I declared I have Shiva in me. I have Ogou. You have always been one hell of a Shivite. Now someone might easily jump to the conclusion that you must by my Parvati, Shiva’s wife. I have respect for Parvati, know she is revered by many, but to say you are my Parvati would be wrong.

It took me a while to figure this all out, but I can now see it. Saum you are passion. That comes out in many ways. When I look at Shiva, I have to recognize that he has more than one woman in his life. There is another, and that woman is Ganga.

Ganga descended from Heaven in Lord Shiva’s hair, according to the way the stories were told to me. I’ve heard many stories of her: how she was cast out of Heaven, being a lover of Shiva, how the bend of her at Varanasi (Shiva’s city) she swings her hip at him, giving him a bump. I have yet to make the pilgrimage to her source on Shiva’s mountain.

Ganga captures more of the essence of you than any other. How she both longs for and scorns the loss of Shiva’s presence. Understand this duality and you begin to understand the relationship we have together. Our love is beautiful, complex and at times challenging. It is a relationship worth having.

Falling In Love

It took me sixteen years of marriage to figure this out. Within my beliefs, I see the divine everywhere, in everything and in everyone. When I feel my association with my met tet, I feel Ogou. When I feel the divinity of the Hindu Gods, I feel Shiva. When I look into your eyes, I see Ganga. You’ve always longed for the ocean. In your eyes I see my lover more than my wife.

On your 40^th birthday, I don’t see you a year older. I don’t see any hill to go over or any new part of your life. I feel like I see you for the first time, as a new lover. It seems that our love has grown deeper than any waters. It feels like it is new and fresh from Heaven. After sixteen years of marriage, I am falling in love again.

Celebrating your 40^th birthday is a wonderful point in your life – a marker on its course. I in no way mean to belittle it. But instead of feeling older, our love seems to make me feel younger, like the first time I saw your eyes. The moment I knew I wanted you, not as a friend, but as a lover, not for a night, but for a lifetime. Looking at you at 40, I am falling in love all over again.

I am fortunate. It makes me excited to see you now, no matter what your age is. You are young, beautiful and still make me pause. To stop and look into your eyes is to see the divine. Namaste.

The Brazen Cutter of the Multiverse

2011-07-10T05:12:00.001-05:00

This is an old piece of writing I did 10 years ago for Saum’s 30th. I wrote it for her and am sharing it today for her birthday. It’s rough and has adult themes. It is all fiction set in a D&D Planescape universe (or multiverse if you’re so inclined).

In the Multiverse, not many people strike you as anything memorable. I have been around the Outlands, through the great barriers and traveled to places inhospitable to most beings. I’m not invincible by any means; I’ve just been around long enough to learn a few tricks of my own.

One doesn’t make it far without taking a few berks along the way. I’m a mage and a damn good one! I’ve liberated some poor sods that had too much to carry, by my own judgment. Fools easily part with their loot, and those that don’t won’t live long enough to tell their story. I’ve amassed various spells designed to keep a poor sod down. I fought in a Blood War or two. I have basically been around the planes; and I have had the pleasure to travel with good company.

From time to time, you run across someone equal to yourself. And if you’re unlucky you run across someone who can outdo your most powerful tricks. Myself, I am of noble birth from a plane that is nowhere near Prime. My parents lords of their own realm. I have many siblings that are next in line for the thrown, but that didn’t stop me from getting a first rate education on the Multiverse. I was privileged, but I was not spoiled. I have to watch my own neck from jealous brotherly and sisterly love. My name is Randal and I have twenty siblings from a plane of Chaos.

At two hundred twenty-three, I came of age. My father, mother and older siblings took me hunting in a primal plane where they are worshiped as Gods. I suppose a cutter on Prime has no choice but being perceived that way, but even Gods have danger when primes fear you. We hunted the large-horned beasts that breathed the green-crystal flame. The ceremony initially consists of hand to hand combat and ends with a special knowledge; not everyone who tries survives. I camped in the wooded forest of the 300-foot trees, slowly honing my skills by playing with and trapping medium-sized beasts until I felt I was ready.

I searched for three years, tracking my own gigantic beast. They only awoke every 100 years during a period of the rainy season, but I was getting experienced. I found the lair of one of the waking ones and set my traps. When it awoke, I jumped on its back. For three days I rode it, until under exhaustion, it bucked me off. My arm scorched under that flaming breath, but I managed to roll and climb back on. Under the rush of the moment, I managed to finally get control of the movement, eventually driving it to the ground. For weeks I rode it as steed. Our goal was not death, but control and once gained, one obtained certain knowledge and powers that were needed to be able to survive in the Multiverse. Once I controlled the creature, I gained the ability to control time.

Upon completing my quest, I became Ta’hari – a temporal mage of Chaos. This was the knowledge of our bloodline. This was our coming of age to leap into and survive in the Multiverse.

My first travels took me to distant lands. Eventually, I traveled to Sigel, picked over a sod or two and landed a companion. We put ourselves up for hire and landed some jink traveling about. In time, I had a home on the donut itself, but I never stayed long enough to call it home.

My ambition was to gather enough knowledge to cut myself my own plane out in the Outlands. Most sods would never gain the knowledge to know this could even be done, but to some, the knowledge exists to make it happen. I was gathering items and spells that changed time and matter to create and destroy both. I had gathered knowledge to create new spells themselves. To some, I was a danger and was hunted because of it; to others I was a source of knowledge and was hunted for it. But one learns quickly to survive, or one doesn’t.

My partner, Johand, was on an entirely different path. He wanted to find the ultimate warrior skills. He wanted to be a master of arms in all of the planes. Jo stopped at nothing, saying no knowledge was too remote. He trained on the planes and on Prime. He even drug me into the Blood Wars for a while as a mercenary. He could swing a blade faster than the unaided eye could see, and I used my power of time to study it for a while. He taught me many things, but most of all to trust no one. Do not trust them to keep their word; do not trust them to stay alive. He entered the book on our second tour of the Blood Wars. You see, in the Blood Wars, no one fights fairly. People grow limbs, stop time, create inhospitable battlefields, and when things get rough, their friends arrive. It was pure Hell, when it wasn’t, pure Abyss.

It was on this tour when Johand died that I decided I had had enough. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. I had gained all the knowledge I was going to get from this bunch and had enough cunning to jump ranks when the time was right. That’s when I met her.

Her beauty immediately struck me. Long flowing hair and eyes that would enchant anyone – no everyone that she came in contact with. It was a long time ago and my memory is sketchy in certain aspects, but some things I will never forget … as long as I live.

Her name was Saumya she told me, only after we had traveled for a time. Information is always currency and the only way I got that bit was after several encounters with the netherworld beasts. Anyway, it’s probably not her real name.

I met her on the planes of the Abyss; she was haggling over the cost of an enchanted weapon with some pit fiend. I swear she was ready to get that bastard’s first born, if they have such things; she was getting the better of that creature in its own home.

She was gorgeous, drop dead, but not in the book sense. What a site to be seen, the sharpest curved blade at her side I’ve ever come to encounter with. She had this shimmering blood-red cloak that concealed the many different sized pouches that hung from ropes and belts strung around her. She had a wicked smile, the kind that let you know you were going to have a good time, no bub needed.

I had initially planed to rob her of her purchase. I watched the jink slide to the fiend, just before he ended up in the Dead Book. I tell you no lie – with the very sword she was purchasing from the bastard, right through his own bone box before he could gate a single friend for help. The movement was so eloquent that I watched the ballet through wide eyes. That’s the way she ran it, it was her show. I started to wonder if I was getting in over my head, but I was experienced, and she was just a young thing. I followed her through a plane or two in the Abyss to the place where she gated, and quickly had to cast a spell to keep it open. I followed after a brief time, just enough for her to get out of sight of the gate.

We ended up in Sigel where I followed her for a bit, traveling between the crowds. I had her in my sights; she was my mark to be had. My blade ready, round a corner into an alley, I put the dagger to her head and asked for the sword. That’s the way I planed it, anyhow. I failed to see the dagger in her own hand. I failed to notice her perception of me. I failed to prevent myself being thrown to the ground and that dagger of hers rush to my own bone box. I thought for a moment I was a goner. I felt like such the berk. Never underestimate a cutter that can handle a good pit fiend, that’s what I learned that day.

I was blessed with good looks since the day I was born. Not to mention the fact that I have a certain magical ability and a good strong body, skin strong as bark and good regenerative powers – there’s not much I am afraid of, though maybe I should be. I looked up at those amber eyes of hers, catlike, squinting at me. She made me feel the edge of that blade, cut me a bit, as much as I can be. But we caught a glance of each other – held a moment in time, and mated right there in that very alley.

I could have gated out of there, I could have frozen time itself, but I don’t think I could have escaped her. She had a way of looking, as if to mark you though time itself; as if she could track you down through the ungatable planes. She was a delicious beast and our friendship was made in that instant. Though she did steal for a time, she was no thief. What her skill was, I was never sure, but she was mightily skillful, in everything she did. That’s why one could never tell.

We hid out in one of my safe-houses, I know she had a place there, but doesn’t everyone have a few areas to hole up in? The next week or two I helped her gather supplies, spell components, weapons. She was after some treasures of sorts to strengthen her position with some demon lord. Some creature that had something she wanted, and she wanted it badly. That’s how we ended up traveling together for a while. There was something she needed and she was good, talented, at getting what she needed to get what she wanted. We gathered dust, soil, wings, skin, metals, jewels – all kinds of stuff. We had each other every night for a month, and I hooked her up with some associates in the guild to gather some of it. Hey, they were my friends and it was better seeing a good fair price go through than having some of my people end up in the Dead Book.

One night, during a procession on a day of festival, when the Doom Guard was on patrol in the Sensates quarter in large numbers, we entered the hive. I had the displeasure of ending up there once for a bit of time, swearing I would never return again, but she said that was the way – and sure enough the gate was there. I don’t fear much anymore, since gathering so much magic, I even have a spell or two that works in Sigel, but I’ll slit you gullet before that knowledge makes it to a living soul. Away we went off to the Astral and we have the scars to prove it; well she does.

I could spend an eternity describing her. Built like a warrior, the woman could ride. Beast or man, sometimes they were both; she had a talent I couldn’t begin to understand. We bought winged beasts that traveled that plane … off to the realm of the Astral Mages.

I should have known we were running into trouble when time stood still, but being a temporal mage, I don’t always notice such things as being that out of the ordinary; occupational hazard. I enveloped her into the temporal stasis and we walked right into one of the biggest traps I’ve ever lain eyes on. We entered into a bubble of reality that I felt for sure would end my days, or forever trap me without seeing anyone again.

I’m telling you, I’ve never met a woman like her. For when encountering several demons, dragons and Baatezu, all bearing down upon us, she merely opened her pack and drew a gemstone. The ocean-blue stone had the coolest sheen to it. It seemed to sparkle in the same way her blue eyes did. She covered my eyes and I raised them over her hand to meet her own. The blood red eyes were intent on our greeting party. With a few words in a tongue I had never heard before – and I pride myself on my education – I saw those creatures getting closer, but they shrunk in size as they did. They were flying right at us as I drew my huge two-handed sword. I was ready for them. A spell of binding prepared, as if it would be any good, and my trusty magical sword. They kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. (What magic works on a magical beast?) They flew right into that stone. Right into it! A few more words and she showed it to me. There they were, flying in a blue land. She told me the stone was a plane unto itself, and those creatures had gated right into it. It was not magic but another plane that existed in that stone, with the stone being the only gate in and out. An ocean and air plane – and they were in it.

After a time, I came to understand that the stone had been created by a God she bedded some time ago. In fact, it was given to her as part of a quest. What were we after, anyway? Those creatures were what we came for and that was it – we were gone. She was like that. I never understood what we were after on all of these different planes and lands we traveled into together, but I couldn’t complain. I was growing quite rich. I had gathered spells and power, jink and the cant alike. I learned how to read the body language of Baatezu and skeletons. The two of us were unstoppable.

She was the most beautiful woman I’ve had, her appearance gypsy-like. She had long flowing hair, which one never saw unless they bedded her, the rest of the time it was bound and concealed. She had these eyes that would change color; I was never sure if they gave away her mood or she used them to throw you off. She had a sly, wicked smile that meant trouble whenever you saw it, usually before she took some small berk for all his possessions, including his life. She wore a leather suit over her curved body – it could conform its shape to expose or protect her smooth brown skin. She had leggings full of loops. Between them, she had ropes, belts, pouches, swords and daggers – as well as some things you’ve never seen before and will never see again as long as you travel. I saw this clothing of hers stand up to the ripping of razor vine, without loosing a stitch. It took the full force of a dragon’s breath and didn’t leave a mark. Everything about this woman was enchanted – everything had its use. Her gloves grew hard as stone while she fought; soft as skin as she fucked. Her boots had both the ability to conceal deadly weapons, and also gave her flight.

There was nothing about this woman that wasn’t more enchanted than I could have ever guessed. I had wondered how someone as beautiful and dangerous could have lived so long, but she was a real cutter through and through.

I once asked her how she came about with all of her things. After several years I found out, through trial and error, that she had grown in Sigel. (Well I’m pretty sure.) For a right of passage among her people, they would gate them to a plane with no possessions, not even clothing! When they returned alive, they had come of age. She had been gated to a far off plane on Prime, one that I had never heard of, but there are so many. She honed her skills she learned as a young child. She grew powerful enough to control the weather. After a time, even matter. She took the pants off some warrior berk from one of the Outlands after leaving him with the look of ecstasy still on his face. She traveled and fought many a berk and cutter alike for some time before coming across her shirt-like armor in the Beastlands. Those poor sods need something to conform to their ever-changing body shape.

At some festival, of some kind of renaissance on her 30th birthday, she acquired the boots. That was the only case she had tasked a local craftsman to build them to her own specifications, with certain austerious practices, whatever that means, and had them fabricated according to her design. Then she bestowed upon them some kind of primal magic she learned there, which gave them their power.

She continued to hone her skills and eventually gated off that realm. I never did learn how she gathered the rest of her possessions, but I’m sure some poor sod lost in those deals. She traveled to others places and gathered power until she attracted the eye of some god. That encounter left her permanently changed. Her eyes were a present from the god, although I believe her beauty was nothing to be unnoticed before that. The god had loved her for some time; then bestowed upon her a lifespan that would end upon her choosing. I’m sure he or she gave her some other gifts, but I’ve never been able to learn the full tale. I don’t even know the god’s name.

For a generation we traveled together, gathering and slaying beasts, demons and the like. One day I awoke to find a note, saying she was ready to complete her quest and was off to deal with some demon lord. That was the last I saw of her, but not the last I had heard. Being a temporal being I have my ways, I found out later that she had indeed been successful in her quest, whatever it was. She had managed to create a new plane, and destroy an old one! In fact, she was involved in the Blood Wars herself and prevented an unbalance of the Multiverse. I had heard she now rules her own plane somewhere, in the Outlands, but that tale I’m not too sure about.

That’s the reward I get; she now has what I’ve been after all of my life. Maybe she stole some of that knowledge from me, but I’m sure she had ways of her own.

From time to time I will receive word of her. A note, a marking of her passing found upon my travels. She has even become legend in some circles and it is said that her presence is invited by the Lady of Pain herself from time to time as an honored guest, as all plane lords are. I swear I saw her once, a few years back or a few years in the future, either way around, peering at me from some shadow. As I approached, she was nowhere to be found.

Of all the riffraff you run into in the Multiverse, she’s one I’d like to know again. She stole my heart that one. I can never forget those eyes, that manner of movement, the technique of battle, or the style of wit. Had I known how much my life would be empty afterwards, I would have cut that throat … but I know it never would have been successful.

There are some you meet in the worlds, on the planes, some which stand out more than the rest. Some that make meaning out of the plan only a few are privy to seeing. Where does meaning exist when you’re trying to keep your skin, keep your wit, keep yourself out of the Dead Book? I had a taste of meaning with that one. I have met others, but no one comes close to being legendary like her.

For a time, I tried to track down the path of her life. I killed and questioned demons and fiends to find what became of her. I traveled and took upon quests for various gods and lords in exchange for scraps of information. But not much could ever be found, except that she’s not in the Dead Book yet. If our paths do cross, I’ll take better hold next time, as if I’ll have a choice.

Now that you know my tale, there’s something I have to tell you. Remember those spells that work, anywhere? Well this scroll is going to kill you now. I wanted my tale to be known to someone, but you won’t live to share it. It is only to be known for an instant. Only as the fleeting thought of death, just as she has fleeted from my life. This is as much as you get. Sorry berk, may you have better luck in your next life.

Freedom

2011-07-04T21:40:00.001-05:00

This 4^th of July, I’m feeling grateful for the freedom our country enjoys. We have seen some amazing changes with the “Arab Spring”, as the world watches more countries struggling with this very issue. I hope the people of those countries, as their revolutions evolve to the next step, can finish the path to freedom.

For me freedom allows me the practice of my religion, one not in the majority. It also grants freedom of speech and expression. Both of these freedoms I hold dear. A big thanks to all those alive and that came before to achieve and defend this freedom.

There are prosecutions going on in the Middle-East countries right now for people trying to achieve these goals for themselves and their fellow countrymen. People that can’t use their own face or name on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social networking sites. These people are true heroes, standing up for what they believe in, what they believe is right. Here in the USA, I enjoy the privilege of having my name on this blog, having my face on my Twitter account, using my real name on Facebook.

These freedoms do come under challenge from time to time. It is up to us to keep championing and defending the freedoms that were hard fought for, that many continue to defend with their lives today. Our biggest challenges come from within. We have been a little too complacent allowing these hard-wrought freedoms to slip away. The Patriot Act and the never passed Patriot Act II are just two examples of what can happen easily without a lot of awareness of what these do to our freedoms (other interesting reading: Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, FISA Amendments Act of 2008, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy). As Americans we should both read and understand the consequences of these laws and stand up for what we believe in. Freedoms won’t be taken away easily by a foreign power, but rather go through a slow decay of our own basic rights from within.

This all is evident with a joke, that’s actually not too funny, I’ve told from time to time. As a child growing up, I loved the Tom Clancy movie The Hunt for Red October. In the movie, two Soviets officers are contemplating the freedom that awaits after defecting to America. The line that made the impression: “You can go from state to state? With no papers?”. While this was a true statement growing up, it is certainly not the case anymore. Airports have tightened security, you need a passport instead of a state driver’s license going to and from Canada. My license stays with me more than it did 20 years ago, even if I’m not driving. My papers are deemed more important. It will only get worse if states decide to pass the Real ID Act. It amazes me how Russia has become more free and America less (not that our freedoms are equal).

Freedom still needs defending. America remains a great free place, and worth celebrating. Today is our day of celebration. I plan to enjoy the day, the night and the meaning of this all-American holiday and thank God for the freedoms that I enjoy, those which America gives me. It’s easy to be apathetic, but today I’m “Proud to be American.” I hope freedom lives on in this great country. That we don’t continue to dilute and give our freedoms away.

One Thousand Nights and One Night

2011-06-20T22:51:00.001-05:00

ॐ । अहं षिवीय ।।
I am Shiva.
I am Ogou.

Years ago at our house, we tried to start an activity. Our activities take many forms. Sometimes it’s something we do in the living room, on the porch or in times past in front of the wood-burning fireplace. Other times, it’s sleep foreplay, a.k.a. the bedtime story. This particular activity was the classic Arabic tale of romance, One Thousand Nights and One Night. We have a fragile old four volume set that’s forbidden to leave the house. Saum started reading this to me as a bedtime story. For those of you familiar with the slim slivers taken by movies, these are beautifully complex stories. There are stories within stories within stories.

Witnessing his wife’s betrayal, King Shahryār goes beyond reason with rage killing the cheating pair in a crime of passion. He loses all faith in women and takes a new virtuous young woman each night as wife, killing her after slacking his passions. He does so for three years until he has killed all in his kingdom, all except his chief advisors young daughters.

Scheherazade, the eldest of his advisor’s daughters is young, beautiful and wickedly smart. She cunningly talks her father out of sending her away to safety in order to save further slaughter by the king. She convinces her father to let her go to him, along with her little sister Dunyazad.

Scheherazade is no fool. She commences the task spinning well-crafted tales piquing the king’s curiosity. The ingenious use of cliff hangers keeps him from executing her, delaying her death. At first it breaks the king’s routine of meaningless existence. They affirm his notions of women’s wickedness. Once they king is brought into the stories, those notions are slowly, piece by piece, challenged. The stories begin to show other sides. His transformative journey back from his self-induced oblivion begins. It’s a marvelous tale. (A free download on iBooks.)

This past week, Saum has begun to read it to me again. We never made it very far the first time. She sits and tells me the tales as my own personal Scheherazade. I find myself transformed by these same tales. Some of the stories are known to us in our own folklore, but it’s fascinating to hear them closer to their original form.

It interests me that the title isn’t 1,001 nights, but rather one thousand nights and one night. I ponder the meaning of how all of these thousand nights can be collectively represented by a single one, the final one, where his transformation is complete.

One Thousand Names and One Name

ॐ । अहं षिवीय ।।
I am Shiva.
I am Ogou.

I am Shiva. I am Ogou. There is a destructive force inside me. A protective and fierce warrior sits within. I clear and make way what lies in my path with destruction. I make way for change. Renewal occurs in my wake.

On the ritual nights of a God, Hindus will sit in puja and recite the thousand and one names of the God or Goddess. All these names represent that one God, that one Goddess. All of these names could be summed up with one name.

For me, I have been feeling the Shiva within. Ogou has been equally present. All the aspects come forth in me as me, a part of me where they exist through me. How does one say this egolessly? God is not only I; I am not the only one who has this. The ancient mantras in Vedic tradition acknowledge this truth, God is in me. In Namaste, I acknowledge the divine in you as well. This is the egoless state that says – God is me, we are all a part of God. The mantras are for you to find it, realize it and experience it. I am definitely feeling it.

I have resumed meditating regularly, after some years off. My meditation became intense; I needed time to process it. Resuming it, along with my spiritual path as a Vodou priest, I can feel both aspects equally present, equally forceful, causing the destruction of my old self, and my self-doubts. My mantras give me strength. My Met Tet gives me strength. They are not in conflict, but rather complimentary.

In my marriage, we find ourselves come to familiar crossroads. We face the same demons of ill health, but the choices and outcomes are much different than in the past. Transformation has occurred, we’ve chosen a different road and the outcome has changed with it. Gone is the necessity to lean on marriage counseling that usually comes with the chronic pain and illness. I have become a priest and a healer. This evolution takes me further down this new road. Our relationship’s recurrent issues are also being healed, our long stagnant pains being addressed. We grow deeper in love and infatuation with each other after sixteen years with a renewed honeymoon bliss.

For these things my two swords of inner-strength: Shiva and Ogou emanate from me. I can see them in Saumya, in a thousand others. I see them in one, myself. I am Shiva. I wield my machete, my healing stick, I feel Ogou, I feel Gede. I am Ogou; I am Gede.

I am preparing for Asogwe, leaving behind Sur Pwenn and any hesitations I had in myself as a priest. I have arrived. I am here. I am. In some ways I feel like my next upcoming initiation is becoming a formality. I’m walking that road. Any doubts I have had about taking the next step (do I think I’m ready?) have vanished – or vanquished. I am destroyed and remade anew. I am confident. I know who I am. I feel alive.

I’ll have … a beer

2011-05-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

My last grandparent died this past Saturday. It was my Grandma (Marie) McDermott, wife of Frances, the man who’s name I took when I initiated. They were dear to me.

I have many memories of her. They were the people that introduced me to coffee – anyone who knows me knows that it is a sacred drink to me. We used to ride the Forth Street Elevator in Dubuque at least once a week. It was a major thrill for me and only cost between a dime and a quarter when I was little. We had each Christmas Day at their house, in their basement – a beautiful cozy room with wood paneling, carpet and a huge dining table. Each Christmas filled with cousins, family and one of those silver tinsel Christmas trees with a rotating color wheel that would make it change colors from silver to red, blue, green – I hear that those vintage trees are worth a fortune these days.

They would spend weekends with us on the boat. We would boat, swim, eat food, drink soda and play euchre. They, with my other grandma and aunts, uncles and cousins taught me everything I know about the game. I was really good. Sometimes they played bridge and I would watch. (Never stepped up to that game level.)

Every time we went to the boat, to her house or they would come to ours, I had a distinct memory. My dad would ask her what she would want to drink, and she would meekly, almost embarrassingly answer, “I’ll have … a beer.” And she would.

She was Irish-American after all.

She just turned 95 right before she died. I would visit her when I went home. It couldn’t be a quick visit – it would take her 45 minutes to recognize and remember me, but when she did it made the whole trip worth it.

I can barely remember her ever being anything other than happy. She was a happy soul. I learned what a happy marriage and love meant from their [her and my grandfather’s] example. They taught me what love could be and showed me how joyful life is.

They would also embarrass me. I started driving (steering actually) on my grandfather’s lap before I could reach the pedals. Both of them would give me advice. There was I time – I can almost remember – when my grandfather was instructing me and I said, “Pay no attention to the old man,” an obvious reference to the wizard in The Wizard of Oz, at least that how I remembered it. They would tease me about it in my later years.

It’s hard to recall and recount how these people have shaped my life. To say I learned love, marriage and love of coffee from them doesn’t do them justice. To say they helped shape me to who I am today doesn’t go far enough. My own memory fails me. But where my memory fails, my emotions and feelings pick up. I loved these people. I did with every part of me. And I miss them.

I will always miss them. That isn’t to say I don’t understand that death is a doorway to behind the veil. I know this is a part of life. The missing is selfish. The death, necessary.

We all go on. The only part of growing older that really sucks, is your family and friends dying.

I love growing older. I just wish people didn’t have to leave. I understand it’s all part of the cycle, that they are still showing us how to live, how to die, and how to go on. Some things I could wait to learn until a little later.

On Friday, I will put my grandma in the ground, if past funerals are any example. I will do it with my family. Later that night, I will don my priestly robes and hold a private ceremony for her, letting her go in my way.

This post is for you, grandma. You will be missed.

Gaps

2011-05-02T22:43:00.001-05:00

I haven’t been blogging for some time, sorry readers. I’ve been too caught up with life. This blog has not been abandoned, but was simply put on hold. More to come. (I’ve also had some computer problems.)

My life lately has been addressing my gaps. I’ve had issues, most of them personal, that I’ve been dealing with my entire life. It’s one of gaps, and specifically it deals with my memory.

I have a frightening problem that occurs from time to time where I can’t remember something. This may be quite normal for most people, but at times it has caused great worry to myself. It may be a conversation, a person’s name, a memory. At times I have gaps.

There are many techniques I’ve used to combat my gaps. I’m a very good note taker, especially at work. I have electronica which servers as a digital assistant, reminding me of things that need taking care of so I don’t miss them. I make lists. I have memory aids to help me keep track of people’s names (I rhyme them or think of someone else I know with the same name, like you’re a Shaggy too?) Over the years, I have devised and refined my tools and techniques to help me work around this issue.

I used to think I had a bad memory. I actually felt bad about it, like somehow I wasn’t making a person’s name, a detail, or a task important enough to warrant remembering. It’s something people would say to me and I’d take it to heart. One day I heard an expert on memory speak. He said people had different talents for different things. This gelled with me. I have an excellent memory for directions, numbers and other related items. I do not for names, lists, tasks (like watering the plants). I began to see myself as not having a disability, but rather having talents in other areas. It brought with it a new sense of relief.

This diversity of memory talents is similar to the point I was trying to get across in my earlier article What Kind Of Priest Am I Going To Be? It’s not that I have a good or bad memory, it’s that it has unique talents. We all have talents and skills unique to each of us. My wife is good at names, lists, facts (and infuriatingly past conversations). I on the other hand remember most back roads and shortcuts I’ve taken in cities all across the country. We compliment each other’s skills.

My Computer Trashed Itself

So with all of the list making and attention to detail, my computer trashed itself last month. I was having some Bluetooth issues and decided maybe the newly released driver is the cure to all my woes. So I attempted an upgrade – of the driver. It failed. No worries, I uninstalled the old one and intended to install the new one – after the necessary reboot. This all occurred on a Wednesday right before some time I was taking off lining up to give us a five day weekend. I had been working 60 hour weeks for about 6 in a row and need to reconnect with that wife who tends to not forget these things.

I uninstalled the driver, it wanted a reboot. I hit that beloved reboot now button and closed the lid. I walked away for five days.

On Tuesday, I opened it up to see the list of trouble. You know the one, Windows didn’t boot successfully, what do you want to do – safe mode, attempt to boot again, yadda yadda. So I said boot normally. It failed.

Windows told me to insert the Windows disc – could be bad. I inserted it. It said, it appears you were uninstalling a driver, would you like us to roll that back, don’t worry, all of your files are safe. I said, why not. That failed.

After another reboot, Windows said, well let’s revert back to a previous restore point, I said OK. Again it said all of your files will be OK, don’t worry.

That failed. This time Windows said it couldn’t do anything.

So I launched a manual recovery window, basically a command prompt from the Windows disc. I started listing through directories, all those files that were promised to be fine – twice – they were gone! My entire hard drive was nothing but an empty skeleton of directories, no files in them, and some of the directories themselves were gone.

The Storage Guy

So I should say at this point that my career is computer storage. I’m a storage architect. I sell disks, tapes, replication, mirrors, backups and all forms of virtualization, redundancy, backup systems, further lines of defense, etc. It’s my job to make sure this very kind of thing is not a catastrophe.

Back before the acquisition of our company by another, I religiously backed up my hard drive. Almost weekly, sometimes daily. After the acquisition, they broke the network for this purpose (for the technically minded, then enabled QoS siphoning off my backup traffic to a mere trickle of data). I could no longer back up. So, I didn’t. Our backup server’s on the ‘net, so we can backup from anywhere (except in the office due to said policy), so most of my coworkers do it from home. My satellite Internet connection makes this an unreality, so I would forgo backups.

This realization, and my confession to my colleagues, caused much laughter as to the irony of my occupation.

I did have one thing, however, a hard drive from 6 months back, the old one I copied from. So I recopied the contents back onto my super-fast SSD. After 3 days of updates, reinstalling new tools, downloading the latest presentation, flyers and other links I maintain, I was back in business.

I had lost the last six months of work.

I haven’t lost everything: I’m only missing 6 months of filed emails, work I did for customers and those previously mentioned notes I take.

My notes are precious. I whiteboard, I detail meetings, I paste photos of drawings into those notes. (I love OneNote.) In my job, a project will come up and will be worked on for 30-90 days, completed and I return 6-12 months later, pulling up those old notes to refresh my memory of what we have done, what we discussed, next projects, next phases, etc. All that talk in 6 months was gone. I had been very busy and very involved with work. (Those 60 hour weeks.)

My reflection

So now my computer has gaps, just like my own memory. I have this 6 month blind spot in my notes, my emails, my customer folders with files and data. It’s just gone – like past conversations in my own memory, my own head. It’s become a reflection of me.

It’s strangely surreal to have these gaps in my head, and on my computer. I have made peace at my altar, made offerings and apologies in case I have forgotten something there, neglected something, how can I remember?

The whole thing is a lesson in svaha (it is no longer mine). I let it go, this happens. That it’s my job is a lesson in neglecting certain practical matters in my life, as a priest, at my altar, doing backups. I need to pay more attention to these little details. I need to make sure I’m taking care of what I need to.

I also need to let it go.

Note: I didn’t lose any critical data in the end. Critical notes and client data were retrieved. I miss the downloaded iPhone photos, but I’ll make more.

New Orleans Healing Center

2011-04-07T17:12:00.001-05:00

I’ve previously written about how in 2005, on our 10th wedding anniversary, Katrina went over us while we were vacationing in the Bahamas on the island of Eleuthera (Death Ahead, Detour Next Right, Oungan François and Let’s take the free ANW pillow and go). That experience set the stage for us to travel to New Orleans (NOLA) the next year and me attending a conference. The year after that in 2007 we started getting involved with New Orleans Healing Center, an idea to create a community center to promote healing and sustainability in an area that needs it. It’s not just a community center, but a collection of different business, ideas, a street university, food and other things promoting healing and needed services.

For years now, my wife has worked tirelessly, along with dedicated individuals in New Orleans as well as others to make a vision become a reality. We went to meetings, she worked daily. They started out as ideas, salon meetings, hard work and dedication. They worked to secure funding. They worked to make it sustainable. They worked hard.

A couple of times a year we would fly down to attend some of these meetings in person. Saum would have a busy schedule meeting with people, holding interfaith meetings with religious and spiritual leaders. She would go and go and go. Each Halloween, we would help out with the annual party and fundraiser, Anba Dlo. Finally, the hard work was paying off, funding was secured and work began. This May (or June) it is scheduled to open.

Transformation

March 23^rd, a group of them held an open house. It was a chance for people to get a peek of what’s going on behind the construction fences. It went from an old moldering furniture building to a wonderful fantastic building. The old building was ugly. It felt dead.

I remember when we moved out to our farm in 2004, we had a barn. One of our reasons for moving out to the country was to have horses. When we would go out to the barn, it felt empty, unused, dead or maybe just asleep. There was no life in it. After the hard work (mostly by Saum, again), it was transformed. The hay loft was cleaned (she looked like a dust scarecrow when she emerged). The stalls, buckets, tack room and other areas were cleansed. Then the horses arrived, one by one. The place went from no life, to a welcome feeling. There was great living energy that filled the space. It felt alive and welcoming.

Seeing the Healing Center, after years of festivals, construction, people filling that space and remaking it, it has that same good positive energy. It feels alive again. It’s spring and this year, a building is growing again. People have poured hard work, loving detail, blood, sweat and tears into the place. That energy is making it alive again.

The place looks amazing. To find out more about the Healing Center, please follow them on Facebook or follow via Twitter below.

What Kind Of Priest Am I Going To Be?

2011-02-28T21:57:00.001-06:00

What do you want to be when you grow up? I remember what power that phrase used to hold, so much possibility. I grew up privileged, I had options. I could be a lawyer, a doctor, an anything. It seemed life had unlimited possibility. I did believe I could be an astronaut, a president, an all-star athlete.

Eventually life led me to a series of choices and decisions. I had likes and dislikes I discovered. I chose computers, then television, then journalism, advertising and PR. I did radio, TV, downhill skiing and guitar. I flew airplanes. I sang. I immersed myself in so many different directions, I took bits and pieces of possibility and put it on my plate, tried it out, discarded what I didn’t like. I weeded out that which I no longer had time or commanded my attention. I majored: computer science and communications. I did a double-emphasis in communications: print/journalism and advertising/PR. I weeded myself down with those choices and chose a profession, a career. I’ve been working in my field for 25 years (yikes!).

Somewhere along the way I answered that question: what am I going to be when I grow up? I’m going to be a computer person, a business owner. I’ll trade this in for something else. I’ll wear many hats, but I’ll come back again and again to what I love: computers and writing.

So it would seem that I grow more specialized, less interesting; I’ve chosen my bed and I’ll sleep in it. But I’ve traveled. I’ve learned a foreign language (in my post-graduate years). I’ve focused on who am I through exploration with meditation, spirituality and religion. I’ve taken up new hobbies (horses), a hobby farm and am living the dream. (This is my beautiful house. This is my beautiful wife.)

I do sometimes miss that time of unlimited possibility. What will I be when I grow up? What will I do? What’s next?

Sur Pwenn

Two events have meant something to me lately. First, Rogue Priest’s blog: Let It Haunt You spelled out so much of what I believe Sur Pwenn stands for. Sur Pwenn means on point. (He may have been talking about jujutsu, but all paths lead to God.) While I am initiated into the priesthood, it’s not the end (the accomplishment) but the beginning. I stand on the point of priesthood and I have a world of possibility before me. What kind of priest will I be?

The second event was giving some advice to a friend in need, priestly advice. In doing so, I realized that there are so many different kinds of priests out there (and many that aren’t me). There are healers; there are cleaners. There are warriors and administrators. There are people who perform ceremonies and celebrations. There are those that specialize in taking care of certain problems. There are historians and monks. There are those with special gifts.

In Vodou there are many different Lwa, spirits that guide us. There are different faces and facets of each of the Lwa. Different Lwa call to us: they may guide us, walk with us at different times. We may sync so strongly, they may be a Met Tet to us. Others may just be messengers or riders. With so many possibilities, it makes me realize that there are many different kinds of Oungan I could be. Again I find myself facing a new world of possibilities.

What am I going to be when I grow up?

It’s not that I expect to only be one thing. I don’t expect that I will always stay the same. In that vein, I realize that’s why people’s Met Tet may change throughout their life. They dance with different Lwa, they change.

I’ve spoken of healing, I can see other paths. I don’t have the same talents as some of the other Oungans and Manbos, but this doesn’t make me less or inadequate, it makes me different with my own sets of talents and skills. And I’m at the point, sur pwenn, of discovering what those are. After going beyond each and every crossroads, there is yet another one I come to. Life is a series of choices.

Where Am I Going Next?

I can see things that interest me; I can see my possibilities before me. I don’t know exactly what I will be. That kind of sight isn’t my talent. Becoming an Oungan is just the beginning. It makes sense to have a sur pwenn, a point of disembarking. I come to a crossroads and can see healer to the left, one who calms unhappy spirits to the right, one who dances ahead. There are things I am not and will never be. Things others in my house excel at. There’s nothing wrong with that. I may become one thing or another. I may become one thing then another. My life has changed so much, I hope it never stops changing. I hope to find something deeper at each and every turn. I’ll try not to fret if I can’t see, hear, speak, draw or read what others do. That may not be me. That me be the doctor, lawyer, teacher, warrior or something else entirely, the path I didn’t take. I am not less for it.

It’s actually really nice to be sur pwenn: on point. I have a world of possibility ahead of me. I get to find out who I am and who I will be. I’m back where I was as a child, discovering what I’m going to do, what skills I have, what I enjoy. I get to add more to my plate and see if it tastes good.

There are differences. I have responsibility. I’m not at the end, mission accomplished. I have duties I need to perform. I am still figuring it all out. It’s nice. It’s a hell of a lot of fun.