Journey to the Underworld-Final Part

I did not take the offering. I remembered the rule that I was only to observe and not interact.

At this moment my thirty minutes were up, and the drumming changed from the consistent repetitive beat to a more insistent rapid rolling. I was supposed to return the way I came.

The sensation was amazing to me. I travelled backwards out from the upper chamber, through the loft, down into the bright cavern and out, along the path, back to the beach, and the water and the tunnel, and my bedroom. What was amazing was it was like looking at a film in reverse, and there was no glitch in the viewing. That is, neither during this return nor at any time during the entire thirty minutes had I lost the focus or continuity of the visual experience. I cannot concentrate on anything for ten seconds, let alone thirty minutes; let alone recreate the entire journey in fast forward, or rather fast reverse, in detail, before my very eyes.

Moreover, I returned to myself at exactly the moment the last four slow drum beats sounded. I had never listened to the tape before. It was unfamiliar to me.

The one strange thing was: I had returned through a diffferent entrance-the hole I had tried unsuccessfully to use during my first ten minute experiment. The book told me that this was possible.


During the entire experience I encountered everything with detachment, but a positive detachment if I can express it that way. Positive in the sense of calmness. I think I can guess what is meant by that detachment that Daoists or Buddhists seek, without aggrandizing this one time experiment or comparing it to the dramatic commitments of other meditators and seekers.

I was never asleep, but I was invigorated with a profoundly subtle positivity that lasted for days.

With such positive results, why haven't I done it again? Laziness, time constraints, and a fear that I will not succeed the next time.

I looked ahead in the book and the next exercise is to journey to find a power spirit, and you do this through symbolically dancing the movements of various animals. I'm not ready for that yet. I would like to explore many more times, however, with the journey and Underworld itself.

I don't believe Underworld means Hell. It's just a different place.

What do you think?

Journey to the Underworld pt 2

As I came toward shore, I had difficulty perceiving the hula dancer. I couldn't tell whether she was actually on the beach, or very close to me, and not really "there" at all but some symbolic vision (within the vision.) She wasn't dancing properly, she was shaking like a dashboard hula girl would.

It is one of only two things that made me slightly uncomfortable during the experience. I don't know why. I like hula girls.

I just decided not to approach her or that part of the beach. Instead I moved to my right and arrived on a sandy, white beach with a short stretch to dense green growth and a path of sand through dunes to the right.

I followed the path. I continued to have some weird aquatic aural experience, but I had no tactile sense, and no sense of smell. The path wound around, under a brilliant sun and sky, to a cavern. I entered.

It seemed like a cavern of ice, in that light poured in through a diaphanous ceiling. Crystal maybe. Quite pleasant.

I walked further in and turned to the left, where I reached a dead end. So I backtracked.

The hula girl was gone from the beach, so I walked the other way on the beach and entered the jungle forest. Very pleasant. There seemed to be at least one type of "room", or open area, within the undergrowth, but I didn't enter. I sensed an animal near me, and twice glimpsed a huge python or other type of snake. I was not the least afraid and did not feel threatened.

The second time I saw it behind vine-filled trees, like it was climbing up. But I think it was just hugely large and tall. It gave me the idea to climb, so I did.

This brought me to the second slightly frightening experience. At the top of the tree, I rose above the tree-line I saw that the beach, water and jungle were actually on an asteroid hurtling through space. My vine started to swing out into the cosmos and I realized I had the opportunity to let go. I decided against that!

Back to the path and the cavern. This time at the dead end I looked up and saw a loft. I climbed up and found a bedding area that seemed just for me. Beyond this I discovered an upper cavern. Here it was quite dark, and their were several "people" there. I will say they seemed dressed almost in some uniform. Okay, they seemed like Vulcans out of Star Trek, or Elves out of Tolkien. I know this description probably discredits everything I've been saying, but the description is a metaphor. They weren't those things, and nothing about it had a 'sci fi' or 'role play' feel.

I knew they were aware of me. I felt fine. I was aware they were offering me something to drink . . .

Song update

Click the above title to hear an updated version of my song "Cemetery Sunday". It was mixed in Cubase. I have some work to do on it. Or click here to go straight to a hi-fi download.

Cemetery Sunday is held in some towns in Ireland. Many expats return for Mass and a rosary at the cemetery. I combined this vivid image from my youth with a more recent memory of unwillingly leaving Dublin and returning to the States.

God bless Liam

My uncle in Ireland died last week. I do not feel like writing about it.

"That for which we find words is already dead in our hearts."

God Bless You!
Rest in Peace.

The journey to the underworld

Perhaps I sould start with the de rigeur denial of personal kookiness: I am not a new-ager, nor anything of the sort. I am a SKEPTICAL person. This is not an alien-encounter story.

I do not know of what "shamanic journeying" consists. One reason I tried it is the book I learned from suggested that:

a) It doesn't matter what it is. Try it and see if it is interesting or helpful.
b) It does not conflict with religious belief
c) Go ahead already, try it!

So I did. All mumbo jumbo aside, I'll tell you what happened.

After reading the beginning of the book The Way of the Shaman, I purchased a drumming tape online and waited for an opportunity to try an excercise in journeying, or meditation if you prefer. I have always had a low-grade interest in shamanism and spirituality, but never acted on it. I am a classic see-you-on-Sunday for a very-practical-Mass kind of average Catholic.

I have blogged on possible reasons for my interest in this. One is practical: I believe in the testimonials to the positive benefits of meditating. In the book, Michael Harner suggested that journeying is a very active form of meditation. That is, you don't try to clear you mind but rather direct it and then let it go. This appealed to me because I am irrepressibly impatient, and cannot imagine success with the sit still and repeat Ohm stuff.

So. Next problem. Before journeying: No alcohol or nicotine for 24 hours, and no food for 4 hours. This will never happen!

Yet I found myself with a rare Saturday to myself, and having slept in rather late (very rare!), I realized I would give it a try (and fudge the 24 hours without alcohol thing, sorta.)

I got the tape and positioned it for a ten minute journey, more or less. I placed the headphones on, lay back in my darkened room. I stated my intention: to enter the tunnel and journey successfully to the underworld; to explore there, without taking anything, speaking to anything, or eating or imbibing anything. In other words, no interaction, only journey and observation.

I had to picture in my mind a hole in the ground with which I was familiar, and enter the tunnel through it. I had a hole in mind. I squirmed for ten minutes without any luck. The problem I could have predicted: I can't focus on anything for more than 2 seconds.

So, probably unjustifiably frustrated, I rewound the tape for the whole thirty minutes, lay back and determined that I would try again , and at the least I would have another thrity-minute lie-down if nothing else. Immediately I thought of a different hole, and when I did it opened up and expanded, and I was on my way.

Visually, I was moving along a a very stereotypical, geometric dim tunnel-like thing. I might have been carried by water. I also could hear weird quips and knocks that would be consistent with the acoustics of a watery cavernous rocky tunnel. I actually saw and heard very little. Colors were present but muted. Turn on your Windows Media player visualisations and you have an idea, although it was very muted.

At some point I realized I was free of the tunnel and deep underwater. I could breath. Shapes floated past. A huge sea turtle perhaps, and other shapes larger than myself, perhaps sharks close by or whales far off in the murk. Some glowed with phosphorant colors.

I had no fear. Nothing was threatening. I felt I was there. It took me a minute to realize it. I'll say this and repeat it again: I was in a state of positive indifference. I don't mean that like a British author. I mean I felt objective.

I rose to the surface under a brilliant blue sky and saw a green island with a strip of white sand, and I started to swim for it. As I got closer, one of only two mildly disturbing experiences during the entire experience appeared on the beach: a hula dancer!

tbc

Terminal Cool redux

I have blogged about the concept of Terminal Cool here.

In brief: The term Terminal Cool struck me as a way of describing the phenomenon of coolness or hipness in the American character and its consequences. It struck me first while I was in college and my previous blog really presented the issue of coolness, in dress, language, behavior, as being primarily a phenomenon of adolescence and young adulthood. Nothing new here.

However, I think American popular culture's preoccupation with cool explains some trends in the American character at any age, and especially in the American behavior in intercultural encounters. I further think coolness is America's single biggest export. Music, cigarettes, dress, movies and the general assault of American culture on the world, so loathed for example by the French (The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know what it is?
They were never worth a roasted fart . . .) (Joyce, Ulysses, Cylcops)

AND, I further further think Coolness is a terminal pose that deadens emotional response, human interaction, and intellectual expression. Here's how . . .

Apologia Pro Bloggia Sua

Blogging can be inherently a self-centered enterprise. Blinkered. Unintentionally revealing. Or, as a sophomore student expressed earlier this year, " a sad and disgusting appeal for attention."

Some avoid with aplomb the pitfalls of narcissism through blogging about objective events, or blogging fiction, or charming us despite their focus on self.

Blogging about "terminally uniqueness" is essentially annoying? Yet part of this process involves the search for others in similar situations so as not to feel that very marginality.

All this blogging over the past year has clarified the main focus for me. The unifying theme is surprisingly not identity or even culture per se, but perspective. Bi-culturalism is a path to perspective, but there are many others. Critical distance is empowering and othering. I guess I value perspective above anything. Perspective as opposed to the other two P's: provincialism and parochialism.

On consideration, this is probably the vainest of all possible vanities. Self determination in the face of any sort of loyalty. Okay, I am beating around the bush. I am talking about extreme willful individuality, which is not exactly the same as "empowered relativism."

I have blogged elsewhere thusly:

But an individual can also use insider/outsider status to become an able social critic. In this type of marginality, the individual can shift between values and cultural frames of reference, to make informed and independent decisions and choices. He or she feels at home with ambiguity and makes a commitment to relativism. This type of individual can become very important in this modern, interculutral, nomadic world, because they can provide a bridge between cultures, and are at home with ethnorelativism.

While I sometimes continue to struggle with a coherent sense of self, and values, I intellectually appreciate the power of ethnorelativism to avoid provincialism, provide perspective, etc. However, I don't really feel the truth of the argument. That is, I am not so much making a commitment to relativism, and ambiguity, as drowning in it. Rather, to be really honest, I am in a rejectionist position in that I much prefer, empathize with, etc., my Irish life: summers spent there, and having lived in Dublin twice as an adult. I find it hard to practice the sense of self, security, and confidence here in the US that I can there.

I can practice that ethnorelativism anywhere I find myself except here at home. Here, I practice much more the rejectionist critic role. My first instinct is always non serviam. And part of this is just doggone willfulness. [I have just discovered a website called Non Serviam that I intend to explore. Here are two blurbs from the site:

Non Serviam is the name of an electronic 'zine which has been distributed through the Internet for a period of three years. Its focus is on ownness - that is self-ownership - and is, due to the interest of the editor, mainly centered around a dialectical egoism inspired by Max Stirner.

and

This is the first "real" issue of non serviam, and the present theme, as will also be the theme of the next issue, #2, is as presented in #0:

By asserting oneself - by insurrection - one is an egoist, one who puts himself first. For the next issue of "non serviam", #1, I would therefore appreciate articles about "what egoism means" in general. Both questions of the type "is hedonism the real egoism", and articles pondering the status of egoism in ethics are appreciated. Psychological angles of attack are also appreciated.

I digress.

Perspective is power. Perspective also creates an 'otherness' in oneself. Those on the borders are perceptibly different. This state of in-betweenity is known as liminality. It is interesting that:

a) I have always been interested in liminal people, before I knew what liminal meant, or marginality or relativism, for that matter. I have blogged previously on my interest in shamanism, for example.

b) Maureen Dezell has said in her fabulous “Irish America: Coming Into Clover”:

“Hail fellows well met without being met at all” is how Anna Quindlen described the American Irish. “The unknowable extroverts. It is no accident that some have taken to professions that give the illusion of being among the people while remaining essentially separate. Newspapermen, who are of the crowd but outside them. Politicos, who always stand apart in the crowd. Priests.” (p. 71)

So there is some suggestion being made about specifically Irish (American) liminality, or at least separateness.

AHHH! The F(undamental) I(nterconnectedness) of A(ll) T(hings). And you thought it meant Fix it again, Tony.

So, I mean to expand this exploration of perspective, liminality, and self (and shamanism) by relating an experience I had while practising an cxercise in Shamanic Journeying from the book, The Way of the Shaman, by Michael Harner.

In my first journey I explored the tunnel to the Underworld. What can bring more perspective than astral travel?

In the next post.

Irish Roots . . .

Talk about irreverent . . .

Kilbeggan Races pt. 5

Continued

In May of 1991, several horses had to be pulled just before race time. Two favorites, Dominic's Cross, and Caddy, were both pulled on veterinary advice because they appeared listless in the viewing ring. The horses had been "nobbled", or drugged, with either an aerosol spray or an injection. No one could figure out why. Bookmakers records were scoured to discover some pattern in the betting, but nothing unusual appeared, and the guilty parties were never discovered. That the job was bungled suggested amateurs were responsible, while others thought the episode might have been practice for a later scam.

A similar occurrence at this meeting is unlikely. The stables have been moved away from the public and will be watched by a security team.

This meeting, however, seems fated from the first to offer more in the was of casualties than criminality. In the fifth race, Got No Choice leads Merry people by a head at the final turn. At the last hurl, directly in front of the grandstands, she goes down. Hard. The strange jump seems dragged out, slow lotion, isolated from the tense pace. The horse goes up a far as out, comes down well, but then topples right over. On its neck. It does not stir as the others gallop by to the finish. A truck arrives on the scene and a curtain is spread around the poor beast.

No need for speculation in this instance. A whisper in the stands, "I'd say she's finished." And a reply, "I'd say so." The jockey was thrown clear, without injury. Had he fallen with his mount, he'd have been crushed under her weight. In all, three horses have gone down by the end of the day, one fatally. Even for Nation Hunt, this is a tragic meeting,

A successful one as well, in attendance figures, if not for the local punters. This was a day for the favorites. In almost every race, the favorite placed in the top three or won outright. Not a day to finance the farm, but enjoyable nonetheless.

As we make our way out a certain melancholy grips me. Beyond the usual gambler's tickle for more, I already miss the relaxed society, the gentle pace, gentle excitement, gentle evening.

I am not so gripped as to indulge in a game of Find the Queen. A hustler has set up a quick table near the exit, one eye on the three bent and bruised cards he furiously shuffles, and one eye alert for local Guarda.

You wouldn't find worse odds.


finis

Gig tonight

Hi.
I am playing tonight with a mando/guitar player in Fall River, MA tonight.

The bar is the St. James Pub on Purchase Street.

Time: 9pm-1am.

Essential info: Great bar. Smoke-free. No Irish in the place, but hey, these Portuguese like their Irish music. I'm not kidding.

PS
If you can make it to closing time, we go for Coney Island dogs with the works after. You're invited.

Note to self: Do not fall asleep on Rt. 24 on the way home.

The Kilbeggan Races pt. 4

Continued . . .

"The flag is raised," says the announcer. As the horses progress, throaty growls pierce the murmuring. "Oh Janey," "Come up, ya boyo," "Come on, Adamarann," "Forest Lady!"

Even with no wager placed, the sight of man and horse, intellect and magnificent physicality, striving and risking together over hurdles is inspiring. The total effect, the atmosphere, goes to the head better than any lager. Sonorous garrulous language, the sing-song of the hawkers, the whiff of strong cigarettes, Major and Carroll and Rothmann's, everyone in emotional unison, rising and releasing with the race.

During the first circuit of the two mile, three furlong event a horse falls. It falls at the far side and only those higher in the grandstands with binoculars see it pitch forward awkwardly over a hurdle. But a confused hush grips everyone momentarily, as if the fall were communicated through the very ether. The commentator confirms the fall moments later.

I Remember It Well wins in good fashion, and after several minutes the announcement comes, "Winner all right. Winner all right." The lucky can now collect their winnings. The voice makes no mention of the fallen horse or the jockey, and we learn what e ca from our fellow would-be odds-beaters. The jockey has broken his arm, but nothing about the horse. A first event fall does not bode well for the day.

Like all gambling congregations, the track is a veritable hive of rumor and speculation, exaggeration and tips. One can follow the progress of opinion on the bookmakers' chalkboards, where the odds are in continual flux. A thick crowd forms around each stand, with the bookie on a raised platform, scratching new odds with chalk as the betting for the next race progresses. He or assistants frequently whip binoculars to their eyes to view what's going on at other boards. Fierce mental calculations proceed. Other assistants move through the crowd with walkie talkies for good measure. Nothing must escape them. They follow the pulse of speculation and the bogeyman of insider knowledge.

Anything can happen in Irish racing, especially at the level of the Kilbeggan Races. This is true for many reasons, certain shenanigans not to be discounted. In May of 1991 several horses were pulled just before race time . . .

to be continued

6 Signs of Irishness

Here's a funny link:

MR NORMAN TEBBIT, MP, suggests you are not really English if you don't cheer
for their cricket team.

In the same vein the Irish Times recently invited readers to choose six
criteria for Irishness , this was the result :

Here are my two favorites from the results:

1. Punctuality.
2. Attention to detail.
3. Leaving public houses before closing time.
4. Respect for speed limits.
5. Early marriage. (for men)
6. Truthfulness.


AND

Bacon and cabbage on the plate,
A tendency to be always late,
On the parlour wall in pride of place -
The Pope and Kennedy face to face,
To Croker for the Sunday Game,
"Soft day, Thank God" in the pouring rain.
But the Irishness we're known for best -
The dozen bambinos in the nest !

The Kilbeggan Races pt. 3

Continuing an article from here.


At four fifteen, cars have started to fill up the large grassy lot. Groups of racegoers amble towards the entrance. The gentle flow of the public breaks around hawkers, scattered across the lot. A short woman in a striped track suit, with a raw red complexion and a powerful voice calls, "Programs for a pound. Racing forms." Inside, other women call from behind small carts laden with fruit and sweets. Wait until the end of the day, and from them you can get basketsfull of ripe peaches and rich plums for a pound bars of Cadbury chocolate. [author's note: This article was originally written for a travel mag shortly before the conversion to the Euro. Since then, the Kilbeggan races, has become arguable the premier event for Nation Hunt racing among the regional races.]

The program lists an offering of seven hurls and chases. A hurdle, or hurl, is a small wooden frame stuffed with fur branches, about six inches in width, and represents modest difficulties for horse and rider. The more formidable fence is a taller, wider wooden structure. A true hazard. A steeple-chase involves the fences, and is billed on the racing card as simply, a chase. There are less chases at this meeting than hurdles. There are virtually no flat races, or dashes. They do not command the same excitement. Also, and importantly, the best flat race horse might not come to this or other regional race grounds. They are the most valuable horses, competing in the biggest races in the land, and abroad. National Hunt horses could not compete with them in dashes, and the dashers would not be risked over the fences. A different build of horse is suited to the jump format.

All seven races are sponsored. The success with sponsorship is a major reason for the renaissance of the Kilbeggan Races. This year alone, the town racing committee managed to invest a hundred fifty thousand pounds in the racetrack.

Naturally, as an event in existence since the 1840's, the history of thee races has been as precarious as the track itself. Once upon a time horses raced along the Kilbeggan-Moate road, and the remains of a fence can still be found there. More recently, in June of 1990, Kilbeggan experienced meeting of strange nature. On that date all of Ireland watched their soccer team advance in World Cup competition against Romania. At the track, a few scattered punters and unlucky workers moved about in an almost-silence of the Irish twilight.

Today in the grandstands the crowd is animated and amiable. A national paper, the Independent, in a favorable review, has described the affair as perhaps reaching less that the height of fashion. A worthwhile, everyman's race. Yet the majority of racegoers are well dressed and sporty, even formal. In the VIP bar a dark, turbaned man stands with a woman in pantaloons. Strategic eaves-dropping confirms that this is indeed the Indian Ambassador and his wife. Society has come to Kilbeggan.

A low murmur of speculation grows before the start of the first race, a Midland accent as flat as this track is undulating. There is no starting gate. Course workers draw a length of rope across the track, and drop it when the white flag is raised. This occurs when the horses have gathered into some semblance of order. Certainly, much maneuvering and shouldering occurs. A horse might even start a race sideways, or, with particular hard luck, backwards.

"The flag is raised," says the announcer . . .

to be continued

The Pope

There was a great PBS documentary on the Pope a few years back, a Frontline episode I believe, which totally blew me away. Twenty-six years as Pope is of course substantial, and in and of itself lends importance to John Paul. But it was his powerful blend of common-man charisma and very traditional dogma that made him infuriating for some and gratifying for others. The documentary has as its theme the idea that Pope John Paul II was a man out of time. The man seemed in curious discord with the 20th century.

On one hand it is silly to suggest we should expect a pope to be socially progressive on issues of family planning, divorce, morality; and yet that is exactly what we did expect of this pope. Perhaps it was his initial youthful persona. Certainly in America we had grown accustomed to a rather namby-pamby church that was 'forward' in its thinking. John Paul would, or should, be the same. Surprise. This pope did not merely hold the line of Catholic moral dogma, he drew it straight and rigid across the path of all those in mid-stride toward an 'updated' universal church.

The most compelling idea of the documentary was the image of a man so at odds with the century that he lived in, and for Catholics, spiritually presided over. Either the 20th century was truly, terrifyingly evil, or John Paul was, perhaps dangerously, wrong. Fabulously wrong. I do not know which. In the midst of personal spiritual flaccidity disguised as modern-day distraction, I pause to consider evil, guilt, responsibility, death, faith, and redemption.

And--courage.

Contribution

There is no way I will be able to post more than this today, but I did want to contribute even just a thought.

My thought is this:

What is the connection between music and cultural identity? Why is it that there is Indian music and Irish music and that there are not universal musical styles, if not timing schemes.

I remember learning that the Catholic church outlawed certain notes and chords as deviant, and that the Arabs who taught me the Arab beat on the guitar told me there were certain timings intended to put you closer to God.

I have noted on several occasions, and in these hallowed silos of silica information repositories, that the language a culture uses to speak can act as a window into its thought processes. I have been told by managers who hire for big banks that a clear communicator is assumed to be a clear thinker. What does our nonverbal communication say about our collective selves?

What about a heterogeneous society like the U.S. where segments of the population identify themselves by the music they assume, and from that, common fashion trends emerge, co-habitational living (in the case of Burning Man), and a complete culture is prepared to propogate itself to France!

But seriously, what do you think?

Blogathon: God Bless the Pope

There is no way I wll be able to post every half hour!

I do want to say: God bless the Pope!

His perhaps immanent death is rather affecting me. I do not want to equate him to Princess Diana, but I believe her death, and his situation, are similar in their surprisingly deep impact on me. I am not a "celebrity watcher", and I am not a particulary fervent Catholic, but somehow the Pope, and Princess Diana have defined my era, so to speak. They are inherent in my life experiences. Her death and his decline remind me viscerally of mortality. More on both . . .