Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger...

I frequently feel the judgment of the PC police in many spiritual circles. Common topics in those circles are “reverence” and “respect.” Not that these are bad things; I can express them when called to do so. But I also have the habit of peppering my discourse with words such as “fuck,” and “shit,” and pop-culture references and liberal doses of double entendre, innuendo and sarcasm. “Fuck,” may or may not be disrespectful in a spiritual context – I am not posting an opinion about that here. What I am opinionated about is not the use of or lack of swear words in a spiritual context, but the judgment that is generally lobbied against me, not by God, but by another human being, as being “disrespectful, or “irreverent,” because I might have let the word “fuck” slip out during a meditation circle. I mean, sacre bleu! It’s as if that one little word has the power to make God disappear from the building. I’ve got news for you – I am not that powerful. And neither are words.

Yes, yes yes. I know that words are important – that integrity requires using words that we mean, and aligning what we say with our actions. Right action, however, is the subject of another post. Please do not assign the following theory of intent to what you do, only to what you say. Because it’s not the words themselves that are important – words are only symbols to which we have assigned, and communally agreed upon, a meaning. The minute I decide that “dog” means something other than your beloved pet Spot, then it means something else to me, agreement be damned. That is the fallibility of words. Listen to the old Lenny Bruce routine which so profoundly demonstrated this concept back in the ‘60s (and from which I borrowed the title of this post). Further more, if words were all that important, then what’s a poor, illiterate person supposed to do? Are we going to tell him that he cannot aspire to greater heights of enlightenment unless he not only knows but can correctly use the word “agape,” or “ascension,” or “sabikalpa samadhi?” Ya, I think you’re getting it now.

In my family history, spouses like to use endearments like “poop-face,” “jerk,” and “you rat bastard.” Yes, En.Dear.Ments. Which may be why I discern that what’s important about words, or at least what God cares about anyway, is intent. I mean, does it make sense that God who, granted, gave us the Grand Canyon, cats and peonies, but who also simultaneously gave us underarm odor, vomit and farts would be offended by the word “fuck?” That doesn’t compute in my brain. You know what else? He can also handle all the tirades I lob at him. He actually understands and has compassion for my anger. Unlike most humans whose eyes either glaze over as they internally search for their “happy place,” or who quickly change the subject to hopefully disperse my anger. So tell me, is it better that I tell you to fuck off? Or would you rather that I told God to fuck off? Frankly, I’ve always felt that he finds my saltiness kind of amusing and as desirable a color in the rainbow of humanity as sweetness and reverence. Polly PC doesn’t taste nearly as sweet without the likes of me against which to compare her.

If a spiritual journey is about the search for freedom, then using political correctness to elevate oneself above another – which is how it is frequently used, at least against me – is just another form of separation – an anti-spiritual practice that would imprison instead of freeing oneself. Only in this context, it disguises itself as “spiritual” and that’s the part that really steams me. Nothing tempts me more into letting loose a string of four-letter epithets than that Knowing/Admonishing glance or the softly spoken but steely wielded reminder to “be respectful” that I sometimes get in group spiritual settings. Because I know it’s the human, not God, who would be offended. To my credit I don’t recall ever succumbing to that particular temptation, but boy oh boy oh boy…

I am here to remind you – God doesn’t care if you swear. Honestly. In fact, the next time I pray, I’m going to address my prayer to “Oh holy mother fucker!!”

A-goddamned-men.

The Unbearable Weight of Lightness

A spiritual journey is likely to bring up many questions. Probably more questions than answers, at least initially. And my favorite way of crossing a moat of confusion and questions is to swim harder, faster, and more directly. Which usually means more meditation, more reading, and more time alone.

And that, my friend, is the manner in which my spiritual journey has frequently snuck up on me over the years – has quickly swung from comforting and inspiring to overwhelming. Or overbearing, depending on how you look at it. It starts one day with some kind of spiritual insight that urges me to seek out a book on a particular topic like, say, “agape,” or to seek out church for an hour on Sunday. But then quickly snowballs into an urging to meditate three hours, twice a day, every day; do sunrise yoga for an hour every morning; go on a cleanse every week; fast for one week out of each month; wear only organic clothing; eat only organic foods; give up my car in favor of bicycling everywhere; give all of my money away to charity; study every single book written by Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, and Eckert Tolle, not to mention the classics like “Autobiography of a Yogi” and “The Bible.” And then, on the weekends, I can get to “A Course in Miracles,” and Dr. Wayne Dyer’s and Deepak Chopra’s books. That is, if I’ve finished Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” and Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “Women Who Run with the Wolves” by then. Oh, and don’t forget, as I’m on my way out the door to volunteer at the soup kitchen, to pet the cat and then stop at the ashram and sign-up for that six week course on celibate-tantric-tai chi. ‘Cause let’s face it, if a little spirituality is good, then a lot of it must be really good. Right?

Um, no you big bodhi – buddha – doo-doo – head. As in all other things, spirituality too requires balance.

Duh!

Immersing oneself in spiritually, by, say, joining a monastery, is admirable. But if we all did that, how would we have discovered the internet, and bubble tea, and skateboards, and what about all that sex that’s to be had in the somatic world? Not that monks and nuns don’t participate in many of those things, or that they can’t invent or evolve such things themselves (which they have). It’s just that many wonderful, fun things that make living on this planet the breathtaking adventure that it is wouldn’t exist if all the majority of us ever did was sit around pondering our navels and questions like, “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” And, just they are likely to exist in the somatic world, Type A Personalities abound in the spiritual world as well.

Which is the trap I sometimes fall into (more frequently than I like admitting) in my own spiritual practice. And so it was that I recently found myself in the position of having to remind myself to get a life already! I forced myself to schedule activities with friends – real, flesh ‘n blood, perspiring, masticating humans – to get me away from all the gods, spirits, and fantasy characters of the astral. Because when Tinkerbell the fairy becomes more real than Wendy the little girl, it’s time to seek conversation that requires verbalized words (and not thought forms) and nourishment that requires biology (instead of light). Like a day paintballing. Or throwing pottery. Followed shortly after by a scotch on the rocks.

Ommmmmmmm... cheers!... ommmmmmmmm...

Shiny Happy People - I

There was a time when I was taking yoga classes at a dance studio, wherein I found myself stretching my lightly marbled thighs next to size 0 Asian girls who could bend over and lick their own bunghole if they wanted to.

Well, let's back track a little. I learned and loved dance in my late teens. I entered a renaissance period as I approached 30 and started taking classes to re-experience the joy dance had given me as a teenager. But, in my second go-around, it turned out that I hated ballet. And the studio didn't schedule any modern dance classes, which was the really fun stuff, for after work. So I ended up with these class credits that I needed to use up, which I did by taking the aforementioned yoga classes.

It was discouraging, grunting and straining next to these wispy, rubbery dancers. My self–esteem took some serious hits. But I wasn't going to walk away having pre-paid for classes. My stinginess won out, and I ended up continuing with the yoga even after I had used up my original class credits.

What helped a lot was that I really really liked the yoga instructor, Tobias. He was a tiny guy with dark curls. When I did Cobbler's Pose, he would, from behind, lay his hands on the base of my neck, put his right foot on my right thigh, and his left foot on my left thigh, and stand on them while pushing my torso forward in order to help me deepen the pose. That's how small he was. Or how big I was, depending on your point-of-view.

This is a rambling, nostalgic way to get to what Tobias used to tell me. In response, no doubt, to some grumblings of discouragement from me, he responded that he was more interested in watching the students who struggled in class than in watching the students who could asana 'til the cows came home. In other words, he preferred standing on my non-dancer thighs than watching the dancers gracefully tie themselves into knots.

The dancers are my metaphor for "shiny happy people." I’m sure you've seen them in your own lives – people with a special light, who make something you're endeavoring to master look like peeling a banana, like something anyone could master with minimal instruction. It is difficult to not become jealous of shiny happy people. And this jealousy spawns exceptional significance in the spirituality context.

The Ecstasy of Belle

Sometime around ages 10-11, I spontaneously woke up to the fact that I AM not my body.

My clearest memory of this phenomenon is of standing in a childhood living room in Phoenix, Az. (I won't say "my" childhood living room because there were so many.) There were archways opposite each other at one end of that living room that led, on one side, to the dining room and, on the other side, to a hallway that led to the bedrooms and bathroom. Between those archways was my baby sister's crib.

Imagine standing in front of that crib a gawky kid in shorts and a stained, probably, t-shirt. She has a homemade haircut, short to keep gum out of it, and a wicked cowlick that makes a tuft of hair stick up in odd curls from the right side of the back of her head. She has two upper front teeth that are too big for her face, and freckles that out-pigment her Arizona tan. There she is, smelling like dirt in a living room with carpet so old it smells like wet dog and dead cockroach, holding her arms out in front of her looking at them as if they don't belong to her.

Doesn't strike the same spiritual image as, say, the Ecstasy of St. Theresa now does it?

But that's what I was doing, staring at my arms as if I were a driver and my eyes were the front windows of a car, and my legs were the tires and my arms were the car doors opened on either side of myself. I felt I was inhabiting my body only. Borrowing it. Driving it. And that one day, I would abandon it like the cars one finds stacked high in a junk yard. Up until that day, I was my body, or so I had assumed. I hadn't really thought about it. When I cut my finger, I cut myself. When my body was hungry, I was hungry. Until that day, it had never occurred to me that what happened to my body wasn't necessarily happening to Me. That Me was something more, something beyond my flesh and blood and bones and cowlick. Me was the energy that noticed it was inside this car, that noticed it was inside my body.

The funny thing is, I forgot about it. I had that "I'm not my body" sensation a few times during my childhood. And then it went away. And I never really thought about it again until I was several years into a conscious spiritual journey. Then I remembered it and realized that I was - had been all my life - a very spiritual person. I just didn't know that that was what I was experiencing – my spirit. Calling to me, to wake up and heed its needs.

Where did men’s shame come from? or X & Y

First off, in reading this, it would be helpful if you agreed that a lot of the dysfunctionality between the genders is caused by shame. I don’t know if/how I can prove this to you. Even if I did, I would advise you to not take my word for it but to apply my theories to your own lives and measure your results. I have, through the years, provided numerous personal examples of gender shame on this blog; if I can find them, I'll link to them. The examples won't prove anything however.

For this post, I start with the premise that all dysfunctional gender relations begin with shame. Period. You can read further or not according to your pleasure.

It has been pretty well agreed that female shame stems from the patriarchy. Because women hold the generative powers (ability to breed baby humans) and they do not have sexual limitations (multiple orgasms without a need for "down time"), they are feared by men. Men shame women in order to control them and remain relevant, i.e., men's bad behaviors stem from their debilitating fear of becoming useless to women. This is the fundamental feminist theory, and I am not agreeing or disagreeing with it. I am only pointing out that agreement exists on the female side of this equation.

I can see all my male friends now – who are all non-spiritually inclined – rolling their eyes at me. Telling me that I am reading too deeply into it. "Men just want fun and adventure. They are not deep or complicated. So why, Belle, do you keep trying to project some significant meaning into us?"

I've known many men. Each and every one was complicated. And I wasn't projecting. I was confused. Because I was operating under the assumptions enforced upon me as above only to be left wondering why men didn't fall pat into those assumptions. If he's really so uncomplicated, then why is he withholding? If he's really so uncomplicated, then why is he controlling? If all he really wants is fun and adventure, then why does he brood? But especially I was confused as to why – men more vociferously than women – hang onto the male assumptive stereotype when it is so patently wrong? And why is disagreement with this stereotype absolutely verboten? Whereas agreement exists as to the origins of female shame, why do we act as if male shame doesn't exist at all - in ANY form?

I do not know what a spiritually inclined male would say. There are some Robert Bly and Sam Keen books out there with some ideas. But, mostly, male mysteries are not to be shared with women.

If pinned into a corner, I could see some men blaming women for male shame, i.e., if men cause female shame, then it is only logical that women cause male shame. Take for example, the nagging wife whose bitter complaints against her husband are obviously the fodder from which his own shame would sprout.

To this I respond that, if I am expected to rise above the patriarchy and take responsibility for my gender shame, i.e., not let it control me or affect my romantic relationships, then men should be expected to do likewise. But how can men do that, if they never admit they have any shame in the first place? As part of my spiritual journey, I've had to assess and question and process my shame. That journey started with recognizing that I was even carrying any around with me. And that is an odd concept, feeling ashamed for nothing more than being that which I was born – a woman. It was not an easy concept to wrap my brain around. But I can and have done it.

How would a man, under the assumptions above, ever get to wrapping his brain around a similar concept for himself? If he never does, has/can he really progress(ed) spiritually?

Winter is Hard

I recently read somewhere that humankind was not used to working all year around. That’s right, it was the PBS special of the book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond - yet another book on my ginormous reading list. Humankind was used to holing up and resting during winter time because the weather was too inhospitable for anything other than sitting by the warm fireside. Provided you had cut enough wood in the warmer months to sustain you. Yes, these days pre-dated electric, oil or gas heating systems, protective metal vehicles, and Gortex.

Now. Now, we have people like Barbara Lynch whom I saw on television last night. She already owns nine highly acclaimed restaurants in the Boston area. Last night’s show was reporting her work in creating yet one more highly acclaimed restaurant. Because, you know, nine isn’t enough. All this work, in the middle of winter. How does she do it? I mean, all I want to do is sit in front of my fireplace sipping tea and reading a good book.

Well, she had terrible circles under her eyes. And pockets of weight indicative of a woman without the time to hit the gym. Which is strange for a person in her socio-economic class – fitness is the post-modern equivalent of fat during the renaissance. It used to be, if you were rich, you were fat. Now if you are rich, you’re sculpted to within an eighth of an inch. As if yourself were as much a part of the perfection of a carefully designed living room as the water color artwork or the marble fireplace.

It seems the pendulum has swung in the complete opposite direction. Not only do we now work even in winter, but we overwork all year round – winter, spring, summer, and fall. Or at least, in Barbara Lynch’s and my case.

How did this happen?