Geodesic Homes

"A suspended sky chair adds a nice touch."

The motivation required to keep on keepin on in the job search of This Economy requires a pluckiness buttressed by a rare kind of sureness about Where You Are Going. When you suffer from a lack of certainty about anything except that right now is a good time for self-reflection and growth, when the biggest, most unruly stress of your life is wondering how you will make ends meet -- a kind of epi-stress compounded by your (my) inability to find a job -- the utopian vision of rent-free lifestyles calls more compellingly.

I can appreciate the heart-swelling romantic vision that captivates wild-eyed, scruffy, young squatters who want the world to be their home, and their home to be sweet. Though I can hear the timber of that song of freedom, the tune that stirs my dreams is not the song of the squat, but the tune of the dome home.

Imagine living in a yurt or a geodesic dome: I can. I have this book called Woodstock Handmade Houses that showcases photos of handmade cabins, yurts, refurbished barns and chapels and the like that people created themselves and live in. The houses shine with an incredible amount of personal touches. They are as obviously intertwined with the spirits of their residents and creators and as obviously intentional aesthetic visions as they are gloriously simple. Beautifully simple, in the ways that material simplicity can be beautiful for builders and for religious aspirants alike.

Subversive Asexy Iconography?

,
Celibacy has long been a practice associated with religiosity of various kinds. Recent research on asexual people (which are people who do not experience sexual attraction, and who may or may not be celibate; asexuality is an identity, and celibacy is a practice) has suggested that they are disproportionately religious, although this post, for example has raised some doubts and critiques of that conclusion.

The relative lack of cultural representations and narratives of asexual people, though, risks that they remain unthinkable to most people -- that is when asexual people are not being associated either with pathology (Not experiencing sexual attraction is inherently disordered because a certain expression of sexuality is intrinsic to being a healthy human!) or religiosity (You don't experience sexual attraction? or You don't have sex? You must be some sort of religious fanatic, or fancy yourself some sort of saint). That's why this personalized poster swirls with meaning for me. I am not sure at all at the doctrinal accuracy of a statement like "Be your own best friend" as far as Buddhism goes. Especially in light of this, the image (words and all) could be read as operating on wider cultural visions of solitude and spirituality that paint them as compatible with each other, rather than read as a statement that is particularly Buddhist per se. Is the schema that made this textual image intelligible of the same sort as those that associate asexuality with celibacy with religiosity in our culture?

Staring at this picture, I wonder if asexual people could intentionally draw on religious symbologies, which seem to be the sort of setting in which something akin to asexuality (like celibacy, or, more generally, the idea that having no better friend in the world than oneself could be the ideal configuration for someone) is most intelligible to most folks. Maybe playing with this sort of symbolism could be a visual strategy used to subvert the assumptions that conceptually link asexuality, celibacy, and religiosity. Viewing celibacy as inherently smacking of religious devotion, or as a logical and righteous expression of religious propriety, depends upon how we experience and conceptualize sexuality and sexual experiences (to say nothing of what it means that asexuality, then, gets lumped in with the both of them in many people's minds). Maybe intentionally occupying and subverting the meanings of sexuality/celibacy in religion can help to push at the limits of how we conceptualize a/sexuality, leaving a lot more room and freedom for that "a".

Questions that arise from reading this image in this way:

• Is Buddhist practice, or another type of spiritual or religious practice, something that one should do primarily alone, or that will result in increased solitude when done properly?

I don't think so. I have always wrestled with ascetic tendencies and lines of thought that lead me to concluding that withdrawing from the world is the best bet for me. I've learned that balance is key -- it's okay to have a very contemplative side to my spirituality, and I value that side of it, but the real strength of my spirituality is the way that it is informed by and in turn informs my daily life, interactions with people, and actions in the world.

• Is seeing one's relationship with oneself (as opposed to a romantic relationship) as the primary relationship in one's life a viable, healthy option for some people?

I think so. It may not seem obvious why affirming this would be politically necessary, until you consider how alienating our society can be for people who choose to be single, or childfree, or in some configuration of intimate or romantic relationship(s) in which those relationships are not privileged as the primary relationships in the lives of those involved. I believe that finding new ways to queer how we look at relationships, a/sexuality, and romance is an important process in furthering and maximizing the freedom of all of us to live healthy, empowered, livable lives.

• Can employing the narrative of being one's own best friend potentially be a social / poetic / mythological asset to some asexual people (especially aromantic asexual folks)?

Aromantic I am not, so I have no comment on this aside from the thought. I will say, however, that I am a firm believer in the power of art of all sorts -- visual, textual, sonic, et cetera -- in validating, expressing, and sustaining oneself, as well as in having political effects on the world.

Kabbalah, Tarot, and Mahayana Buddhism?? Oh My. (Please Enjoy My Own Personal Brand of Syncretism)

The recent foray of the syllabus of the class I'm taking on Western mysticism in art and literature into Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah has been welcome. The extent of my formal studies of Jewish mysticism to date -- if you could call them that -- had been my perusal of the above book, a friendly and mysterious book by Robert Wang called The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy. Its author was also the creator of the Golden Dawn Tarot deck (you can see some images of it here). Using this deck and this book is a great opportunity to enjoy the added bonus of having a very intellectualized dimension to one's relationship to the deck, when times may call for that sort of a thing.

So my fledgling academic study of Jewish mysticism inspired me to pull the Wang book out again, and I read a very intriguing section as I sat on the porch after dining, reveling in the golden glow of the setting sun.



The most recognizable element of imagery in Kabbalah (I mean, as far as I know) are the Sepiroth (Wang calls it the Tree of Life). The Sepiroth symbolize the universe (Wang 29). Each node (Sephira) is a different element on the paths of the Tree of Life, and the different paths between the Sephiroth illuminate ways to conceptualize the steps of mediation between the world of materiality and the Divine, between actuality and potentiality.

Wang's book describes one Sephira -- knowledge, Daath, the "Invisible Sephira [... that] does not appear in any representation of the Tree of Life" (77). Though this Sephira is not represented on the Tree of Life and is not technically one of the 10 Sephiroth, it is nevertheless an experience that is rendered necessary in order to pass through the Tree of Life, between "the potential and the actual" (Wang 77). What passing through Daath means is this: once enlightened and having reached a state that can be referred to as Adepthood, "to willfully relinquish the powers of Adepthood which one has earned" (Wang 78). This is not an easy task; it "has been described as a more overwhelming and solitary one than human imagination can conceive" (Wang 78).

Having been studying Buddhism this semester as well in the class I'm taking called Thinking about Not Thinking, reading this made very present to me a conceptual connection which may be too farfetched to mean something to anyone but me. It sounds very Madyamikan to me. Madyamika is the school that teaches the ultimate emptiness of all concepts, even those that comprise Buddhism. Insofar as Buddhism is itself comprised of rationally grasped concepts, it is ultimately something that one must go beyond if one's goal is to dissolve the process by which one's mind constantly grasps concepts and clings to rationality. Rupert Gethin describes the roots of the teaching of emptiness:

if something is sufficient to explain its own existence, then it must exist as itself for ever and ever, and could never be affected by anything else, since as soon as it was affected it would cease to be itself. And if things cannot truly change, then the whole of Buddhism is undermined, for Buddhism claims that suffering arises because of causes and conditions and that by gradually eliminating unwholesome conditions we can change from being unawakened to being awakened. Thus the one who claims that dharmas ultimately exist in themselves must either fall into the trap of eternalism by denying the possibility of real change, or, if he nevertheless insists that change is possible, fall into the trap of annihilationism since, in changing, what existed has gone out of existence. Therefore, concludes Nagarjuna, the teaching of the Buddha is that everything is empty of its own inherent existence (239).

Just because the concepts of Buddhism are conceptual and ultimately themselves empty is not reason to disregard and discard them. They may be left behind one day when they have aided the seeker in advancing to a place where she no longer needs them, but until then, they possess conventional truth although they are not and can never be equivalent to ultimate truth. Any Adepthood or enlightenment that one can conceptualize is a good goal, but is also inevitably something that one will need to leave behind, towards a place beyond concepts, towards pure potentiality. I appreciate that a Kabbalistic framework accounts for the extent to which this process can be overwhelming and solitary -- the mind clings desperately to concepts, frameworks, explanations. Letting go of these things -- and many other projects that could be seen as spiritually tinged, and worthwhile -- can be heartrendingly painful, tiring and bleak, and full of earthshaking surprises. Spiritual paths are far from the always easy, lowest-common-denominator barrage of revelatory a-ha! moments that The Oprah Show might lead us to believe.

Sources:
Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Wang, Robert. The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy. York Beach: Samuel Weiser, 1988.

Reiki and Catholicism

Several recent posts on Steven Waldman's Beliefnet blog have addressed controversies surrounding and meaningful fruits offered by the simultaneous incorporation of Reiki and Christian ideals and practice.

Catholic Bishops Say No to Reiki as "Superstition" (27 March 2009)
Includes a document, called "Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy", that was recently put out by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Doctrine. (Whoa.) The evaluation was somewhat negative... "For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems." ...

A Reiki Practitioner Vs. the Catholic Church: Reiki Healing Uses God's Love (28 March 2009)
A brief example demonstrating one way among many not only to understand Reiki practice within a framework that accommodates both Reiki and Christian belief, but one in which Reiki practice can draw on a Christian language, and deepen and enhance Christian belief.

A Nun Describes Why She Practices Reiki (31 March 2009)
An essay written by a nun who is a Reiki practitioner describing in detail the lovely immediacies that Reiki imparts to her Christian belief. She stays close to scriptural points, citing many specific verses as she spins a Christian language for Reiki.

All this debate is particularly interesting to me because I come from Christian traditions, and the language of Christian spirituality, doctrine, and ritual is the one that most closely approximates the language of my soul; it's been woven into my fabric in no slight way. I am also a Reiki practitioner, having been attuned first to level one and subsequently to level two both in 2007. In my personal experience of spirituality, both Christian and Reiki-related practices, communities, and poetics have formed sustaining and dear modalities through which I've weathered times of weariness and pain, expressed the idea and force of healing to myself and others, and transformed my eyes for looking at reality so as to reinvigorate my ability to notice the beauty of it all, harmony gleaming sonorously. And there's a stillness to that beauty that just gives the soul a place to rest and stay.

Dark Was the Night

I recently found this compilation album produced by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National called Dark Was the Night. I read the tracklist with excitement -- David Byrne, Antony, Beach House, The National, Yeasayer, Conor Oberst, Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, Iron and Wine, The Books, and more! -- and though I haven't listened to it too much yet, it's taking hold in me slowly. That is not to say necessarily that it's growing on me from lukewarm upward; I don't mean to make that sort of an evaluative judgment. I mean to say something about the texture of it, the spirit of it: there is a familiar yet understated structure to its bones. Which is to say that it's as good as it should be.

Not Reviewing, but Drawing Inspiration From

Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, Ed. by Sabrina Chapadjiev

Reading this book is an affirming experience. I picked out here and there stories with content whose surreal similarity to some of my own memories put to shame their haphazard and far-between scattering among other stories that I could not call my own in the same way. I say ‘in the same way’ because something about each of the stories told in these pages did indeed feel very much my own even though each is deeply personal and unique. I don’t know whether to settle on inferring some beautiful, volatile common essence to my life and all of theirs; I feel that I should avoid that family of deductive beasts generally. But something in these stories repeatedly induced experiences of a certain kind in me – memories played back whose events and meaning I’d internally anthologized long ago, and then forgotten, at least in a day-to-day way. I don’t know if it’s this particular time in my life or an enduring theme particular to my life for whatever reason, but this is a prominent sort of experience for me lately, and it seems telling: selections from my canon of memories swirl around me, experienced as illuminating some aspect of my self or my life as it is now. Despite not actually writing very much lately, I feel full of essays that would gracefully make lots of connections between past and present, drawing lines made of me until, the pen laid down on the table, I’d chuckle and turn the leaf. No, no no – this saccharine temptation is a farce and I must resist it, must hold on tight for the dear life of the self I think is me. But which is my dear life and which is only gripped onto with an urgency that might befit fear of its absence as much as a sense of its preciousness?

You can tell your story; you must tell your story.

My story is not contained in anything. If I spread it out into the world, it will not disappear to my eye or become too thin to stand on. It may sink momentarily, but that’s what roots do. These stories will stretch, grow, thicken. To grow a shivering, verdant self one must plant some seeds.

My story is not contained in anything. If I put it in the world, I will not lose hold of it and hence disappear. It cannot get away from me because my very self is spun through its telling. What I forget when I cower in silence, gripping my unsaid story close and coughing on words, is that my story is written through telling it. Once I have told it, I will find myself in a place I couldn’t imagine before, out on the other side of the journey of building voice. Anything to which you assume radical openness will change you because that is what it means to pay full attention to something or respect to someone: to allow yourself to be changed by them. To assume radical openness to myself is to become. Do not fear; there will always be more to write.

Intoxicating Ideas

Image from today's PostSecret.

On Where One Finds Oneself When Searching for Places and Making Maps

"My compass spins; the wilderness remains."

~from "Make War" by Bright Eyes

"Because this territory in my internal universe is continually shifting, I've learned to look for patterns and rhythms in the chaos that I can use as guides when I can't locate steady ground. So I make maps from my memories. I make maps out of words and stories.

[...]

My journals are the maps of this crazy journey. They look like the rings of a tree in the history they tell by their appearance. The books I've kept as I was breaking down in psychosis are tattered shreds and barely held together, showing evidence of trauma the same way the inner rings of a tree from a year of fires will be darker and more charred. My handwriting changes between my mania and my depression -- excited sentences taking up enormous spaces and whole melancholy paragraphs carved in sketches in the margins. My dreams are always written down sloppily, in crude half-asleep chicken scratch, nestled between the other entries, marking the open space between days. When there are no dreams to mark the space, that in itself becomes a marker that I wasn't paying attention to my dreams.

[...]

The last time I was putting my life back together after it had completely fallen apart I discovered the true power of my journals. When I've been knocked way far off balance it's much easier for me to forget who I am and buy into the idea that everything I've done with my life or cared about in the end just makes me a criminal and a worthless deadbeat with no job skills or diploma that is destined to end up in prison or living on his poor mom's couch forever. My thoughts become plagued with oceans of 'if only's and I wish desperately for another chance to go back and change my sorry fate. When I rediscovered my journals THIS TIME I realized I'd left so many notes for myself from all the other times I went through this and that I already knew myself better than anyone: 'Just in case you forgot -- things were really bad back here but you pulled through like a champ. You're gonna make it, kid,' and, 'Don't you ever forget what the sunset looks like from the open door of this boxcar; don't you ever, ever forget how alive you are right now. It's still all in you; remember?'"

~from "Making Maps with the Artifacts of Our Fleeting Memories, or, On Being a Time Traveler" by Sascha Scatter, in "Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness: A Reader & Roadmap of Bipolar Worlds" Ed. by The Icarus Project

"The wisdom or understanding of ordinary beings becomes tainted by attachment to views and conceptual construction; this attachment manifests as a certain rigidity and inflexibility of mind; the perfect wisdom of a buddha is free of all attachment and clinging. In carving up reality into dharmas in the manner of the Abhidharma, we are essentially constructing a theoretical 'model' or map of the way things are. Like any model or map, it may be useful and indeed help us to understand the way things are. In a provisional or conventional way, it may actually correspond to the way things are. Some maps and models will reflect the way things are better than others, but they nevertheless remain models and maps. As such, none should be mistaken for the way things are. Thus for the Perfection of Wisdom, just as persons and beings are ultimately elusive entities, so too are all dharmas. In fact the idea that anything exists of and in itself is simply a trick that our minds and language play on us" (Gethin 237).

Source: Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.