Stranger Every Day

Dead Language?

When I went to Catholic high school, the mass was still in Latin. Yeah, that's how old I am. To be perfectly honest, though, Vatican II was happening around then, so Latin was being phased out. Also, the priest started saying mass while turned to face the congregation (thereby, in my mind, negating his role as intercessor), and the Holy Mother Church lost its panache. Nevertheless, I remember the Latin mass with fondness.

Part of the deal way back when was that, when you were in high school, you studied Latin (I won't way learned Latin, though that was the aim.) The only way out was to be in the "General" track, which meant taking shop and stuff instead. Everyone else was required to take two years of the Church's mother tongue. Crazy me, I took almost four years, leaving one semester early to take an elective calculus class that was being offered. [I swear I just heard someone yell, "Nerd alert!"]

At any rate, this being Easter weekend, it reminded me of one of my favorite films, Life of Brian, from Monty Python. In the film, unsuspecting Brian, born down the street from Jesus, is mistaken for the Messiah and, as they say when describing sitcoms, hilarity erupts.

My favorite scene from the movie is the so-called Latin (or Romans Go Home) scene, where Brian (Graham Chapman) is caught defacing a Roman building with poorly constructed Latin. He is corrected by a furious centurion (John Cleese).

This scene cracks me up every time, as I can relate to it so closely. I had a Latin teacher who approached learning this ancient tongue with the same enthusiasm as Cleese. He would point to one of us and bark, "First person plural, active voice, perfect tense, indicative of habere." You had about two seconds to answer or you would get bopped by the knots on his Franciscan priest's cord, and he would move on to the next victim. (The answer, for you Latin buffs is habuimus (we have had, in English). I had to look it up, although 45 years ago it would have rolled off my tongue quickly enough to avoid being bonked by Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience - pictured at right.)

All in all, I'm glad that I studied Latin. It certainly has helped the old vocabulary, and I sound pretty intelligent when I shout "Sic semper tyrannis!" at the odd moment. Latin can also come in handy at the strangest times. Why, you could dazzle the obnoxious guy in the bar with "Ita, te adloquor" (Yeah, I'm talkin' to you). He'd probably simply walk away befuddled, if you had any luck at all.

So, never sell classical languages short, and have an enjoyable Easter weekend.

Vale. (That's to be pronounced with the Church Latin "V" sound - vah-lay - not with the Classical Latin "W" sound. I absolutely cannot accept that Julius Caesar spoke like Elmer Fudd. Example: Veni, Vidi, Vici, or Waynee, Weedee, Weekee? I rest my case.)

Virgin on Toast

Humans need miracles. Miracles appeal to us as beings who realize that there's something more than what our senses tell us. We crave the out of the ordinary. That resonates with our sense of the Divine.

Remember when someone sold their grilled cheese sandwich on ebay? It was claimed that the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared on the toasted bread. Now, when I was in Catholic grade school, back when the nuns wore black and carried big sticks, Mary was also known as the B.V.M., for Blessed Virgin Mary. Every May (Mary's official month) we would crown her daily with flowers in our classroom. Then, on one special day of the month, we'd have the May Procession. This would involve all the kids at the school parading out onto a nearby field, dressed in May finery, with our parents watching. We'd recite some prayers in near unison, some lucky child would crown a big statue of the B.V.M., and, after the requisite number of us had fainted from the heat, we'd parade back inside. Oh, the memories, the memories . . .

Of course, the pagan overtones of these ceremonies were never explored in school (the Isis correspondences alone that show up in the picture at right are worth a post in itself). The ancient Romans were very good at incorporating the deities of conquered peoples into their liturgy, and I guess the Roman church inherited this proclivity. Generally a good strategy, though. Keeps the locals happy.

But back to miracles. Mary seems to be an especially miraculous being. She's always appearing to poor kids in out of the way places, making predictions, and creating healing spaces (think Lourdes). This does not seem coincidental, as the miraculous side of ourselves, the non-logical side, is distinctly linked with our intuitive, so-called female side. Not that the patriarchal side of our lives is wrong or evil. It's just too dominant right now, so balance is being called for.

I know that in Old Testament times there were lots of Yahweh miracles, but one thing needs to be remembered. The Old Testament God was more balanced in nature. For instance, the creator God in Genesis is rendered by the word Elohim, where -im is a plural ending (you can read about the complications of the word's derivation here). Traditionally, God is seen as having both masculine and feminine aspects, all the smiting notwithstanding (you can read about the feminine considerations here). I mean, violence isn't confined to one gender.

To keep the mystical alive in your daily life, I advise you to watch for the minor miracles that surround you every day. Even hitting all the traffic lights may be seen as a miracle.

Reducing the unusual to mere coincidence is a way of making us feel comfortable and in control. After all, science tells us that God does not play dice with the universe, to paraphrase Albert Einstein. But, just maybe, God plays a little Keno from time to time.

Bones of the Earth

Today has been a 3-Wisdom (Cib) day in the Mayan calendar. Wisdom days are intended to honor the wisdom of the ancients and the representations of this wisdom. The stone temples of ancient cultures contained the sacred energy and are links to the most profound wisdom. The number 3 is associated in the Mayan calendar with communication and movement.

All this got me thinking about cairns. At their simplest, cairns are piles of stones placed to mark sacred sites, sepulchral monuments, places of contemplation, even trail directions. They date back to, I suppose, the Stone Age, though cairns took on more sophisticated form in the Bronze Age. In modern times, they have been made as natural works of art. For example, some of the works of the amazing Andy Goldsworthy are incredible cairns.

I discovered the joys of cairn making on a trip to the Northwest, along the rocky Washington coast. The pastime is remarkably peaceful and meditative; that is, as long as your can get the %#*@& rocks to balance. Some cairn makers are happy to pile one rock on top of another, but the true artist (I tell myself) balances them carefully. In fact, both the pictures adorning this post are my creations. These are some of my early works, what I call my "two rock" period. The point is that cairns need not be elaborate; innate sincerity is enough.

Making monuments is one of those things humans seem to have a need to do. We memorialize things, places, events, and beliefs. It's a way to honor and to remember. Cairns seem to me to be an ideal way to dedicate a space and to mark a time.

Speaking of time, some cairns have lasted thousands of years with maintenance by the devoted. They were build of larger stones, and made to last. Regarding smaller works like mine, the ephemeral nature of these sculptures is part of their cachet for me. These transient memorials can be undone by the wind, the waves, or the whim of a child. Still, while they last they memorialize a moment, a state of mind. Permanence within impermanence.

Letting the stones speak in their fashion, fitting together in just the right way, places the hand of the artist in rhythm with the very bones of the Earth.

A Peace of my Mind

Yesterday didn't work out, as I wound up doing a lot of laptop maintenance. But I'm back today - the day when we celebrate our own version of the Birth of the Sun King myth. He's called "The Prince of Peace" on the one hand, while he's quoted as saying that he comes "not to bring peace, but a sword" on the other.

Say what you will, but this doesn't sound like simple peace to me. See, I don't think that the point of the Sun King is to bring a blissful, New Age, floaty, mushy-headed kind of peace. That's more like zombie-town than true peace.

Think about the image of the sword. The sword in Tarot symbology is related to the world of Thought and Intention (Yetzirah). In the statement above, it seems that the Sun King is asking us to think and intend peace; to work for it. The sword also symbolizes using the mind to separate truth from fantasy. It demands that we use our discriminative abilities to bring about our intentions.

True peace doesn't come easily. It is a state arrived at by vigilance, constancy, and action. Even if that action takes the form of a devoted meditation practice. Yetzirah is where we form mind-stuff into reality. You can't simply sit about and wait for it to happen. God's Will is all well and good, but that Will expresses through our thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Isn't it strange that The Prince of Peace has caused more conflict in his name than basically anyone else in history? Too many have thought that bringing a sword meant using it on other humans, or the environment. This is what happens when the needs of the ego take precedence over the needs of the Ego. The one with the capital E is the higher expression of Spirit, not the impulse-gratifying, me-first expression of the body.

I think we're here to manifest the Spirit, while not denying the body. A gentle balance to be sure; but when that occurs, true Peace follows.

Peace, everyone.