Answers From My Buddha

I am normally very reticent to blog anything about my son, who I'll call The Buddha (his dad calls him that sometimes, it's not a reference to Five Corners). I'm pretty reticent for him to have any kind of virtual life, because, at the age of three, he has no control over it. However, he spoke the truth yesterday, so I'm writing it here.

My friend The Goddess Devi has been having some troubles of late. Most goddesses, and literary heroes for that matter, have to go on an involved series of adventures or a quest in order to become the king of their own lives. They have to fight their way out of their father's head, or figure a way in and out of Hades. They have to suck all the blood out of the demon Raktabija. In The Goddess Devi's case, they have to go live with their parents while they await, have, and recuperate from surgery, and life goes into a numbing stasis that breeds uncertainty, doubt, and an increasing suspicion that doom lives in Toronto.

So The Buddha and I were playing with his toy trains yesterday afternoon, and since he has a talent for knowing what's bothering people and animals, I said to him "Buddha's name here, is there anything I can do to help The Goddess Devi that I haven't thought of?" And without looking up from the wooden tracks he said "Um, give her medicine, and music, and books, and Sesame Street. That's all anyone ever needs."

TGD, an email package is on the way. Buddha, thank you for being the Universe, and for being you.

Enlighten Up!

I so want to see this.

Guest Post: Response to Universe, I Need A Raise

From my beloved R. I'd say she needs her own blog, but then I wouldn't get these awesome guest posts:

In reading your post, my dear friend, I was reminded of a different online conversation I had recently with a different friend, and my answer to youtoday is adapted from one I wrote to him, but I think it is still apropos ofyour mood.

I recently came across this quote from Rilke:"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in avery foreign tongue. . .And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

I give you this quote today- on this day, when the dark ceiling of thesleepless night just behind you still looms large- because I have the sense from your post that you are at a place in your life where you, perhaps, feel that you should have answers, or at least more answers than you haveactually thus far found. That you have reached this place ofhands-thrown-in-the-air because, despite all the decisions you have made inorder to have those answers, you are now somewhat disappointed that thereare still things you don't know.

So I wanted to tell you that I have noticed, among my peers who have children in particular, that most people seem to feel that there is some mechanism by which they should have crossed over into a zone of having onlyanswers. Perhaps this is because, once you have a child, you feel some certain responsibility to actually have them. I don't know. Or even if you don't have children, there seems to be some line, some place-shift in the environment that should have happened, around 32, where we stopped being kids, and realized we became, for better or for worse, the adults we alwaysknew were waiting for us.

And yet, for my part- even at 36 and well past that imaginary demarcation line- I can't quite silence my inner teenager and ask "Why *should*?" and"Who says?" Perhaps because I recently learned in the hardest way possible that not all answers are right, but it seems to me now that in some ways,the questions have really never been so good. I was never so sure as when I was 18, but I have never had more wonder about the workings of the world, and sometimes my own heart, as I do now. If you embrace it like that, you may just find that it isn't so much about the answers you don't have, but rather about the questions the foundation of prior answers has allowed youto beget.

I say all this now because I found this quote in the midst of one of my darkest periods, and when I did I realized not only that the darkness was simply a form of a question, but that I had found my epitaph. Live the questions. In fact, my own personal belief is that questions, dark or light, are our tie to life. And that only in the moments before death, will all the answers be revealed to us. Only then will we be free to let go, and fall from the earth, because our souls are satisfied that we *know*-whatever it is that our lives where shaped to find out.

So as you move through whatever struggle you are facing today, and whatever compromises you may be making- with your kitchen, your job, and what have you- I just wanted you to know that you are already living an extraordinary life. You have already found many answers, you will seek many more, and- as you have on occasion already- you will have glimpses of transcendence. Today is one day, and if you are giving up your hopes and dreams, remember that it is likely only in order to make way for the new ones that await you. Don't let the answers you think you have block the questions that will help you get there.

Wow

God wrote back (see comment 3)! At least, one of the faces of God. Still waiting on you, Morrissey.

To: Universe, Bees, Rats, et al, By Request

For two friends, by request, the first two lines are taken from the request.

Ask the universe, ask the trees,
and the bees, and the rats in the subway.
Help and hope, seem far away now, faith
as well. A time when all of this made sense
or good copy -- the calendar is resolutely stuck
at today, this day, the pages won't tritely fall away.

And so I ask -- let these two lives be elevated,
like an elevated train, a thing on swooping girders
with sky and tract houses, trees and factory signs
for factories long gone, all around it, a thing that
has come to seem like it only belongs in
a dark tunnel, waiting for the platform,

and the platform after that and that and that.
Let these two lives have beautiful views, somewhere
they want to go, someplace
they want to come home, someone
who welcomes them back, spilling over
with quiet to hear of the days' adventures.

###

Universe, please let the resolution come. They've suffered long enough. What I want here is not important, other than that I want them both to be fulfilled, and whole, and out of pain, whether that is together or apart.

An Answer

I had a conversation with a dreamwalker two weeks ago. In the course of our conversation, he reminded me of something that I've come across before in several different religious traditions and healing practices. That is simply, after conducting a ritual, such as a healing ritual, you are to place your hands on the ground (or floor) and send whatever negative energy you have picked up back into Mother Earth, asking her to clean it and make it positive energy again. This has a practical aspect for the healer, to keep from absorbing the illness or other negative energy they are seeking to remove. It is also a wonderful general concept, that the bad can be turned back into good, renewed and reborn into something positive in our lives.

So often my question is "What do I do?". I think the first answer is always this.

More is happening in my life, so rapidly, than I seem to be able to write, and yet all is wonderfully calm. I hope you are all well.

Have a wonderful weekend.

When Iris Sleeps Over

What a book she'll write.

I've always been one to ask for answers like some people skip ahead to the last page of a novel when they've barely started. I want the answers almost before the questions are asked -- this has made me so many shades of fun in most of my relationships. So it makes sense that I'm a tarot reader.

My deck depicts Greek myths (a longtime fascination of mine) and in a way can show the reader where they are in the 'story' of their own life. Over here is Temperance, which has always been my root card, and, while it is not my complete story anymore, it will always be at the root of who I am.

In this deck, Temperance has the traditional meaning of seeking or striving for emotional balance. It depicts stasis and fear of change or intensity as much as it does peace and harmony. The actual character here is Iris, a sort of girl Hermes. She's Hera's messenger and the only female messenger that I know of in Greek myth; she's the woman who delivers the word.

I have this exact picture tatooed on my back, without the wings, and got it about twelve years ago in the middle of a blizzard at Huggy Bear's old Brooklyn studio. Afterwards my friend Steve and I had cookies and orange juice with the Bear himself as he showed us his scrapbook. He was a super nice man, who legally changed his name to Huggy Bear because he was, well, a huggy bear. The whole experience was a little like donating blood at a hospital run by the Hell's Angels.

After having this wingless messenger in my heart and on my back all these years, I'm ready to get the wings. In ink, and in metaphor. But the other thing is, after spending so much energy searching for answers, partially to avoid the pain of actually living a life to get to those answers, I see that I already have them, and if I look deep enough, I already know. To my deep surprise, I don't need the cards anymore. And I don't need to pour that little cup of water back and forth for all eternity, trying to get the balance just right. I can stand in the rushing river now. I can let it go.