PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY FOR WYRD TIMES
In honor of Venus, on this Friday I’ve used the magic of the internet to feel connected to the rest of you out there in the world by sharing this curated musical experience.
This is hard, y’all. In so many different ways for each and every one of us. I guess I feel rather helpless right now, as I’m sure many of us do, and this is the best way of commiserating that I can can come up with right now; Sharing the feels. Long-distance empathy.
I hope it works like medicine. Hang in there.
As I watched the latest episode of Last Week Tonight transmitted to one isolated room from another, I expected to find a usual creature-comfort in the familiar voice of a caring, humanist television show-host, but even the usual haunts for comfort seem to be… well, haunted.
The video of the man protesting Amazon for shipping non-essential items such as dildos, a word which he seemed to very much enjoy saying to a TV camera, was used as an example of presumably agreeable, and maybe even righteous outrage. John Oliver completely agrees: Amazon should not be shipping non-essential items at the expense of the health of their employees, their families, and those on either end of said deliveries.
But.. what exactly is a non-essential item? Who gets to determine the parameters of this classification and how much empathy do they have for those living with mental health conditions and behavioral disorders? Do they consider emotional well-being an essential? What about our health? Not prescription big-medicine stuff, but the thousands-of-years-old technologies of preventative medicine, including adequate time outdoors amongst the wilderness, exercise, and possibly the most crucial lynchpin in the delicate machine of human sanity: Interaction. We need it even when we’re healthy and happy and there are many people out there who aren’t either of those things on their best day. There are many who don’t have anyone at home and have no job to distract them. And what of them? Are the suicide risks less in number than the Covid deaths and is risk-assessment/loss-prevention and data analysis even the right way to make these decisions? Roughly 40,000 Americans commit suicide per year. How many more will it be this year?
Somewhere in a room there are a group of people, probably all white and male, who get to decide these things, but we all know what a world of essential items only looks like on a longer timeline.
Millions are out of work and we haven’t even begun to see the fallout from the relief loans taking longer than small businesses can manage to hang on in the interim. Not to mention the intentionally unrealistic requirement of keeping all your employees on payroll if you don’t want to pay the loans back.
I think what hurts the most is that the projected number of deaths in the U.S. is down to a low of 60,000 from an original 2 million, putting this pandemic on the scale of a normal-to-heavy flu season. And 80% of the deaths in the US, at this time, had preexisting conditions. So why didn’t we just isolate everybody with preexisting conditions instead of shutting down the whole world and causing another financial crisis complete with total bailouts for big business and maybe-if-you’re-good grants for small timers? I know this not. It’s impossible to even gleam a clue from the downright assault on sensory input and the constant shifting of numbers and positions that is keeping us all hyper-vigilant.
Meanwhile the richest (and nearly tax-exempt) commercial distributer the world has ever known is making every single dollar your local business is missing out on and Jeff is not inviting you to the Mars base.
The good news is, I’m not the only one feeling like an alien and you’re not the only one who believes that you need that dildo. I believe in your needs. We agree that what is inside of us and invisible must be cared for and tended to, that our interiority truly matters. That being said, there must be a lot of consideration that goes into the decision to put an Amazon delivery-person’s life on the line for your orgasm, but I trust your judgement. And the man protesting in the video didn’t want the employees’ health to be at risk, but he was somehow fine with Bezos taking them hostage in this can’t-afford-not-to-work scenario.
There are a lot of angles to consider here, but the only things I’m sure of is that the guy protesting in the parking lot isn’t helping anybody and Last Week Tonight gets their news from the same untrustworthy torrent of manipulation that the majority of people do. From one isolated room to another, to another, to another. Who know what splendors lie beyond these cold walls?
That was rhetorical.
Tread lightly everybody. Go for a jog in the other side’s shoes, if for no other reason than the valuable exercise. Admit it to yourself and others if you can do without something and avoid unnecessary risks, but speak up for goodness sake if you really need that dildo.
Until next time. I hope I could make you smile today.
There is an uncanny amount of garbage clogging up the psychosphere in the form of inaccurate data and media terror campaigns. Whether it’s an Eurobank conspiracy, healthcare/election play, or just pure chaos the only thing any of us can be sure of is that the situation stinks. In times like these I find myself grasping to see above the waves, fruitlessly clinging to hope that somehow I’ll wake up tomorrow and discern signal from static; That it will all suddenly make sense.
So far, each morning, it hasn’t.
In hopes of attaining some clarity I’ve formulated a game plan:
Step One: Commit to NO Coronavirus news for three days. Probably nothing is going to happen in that amount of time. Definitely if anything does, someone will fucking tell you about it. Probably two or three someones before the day is through. Cut it off and see how you feel by the end of day three. If others keep you updated and the lack of stressful news is working for you, keep it going full-steam. Consider what benefit watching news outlets provides you. Consider, objectively, what the effects are when you ingest these sources in your normal life compared to the intensity and quantity you’ve been consuming since the coronavirus took over our lives. Are you actually gaining useful data, or are you only accumulating a greater intensity of emotion? Make a pros and cons list. Do it.
Step Two: There are 24 hours in a day and you can’t meditate for 20 minutes? You’re not even working this week. I kid, I kid. Probably. Really, though, now is the best time to start relieving stress and exploring your inner world. Try out some guided meditations or write and record you own after you realize you could do it better than most of the fluff that’s out there (the spirit guide ones seem to be the least bad.) Then send me a copy of your homemade ones because I need some better options too. We can trade.
Step Three: If you are under quarantine, call someone on the phone every day. At least once. Even if it’s just for a second and for no reason, and trust your intuition. You might not need to hear another human voice right now, but what if that other human voice needs to hear another human voice right now? Small actions can have huge consequences, or did you not read The Hobbit? That could easily be step 3.5 if not.
Step Four: I’ve been drawn to St. Lucy for a while now. She is usually depicted as holding a dish containing a second set of eyes and I, for one, found this to be blatantly divinatory in symbolism. Not only in reference to the ancient art of basin or water divination, but also the concept of second-sight. The ability to see the spirits, the subtleties of matter, or even the Tao itself all fall, in my mind, under this umbrella idea of second-sight. Regardless of St. Lucy’s patronage to the blind and the backstory of her second eyes being merely replacements for the martyred peepers her betrothed had removed upon discovering her christian ways, there is still some kind of magic in that first set of eyes going with God. Ghost eyes, if you will. Not to mention her striking resemblance to the Delphic oracle; branch in her left hand, water basin in her right.
After some internet digging it would seem that there are some southern cunning and conjure spells dealing with St. Lucy and divination. When intuition and research agree enough to get a foot in the door, you get experiments. I modified a common novena to St. Lucy with the renovated intent to help us see through the illusions in our present lives.
To be recited three times daily for nine days. Burn a white candle each day or keep a vigil candle going ’round the clock. Consider using the timing methods suggested in the previous post to this one to decide on a time of day for the initial and subsequent recitations or, as I like to do sometimes on Sundays, set up any saints or angels icons you have and live-stream Holy Mass as a lead-in to your work. Consider some lubricious psalms or a few Hail Mary’s (nothing crazy, just ten or twenty to get your head in the game.)
As always, I invite you to share any comments, questions, or experiences below.
Reverend Janglebones’ Novena To St. Lucy for the Blessing of Second-Sight:
O St. Lucy, you chose to surrender your sight instead of denying the faith and defiling your soul.
You chose to give your eyes to God rather than to close them to His light. And God, through an extraordinary miracle, replaced them with a second set of sound and perfect eyes to reward your virtue and faith, appointing you as the keeper of the second-sight.
They sold your body to sinful men, but they could not defile your soul; for the Bearer of Light in the Darkness is forever chaste in her Holy Death; a martyr for the Lord.
O St. Lucy, protector of the blind, I rely entirely upon your intercession that I may not be counted among those who are blind to the innumerable splendors of the Lord, but that I may see a great many things which would normally be hidden from view, through the virtue of the second-sight which I entreat you to bestow upon me.
Preserve in me the eyes of my soul, the faith through which I can know my God, so that I may see the beauty in Holy Creation, the flow of the Sun, the Moon and stars, the dancing of the Holy Angels, and every deceit devised by spirits malevolent. That I may never lose sight of His love for me, nor the road that leads me to where you, Saint Lucy, can be found keeping company with all of the holy saints and angels.
Saint Lucy, preserve my faith and enhance my second-sight. Amen.
(Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be x3)
O, Glorious St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr, you greatly glorified the Lord by preferring to sacrifice your life rather than be unfaithful. Come to our aid and, through the love of this same most merciful Lord, save us from blindness to the Holy Spirit and reveal all illusions in our path. Through your powerful intercession, may we spend our lives in the peace of the Lord and be able to see Him with our transfigured eyes in the eternal splendour of our celestial home. Amen.
St Lucy, pray for us and for those in most need of your blessings.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Reverend Janglebones 