DON'T TAKE ANYTHING SERIOUSLY

jenny

Ground cover snow fell night before last, a dry snow with enough wet to stick where it fell. Years ago I saw somewhere the Lakota language has twenty-eight, or so, words for snow, differentiating the many textures. Possibly laplanders have more. I've lived intimately with snow in the mountains, noting such a variety of snows that I no longer see it just snow. I feel like when I mention snow it requires enough description to give a sense of the kind of snow it is. The Lakota people lived far more intimately with snow than I do. Some snow is so dry, tiny ice crystals, it can be kicked like sand, doesn't stick to tree limbs. Some snow is so wet it sticks to everything, will stand an inch or two high on a wire fence, will stick to limbs and weigh so heavily the snow breaks limbs and electrical lines. Wet and dry are the parentheses all other snows fall between. Since I've learned to pay attention to the various snows, I don't recall any two the same. It happens, the variety is limited, but seldom. No two winters in my experience have been the same. Our language having one word for snow suggests civilization has been moving away from the physical world inward toward mind. For multiple thousands of years humans lived outdoors. Now we live indoors. With the age of reason, we are moving inward, emphasis shifting from body to mind. How we value body and mind shows in the pay scale. Physical work pays the least. The harder the work, the less the pay. Mental work pays more by degrees, until the highest paid work is entirely mental, accomplished in a golf cart. The snow melted through the course of the day until snow remained only in places shaded from the sun. I carried this morning's donkey hay into the meadow to a place the sun lights up first. Cold mornings I'll see the donkeys standing still at the far end of the meadow, the place they know is warmed by morning sunlight first.

jenny at the mineral block

Early humans worshiped the sun as God, life giving, sustaining, destroying. I prefer to call them early instead of primitive. Primitive means first, but popularly is taken for backward. Winter mornings the donkeys stand quietly soaking up the sun's rays in a stillness easily taken for reverence by human interpretation. It is a kind of reverence; it feels extra good. We humans exhibit reverence for whatever makes us feel good, inebriants, money, sex, on one level, and the spirit on another. People new to the mountains know nothing about mountain culture and don't want to, but mention the word, moonshine, and they're all ears, laughing and talking, "Can you get me some?" No. I avoid the word with someone new to the mountains. With hillbillies, we never use the word, moonshine. We call it "white," "shine," and several other names. I bring this up as an example of reverence. I've seen people, both men and women, wax embarrassingly foolish over the idea of moonshine. I'm reminded of a Southern Baptist in New York City without supervision. A reverence for feel-good unto foolishness, similar to a reverence for God in some religions unto foolishness. Killing somebody who shames your feel-good is the ultimate foolishness. All it got the Charlie Hebdo assassins was dead same day or next, whichever it was. They certainly had no peace of mind from the moment of the event onward until flying lead found them too. No matter how many virgins (feel-good) await them, there comes a time none of the virgins are virgin anymore. Even in their heaven, feel-good amounts to a limited time in eternity. Two months or less for seventy however many feel-goods. Honeymoon over, back to the same-o, same-o. Some of the most valuable advice of my life came from Meher Baba, "Don't take anything seriously, not even God." I take it to have something to do with being conscious about reverence. Remember reverence is about feel-good. Don't get stuck in it. The sun moves. The spot that feels good early on a cold morning will shift by midday to a spread of insulating hay someplace else to lie down on, soak up the rays and eat later.

snowbird tracks

It's a tall order to take nothing, not even God, seriously. As a remedy to quiet monkey mind, I can't think of a better way. Taking things seriously charges the mind, makes it race. The more I take seriously, the more I engage runaway mind. For someone not on the path, it doesn't matter. To open self to spirit, mind needs quieting, not swept away, but still as a lake with no wind. The Charlie Hebdo assassinations came out of taking God (Allah), by way of the Prophet, way too seriously. There, again, like freedom of speech, all things in conscious moderation. I learned early to take the candy of good liquor in moderation from the examples of people around me who did not. I wanted to be able to taste good liquor all my life, not have to quit by age 40 or die. I have some easily within reach, but haven't touched it in probably two weeks, and then only a sip for the taste. I've forgotten the last three times in town to stop at the liquor store for some Wild Turkey Rye 101. It's the only bonded liquor I've found to satisfy my palate. Haitian rum is almost equal satisfaction, but I have to go to a city to get it. I can't drink socially anymore for the need to drive home, and hangover avoidance. I like the George Thorogood song, I Drink Alone. I don't like to get out of control and let my inner stupid act out. Not many people can handle riding the bull named Stupid. I know I don't even qualify to sit on him, and him penned up. I sit in the grandstands and learn, watch other people, who thought they were up to the challenge, get trampled. Some people say, Ya gotta have some fun. Trampled by a bull is not my idea of fun. Fun involves feel-good in my dictionary. Like what kind of fun can wrecking a motorcycle be? For masculine credibility it's the ultimate feel-good. I've never been one to need every day of my life to prove I'm not a girl. Can't help but take it for obvious, what of it?

jack

It's a sight how freeing it can be to let go of serious thinking. I don't mean to imply I'm there. I've been conscious of letting go of being serious about one thing or another, especially art making, just enough to have something like a peephole experience. I've seen the good sense in it enough to check myself when taken over by serious mind, to back off and say, this isn't going anywhere, it isn't working, it's not in alignment with the flow. Here again, I see other people acting out serious and it makes me want no more to do with it. It's all about peace of mind. It's unimportant to someone who does not value peace of mind. I confess to some reservation about not taking God seriously at first. Whatever it is we call God isn't even close. If we can imagine it, it's not God. If we can name it, it's not God. Mind is not able to comprehend God. Serious has to do with mind. Mind is limited. The spirit is famous for lightness. Serious is famous for heaviness. We are well trained in the serious, especially in the realms of religion and politics. We leave God out of it, the great unknown we can't even put a handle on, even quicker to run between our fingers than water. I take it for sound counsel to avoid being serious about something I know nothing about, am unable to know about. I believe it is so, if someone were to see God as God really is, it would take one out of the body. While I'm involved with a body on earth, the best I know to do is enjoy being in God's dream. To take it seriously would be like Peter who walked on the water til he thought about it. He took it seriously and got wet. It gives me insight into Jesus mind. He was in the mind of not taking it seriously all the time, not just when he walked on water. He walked on land the same. Remembering when he saw Moses and Elijah on the mountain, I think it was Peter who wanted to build a shrine on the site, take it seriously. Jesus said to let it rest, it was for the moment only. 

sky

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VIVE CHARLIE

The air is full of Charlie Hebdo in Paris this week. At first, it was shock. Now, everybody has an opinion about what somebody should have said they didn't say, or the other way around. Somebody said or did something racist. Surprise. Whoever heard of such? Francis the new pope said something I took for fairly rational and pundits are making him out for a fool, doesn't know what he's talking about. He said something like free speech, like everything else, is good in moderation. To insult somebody's faith is using free speech to harm. He didn't condemn it or say there oughta be a law. He simply noted that speech has the capacity to be harmful. In my way of seeing it, the boomerang of karma came around. Muslim fundamentalists are hyper sensitive to their belief system of absolutes being challenged, the same as American fundamentalists. They're right and everybody else is wrong. To quote Mitch McConnell, "Period." Those people are humorless and of zero tolerance. The Charlie Hebdo people were challenging intolerant absolutists. OK, so that's not PC, but it doesn't matter when they have AKs. If there were a Muslim satire magazine in Los Angeles that shamed American fundamentalism with in-yer-face laughter and mocked Jesus, consequences would be inevitable. In Paris, they're talking like freedom of speech is important. Hearing it with American ears, such talk sounds old-fashioned, like questioning capital punishment, the 1950s. I remember my ears perking up when I heard the talk about the importance of freedom of speech. I can imagine Obama paying it lip service in a rally-round-me speech that, like other American political speeches, has no meaning whatsoever, but as smoke screen for what they're not saying. I wondered if French politicians were not as sophisticated as American, or if American were not as sophisticated as French. Seeing the American part from the inside, I already know our politicians have no sophistication at all. American politicians come from an anti-sophistication people.

I suspect the French have not yet been taken over by corporate mind control. That they have television tells me the probability is not far away. All I know about the French is from French writers and art films. I love the French je ne sais quoi that characterizes French art in all its forms. To me, French is a culture, a sophisticated culture. I don't know if the French appreciate their artists any more than the Americans don't appreciate our artists. I've noticed in films, the French are quick to say, of course, something inhibited in American talking. I can't say conversation. We don't do conversation in America. We do distraction. We talk. An old country saying, a dog is barking to hear its head roar. We talk to hear our heads roar. We are characterized by willful a-literacy. It felt heartening to hear a Frenchman talk of the freedom of speech as something important and sound like he meant it. I wondered if he might be ahead of the times or behind the times. The trend seems to be going away from freedom of speech. The North Korean reaction to the American film, Interview, made fun news. Like all laws, they are for court, after the fact. Abusing somebody with freedom of speech, legal in court, will create a reaction. The reaction will make the abuser cry persecution. The pope left out when you mock someone's faith, a wrath will come back to you in a form you don't want. In Paris, the satirists were walking a knife's edge and they knew it. They were stirring volatile people, fundamentalists, and they knew it. It was their purpose. It's not my place to point out blame. It seems to me a natural law that what goes around comes around. Provoke just about anybody, you will get a reaction in proportion to the hurt delivered. To mock one's faith is below the belt. The return will be below the belt. They knew they were taking a chance. One day death walked in the door dressed in black. 

I'm not saying the Charlie Hebdo people should have done anything differently. There is no should about it. They made their decision, acted on it. Someone else made a decision and acted on it. The reaction I'd call overkill, but it makes a measure of the hurt the satire delivered. My feeling is Muslims are regarded in Paris about like black people are regarded in any American city. The Muslims resent being shunned. They are proud people too. When something extreme happens, they would quite naturally react in extreme, and through a few volunteers do what everyone else wants to do, but can't allow themselves. Another old saying, It's the weak link in the chain that breaks. I call the satirical cartoonists brave people, knowing they were aware of the danger. I take them for people who like the edge, people who climb Himalayan mountains solo. I have freedom of speech, but I don't use it to provoke others with disrespect. I don't do it, because I know something I don't want will come back. This is partially why I am not a satirist. Even if I were, I would not mock Krishna to Hindus or Zoroaster to Parsis. I would not mock Martin Luther King to disrespect black people. This is the difference between me and a satirist in an extreme time. I don't mean to deny them their right. It's just that I don't want the consequences for such action to come back on my head. This is why I align myself with the pope's thinking on the matter. Free speech is a good thing, but push it too far and, like anything else, it breaks. Had they lived, they would have won in court. In America, it's legal for the False News Network to tell fake news. A case of freedom of speech gone awry. Generating hate like they do will inevitably come back on them. The fake televangelists get their fraudulent tax-free fortunes, then are publicly discredited for private indiscretions. They point the finger at everybody else. The turn-around comes and all fingers point at them. I felt like what the pope wanted to say was something like consequences follow words and actions, but it sounds too callous to speak from on high. I think he was talking about self-editing with consideration of others in mind, living in peace.      

        

Fifties comedian Lenny Bruce pushed the obscenity laws and suffered for it. There again, I would not have been one to push the obscenity envelope. It doesn't matter that much to me. The Sixties band, the Fugs, pushed the obscenity laws and spent about all the money they made as a band in court defending obscenity charges. There again, it's not my issue. The satirists in Paris were pushing an envelope of zero tolerance with dangerous consequences. I think of Paris with a large North African underclass, people there for political and survival reasons, every one his and her own story. My first feeling when I heard about the Charlie Hebdo incident was sadness that artists were shot down. Gentle people who don't settle issues with guns. One thing it said to me was art matters. In this country, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ caused a furious backlash. It didn't fire somebody up to assassination, but might have. I remember when Giuliani kept his name in the news for a week over a painting in the Brooklyn museum with a couple of balls of elephant dung, painted, hanging from strings. It was called Madonna. She was black. It offended his faith mixing a black mother of God with elephant shit. He failed in his efforts to have it removed from the show, but that wasn't the purpose. The purpose was his name in headlines. Jesse Helms made headlines attempting to censor Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. He failed, but it drew plenty of attention to himself. I would not drop a crucifix into a jar of piss to make an artistic statement. I can see what Serrano was about, and defend his right to do it. He was pushing the envelope, seeing how far he could go. What it did for Serrano's art was make him famous overnight. I'm all for these people pushing the envelope further and further. I may not want to provoke a backlash, but I defend the right of anyone who wants to. It feels good to see the remaining staff at Charlie Hebdo sold out their edition of three million right away and printed two more million, then two more million. It appears this experience has boosted their determination.

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