THE HEART OF THINGS INVISIBLE

 

tj worthington

 

Earlier today I was looking at how I have changed on the inside since the move into the unknown, a rural road in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I came here at the beginning of my spiritual journey that started in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart, where all ladders start. The last lines of Yeats' poem, Circus Animals' Desertion, stayed in the front of my mind as the ground I stood on to begin a new life in the unknown. "Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start." The ladders of my ambitions before, my desires before, my beliefs before, all came to an end at the chopping block moment of realizing God is. At this moment now, writing to you, I saw an array of delicate multi-colored flowers and the head of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of beginnings, remover of obstacles, surrounded by radiant flowers. The image faded away. I used to want images that came like that to stay, and regretted them fading away. By now, I've learned to enjoy it when it happens and be grateful it happened. I keep a picture of Ganesh on the wall. A friend bought it from a vendor in the Mumbai airport for something like a dollar, the image made with dye on an 8x10 rectangle of cloth having a simple, Rouault quality about it. It is my favorite Ganesh image of all I have seen. The picture of Ganesh below is the closest  feeling I could find to the image I saw in my mind's eye, though it was only his head I saw and flowers.

 

ganesh

 

 

The moment I caught on that God, indeed, is, I could not go on living as I had lived believing God a creation of the human mind for the few to control the many. Turns out, it was religion I confused for God. I was able for the first time to see behind the mask of religion, beyond to God as God is, the Christ as the Christ is, the heart of things invisible. The same may be said of Krishna and Allah, Buddha. It was different from seeing Jesus the uber-judge, sitting on the right hand of God the Great Judge, tapping his foot for the chance to condemn me to hell on the least zero-tolerance charge. "You shook your fist at me and cussed me once for not giving you what you wanted. For standing up to the Great God of Testosterone, it's the pit of never-ending hell fire for you, to scream in agony forever." The heart of things invisible, a vision of God I can live with rather than dread I might have gone too far this time when I take a drink of good liquor. The heart of things invisible says, A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And the dire warning from the Judge On High, You better not. I came up in a medieval interpretation of God calcified over multiple centuries, complicated by Protestantism into John Milton's judge on a throne of adamant, and wrung dry of spiritual relevance by American fundamentalism.

 

paradise lost

 

It took fifteen years to clear my head of the theology of you-better-not. It all finally gone, the heart of things invisible pulled me to itself like a fish that took the bait, pulled to the bank by the hook hidden in the bait. Reeled in against my will. Reeled in by a power that seemed to be outside myself, which turned out to be my own higher self, the heart of things invisible. I needed to live with this new realization I could not deny. It was a hundred percent convincing to mind and heart. I needed time to digest what I'd learned and learn more about it, find a way to live that honors the heart of things invisible, and go on living in the world of work, living among other people in a spirit of solitude. Not dismissing others, rather embracing others, allowing others their own spirit of solitude. I've found the spiritual path to be in the world of others, not separate from. The solitude I wanted, I found I could not live, because I needed interactions with others, simply by being a social human being, and there was no sense that I could see in denying it. I went looking for balance, time for solitude and time for others. Do both solitude and social in a spirit of detachment and it's all the same.

 

tj worthington

 

By detachment I mean something like not being driven by things I want for myself, like fixing the rust and dents on my car and having it painted a deep gun-metal blue with money I don't have. I would like to realize the beauty of its lines. But so what. It runs like a race car, has good suspension, a fabulous engine that will just about make the back end drag the ground when I push the pedal to the metal. I can't want more from a car. A car that does 200 in six seconds would land me in the hospital, the grave or jail. It would probably be stolen first by big time car thieves that leave no traces. The car I drive, I can count on no thief wanting. It's the oldest and rattiest looking car in any parking lot. Thieves like flash, not rust. My house looks so ratty, no satellite dish, thieves don't look at it twice, but as something too old-timey to have anything in it of interest, an old-man car parked by the road. And Justin spread the word years ago, "That old man is crazy. He'll shoot your ass. He don't care." My favorite people are of the class of people thieves come from, working class people squeezed out of making legitimate money. They know by my reputation I respect them and honor them. They would be my bodyguards before they'd take from me. I feel confident on my spiritual path that I have learned to honor and respect the down and out people. They're beautiful people, too, when you know their hearts. I'm grateful I am now able to see the most in the least by way of the heart of things invisible. I'm grateful to live in a community where everybody has my back and I have theirs. I've come to learn what it is about humility God loves so much, learned it from the mountain people where even the tough guys have it.

 

 tj worthington

 

 

 

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GROUNDED

jenny nibbles afternoon grain

                                       Now that my ladder's gone,
          I must lie down where all the ladders start
          in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart. 

                                                            ~WB Yeats
                           from Circus Animals Desertion

Saw a news headline today, a flood in the capital of Georgia. I hadn't heard of a flood in Atlanta, then realized it was Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the country between Russia to the north and Turkey to the south, the Black Sea to the west and Azerbaijan to the east. It is one of the poorest countries in the Western world, a consequence of its history and geography. The Tbilisi flood set loose the animals from the zoo, and they needed rounding up. How do you catch zoo animals in a flooded city? I saw a Georgian film last month, In Bloom, a beautifully made film, a peep-hole view into post-Soviet life, a picture of how a couple of families live their everyday lives, two teenage girls in school. It is my only experience of Georgia, other than seeing it on a map. Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia, a city about forty miles by highway from Tbilisi. He gave Georgia a kind of status in Soviet times, though post-Soviet, he's not much of a tourist draw. 

jack nibbles afternoon grain

I read the brief article about the zoo animals in Tbilisi and WB Yeat's poem, Circus Animals Desertion, came to mind, one of my top favorite poems of all time, all places. I googled the title, found the poem and read it. Came to the end and there it was, a purpose in my destiny, the place I set to start my new life in the mountains, the foul rag and bone shop of the heart, my own interior stuff, the bottom of the ladder, on the ground. At the beginning of my new life, I worked a farm with 22 head of beef cows and one bull. Sent the calves to market every fall. Cleared some land with a bush axe of saplings and young trees grown up the first several weeks, working self into shape. Hard labor and solitude. Tom gave me the job to see if I could take it. If I couldn't do it, he'd be rid of me from the start and not have to fool with a simpleton on the farm. I took it for boot camp, focused working the body into shape. I wanted to come down out of mind, self-image, everything false about my motivations and wants. Hypothesized hard labor and standing on the ground the best place to start, living simply on the edge of the woods, farm on three sides, a gravel road and one neighbor on it. 

jack and butterfly

I'd separated self from a host of habit patterns like on a chopping block. It was an extreme move. I knew, making the decision, there would be no turning back. This is it. Figure it out. My prayer had been that I would like to go someplace with a living culture where English is spoken. Appalachian culture came up with an opening. I thought, if this isn't answer to prayer, it's awfully coincidental. It was difficult in the early years, coming from an absence of culture, initially, then a decade in Southern culture, enough to see it going away, being swallowed by the anti-culture, anti-community wave sweeping the land with set determination. Mountain culture continued. It would last at least long enough to provide a taste of a way of life, albeit one on its way out. I have not totally adopted mountain culture for my own, because then I'd be conforming to codes not my own. I came here to find my own codes. I have adopted many of the mountain codes for my own for their practical application to everyday life, like Confucianisms. I never play education one-upmanship with any of the hillbilly people I know. And they know it. It's part of my name. Also, I don't make apologies for my education. I did it because I wanted it for my own self, for my own development. You're not apologizing for quitting after the seventh grade and I'm not apologizing for sticking with it. I had to prove to the people around me I was not looking down on them by not looking down on them. It was easy. I never looked down on any of them from the beginning. 

jenny

I can't talk down to anybody. One of the first things I learned in my first year is I aint got nothin on no hillbilly in the entire Appalachian chain. I found them such intelligent people they humbled me. First maxim I gave self was never attempt to fool anybody of these mountains for any reason. It will not work. It may for a minute or two, but when it stops working, you'll never see a sign of it. They just pay less attention to what you say. Ralph Stanley, speaking of the mountains was also speaking of mountain culture when he said, "They keep you humble, they put you in your place." I had found my place among a people I respected. I learned respect from hillbillies. I asked my friend Jr Maxwell when he was into his late seventies, who he had looked up to along the way. He said he looked up to everybody. It was all he said. It needed no amending. At the moment, I took it for somewhat self-serving, but learned as years went by it was a concise statement of fact. I understood why so many people looked up to Jr. He looked up to them first. He was decidedly the most humble man I'd ever known. He was so deeply humble within himself that he never needed to show it the way people do pretending. It was simply who he was. I threw my ladder away when I left the world of commerce. I have preferred to remain on the ground throughout my stay. I like what Joseph Campbell said about ladders. We spend our lives climbing a ladder and when we reach the top, alas, it was the wrong ladder. I'll stay on the ground, in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart, and not concern myself with ladders. Ladders deceive. I could not have donkeys on a ladder. 

jack

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