Metaphors for the Afterlife

It's almost midnight but the world around me is already asleep.  I honestly should be able to but I'm so outright giddy that it's impossible for me to calm down.  I'm like a kid on Christmas night, refusing to go to be just to make it last a little longer.  

I'm blessed with the friends I have.  Honestly.  Sometimes everyone feels so far away, but not tonight.  

Conversations from today rush and flow together and leave me with an image that I can't shake.  It's bright and interesting enough that I wanted to share it.  

I was talking to a friend today about my commute between London and my home in one of the smaller neighboring towns.  Often times I get stuck in the commuter rush and anyone who doesn't board fifteen minutes ahead of time is lucky to get a seat, meanwhile first class remains wide open with all the quiet and comfort of a plush hotel overlooking the sea.  To my friend I described first class as a kind of heaven, with invisible angels in business suits occupying the empty seats and he carried it further, adding that one would need a certain amount of karmic merit to ride in the first class cars.  

So lets look at that for a second, shall we?  The train is on a journey, carrying its passengers through the afterlife.  Maybe the train itself is the eternity of the dead: souls perpetually moving towards a destination but never arriving, always suspended between two points.  Or maybe the train is simply carrying them to the next stage of the afterlife...who knows?  But in first class there are the angels, the ones who earned enough karmic merit in life to deserve a bit of a rest in death.  It is populated by the deserving few: Mother Theresa, the latest incarnation of the goddess Kuan Yin, your mother, my mother, or that little boy down the street who had a crap life but could light up the world with his smile.  They ride in silence, talking low, and the deep plush seats absorb the tension from their weary limbs.  In coach you have the rest of us: the poor sods who were neither good nor bad in their life.  Instead we're the ones who muddled through the best we could but never did solve the riddle of our own peace, our own purity, our own endless light.  So we're stuffed into the coach cars, muddled and anxious as we were in life, trying to make sense of our journey until a door opens and we either move up to first class or get off the train entirely.  

The only other area in the train is the engine or the luggage car - he places where people don't belong because they're dangerous or uninhabitable.  So, the beautiful part of this metaphor is that there is always redemption, always hope.  

Because there is no hell.  

The Animated Story

Donald Duck and the Nazis

Before you read this post...go watch the video.  Honestly.  I want you to hold on to the images while you read this.  

When I was a teenager, around 18, I was introduced to Joseph Campbell's book The Power of Myth.  Looking back, I think I might have been a tad too young to fully understand it.  It was assigned as summer reading for my AP English class (note: AP = Advanced Placement.  AP classes gave you an edge because most colleges accepted AP credit towards your college degree.  So AP classes = college class in high school), along with The Odyssey.  Despite my (ever amazing and why-are-you-teaching-high-schoolers-and-not-the-chair-of-an-Ivy-League-English-department) teacher's faith in our abilities to comprehend Campbell's text, I couldn't get past three or four pages without passing out in boredom.  Some ideas sunk in, but others would only be vague notions in the back of my head for a few years.  

And then I picked the book up again.  I skimmed through to my favorite bits, stories that were lodged in my mind, ideas about religion and Catholicism and the spiritual state of the US that I just couldn't shake.  

One thing that struck me the most was when Campbell noted that America does not have a unified mythology.  According to Campbell, myths are more than just fancy stories of other peoples' gods from long ago, myth is a powerful thing that helps the individual to understand their place in the world.  In America, the Christian mythology is the the most common and while it does have a code (10 Commandments), a social structure (attending Church/Mass), and the ever-important rites of passage (Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, Funeral), it is certainly not the operating myth in American society.  Campbell concluded that this lack of mythology, especially the lack of distinct rites-of-passage was the reason why so many teenagers suffered from depression, neurosis, and an overwhelming sense of meaninglessness in their lives.  

YES! I thought when I read that passage.  For me, the awkward, unseemly, embarrassing, halting transition from childhood to adulthood that was the agonizing limbo known as "adolescence" absolutely needed to be done away with.  At 18, the American government says you're an adult, but technically you still live at home and you're still in high school.  At 21, society says you're an adult because you are old enough to responsibly consume alcohol (which...sorry, but....BAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAHAHAAAAA!  Okay, done.).  At 25, you reach your final rite of passage when car rental companies say you're old enough to rent a car.  Disjointed, right?  Meanwhile, there are Indian tribes where when a girl gets her first period, the tribe says, "You're an adult now.  Behave like one."  I think the girl has all of two seconds to be confused and lost before society shunts her into her new role as a grown woman.  

Look, I'm not saying I want society to dictate my life for me, I'm not a freedom-hating nazi or something.  But my brain is chaotic enough as it is, it would have been nice to have had more...direction growing up than just "You're a teenager now!  Here's hoping you survive the emotional rollercoaster of the next seven years!"  

By now I have totally lost you.  What does this have to do with Donald Duck and the Nazis?  

At this point in the story I'm roughly 19 or 20 and I begin formulating some ideas as to what the real American myth is.  And then it hits me: Disney.  Campbell argues that Star Wars is the major mythology and since "Jedi" was actually a religion in the British census recently, I definitely agree.  But there are so many others: Star Trek, comic book heroes, cowboys and Indians.  Yet the mythology that taught me about life and taught me my function was definitely Disney.  As a toddler I was Ariel.  I was swimming around, making my dad do Sebastian's voice, searching for my prince.  From about 10 or so onward I turned into Jasmine: smart, plucky, brave, and independent but still searching for my prince.  Now?  Dammit, I'm MULAN.  Brave, fierce, intelligent, kind, loving, and all around fantastic - in the movie she saves all of bloody China and gets the guy as a bi-product of her awesomeness!  

Disney as the American Myth has become a favorite theme since it allows me to examine my own culture and society, to see how it functions, while immersing myself in the worlds I have loved and cherishes since I was only a toddler.  Today, the "Disney" label extends beyond the Princesses or any of the classic movies to include the Pixar movies (Toy Story 3.  Having Andy grow up with his audience was a stroke of genius and there was not a dry eye in the theater of 20-somethings) and Studio Ghibli (Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away to name some favorites).  

So, it's interesting for me to see these old war cartoons, especially coming from Disney.  It makes me realize exactly how deep Disney's hold on the American identity really goes and fascinates me all the more.  Once upon a time, it wasn't just Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but Hitler and (I kid you not) menstruation.  So isn't it strange that today, when you turn on the Disney Channel, you get Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place mixed in with Tangled and Kim Possible.  Makes me wonder where Disney is taking us with this.  And trust me, I plan to find out.  This is going to be my doctoral thesis, dontcha know.  

If Nazi Donald Duck isn't enough here's Education for Death, another Disney propaganda short.  

As a final side-note, I should mention my passion for all things animated often crosses with my interest in all things weird.  One amazing find I discovered was the National Film Board of Canada.  The animation section is filled with odd, peculiar, haunting, brilliant, hilarious shorts.  Don't be afraid to wander through the kid's section, either!  Another gem was Rock and Rule (link is very sketchy, but gives a good impression), a weird Canadian film made in 1983 whose main antagonist is Mick Jagger.  The latest gem I've discovered is Cool World.  It was made in 1992 and is a cross between live-action and animated worlds a la Space Jam and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (don't deny it, if you're a 20-something you watched and loved both these movies).  I haven't actually seen any of the movie yet, but it's on my to-do list.  

WHEW.  I think it's time I quit babbling and went to sleep.  

¡Buenas Noches, mis amores!




Arg, not done.
Salvador Dalí + Disney = Destino (2003)
Need I say more?  Absolutely beautiful.

Notes from a Small Island

Sorry Bill Bryson.  I can't help it if your book title is an apt title for this update.
It's funny, the rhythms that get into my head: words and phrases tripping across the wrinkles of my brain like music notes tripping down a staff, up along scales and arpeggios.  My effusive mind overflows with music: a kind of intuitive remastering of dialogue, the sounds of birds, airplanes flying over head, footsteps shuffling across cobblestone memories that eventually reaches up into my consciousness, into my heart, and is made manifest in my emotions.  I've been accused of being sensitive, overly so, but I've never found a way to NOT feel everything.  It's a gift, albeit one I'm still learning to master.

And as my cups run over I find myself in stark contrast to the British attitudes that I honestly cannot adopt.  After living here, truly among British people and not as some glorified tourist, I've noticed that the British waste very little and that includes emotions.
It's a kind of social and emotional economy that utterly baffles me.  Words are not wasted on hyperbole or exaggeration, there is no such thing as wishing out loud even though you know your wish is impossible.  No verbal or emotional flight of fancy.  Not even the so-called British sarcasm spares any extra emotion: friendly jibes are delivered with such dead-pan that, to the untrained ear, sound like serious insults.  It's more than just "stiff-upper-lip" here - emotions beyond "fine" and "happy" are carefully controlled and compartmentalized and forgotten about with little more than a cup of tea to mark their occurrence.
It sometimes makes me feel lonely.  Among Americans "I want a puppy" is just a way of saying "That puppy is so cute!  It would be nice to have one."  In that statement there is an understanding of the feasibility of this desire: if the wisher has a small, cramped apartment with no money, it's a given that it will probably not happen until the circumstances change.  In Britain, however, saying "I want a puppy" more than three times to your British boyfriend and you are taken seriously: a situation that not only increasingly aggravates your boyfriend but makes you seem irresponsible and out of touch with reality. Do you see what I mean?  An economy of emotion.  And I can't adopt such an economy because I've always had emotion to spare.

Although, I could be stereotyping/generalizing.  It's entirely possible since the sample of the British population on which I am drawing these conclusions is quite small.  Besides, there are those British people that, even if they still have a sense of emotional economy, are not afraid to reach out and ask "Are you okay?" when my emotions are tumbling through my face.  Those Brits make things easier and make me feel less alien and I thank them.

Still, I am homesick for the States a bit.  Not for the loud, boisterous, 'MERICA world but more for a place where saying "Al-U-min-um" is "correct" (rather than "Al-u-MIN-ium"), you're not constantly told "You don't speak English, you speak American", and your accent doesn't mark you out as a "foreign" person.
Living in the States I always felt sort of alien, like my attitudes marked me as something other than American.  I thought that in coming to Britain that would change and I would feel at home here.  In some ways I do.  I love London more than any other city and even in the worst parts of that city I feel safe.  What I didn't expect was being singled out.  Somehow, the attitudes that made my British boyfriend tell me I was born on the wrong side of the Pond are not enough.  I need to assimilate more than I want to in order to honestly belong.

The Dreamer and the Engineer (The Lovers Part II)

Talking about being various dinosaurs today, someone said they'd be a T-Rex.  I turned to my boyfriend and told him he'd be a Brontosaurus since they no longer exist.
"You know that means our relationship doesn't exist either, right?"
"Eh, I'm used to having imaginary friends." I replied.
"What, like your gods?"

What...what do I do with someone like that?
It's not faith for me...I abandoned Catholicism because it demanded faith.  My gods (yes, all of them, from Diana to Ganesha to the distant ones like Ishtar) have populated my imagination and my emotional life since I was a kid.  One of my favorite quotes from Neil Gaiman goes, "Things need not have happened in order to be true."  Maybe the gods never existed, but their energies, their impulses, the pulses of their own souls (because the gods feed off our love, our worship, our energies we use in devotion to them) are absolutely true because our hearts and our minds MAKE them true.  Of course I believe in the invisible because the invisible has been with me all my life.
But...in that one comment...I feel like I saw it all from his eyes.  Gods are children's things, things that are little and useless and to be outgrown to make way for the progress of science.  Yes, religion is flawed.  Religion is flawed because HUMANS are flawed and we always have been...and while science uses objective methods to create objective results it looks down on those who believe.  Science, to me, while useful, is slowly becoming arrogant and condescending.  It lacks empathy for other peoples' emotional and imaginative experiences.  At least, that's what he seems to be demonstrating.

I'm emotional, so I'll end it here.  I only post this bit because it helps me to sort out my identity and where I stand.
So, yes.
I stand with the gods.  Every single one of them.
I stand on a mountain with their voices rushing up behind me like the wind.  I stand with the people who worshipped them, the people who loved them - then and forever - because it is their combined voices that generate the spiritual song of the universe and demand that we raise our own.  Yes, of course, the servants of the gods are often corrupt and muddle the messages, forwarding their own agendas for power and domination over the demand for love and compassion.  Yet the impulse towards the Divine - that impulse is pure.  It is that pure impulse that gives me hope that we'll get it right and it is that impulse that makes me raise my voice to join the music of the spheres.
Namaste.
Blessed Be.
Amen.

Moon Glow (and Other Wonderful Things)

Two posts in a week?  What madness is this?
In reality, it's not madness.  I have merely been inspired by the fact that I have an audience.  Blogger has this tool that allows you to see who is silently stalking your blog: it tells you how many hits your site has had, where those hits are coming from (there is/was someone in Germany and Lithuania - I SEE YOU!), and even what OS they're using.  Pretty snazzy if you ask me.

It's raining like crazy here in England and that is brilliant, but when the sun doesn't come out, you have to be your own sun and persist in being happy.  So.  Onward!  *trumpets*

The title is taken from a song by the band Redbird.  Take a listen!  It's a lovely little love song: happy and mellow and cool.  It's been on my mind, what with the full moon and my spiritual side flowing back like liquid moonlight.  If you like that song, you might also want to check out Drunk Lullaby.  My boyfriend is a dub-head, kind of like a dead-head but instead of being a Grateful Dead fan he's always listening to dub-step and deadmau5.  So Redbird's music is a wonderful tonic against the pounding bass that often fills the house.

What else is wonderful right now?  Webcomics.  Yes, webcomics.  There must be thousands of them out there, all deserving a shout and some free publicity.
First on the list is Busty Girl Comics.  Rampaige, the comic's creator, updates daily at noon (or 5 PM if you're in England) and her comics deal with the perks and problems of having a particularly busty chest.  Even better is the community that she has fostered.  In an Internet that is filled with h8ters, trolls, and general douche-nozzles, her site is all-inclusive.  In her comics she depicts women of various ages, sizes, and backgrounds (a few have had women in hijabs) and on her site she works to provide support for busty women (no pun intended).  I love it because she talks about boobs from a woman's perspective, rather than the male's idea of Holy crap, boobs!  Must...grab...must...stare...drool.... which seems to be the predominant narrative of a lady's mammary bits.  This past week Ms. Rampaige has been on a much-deserved hiatus and her updates have been handled by guest artists, including one MaggieKarp who is also worth a mention.
The second one I want to mention is Scandinavia and the World drawn by one Humon.  She also has a Deviantart somewhere in the dark corners of the Internet, but SatW is by far my favorite of her creations.  If you don't know anything about Sweden, Norway, Iceland, or Denmark the comics are a great crash course, and if you're an American who enjoys hearing what the outside world has to say about your culture it's brilliant!  All the countries are personified as men with their sister counterparts (so you have Japan and Sister Japan) while some countries are actually children of other countries (Fennoswede is (a) actually a country and (b) Sweden's son with Sister Finland).  The only downfall is she updates sporadically, but it's a small thing in light of her awesomeness.  Also, SatW is where I first learned about Eurovision (sorry, America isn't allowed to play)!

Finally, a friend asked me to talk about gaming.  I am not a gamer.  I am dating a gamer.  I have dubbed myself a "gamer groupie": someone who loves gamers and loves watching them do their thing while playing games, but refuses to pick up anything more than a casual game themselves.  For a very long time I have happily sat on this fence like mockingbird perched on a tree branch filled with cardinals.  Yet lately, one of the cardinals (namely my boyfriend) has decided that I'm not a mockingbird, but a cardinal in disguise, and has been putting me on more "hardcore" games.  It started out with Portal and Portal 2 (non-gamer people: Ever heard the phrase "the cake is a lie"?  You can thank Portal), both great games but frustrating as hell if you have problems thinking in a non-linear fashion or in three-dimensional space.  Even so, I was successful!  Encouraged by my success, I ventured into my first "real" game: Bioshock.
Bioshock takes place in a post-apocalyptic city in the 1950s.  This city was built underwater and stylistically the game is a steam-punker's dream come true.  Between that and the storyline, conveyed through directives sent to you via radio and recorded diaries you pick up throughout the game, I really *really* enjoyed it.  You get to work with both "magic" (known as "plasmids") and have powers like telekinesis, electro-bolts, fire balls, etc. and weaponry, starting with a basic wrench and working up to chemical throwers and cross-bows.  During the game I favored machine guns (I can't aim to save my life) and rifles (dead in a few shots!).  The hardest part, honestly, was switching between the two.  I was playing on the boy's PC where the right-click allows you to switch, left-click lets you fire, and the scroll button scrolls through your list of powers.  Scroll buttons are stupid!  I could never land on the plasmid/weapon I wanted and it cost me some time and health as I got shot while trying to attack with a machine gun rather than the less effective wrench.  For a really really awesome and hilarious review, I suggest Zero Punctuation by the fabulous, sarcastic Yahtzee.  Go here!

Right.  That's what's on my mind right now.  Did I cover everything?  I think I did.
For now.
:)

Fire and Earth, Air and Water (Lovers)

My blogging habits here are sporadic at best mostly because I don't want to post in this unless I really have something enlightening or constructive to say.  This time it isn't as much enlightening as a need for personal enlightenment.

Be patient with me, please.  My soul is a tree with parched roots, its branches and leaves inhaling the world around them as they forever reach for the sun.  

Okay.

I don't understand my boyfriend.  

*furious blush; fights the urge to run away*  

Or rather, I am still flabbergasted by how different we are!  He's an engineer: all head, all science, balanced by his love for those around him and his uncanny power to transform into a rambunctious five year old at the drop of a hat.  I'm...damn, I'm me.  A dreamer first and foremost, I've been a writer, an artist, a theatre kid, and a scholar at various points in my life.  Beneath all that is a kind of spiritual current that sustains me.  When I was Catholic I sat in the stillness of empty churches and talked to the Virgin Mary and God like they were old friends.  As my worldview expanded and my Catholicism collapsed, I started casting about for anything that could sustain my need for spirituality and I eventually settled on a vague sort of paganism.  I can read tarot, know next to nothing about palmistry (although still love looking at peoples' hands), and every time I see the Moon she takes my breath away.  I think of the moon and I think of water, I think of the surf cresting and swelling, breaking her reflection on the sea into thousands liquid jewels.  

My boyfriend...not so much.  As I type this he's watching yet another engineering video, most of which flies straight over my head.  It's...cool.  Shiny.  Gadgetry.  Dry.  

Last night was the transit of Venus, the only time in our lifetimes when Earth, Venus, and the Sun will align.  With my love for the stars and his love for science, it should have been a perfect connection.  It didn't pan out that way, though.  While he saw "AWESOME!!!!!" I saw "black dot across big yellow ball".  It wasn't until I saw the images from NASA that I understood.  But even then, it's still so distant from ME.  

I walked downtown along the River Thames today and was thrilled by the little things: baby swans following behind momma swan, momma swan attacking any duck or goose that dared to look at her babies funny; ducklings all fluffy and little (and maybe I had never really seen ducklings up close until then); baby grouse (which I had definitely never seen before); and two ducks sparing over a female.  The sun and the wind and everything around me had me singing...  

I had a dream last night that, admittedly, was inspired by Jim Carey's movie "The Truman Show" in which Truman's life, from birth onward, has been nothing but a reality TV show.  Everyone, from his mother to the milkman, are paid actors in on the secret.  Fortunately, my dream was different.  Somehow I had been elected to be the star of a theatre production of some sort.  Everyone knew about it but me, so when they announced it, people were cheering for me and everyone was happy.  There was a pool in the center of the crowd, so I dove in and started swimming like a fish.  All I could think was, "I should do this more often".  When I got out of the pool, I was walking out with a bunch of girls who were really nice.  They were telling me about the antics of the director, Ryan, and how hard he was to work with.  But it was okay, because I had been in the same theatre company as Ryan before, so I knew what I was up against.  Then the dream ended.  

Water.  Swimming.  In Tarot, the cups are the suit of emotion, represented by water.  I'm happiest when I'm swimming in these emotions and feel the world around me, rather than just thinking about it.  Swimming in the tides of life, I'm free and peaceful.  I have the power to emotionally sustain myself and use the surplus to sustain others.  

So our personalities, our basic urges, make this relationship...odd.  As an engineer and an utterly British man, he's not one to show his emotions.  A slight frustration here, anger there, but a real, honest outburst is rare.  I love him, but because he's all air, all gadgetry, all brain, I wonder how to connect with him.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve.  If I try to hide them, I fail miserably.  With him, even grief is shoved away in work or gaming.  I don't understand. 

In the end, the real issue lies with me.  I need to be myself, spirituality, singing, joy, and all.  Intellectual passions he is fine with, even artistic endeavors.  But when it comes to matters of the spirit is where things stop, for while he doesn't judge me or look down on me for my beliefs, he has no way of understanding.  So it gets cut out in me because I have no way of sharing it with him.  I think...I think that's how it goes.  There is an enormous disconnect there, a disconnect I can sum up with one scene: 

Sitting in Starbucks one evening I watched as a seagull fly overhead.  Suddenly I said, "I wish I had wings..." 

"Why?" he replied.  "There's nothing up there."  

His response shocked me a bit and I felt stung.  "What do you mean?" I asked.  

"Well, not until you get out of the Earth's atmosphere and reach space." He said.  

I made a feeble attempt to defend myself but I couldn't articulate what actually having wings meant to me: the freedom, the escape, the dream.  

But that's us: the dreamer and the engineer.  What to do, eh?