Practically Spiritual.

"Dreaming To A Purpose"

This post more or less sums up the mission statement (though I prefer the older, Frencher term raison d'etre) of Practically Spiritual.

Don't take this "personal," but...

Unmitigated jerks and extremely spiritually advanced people have (at least) one thing in common. Both kinds of people love to tell you not to take things personally.

When I'm feeling particularly copacetic and one with nature, this might roll off the back like water from a duck. But typically I feel like saying: "How interesting! Would it be personal to you if I shoved your meditation pillow down your throat?"

Recently, though, I came to a realization. People are like icebergs. Most of who and what we really are is floating beneath a dark, uninviting sea. Only our everyday selves poke through up above the surface, and they are often unrepresentative of who we really are. Under the waves of everyday life, we are enormous, tender, strong, guided by currents that the surface doesn't see.

Using the heart, you can sense some of what is really there, hidden under the cold sea. So lately I've been much more interested in doing that. I forget about the world above, and I find it easier to be kinder, more generous. Oddly, I feel like I'm getting to know people better.

Zen And The Art of Dental Hygiene

My father and I are at a Buddhist retreat. Most of the time we're not allowed to speak, but my father and I break this rule when we're alone in the dormitory or when we think no one is watching. My father commendably brought me up to quietly break any rule I happen to find confining, as long as no one gets hurt.

Alone in our dorm room, we eat M&Ms and I ask him those important questions I've been meaning to for such a long time, like What makes you think so-and-so is gay? It is a crucial bonding experience and much better than a vow of silence -- one can do that anytime.

At the retreat, we each belong to discussion groups where we are officially allowed to talk. My group focuses on the environment. My father's discussion group is for Vietnam vets and is considerably more peppery; I secretly wish I could switch but I doubt I could pass.

In my group, people discuss their feelings of helplessness. We are small. Humanity is pushing the ecosystem over the brink and there's not a damned thing we can do about it. A total downer. We discuss the temperature of the room. It's a hot summer day. Should we turn the air conditioner on? We decide: no.

One woman is miffed. No, she's angry. The night before, in the dormitory bathroom, she had observed another woman letting the faucet run while she brushed her teeth. "How can a Buddhist waste water?" she says.

A Guru Among Rats

I am twenty-three years old and working a series of ill-fitting temp jobs. A few days a week, I work in a dark office as "support" for doctors who research anesthesiology.

Even though it is officially the twenty-first century and this is an institution with an impeccable worldwide reputation, I spend at least an hour or two each day wrangling with a screeching electric typewriter. The rest of the time, I reorder office supplies of which we already have a vast quantity. How many cartons of red Bic pens might we need suddenly? At least thirty, apparently. (I don't know this yet, but this urgent overstuffing of an already-full cornucopia of office supplies is a regular feature of such jobs.)

My favorite task is typing up research manuscripts, as this stimulates my mind and makes me feel like I'm actually being useful. Reading along as I type, it becomes clear to me that what they do in this particular lab is anesthetize rats and then torture them with electric shock. In order to tell how well the anesthesia is working, the researchers count how many times the rats' legs twitch, and then graph this information. To me, this seems to be an appallingly medieval sort of "science."

One day, the secretary who works there full-time asks me quietly, "Have you figured out what we really do here?"

I twist up my mouth. "Yes."

"Are you going to leave? The last part-timer we had ran when she found out."

Folie a deux, adieu.

I have studied the Tarot for a decade now. It is still unfolding its secrets to me.

In the East, cream-colored temples soar toward the sky. Their heads bowed, long processions of orange-robed monks wind like a burnt-umber river across ancient stones. For a seeker, it must be paradise.

In the West, all the secrets are passed down in a battered pack of cards you could fit into the back pocket of your jeans. The golden arches glow neon in a faded sky.

In my early twenties, I hatched a most excellent plan. I really didn't like my boyfriend at the time, but that was all right. I needn't go through all that uncomfortable mess of, you know, stating my feelings and breaking up with him -- no! The way I saw it, since he was somewhat older than me and carrying around a pot belly that suggested impending quadruplets, he would probably die in...oh, thirty years, give or take.

THEN, I planned, I could have the life I dreamed of. It involved visiting artist's colonies, travelling to Egypt,  generally being a merry old widow. In the meantime, all I had to do was tolerate him, which I could, more or less, do. It seemed a much easier row to hoe than actually speaking up for myself and, in general, this was an entirely reasonable plan.

One secret I'll give up: The Lovers appear in more than one card.

In their own card, they stand together shy and the nude, their hands linked. Spreading his wings, an angel offers his benediction. Sometimes Cupid cocks a harmless arrow. Flowers cover the ground. Fruit hangs heavy from the trees. I do not think that this is the Garden of Eden -- it is some other strange place, maybe somewhere without sin or shame, maybe a place of second chances.

Then The Lovers are together again, nine cards later, chained together and deformed. It seems as if they have missed some crucial chance. Now, The Devil looms over them, leering from beneath his twisted horns. The Lovers seem to have created their own existential hell. No matter what they say now, they cannot get out. How come I never noticed them there before?

A concerned girlfriend took me out to Applebee's. "You don't seem happy," she told me solemnly over a basket of chicken tenders.

"Oh, I am!" I burst into tears. Well, maybe not really.

But I couldn't leave him, I informed her earnestly. It would hurt him. I must not hurt anyone; it was against cosmic law. Besides, he owned all the video games. I was most of the way through Tomb Raider 2 -- where you can drive a motorboat! -- and I couldn't leave Lara Croft.

My friend crumpled her straw wrapper into a tiny ball. "I'll buy you a fucking Playstation with any video game you want," she said through her teeth. "Get the hell out of there!"

He say, "I know you, you know me"

One thing I can tell you is you got to be free

-The Beatles, Come Together

Thank God someone slapped some sense into me then or, as my best friend cheerily reminds me now, that relationship would have made me so miserable and fat that they would have had to bulldoze the front porch just to get me out of the house. That's good relationship advice, girls: leave a bad relationship while you can still fit through the front door.

So, I'm free. I don't know where the old me got the screwy idea that "even incidentally, even in self-defense, thou shalt not hurt anyone," but it seems to be a viral idea among women, especially the younger set, this new bulimia self-harm generation. Tough world. No one here gets out alive, I believe Jim Morrison once said.

Now I tell my clients that love is like a boxing ring. When you step over the rope, you can expect to hit and get hit. It's the happy cost of intimacy. Pain is guaranteed. Along with it can come dizziness, delusion, like flies on rotting meat. As The Devil reminds us, relationships can be petri dishes for this kind of thing.

If you can claim for yourself a bit of clarity in this world, like a good spot for your beach towel at the Fourth of July fireworks show, watching people wind themselves up in delusion and struggle around like larvae can actually be briefly entertaining, before it is devastating.

You never know when you yourself will be called back, reeling, into the awful dance.

The Empress and Emperor sit peacefully, their smiles calm. He wears armor underneath his robe. The Empress carries a heart-shaped shield with the sign of Venus.

They never occupy the same card. They live next door to one another, cards three and four. She is surrounded by grain and sweet-smelling grass, he by sun-drenched mountains. They share an empire, but neither invades the other's territory.

(Clearly, however, they visit: The Empress is totally knocked up.)

"Why I Love Having My Own Tarot Card"

By Death himself, who -- like the rest of us -- has a blog.

Choice quote: "Unfortunately, the tarot card industry is no longer about the kids, but it's become all about the money."

Slowing down.

I have a big Tarot event tonight, with thirty people expected to attend. It's not the first such event I've done, but I get nervous every time. Once it actually starts, I'm fine, but beforehand -- it's tough to shake the jitters.

I completely understand why some Hollywood stars throw up before they step on set. But I hate vomiting, so instead I'm doing what I usually do when things start to feel overwhelming: slowing down. There is a lot of comfort that comes to the soul simply from the act of dawdling, relaxing, and taking one's time. This is truly a lost art.

People raised in warmer climates are apparently better at relaxing than New Englanders are. I think it's part of why we love to visit the tropics. People there seem unafraid to take siestas or lounge on the porch enjoying the sunshine. When I travel to places like this, the sweet nectar of life drips blissfully through my veins.

At home, our society moves at unnatural speed. And I love plugging into that mind-race, watching MSNBC with the scroll running across the top and bottom of the screen, guzzling down four caffeinated sodas in a row while I type, driving eighty miles per hour down the highway with the iPod pumping.

The speed is exhilarating. It's a high. But it does rattle us, and many people struggle because they can't slow down, even when the speed becomes painful.

Science says that our bodies are mostly water. In the Tarot, water symbolizes emotions and the heart. Like water, if we are going to be calm and clear, we need to be able to move slowly and gently. Otherwise we'll find ourselves whipped into a murky emotional froth. A lot of energy gets wasted this way and, like too much of anything, it can get very uncomfortable.

As any doctor or Buddhist teacher will tell you, meditation is one of the best ways of slowing down your body and mind. But when I first started to meditate, I felt like I was suffocating. I got a stomachache from trying to breathe the "right" way, and a headache from trying not to think. Who the hell would want to do that again?

Eastern-style meditation can still feel like an austere discipline -- I think it may not have translated all that well into our everyday culture. As a Westerner, it can take time to "get it." But the effort pays off.

Here's a short cut: don't meditate, luxuriate. This can be done anywhere -- you don't necessarily need a cushion and a statue of the Buddha. Just stretch. Slow down. Sink into your surroundings. Appreciate the vivid colors around you, the chirping of the birds outside the window. Breathe deeply and gently, and relax. If you are doing anything, do it slowly and feast on your senses and your slow breath. When you do this, you will feel truly alive than at any other time.

I'm no expert in meditation, but at least I'm getting better at luxuriating. It helps a lot.
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