cultural commentary from the desk of Don Shewey
INITIATION
Initiation is a lot about knocking on pain’s door and introducing yourself so that when it shows up later, unannounced, you’re not shocked, insulted and unable to cope. If you don’t consciously engage in rituals of initiation, don’t worry — life will bring you pain, and when it does it’s good to recognize your experience as initiatory. Courage is not letting fear of pain overwhelm you. Wisdom (adulthood) is knowing that pain is coming.
–Jules Beckman
OK, friends, I’m making a serious ask here. Three years ago, after the shootings at the elementary school in Newtown, CT, activists engaged a roster of familiar faces from the world of entertainment to make a public service announcement that went viral on YouTube urging citizens to contact their elected officials to “Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence.” You probably watched this video, agreed with it, thought “Good idea”…and, like me, put it on a list of Things to Do that you’ve never gotten around to.
Since then, mass murders by gun-wielding maniacs have accelerated at a horrifying pace. I’m urging you to take time this week and write to both of your senators and to your representative in Congress DEMANDING A PLAN to end gun violence.
I’ve done this today — sent letters by both email and postal mail. Here’s the text of my letter.
“ I am a constituent of yours residing in midtown Manhattan. I admire and respect you tremendously and consider you to be one of the most visionary and enlightened legislators in our country at a time when clear and progressive vision and genuine enlightenment are in short supply. I am writing you today because I am outraged and heartsick at the epidemic of senseless shooting rampages that we are witnessing day in and day out. I demand a plan to do something to bring these attacks to an end. No other country in the world has such an accelerating history of citizens getting mowed down in public by deranged individuals toting weapons that should never be sold in stores in the first place. I know it’s asking too much to ban all private weapons entirely, but something MUST be done NOW to stem the tide. Automatic weapons should absolutely not be available to any nutjob with a driver’s license. New York State actually has some of the most sane gun legislation in the country. I call on you to exercise leadership to write, endorse, pass, and enforce legislation to curb the abuse of deadly weapons without delay. What do you plan to do, Senator, to end gun violence?”
Feel free to copy and paste. If you don’t live in Manhattan, you may need to adapt the text to reflect your feelings about your representatives. To find out how to contact your senators, go here. To find out how to contact your representative in Congress, go here.
People have the power. Let’s do this.
FETCH
Who knew that the sweetest pleasure of my fifty-eighth year
would turn out to be my friendship with the dog?
That his trembling, bowlegged bliss at seeing me stand there with the leash
would give me a feeling I had sought throughout my life?
Now I understand those old ladies walking
their Chihuahuas in the dusk, plastic bag wrapped around one hand,
content with a companionship that, whatever
else you think of it, is totally reliable.
And in the evening, at cocktail hour,
I think tenderly of them
in all of those apartments on the fourteenth floor
holding out a little hotdog on a toothpick
to bestow a luxury on a friend
who knows more about uncomplicated pleasure
than any famous lobbyist for the mortal condition.
These barricades and bulwarks against human loneliness,
they used to fill me with disdain,
but that was before I found out my metaphysical needs
could be so easily met
by the wet gaze of a brown-and-white retriever
with a slight infection of the outer ear
and a tail like a windshield wiper.
I did not guess that love would be returned to me
as simply as a stick returned when it was thrown
again and again and again—
in fact, I still don’t exactly comprehend.
What could that possibly have to teach me
about being human?
–Tony Hoagland
UNDERNEATH
Mythologist Michael Meade says there are three layers of experience. The first is the social layer: “Hey, how’s it going?” “Fine, how about you?” The second layer is difficult emotions such as grief, anger, rage, envy, violence. The third layer is deep soul contact, true intimacy. Meade says that you can’t go from layer one to layer three without going through layer two, and we avoid layer two at all costs. We stay on the surface, where we talk about the weather and who’s doing what on Capitol Hill. We need a way, as a community, to get through layer two. Otherwise, when there’s a tragedy, how are we going to deal with it? If we don’t chew on these subjects, they chew on us….
It’s up to us to devise our own rituals. One of the values of ritual is that it has the capacity to derange us, to shake us out of the old forms. We need that derangement, because the current arrangement isn’t working. We have ceremonies, yes – weddings, graduations, church services — but we come out of those pretty much the same as we went in. You’re supposed to emerge from a ritual wondering what the hell just happened. Ritual connects us to spirit and soul. It can shift us out of our usual state of mind. Ceremony works to maintain and renew social bonds. We needs both, but we rarely have access to rituals that are potent enough to break us open.
–Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, interviewed in The Sun
another eye opens 