31 March
Dear Diary,
I think this place is bullsh!t. The whole "peace" movement is too vague and unrealistic to me. We say in soft, restrained voices, "Let there be peace where there is war," etc. Yeah, fucking easy for us to say! We live in faraway, safe places and have cartoon images of places like Israel and Iraq, and we say, "oh dears, stop fighting," like we're out-of-touch grandmas who have no f'n clue what happens on the real, mean streets. If we cared enough, we'd do something. Instead, we feel bad. We wish it weren't there (like a dustball in a corner too high to reach). But what do we DO?!
Funny how my hostess, with her Maori ex and half-Maori kids, has BS race politics. "Maori are in a victim frame of mind," she said. Um, because that's the TRUTH! She says they need to give kids individual opportunities, books at home vs. booze, etc. Even following her flawed, BS, simplistic diagnosis and Rx down the road, the System doesn't make space for Maori turnaround success. Even if all these fams and students became braniac whatevers who could answer every white-framed test question perfectly, there's no room for them (jobs, for example, scholarships...) BS BS BS BS BS til there's reparations and system overthrow.
2 April
Dear Diary,
Thoughtflash: Us moneybags first-worlders so often go off looking for The Truth, Enlightenment, etc., when really, if you're living right, you don't have to go off anywhere (or into any subculture) to find those things. Example: Tonga. Their love of crunk and American TV doesn't take away their 'spiritual nature.' It's about being comfortable with who you are as a person, and having people around you who you love, and being self-sacrificing for them. There's more... and a simpler way to say it too...
Fuck these people, who dismiss rap as too agro while only knowing the loud bass vibrations and not knowing shit about hip-hop culture. [The retreat center staff were always complaining about their neighbor's boomin sound system.]
Guess what? Drugs and booze are fun! They are no less pure than altering yourself by listening to the same awful chant song overnovernovern
Overnout.
11 April
From Nov 1972 "Lovestream Magazine" - one of the gems on the retreat center's bookshelf
"You may go with your Cup where you may fill it at whatever fount you choose. You may drink of the muddy waters of mankind's effluvia, or you may, through conscious effort, sip The Nectar Of the Gods." - Ascended Master Hilarion (I did not create that pseudonym)
Today was the sweatlodge. I sweat out whatever is left after your balls have been sweat completely off. "Let us be one with the infinite sun" was too infinitely sung. The back pain from sitting unsupported for 3.5 hours was worse than the heat, as were the complete darkness and claustrophobia. It wasn't a perfect ceremony, there were flubs [a firemaster stood guard outside the door, and the lodge leader harriedly yelled out to him: "Can you get my lighter out of the rugsack... (long silence)... no, the THIRD pocket..."] How perfect do the spirits need you to be?
One woman was given a new name (the spirits whispered it to the Maori woman assisting the lodge leader, who, by the by, was a white Brit who'd spent 30 years in New Mexico living with the Lakotas). Some people still acted annoying (e.g. the loud jokester lady with her dumb jokes like "I think that stone has a cold spot in it!") and I was still annoyed by them (not transcendent of my negative ways). A few hours in, I had the idea that my sweat was birth fluid from Tori Amos -- the only one who was there in high school to teach me about feminism -- becoming my new mom. A definite highlight.
We sang words in a language I didn't understand while stuck sitting in an uncomfortable position -- it was just like church. Indeed, at Catholic mass, when it's all in English, the congregation is still set on monotone repeat mode -- perhaps we all are wondering: What does it MEAN?! I did implicitly trust my sweatlodge guide, but I guess what I'm saying is that my first ceremony didn't sink in on a level that was without a need for some translation.
ANYway, it was fun to say "hey" and "ho" a lot (no, we weren't signing Hip Hop Hooray -- sorry but the bad joke needed to be made). Ok, it was fun for the first 30 seconds: My problem with all this "spiritual shit" (and I say that not without respect, but rather to be funny) is the shitty music. I swear, the first moment I fell deeply in love with hip-hop -- high on Jersey weed, listening to track 1 on Latyrx's self-titled album -- was also a moment of transcendence, I believe no less valid than smoking a peace pipe while listening to drums.
Nature is a goddess but so is city energy. People, life, ACTION. I'm beginning to question this hierarchy of "purity."
It's nice to recognize your tribe. SFO, sex drugs n rap -- I'm comin home.
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