CUSP: Climbing Up the Spiral Pathway

I had a particularly odd conversation with a friend several months back, which in and of itself is not particularly odd since most of the conversations I have with this one particular friend tend to drift over into really strange stuff that just does not every come up when I am talking with other people.  It is as though she is the sounding board for all of my weirdshit thoughts and I am hers as well.  It’s a good arrangement, let me tell you.

The topic of this particularly foray into our Jungle of Weirdness was more tame than our usual verbal adventures:  “Why Does Shit Happen?”  We weren’t really talking about why shit happens, as in negative shit, but shit as in stuff.  Why is it that things happen that seem significant and full of portent and turn out to be nothing.  When is a cigar only a cigar (and not a penis as Freud attempted to differentiate)?  (For Freud, as it turned out, a cigar was also death because as an avid cigar fan, he died of euthenasia via morphine following a long bout with oral cancer.)

But I digress.

Often, we who walk a spritual path are dedicated to keeping our minds and our eyes open for omens and guidance, even in the smallest form.  You will hear people from any faiths profess that “everything happens for a reason.”  I love long toyed with the idea that well, maybe it doesn’t.  Perhaps some things happen for a reason and other things are just incidental bullshit that occurs by attrition and chance rather than by grand design.  If we consider the laws of balance, perhaps half of what happens is important and half is just life static.  Truly, if we scrutinize everything that happens in our lives for power and meaning, we are going to get very tired very quickly.

What if everything actually does happen for a reason and is all part of the fabric that creates the giant tapestry of life, but not everything is particularly interesting and important.  It can have a reason that does not affect us or concern us directly.  Maybe some of the things that happened are the ripple effects from a pebble dropped into our lake of life from years and years ago and by the time it gets to us, so much time has passed and the ripples have stretched out so far that not only does it not really even matter any more, but we can’t even remember that it is connected to that long ago pebble in some way.  What if the pebble itself was so insignificant that we can’t even remember that there was a pebble that created the ripple that caused x, y and z to happen 10 years later?  What if it’s like a butterfly effect or “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”  where the gentle movements of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world cause atmospheric changes that result in a hurricane on the other side of the world?  If chaos theory is right, the tiniest effect could create catastrophic results on people who had no clue there actually was a butterfly flapping its destructive little wings.  What if the people who were hit by the hurricane were getting brain bleeds trying to figure out why the hurricane happened to them when it really had nothing to do with them at all and was only about the natural movements of la petit papillon. 

On the other hand, we can also buy into the idea of “grand design” in which the butterfly still flapped its wings and caused a hurricane on the other side of the planet which happened to particular people because they were the ones who were supposed to have a particular set of experiences as a result of the hurricane = all things working together for the good of the Lord sort of stuff.

Here’s one to mull and I am sure you have some of your own.  An ex-priest of mine (with whom I did not part under particularly good terms, unfortunately) who was also friends with Eric (my darling husband), made contact with us and then just disappeared.  There were very few words exchanged and he mostly said, “How are you doing?” and then told us that his life was very different than when we knew him and then he was gone for months.  Mind you, we last spoke to the man around 10 years ago.  It was the email equal to doorbell ditching.  Ring the doorbell and then flee.  I spent some time considering what the purpose might be.  Was there any grand design to it?  Was it a ripple effect from a pebble dropped long ago?  Was there something we were supposed to think or do as a result of the contact?  It was a matter of a few seconds that brought up so many questions.  Now, months after the contact, there has still been only silence. 

For myself, it’s too wearying for me to think about this or “why shit happens” for very long.  The fact of the matter is that while a lot of spiritual leaders will profess with great confidence that they “know” certain facts about how the world and life and spirituality works, the truth is that all of us are just trying to find our own way and keep ourselves and, if possible, others, afloat in the process.  No one knows and those who claim to, to my mind at least, should be looked upon not with admiration, but with suspicion.  The day we start thinking we have a clue is the day that we have lost all credibility.   We can surmise and speculate and theorize until the cows come home, but speaking of any of this in absolutes is the kiss of foolishness.

For me, I think I have stopped trying to sort any of it out and have realized that I am in way over my head if I try to do so.  I love having theoretical conversations with my friends and throwing ideas out there.  Sometimes, there is an essence of truth about an occasional thought that really burns true.  Usually, I will pick up that idea and store it in my closet of “Most Likely True” things and wait for it to be reinforced or kicked out. 

As I write this, I think of what I said in one of the Tarot books I wrote about The Hermit card.  This was probably 10 years or so ago:

The Hermit lifts up his lantern to see the path on which he walks, trying to find his own way as he stumbles along, tripping here and there over barely visible branches and brush, walking determinedly toward home.  The Moths see his light and fly to it, believing that because he has the light, he knows the way and can show them how to get home.  The Moths gather around his light until no light can show through and again, he walks in the dark.

We’re all really in the dark and when some light shows through, it’s a blessing for The Hermit and the Moths.  Let’s just hope we get a little sliver of that beacon before long.