In anthropology, students have long struggled with the epic question - are people who are very strange to us really just like us?  Nowadays, mass thought has us believe automatically that they are - from jihadists to people who put gages in their cheeks and devil horns under their skin.  But this might not be accurate; we had trouble with this ourselves in fieldwork with Amazon Indians, and it remains a question with me still.  Yes, certainly we all have similar needs for sex and food and such basics, making us all more or less rational in providing for these needs.  But how do we interpret our world around us?  And how might a different interpretation make us behave differently, even as to how we fulfill the most basic needs?    

In "Giordano Bruno" by Ingrid Rowland, we learn that even those of our own Western early modern past were, I think I can say, "freaky."  It was not just that they thought that the world was the center of the universe, with the stars and sun set in concentric spheres about us, but that demons and spirits of various sorts regularly intervened in our lives, and that future events could be accurately depicted by a study of celestial entities, thought of as personalities rather than inert matter.  Queen Elizabeth herself had a  court brimming with intellectuals who could conjure spirits and read the stars, informing her and counseling her on such things as the religious wars in her own country and the wars with others, including the famous attack of the Spanish Armada. While each decision was made with rational thought, each was also colored by the belief in spirits and the heavenly struggle of good - God - and evil - Satan.  With such beliefs, millions of people died. We can see this acting as well with Muslim fanatics now - most are rational people who can drive a car and calculate the value of a watch at KMart, but can also kill thousands in what they see as a just cause.  

None of this is surprising to anyone with a knowledge of history; but see how, even for ourselves, things and happenings magically appear to confirm our vision of the universe.  Yes, not all fits in, we know, but these anomalies are but bumps in the road, soon to be smoothed over with a little more of our same knowledge.  Thus they also thought in the Middle Ages.  The early modern period did not come to dominate through a smooth progression of knowledge, but by a painful and violence-filled struggle that left people and lands in desolation.  Giordano Bruno was one of the geniuses who, through the revival of Greek thought, helped to shatter the old world and usher in the new, the present, the enlightened.  

But really, this is not true; we have simply replaced an old set of wheels for a new one, supporting the same rickety old wagon. Our world not only happens to make sense as if by magic - rather, our sense of it IS magic, no less or more so in the great void of being than those primitives from the Middle Ages or the Amazon.  Our science tells us not only what we know but what we don't know, conceding that it does not know everything - but never conceding that it is not on the one and only right path. What we don't know is conceived in the same framework as what we know; and obviously, if the framework is incorrect, we will never find out a vast proportion of what we don't know. 

Magic, spirits, astrology - no more insipid than our concept of matter, of time, of our very meaning of being.  It was a child's game when I was young to imagine ourselves as ignorant in the future as our distant ancestors (or the primitives) are to us - but that remains a child's game.  We don't believe it, we can't believe it; we have climbed from the darkness of ignorance and found the light of pure reason; we are on the right track, at last.  But still, oddly, we don't understand our own selves, can't get a handle on why we do things as we do, can't banish the boogie man from our dreams, can't dispel the idea that somehow we are not fulfilled, are not following the right path.  And it is in that, in these private moment of doubt, that we are right.  We know we are right with the simple weight of history and ethnology: how could it be that we alone of all time and peoples have somehow got it right?  But it is much more than that: it is our spooky shadow that lets us know, that glimpse under the bed that scares us so.  It lets us know that we do not know.  It calls us to something else, something far more spooky than bad dreams and transparent demons, something beyond the senses and the reality structures of all history and cultures.  We have called it by different names, given it different clothing, but it is there, waiting, just beyond the pale of the magic that is our fleeting grasp of reality.  "Reason" cannot tell us what it is, but it can lead us to know that it is there.  FK 

  

Today, a new chapter in "Hurricane River," "Devil's Choice" after "Derek."  To be found in the website under "Hurricane River."  FK
 

Continuing to read the biography on Giordano Bruno, I came across the chapter on the Holy Ass, or as it was also called, the picaro.  The latter term was not new to me - I had heard of it often in Venezuela, and was often its victim.  To me, one who had some stuff and money, it was not a holy thing at all: it meant rather theft and trouble.  On the streets of Caracas, one sees people selling things literally spread on the street, the "shop" being nothing more than a grungy blanket on which to display the wares, as often as not such small and uninteresting items as toothpaste and deodorant, at cut-rate prices.  It did not take me long to figure out where these cheap items came from, for often I would be unable to find my toothpaste or deodorant after spending a few days in a hotel.  At first, I thought I had merely displaced them; but the items on the blankets finally led to the correct conclusion: the maids were stealing small items from the clients to sell at small prices to these street vendor "fences." Although the value was small, multiply what I lost by several score a day and then add that to the salary of these maids.  It was a classic case of "spreading the wealth," and in many ways, the Venezuelans understood this as such; why, we who could afford a hotel could certainly afford a tube of toothpaste now and then!  And so the "picaro" was often seen as a Robbin Hood, delivering justice from behind the scenes, although on a foolish - even asinine - scale.  

It was not always so benign.  When my future wife and I were robbed at knife  point, I did not laugh.  That I was refused phone service by the cheap hotel I was staying at to call the police was another slap - better, said the owner, to lose your watch and passport than have the police come.  That meant only trouble, bigger trouble than thieves carrying knives.  That was the flip-side to picardia, that everything was corrupted from top to bottom. And so it remains in Venezuela and is its biggest plague.  

But the comic image of the picaro remains, and we find that in Renaissance Italy, it extended to the realm of the holy.  Bruno himself was well taken with the image, and wrote a satirical, yet serious piece, on the Holy Ass.  One city, he notes, claimed to have the petrified tail of the donkey that  Jesus rode on as he entered Jerusalem, celebrated by Christians as Palm Sunday. On this date, it was paraded through the village, with the ecclesiastical admonition that the relic should not be merely touched, but kissed - that is, that one should kiss the ass of an ass.  A soft ball to comedians if I ever saw one.  

But it has its serious side.  There is a song popular in the Spanish Caribbean that goes, "La Vida es una Tum-tum-tumbalo," or "Life is a roulette wheel" its ups and downs not subject to our efforts, but rather to the movement of the heavens and ultimately, God.  The Holy Ass, then, is not only a thief at times and jester at others, but a subject of the will of God, no more in control of his life than an ass.  Whatever efforts he makes to improve himself financially are always foiled by divine fate.  It was held, by extension, that we are all Asses in our way - that he best laid plans of men are still only those of mice. We are all fools, fools because we believe we can beat Life's casino, when the odds are always and forever against us.  Life, instead, will ultimately and always win. 

It is this that Thomas Merton and scores of holy men and saints before him alluded to when speaking of the "self", or in modern parlance, the "ego."  Behaviorist psychologists would do well to study them.  It is the notion that we are not free as long as we are trapped in our small cocoon of self - that instead, we are controlled by our emotions and desires and social norms rather than a will we believe to be free, just as the animals are led in their own behavior. Free will, then, is a chimera to the typical self, who only is a play thing for the cosmic roulette wheel.  Rather, real free will is the effort to move beyond the small self, to become, as it is often put, a true human; that is, to share, as humans are able, in the mind of God.  When our will is thus willed to be the instrument of God, it is then and only then that we cease to be the fool, for we then know from where our destiny arises. 


But  wait!  And here is the beauty of the metaphor, and a glimpse into the Medieval scholastic mind: who is the biggest fool?  For society, it is the holy man, who lives in poverty and self-abnegation.  The picaro is a fool as well, trying to rise above his station, only to be brought down through the cosmic wheel.  The aristocrat, however, is above this fray, for his station is always high.  But is it?  As we are all on the wheel, those who are stationed highest in life are the greatest fools, for they think they are above the fray - only to fall into judgment like everyone else. The picaro knows at least that he is on the fringe, and is not surprised when fate brings him down again.  He is aware of the wheel.  And the holy man?  He knows the wheel and is able to rise above it - not he cycle of life and death, but the cycle of accumulation, of ego satisfaction which will always end in failure on judgement day.


So it is that Jesus rode an ass, and that he chose unlettered "asses" as his disciples.  The holy ass is indeed more capable of the holy - of rising to meet the wheel - than the great men.  To be simple like a child is to be a fool - but also to be open to the will of heaven. 


And so Bruno laughed at the monks and lay faithful kissing the ass of the ass, but praised them as well.  It is a delicious twist for those of a certain kind of mind - and it holds some truth.  The picaro, the holy ass, wheels closer to the holy man than the great powers that be.  They are fools, but closer to enlightenment than those who disdain them.  Still, I would like that watch and passport back.  Call me a fool.  FK                                

I hope yesterday's blog answered Rooson's terse comment on writing to be heard, at least in part.  Does this writer fear being raked over "the proverbial coals?"  Yes, I suppose, as much as I would hate any negative aggression towards me.  But we take the risk - it is not exactly the rack we are facing.  Does this writer wish to be seen as witty or sage?  Well - I suppose I wouldn't mind, but as I am an inquirer and student more than a teacher or guru, that is not likely to occur.  Clearly, it is clear that I do not know the answers to life's great questions - only the questions themselves and the direction others give who are definitely wise - the great writers and prophets of the ages.  Do I cast pearls before swine?  Got me on all fronts.  Are these pearls?  Are you the readers swine?  I have doubts on both but haven't a clue.

Rather I continue to write because that is what I feel compelled to do, for reasons both clear and obscure.  Bikers gotta bike, tigers gotta hunt, some of us gotta babble.  

Not so with the subject of a biography I am now reading by Ingrid Rowland titled "Giordano Bruno."  A Dominican priest of mid and late 16th century Italy, he is most noted as the guy who got burned at the stake at the hands of the Inquisition in 1600.  For those going to Rome, a statue stands of him facing the Vatican as something of a reproach - remember me, most Holy See, and what your benevolence did for me?  Even now, anti-Catholic and free-thinking groups gather around the statue every Feb 17 to commemorate the immolation.  And although I am only 60 pages into the book, the author has made it clear that Bruno thought, like the scripture he often quoted, that he was sent to "bring fire to the world."  He wrote because he thought he was brilliant and necessary, even as the Vatican brought fire to him.  He would not recant; and if for nothing else, he should be noted for his bravery. He stood by what he wrote - talk about the "proverbial coals"!

Why he was burned will be made clearer in following pages, but so far, the reader is to understand that he questioned the physical divinity of Jesus.  Of greater interest to me is the other offense mentioned at this point in the book: he conceived of a limitless, infinite universe.  In the cloistered world of Christendom, that thought was enough to spread panic.

Imagine that: that a written idea could have such power as to cause one's death - and we today question the notion that writing could have much importance at all; this, just these simple thoughts, without accompanying pitchforks and revolution, for Bruno was at heart a Christian pacifist.  

We still see this today, of course, and such intolerance is the mark of totalitarian states everywhere.  But while one can see how the truth held in ideas can make corrupt regimes like those in North Korea or Cambodia quake, how could this happen in a theocracy that had so long had such power?  The answer is helped by the revolution of the Protestant Reformation, but the Catholic Church had had other purges well before the Reformation.  Could they have felt that vulnerable?  Why so, if their message came directly from God as they believed?

And yet, there may be a message here for all of us.  Although in the US and other democratic states, imprisonment and death do not follow from unorthodox ideas, ideas can still get one into a lot of trouble.  For us now, these critical ideas are seldom about God anymore, as if we no longer care enough about God to have such ideas matter.  Rather, they generally concern politics.  Look to see what can get a writer into trouble now and one will see where an insecure orthodoxy is in place, whether that concerns race, gender, immigration, or any other touchy and taboo subject.  Just as the Vatican was jealous of its hold on God, and the Victorians were jealous of their hold on sex, we now are jealous of our hold on social and political views.  Every week we see another politician or commentator fall to some words that fail the test of orthodoxy.  Why?  Why, if the righteous are so right, should they be so touchy?  Perhaps one has to look to Bruno to find out, for the Church has long lost its political power, and now is losing much of its moral authority.  But how could they have known that their version of truth was so fragile?  And how do we know that today of our own tabooed ideas, that they are so vulnerable behind the curtain of orthodoxy?  

Ideas and writing matter, at least some.  Bruno felt called, either out of egotism or duty or both, to express what he did, and in more ways than one he at least brought fire to the world. Whether or not he was a fool, or tossed pearls before swine, is debatable, but that his was a lasting voice is not.  The statue still stands, accusing the Vatican of hypocrisy, for better or worse.  FK                            

When I was an undergraduate in Philadelphia and experimenting with all manner of different things, I came to the heady conclusion that all the written wisdom of the world was as nothing -  that it did not advance anyone anywhere.  For me, to say that I was young and foolish was a decided redundancy, for I had lots to learn about everything, but this I did understand: the last steps to knowledge is a lonely journey, one that must be taken apart from all things "man."

This was well understood by the ancients as well as the primitives, and much is made of it in otherwise incomprehensible mythology: the dragon to be slain was not a corporeal thing, but the false reality of life itself, the Real veiled behind every fear and fantasy imaginable.  

And so we find Fr. Thomas Aquinas in his last months of life in the last pages of the novel, "The Quiet Light" by Louis de Wohl. Failing not in health, but in a certain quality of vitality, his caretakers become worried and try to do everything they can to keep him on this earthly plane.  But Brother Dominic, the sacristan of the Dominican convent in Naples, will have none of it, convinced that Aquinas should be treated like everyone else, according to the rule.  It was with this attitude that he caught Aquinas in rapture, standing before the altar alone, captured in an odd light, his face contorted in pain and longing.  He watched him for some time until he saw Aquinas, with all his massive bulk, rise fully three feet from the floor, and then heard a voice: "Thomas, what is it that you wish most from me?" And Thomas's reply, "Only you, my Lord."  Brother Dominic, needless to say, mended his ways.  

But it was what happened next that caught my attention, for the levitation is hard for us to believe nowadays, although they claimed it happened fairly regularly in the Medieval period (blinded, perhaps, by their own myth?)  Says his caretaker after Thomas has returned to a fair normalcy, "You will get well and finish the Summa [Theologica] and then..."  to which Thomas replied, "I shall never write again, Reginald.  Everything I have written is like straw...in comparison to...what I have seen."

And so, I believe,it is, for what any of us write.  To experience God, as Mosses was warned, is to be consumed by fire - it cannot be done without a death one way or the other.  But for those of us with feet of clay, we are sometimes allowed the smallest of glimpses, or hints, really, of the nature of the fire, and it was from those glimpses that I learned decades ago that all our ordinary efforts are like straw.  That, as the mystics say, time and space and everything in it are as nothing, and to convey this reality, this glimpse of timeless reality, is hopeless.  It can only be done through the dragon, or the martyred saint, or in the myriad ways in which religions and myths are laid out for us, as Thomas came to know.  

But we, the confused, must (I think) continue to read and write of such things, as small tufts of straw that all of it may be, for the writing of other things is so strong, so conclusive, so convincing. Who would believe in the power of the spirit dragon after one has seen an atomic explosion?  Might we believe, then, that our factual knowledge is the locus of power and all else the straw?  

As such, we are often thrown little bits of spiritual straw ourselves, that we might add to the voices of those who sometimes understand, however slightly.  It was thought that the gods of Olympus evaporated from neglect, and so it might be that Reality, too, could disappear from our sight due to neglect.  

Although I doubt it - what fool does not realize from time to time that he is a fool, and that a real drama is passing before him even as he jests?  But still, writing has its purpose, just as a sign has a purpose; it is not the territory itself, but a warning or a heads-up for those going on the same road.  FK