Get happy.

The violence with which you defend the existence of a god is a measure of your fear that the god does not exist, reads today’s misfortune cookie.

The people who want a state religion have no faith. They believe that throwing stones will make them be without sin. They need their religion to be enforced by laws and a canon. The Ten Commandments in every classroom and courtroom. A manger scene in front of City Hall. In the holiday aftermath the corpses of Christmas trees litter the streets.

Season’s greetings!

Earth bows to the invincible Sun.

Sol Invictus. The revolution can’t be stopped. Next equinox I’ll be 68. What have I learned from 68 revolutions and many many moons?

To everything a season. A time for every purpose under heaven. A time to throw stones and a time to gather the stones you’ll throw later.

At the end of the longest night the sun rose, as expected, at 7:17. The earth bowed, so we all bowed — “my lord”— and we are bathed in its fire and reborn. The earth is aware, because we are aware, that the night is long and the days are short, but now that is changing. It’s a nice system we have here, but the solar system won’t last forever, and one day there will be no sunrise and there will be no day. The universe arises, abides, and ceases. The chaos and radiance of the universe is spilled across our sky, across everywhere. The universe is aware, because we are aware.

In the last two revolutions we were taught that human breath circulates around and throughout our planet, carrying information and viruses. The viruses colonize us. They don’t kill all of us because they need us to live. They torture and exploit us.

I’m looking at a book about Albrecht Durer and come upon a painting of a depressed man. The depression is drawn in the lines in his face. His body is slumped. His head is supported by one hand, elbow on knee. The other hand is on a flat surface, palm up, holding implements of flagellation. His melancholy is sanctified by a crown of thorns. Christ as the Man of Sorrows is the title. The text describes an image I can’t see that is drawn into the gold ground. An owl attacked by daytime birds. The terrors of the day sometimes attack sleep. You wake up exhausted, and feel the stress in your facial muscles, in the lines in your face.

I take a photo of the image and post it. A crowd gathers on Facebook. 

Meditate on this, your lord of great compassion.

If you are so enlightened, why aren’t you filled with joy? someone asks. 

Can’t a bodhisattva experience suffering?

Don’t you think this painting is really a self-portrait? He is literally beating himself up and I don’t know what his hang up is.

“Look on the bright side of life,” I sing. Are you some kind of Happiness Fascist?

Don’t put THIS Christ back into Christmas. We want the happy infant, not a messiah with a mood disorder.

O child of Buddha Nature! Meditate on this, your meditational deity, your archetype deity. Not as a material thing, but as an image appearing like the reflection of the moon in a puddle. Don’t be distracted.

Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you. Don’t hide your face from me, the psalmist sang.

The universe will wear out like a garment and the Creator will throw it out. And what costume will you wear to all tomorrow’s parties?

Our days pass away like smoke.

A couple of weeks ago the brother of a friend died.

A few days ago the son of another friend died.

Neither death was Covid. 

Last night I had a long conversation with someone who got the virus early on, before everything was shut down. She saw the temporary storage facilities on her street that were quickly constructed to store the bodies. The bodies were stacked on shelves. She got very sick and still doesn’t have her sense of smell and sense of taste back. Some people were still telling her it was all a hoax or media hype. She can’t talk to these people any more. She is tired of all that.

We are weary, exhausted, by the virus, and by the perpetual war on consciousness.

Resilience! New York is resilient, we say. We’ll have to muddle through somehow, over the rainbow — so shout Hallelujah, come on, get happy, we sing. Get ready for the judgment day.

 

Stones will be thrown.