Archive for Seattle
Dropping Appendages
So, today, on “sick” leave, I took my daughter to see “Roman Art From the Louvre” at SAM. As usual, we managed to completely miss the “concept” and started yawning immediately at the overpowering presence of imperial art. However, at one point, the thing no one was pointing out became perfectly clear. And my ten-year-old daughter wryly pointed it out first:
“All the men are missing something.”
The disease of the missing appendage (and the castration of the imperial Roman Empire) had visited statue after statue. From Nero, to Caligula, to Jupiter, it seemed that no man, and I mean no man, was left intact.
There was no mention of this phenomenon on the little audio headset. None of the docents would divulge anything. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise in the tour group I managed to hijack for about ten minutes. Not even the security guards, usually good for something in a moment of boredom, would condescend to having noticed anything er, missing.
What is the cosmic value of this? When Minerva is missing a forearm, Neptune a nose, and the divine Jupiter a penis? A penis? In the span of history, what’s a penis?
It’s just that when they’re ALL missing one…and Roman art is so…IMPERIAL…and the critics are saying it’s so IMPORTANT…and the penises are all MISSING…well maybe I’m not feeling it. Maybe I’m not mature enough.
I can’t help but picture it: does some art thief have a box of appendages somewhere, in a dusty basement? And what of it? I wonder if, in light of the power of the Roman Empire, the actual size of the human penis seemed insignificant, unable to approach the grandeur of the symbol? The icon not representing reality, as it were? Phallogocentrism, without a center, as it were? Perhaps the Emperor himself dispatched a randy thief to take the penises, and hide them away from public view, lest anyone know the truth…
I’d like to find that box of penises and put it on display somewhere, calling it “The Emperor’s New Clothes: A Study in Retro Symbolism.” I’d mount the missing appendages, next to representations of the approximate size they were believed to be, with metrics relaying the difference.
And there would be sausages for sale at the cafe (snicker).
Traffic Caused by Massive Underwear Shortage
“OK, so I had a little gas…”
…said my husband, as i lowered the window, maneuvering through traffic…
Monday mornings. Seasonal Chaos — the movement from loose summer nights into fall. The first full week back to school. A disarmingly sunny few days, meaning we spent too much time outside. Who knows why, exactly, but this morning was particularly rough getting out of the house. Chez moi, it went something like this:
We were all running about twenty minutes late, with the exception of my husband, who left himself about ten minutes to get dressed and get to his bus (a mere soupcon of moments to transition from sleep to work). Groggily, he wandered through the dining room and asked, “could you drop me off at the bus stop?”
My daughter complained that her nose hurt and her “legs were weak.” I did a quick scan of her energy and concluded that she had probably stayed up too late sneaking Harry Potter by flashlight.
The illogical prognosis: “you’ll feel better when you get dressed.” I don’t know why, but this always works. “OK” she said, “is my my Animal Planet t-shirt clean?”
I felt a sharp shock as I realized that no one had bothered to do much laundry this weekend. Did we have clean underwear? As I lifted a very light-feeling box of Weetabix, I then also realized that we’d blown off the grocery shopping, and it was going to be a mix-and-match cereal day.
As we climbed into the car and wobbled into the glorious, disorienting-to-Seattleites morning sunshine, my daughter exclaimed “I forgot to brush my teeth!”
Prognosis: I handed her a Starbucks napkin and told her to do her best.
Then my husband rubbed his chin, “I forgot to shave!”
Prognosis: for once, there would be at least one man walking around today with a sexy, “oops, I forgot to shave” beard that wasn’t staged. (I often wonder, how does James Denton, who plays Mike Delfino, the world’s sexiest plumber on Desperate Housewives, maintain a consistent 5-o’clock shadow? Every. single. episode?)
I left my disarmingly sexy husband (with actual, unstaged bed-head as well) at the bus stop, and hit the express lanes. I grudgingly contributed to the carbon-emissions which were horribly apparent as a brown ribbon within the clear sunny weather, making the bay sparkle and the mountains stand out like they were blue etchings on the sky.
I felt such a sloppy, chaotic mess on this beautiful planet. Why did we seem so out-of-sync with nature this morning? Which planetary transits might have this chaotic effect which disturbed the small, but important details of our morning routines…?
When I hit the gridlock on I-5, I realized, maybe it wasn’t just me and my family. Maybe a lot of us had gotten up late this morning, played too much in the sun this weekend, stayed up too late reading Harry Potter, forgotten to shave, had critically low clean underwear and breakfast cereal levels…and now we were all piling onto the freeway at the same time.
Or, maybe it was a local phenomenon. In Seattle, it’s still sort of summer about halfway through October. While everyone else is putting on scarves, walking through crunchy leaves, and behaving like a Robert Frost poem, Seattleites are still coming home to a Norman Rockwell summer evening on the porch, the barbecue, kids in the sprinkler.
What was it that caused our chaos, and the resulting traffic…I may never know. What I do know, is thank the goddesses and gods for Mike Delfino and his staged beard, and the new season of Desperate Housewives, the start of which will indicate “Fall is Here” to the West Coast.
Happy Inter-Dependence Day!
As usual, I’m a bit late on the sentiment, but the whole notion of inter-dependence just finally gelled over the past few days, especially after seeing “Sicko.” But the sad state of the United States on this Independence Day is too broad, so I’m focusing here specifically on my corner of it, and how
Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.
attributed to Chief Seattle
Yes, we know that Chief Seattle (Sealth, pronounced See-ahlt) probably did not speak in 19th century rhetoric, but the sentiment here is useful: it speaks to the usefulness and the problems of America at the same time. The usefulness is that America tried a republic, where every person is an individual, free of tribal limitations and responsibilities. The problem, of course, is just that: that there is no tribe, no looking out for one another. And nowhere does that lonely tribelessnes feel more palpable, perhaps, than here in Seattle.
However, that independent streak is strong. As in the case of this man, the Man Who Did Not Like Curves. The Manifest Destiny in the photo is breathtaking:
R.H.Thomas was the Seattle City Engineer who designed the Denny Regrade, among other things. The Denny Regrade used to be Denny Hill, but it was in an inconvenient place downtown. So R.H. Thomas decided to remove it, so boulevards could run straighter, without hinderance. I wonder: was he Capricorn?
During the regrading of Earth’s sensuous curves, native graveyard remains were disinterred (“DAMN THE TORPEDOES! Why does that always happen? ” R.H would have cried, if this were Sink the Bismarck, which it isn’t, but doesn’t he look like he could play a part in it?) Anyway…in order to avoid a sticky political situation, the work of dumping dirt into the bay was moved to night time. Hence, that term for night shift, the “Graveyard Shift” was born, right here in Seattle. (My source is the Seattle Ghost Tour Guide.)
I like to think of R.H. and his odd, Earth-moving habits, and I wonder: what was he really trying to prove by changing the shape of Earth itself? And what kind of example is that for your children? To build a damn street. Straight. (It’s no wonder we got people like Richard Nixon, who believed that a for-profit health management organization, which made a profit by limiting health care, was a good idea. But I digress. For the full irony, go see “Sicko.”)
Of course, all of this could all go away in ten seconds. Since much of downtown is built on fill. Also, the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and much of the waterfront, are supported by a seawall. If the Earth ever decided to let off some serious stress through the shallow Seattle Fault, much of R.H. Thomas’ legacy would slide right into the bay.
Which is why I’m on Earth’s team. When the Nisqually quake of 2001 hit, I was in my bathroom. (Really, greeting the energies of Mother Earth is a naked affair. I don’t think R.H. got naked much, by the looks of it.) The house shook, and I was scared, but ecstatic: it was like witnessing the entrance of a grand lady into a party that’s gone stagnant. She was here, and she was moving the sidewalks.
I am not sure if others share in my celebration of catastrophic, seismic events. For an Earth Event fan, I do seem to be living in the right place: there are at least three active volcanoes in the Cascade Range, and there’s that Seattle Fault line. If Earth is going to let loose, we’re sitting on a major vent. Scary. But then I didn’t sign up for the book group version of Earth.
So, R.H. Thomas’s regrade was a success, and it’s now “Belltown” is one of the trendier neighborhoods. But I’m happy to report that the regrade mentality hasn’t much caught on. No one has thought to level the pesky volcanoes or patch up that bothersome fault. It seems Seattlites have adapted to the energies here. Not nearly as elegantly as the Salish or the Duwamish, of course — this is still an American city, trying to look and act modern, while it sits on a gateway to an ancient, organic world. In the end, Seattle has this weird way of “regrading” its ghosts and encounters with Mother Earth in very pragmatic, R.H. Thomas kind of way. For example, UW geologists got stymied in trying to sort through the mountains of geographical data, and turned to Salish stories in order to pinpoint major seismic events Before The White Guy Era.
In the geologists’ case, a few Salish myths were a prudent thought-laxative, resulting in 8 tidy seismic events, complete with physical locations. Because no one in a linear society likes holding an inchoate sense of data. No sirree.
However, when myths get in the way of progress, we have no problem regrading. As in the case of the Sunken Forests off Mercer Island, which were caused by earthquakes. The tribes knew that the Earth had moved the forests, and associated them with her powerful energy. The tribal leaders told tribe members that the forests were dangerous, and to stay away and not strip bark from the exposed tree tops. It was a pragmatic myth, saving the canoes from damage, but it also honored the power of Earth.
The White Guys, however, noticing that the trees snagged their boat hulls, took to dynamiting them out of the way.
Which means the Seattle approach is truly inter-dependent within the ancient and modern worlds we simultaneously inhabit, so that our lives and heads are spinning. Organic? Manifest Destiny! Earth Energies! Jet Planes? Seattle is thoughtful enough to nod to the myths, even used them when we need to, but calloused enough not to let them get in the way too much, which leaves a general sense of irony and complete loopiness in the air.
However, the Independent Spirit is free to innovate, outside of tribe. But, why does it seem that everything that comes out of Seattle is tied down by the Prostitute, the need to sell one’s soul for security? Microsoft brought us the PC, and opened a dimension in our consciousness, but Microsoft comes with a sense of burdensome ownership and marketing. Where do you want to go today? Anywhere, as long as you sell us your soul. Starbucks, of course ties us directly to the earth, the senses, the enjoyment of the here and now. With a dose of World Domination. Great innovations from Seattle carry a distinctive Seattle terroir: mythic, creative, with a heavy emphasis on Independence, Manifest Destiny and the right to Protect Self-Interests.
As it stands, Seattle is spiritual enough to have let a few curves back downtown, but in an ironic way, of course. The Lusty Lady had this to say, right after the February quake:
The State of Washington was admitted to the union in 1889, under the conditions of naming itself after the first American President. In an attempt to make its mark upon a wild place, the United States Government stamped its most ancient, most venerable ancestor upon the new western state. The name “Washington” is there, but it doesn’t really take. I wonder if it is because there are trees in the woods having centuries of precedence over George Washington.
In spite of Seattle’s sometimes all-embracing, sometimes laissez faire attitude toward mythology, the palpable spirit of Earth and shamanistic cultures is depicted in Pike Place artist John Strongbow’s “Secret City” series. John’s drawings show myth in stark, uncanny color, contrasting with a monochrome urban background. John writes,
In a modern milieu, these colorful dancers, priests, mythological beings, and shamans are healers of contemporary man, who, through his own lack of spiritual insight, has been reduced to a walking ghost.
So…what would it be like if the Invisible Histories became the most palpable ones on our city streets today? What if the shamans who silently row amidst rush hour traffic in Strongbow’s work were visible to us? What if Microsoft were shareware, and Starbucks covered the globe in order to share the wonder of enjoying our senses? What if we let Rapunzel out of her tower on the Fremont Bridge, and stopped trying to play Prostituted, Modern American City? Because really, where else can you put one hand on a Geoduck, and the other on a PC? If we have a chance to reconnect to our lost sense of inter-dependence, it’s here.
I think it’s time for an Aquarian manifesto and yet another Seattle innovation: true inter-dependence, not just between ancient and modern, but between selves. Let’s get beyond the pragmatic nod to the past, and really embrace what it means to be part of a tribe of individuals, with respect for one another and our environment. Unsuspicious, caring, and damn it…LOVING OUR NEIGHBORS.
Solstice Wishes
Happy Summer Solstice!
Every summer, the police threaten to arrest the painted naked bicyclists in Fremont’s Solstice parade. Every summer, they never do.
Here’s to the power behind that fact, and the idea that nothing outside you fears can stop your crazy dreams. Not even the Seattle police.
Here’s to berries, flowers, long hot days, evenings on the porch, crazy new adventures, and all the usual familiar ones. Here’s to letting dreams blossom, and here’s to the bright side of nature.
Happy Solstice!
The Sacred and the Profane, on a map
The more I contemplate the work of Chuck Pettis and the Geo Group, the more I appreciate Seattle.
According to the website, “This project made Seattle the first city on Earth to balance and tune its ley-line system. The project received front page coverage in The Seattle Times. Five years later, the April 1993 issue of Seattle Arts reported:
“Some artworks start life in fiery controversy and eventually find enthusiastic acceptance. When in 1987 an artist working with individuals from other disciplines cre- ated an artwork tracking the invisible ‘ley lines’ in the Earth’s surface – imposing a grid of lines over a satellite photo of the Seattle area and placing crystals at significant junctures, then beautifully framing the whole thing to hang on the wall – it sparked a brief but nasty battle over the separation of church and state, art and faith. The (Seattle) Arts Commission was accused of funding a New Age, pagan sect. Now the work hangs happily on the wall of a new home the DCLU (Department of Construction and Land Use in the Dexter Horton Building), where many visitors figure it must somehow relate to the City’s zoning policies.”
A quick overview of ley lines: cosmic energy lines come into the earth at a perpendicular angle, turn to travel along the surface of the earth for several miles, then drop down to travel through the earth, and exit on the other side from where they entered. The part where the lines travel the earth are Ley Lines, and where they drop into the earth are called “Power Centers.” Many sacred sites (such as Stonhenge) are lined up with Ley Lines, or mark Power Centers.
I LOVE that the Geo Group has made visiting Power Centers an easy activity: the website has photos and graphic instructions on how to approach each one. Namaste, and thank you.
I marvel that I’ve been able to put this routine into my bag of tricks, when I’m feeling down, low on energy, or in need of a creative boost. My favorite power center is in the Washington Park Arboretum, near the UW. There is a power center near the baseball field and swings, and Chuck Pettis has left detailed clues (down to how many paces you need to take, from a certain tree) to find it.
When I am here, I feel like turning cartwheels and being generally silly. I leave, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, creative, and back to myself. I also know that my feeling better helps the earth feel better.
It makes me regard our ever-constant stretch toward divine awareness, and how we feel we must distance ourselves from our egos, our fears. Most of us learned to be horrified at our bodily functions, and we definitely don’t want the Earth Self to be our Whole Self. I think this fear of our Earth Self is part of what happens when we do not regard the Cosmic energies which are working in tandem with Earth. When we disregard these energies, it makes it easier for us to spoil our landscape. This attitude also spoils our own bodies, and makes life a living hell. As Caroline Myss writes in her new book “Entering the Castle,” identifying wholly with the Outer Self is Hell.
And I would agree. We need to acknowledge the Cosmic energy working within our Earth energy. And visiting earth power centers is one way to palpably feel it. Looking at the map above is a way to SEE it, to remind ourselves that YES, Virginia, there is a Cosmic Santa, and it is sending beams of energy to animate our Earth. It is a beautiful thing. I don’t think the Ordinary World, (or the Outer Self) and the Cosmic World are alien to each other. The ley lines prove that the twain can, and do, meet, that they work together in a beautiful pas de deux. And when we visit these power centers, we help heal ourselves, the earth, and bless the cosmos.
Diane, the owls are not what they seem.
A dream:
A peaceful, wondrous feeling comes over me as I consider the darkness and shadow which lies just yonder, beyond where I can’t see anymore. Where the blue-speckleware ends, and nothing begins. I am happy, and glad for the quiet. The dream ends with my brother calling me home.
This is a dream I had all the time as a child: me entering a quiet, secret room, which looked like the giant inside of a speckleware roasting pan, like my mother used. Lately, as I read Robert Bly’s “A Little Book on the Human Shadow,” I can’t help but wonder, is this what I was pondering back then? Was this dream a precursor of future nocturnal wanderings into unknown, shadowy territory? Would the inside of this dark blue, starry room be my natural home?
Sitting in this space, between the brightness of what we think we’re supposed to be, and the depths of who we really are, feels nonlinear, dreamlike, peaceful, and terrifying. Like a painting by Salvador Dali or any other surrealist narrative…such as episodes of “Twin Peaks,” be it season one, the more widely accepted, “brighter” season, or the shadowy, freakish, season two. Yes, even “Twin Peaks” itself, as a show, has an evil, misunderstood twin which only now quietly begins to appear from the Shadow with its recent release on DVD.
So many of the characters on “Twin Peaks” had some type of twin, mirroring each other’s existence.
There are no guiding scenarios to lead us into some kind of communion with our shadows, our freakish twins, our other selves, which we have stuffed away. At least not yet, Now, all we have is one dark story attempting to show us the twin out of shadow. There is no narrative to instruct and define how to deal with our more dangerous selves, the ones we have so hygienically sealed off, so we can play about in a world of light.
We think we have created an impassable ravine between the two sides of our selves. One side is a tangled mess of waterfalls, wildlife, flora, invisible creatures, and mad thoughts. The other side of ourselves is safe, and sane. That’s the one, the one miserably spending and consuming, that we say is real, and true. At least “Twin Peaks” had us calling over to the other side of the ravine. Not a guiding light by any means, but more of a call of an owl in the darkness.
The space between is a safe, silent void, where the persistence of memory is quieted, and one can look a little more closely at the shadowy self on the other side.
Geologists and two-headed serpents
I love that University of Washington geologists, when faced with a gap in geological history, turned to Salish stories to help fill in the picture.
As in, were there any major earthquakes prior to white history? Gosh! There were! And the two-headed spirit of a serpent is here to confirm it!
And the five places where the spirit of the serpent appeared to shake the land and the water, there are five physical landmarks. As in, the sunken forest off the southern tip of Mercer Island, is an actual sunken forest. And the Spirit Rock, where the two-headed serpent was to have emerged, creating a huge landslide in his wake, is an actual boulder just south of the Fauntleroy Ferry.
I love that my caucasian tribe and the Salish tribe are really describing the same thing, together, with different narrative devices.
A Day at the Tennis Club (Or, How to Survive American Plutocrat Hangouts)
So, when you have children, you often end up at places you might not necessarily choose to hang out. Chuck E. Cheese being the most widely experienced non-chosen hangout. Today, for me, it was the exclusive (for Seattle) Tennis Club.
The reason for going was a playdate. The word “playdate” is hard for me to accept into my vocabulary, because I’m such a fan of wild-child-ringing-the-doorbell style “playdates,” where you say “can so-and-so play?” instead of all this infernal arranging that goes on.
So, anyway, here we are at the Tennis Club. Where Slade Gorton (Senator Skeletor) is reportedly a member. As I sit and watch the tennis tournament, the Blue Angels fly overhead for the SeaFair show.
I imagine that I’m Barbara Bush. I watch the tennis tournament, and shade my eyes to look up and watch these charming Navy fellows up there, flying around in those smart little planes. To protect my colonial self-interest.
Ahhh. Sigh. A nice man goes by with a tray of…hot dogs (well, this is Seattle, says Barbara, reaching up to touch her pearls.)
I wander down to the dock, where I am informed I am not welcome, because I am not a member (the public is allowed in this weekend, due to the tennis tournament, but only to certain areas.) The reverie is broken.
As I walk six feet away, to the grass, where my non-member person is allowed, I ponder that, by accident, I have worn a flowery sundress (all that was clean), and my big, floppy, purple hat. I sort of look like I’m an outsider-trying-to-fit-in. And I have to laugh, because there’s nothing I can really do about that. My husband actually looks like he could be a member, with his Ray-Ban sunglasses and all. In fact, he has the sort of demeanor which makes you wonder if he might have once been a Navy Pilot. So he’s actually got enough mystique that he could walk INSIDE the tennis club and use the bathroom if he wanted. Probably.
We end up watching some old guys — none of them under 70 — down on the clay courts play their own little tournament. We are one of about 6 spectators. Everyone speaks in whispers and wears white (even in Seattle). My daughter’s friend drily observes that we don’t have to be quiet here, because these players are probably pretty deaf.
So, we finally left after two. long. hours. We’re hungry, so we search for a cafe which might satisfy us with some intellectual, non-plutocratic atmosphere, as well as sandwiches.
We stumble into Hillside Quickie, an organic vegan cafe on 15th Ave. on Capitol Hill. It’s OUTSTANDING. I have the African Mama burger, made of quinoa, and an amazing array of spices. I am so excited by this place, that I’m inspired to return to veganism (or at least look at some cookbooks). This place kicks plutocratic hot dogs anyday. I am grateful to it for restoring my faith, and wiping any hanger-on colonial vibes from my aura. Because of vegetables and grains, and a few select spices, I’m sure the human race will survive this current madness, these Slade Gortons, these Bushes, these inconvenient truths of our days — because of the Hillside Quickie, I am certain the American Way and the Pursuit of Happiness will, once again, see the light. It has more life than the evil ever will.
Bipolar weather
We’re suffering from the heatwave everyone else is, finally. It’s over 90 here. For Seattle, that’s bipolar hell. Our weather, if not totally depressing, turns into this manic sunshine, and no one has air conditioning. We broke out the pinot grigio and played a game of “flying” fish. Where everyone sits outside and tries to throw the cards to each other. We moan about not being in the midwest, where everyone knows how to deal with this kid of heat, and no one’s trying to be cool.
While we were playing flying fish, a thin cloud cover rolled in. It was now 90, and cloudy grey. We’re used to the grey, but the hot throws us off. Then, we started reminiscing about how the clouds ROLL in when you’re in the midwest, and you’re grabbing the lawn chairs and the drinks and running inside because the skies are going to open up and dump on you, any minute.
Here, the clouds drift in, and, a few hours later, it drizzles.
I’m so confused. I’d like weather that responds to its indicators. I’m whining. I want solid black and white meaning. A real four seasons. Waah. “J’ai ennuiiiiiiiii” whined the little girl from Guadalupe, next door.
I’m waiting for the two minds to form one. So I can stop pining for thunderstorms, Indiana, and all that is “good.” So I can get back to life. Darn this Mercurial retrograde.
