Cleanliness, Next to Godliness

Caitlan used to play with all the other Caitlans she found in the mirror. Because she's really twins. A Chimera. Or so she believes. I suppose believing oneself to be a chimera is less odd than believing that mirrors are windows to other space-times with other "selves."

We pulled out the 'fridge and the stove, and deep cleaned everywhere. We did use some bleach; but other than that we used earth-friendly cleansers such as elbow grease.

I had a fun weekend; I am yet mourning the loss of more fun. It was Burning Man open house, Phenomenauts performance, and more friend's performance, and I missed all that. Yet I got to Palm Sunday Mass, I got nice and rested up, I went to sweat lodge with Betsy, Liz and Caitlan, I went to a backyard party at a like-minded neighbor's house with Xena-- so you see, plenty of fun was had and I am rarin' to go for this week.

Caitlan has decided she's an agnostic theist. I enjoyed exploring a new to us spiritual tradition; that of entering a sweatlodge and going through the purification and gratitude rituals. I feel so humbled that these traditions which have remained closed to Europeans are being opened. I've never smoked red willow bark in a ceremonial pipe before. Heck, I've never sweated so much in a womb-dark earth-space with two dozen men and women, either. Hearing the songs in a native tongue, feeling the embrace of mother earth, I sensed a tradition and a spirituality fundamentally different from Christianity. Christianity is trying to "save" souls, to deny the flesh and redeem the spirit. This tradition knows no redemption. All is already part of the Great Is. Attunement to this unfolds. This tradition knows gratitude, growth, stillness, and altered, exalted states through intense physical effort.

Heh. One twilight in asweatlodge and I'm an expert in the difference between indigenous American spiritual traditons and my own.

I was very curious about their notion that God/Creator has many aspects (Creator, Sun, Earth, Wind, Trickster) although there is just the One, and yet Jesus as the Son of God seemed to be actively eradicated. The elder mentioned we were to sing no "Christian hymns." Did the Catholic Church do that much harm while prosletyzing to the people of the Americas? I suppose we must have done.

We allowed the Celts to change Catholicism. I wish we had allowed other tribal traditions to, as well.