feathers

One fine, sunny Los Angeles day, my mother told me a tale about a her rather terrible day.  Among other things, pipes broke in her home, she hit a woman's car with her own, and according to her tax accountant, Roy, she owed the IRS a substantial chunk of change.  At the brink of insanity, she did what anyone would do after facing such adversity.  She went to see her own mother.  Upon arrival, she immediately began gushing about the on-goings of the day.  How much could one soul tolerate?  At what point in the previous day or weeks past, did she commit such a profound act of social injustice that somehow her past inadequacies come back to haunt her with such ferocity?  The IRS???  An infestation of creatures that are half scorpion and half rabid mosquito would be a more welcome harassment.   

She carried on and carried on until Gene, my Grandmother's housekeeper came into the kitchen.  She had overheard the conversation and had a very logical explanation for her misfortune.   A feather.   A mid-sized grayish object that once facilitated the flight of some type of bird.  She said that my mother had passed it when walking in the house.  A critical mistake in one's daily soul evolution.  The feather, she explained, is an angel offering to protect the individual who passes it by.  When one sees a feather, they are to pick it up and hold onto it as a divine sign of protection.  This type of superstitious hocus-pocus isn't something welcomed in my family, however, given the day that my mom had experienced , pocketed the feather and went about her day.  She finished her rant and made her way home.  Over the course of the 8 minute drive, she recieved a call from my dad who let her know that the pipes were fine after all, the person whose car she hit didn't want her to cover the damage and the tax attorney called and embarrassingly confessed to having made an error.  Perplexed, she put the feather in her ashtray and thanked the angel that had protected her.  

She shared this story with me and I was amazed!  I wanted a feather.  Big time.  In fact, I would go so far as to just sit under a bird's nest to insure that I got not only my own feather, but that the feather I get is from a bird that I can rally behind.  I didn't want a crow feather or some stringy feather from the underside of a common sparrow.  I wanted something striped and something colorful.  I wanted the first feather in what I envisioned to be an elaborate headdress of angelic perfect!  

I headed out to my car, certain that my luck was about to change and I would owe it all to an unassuming bird.  Sure enough,  there, in front of my driver side door was a feather.  It wasn't quite the ornate masterpiece that I had hoped for, but a feather none-the-less.  I was overjoyed. I contemplated cashing my check instead of depositing it and going to the marango casino and tossing it all on black.  My life was about to change!  I called my mom to tell her about the feather as I made my way to the ATM.  So lost, I was, in the conversation about the feather that I didn't notice when it fell out of my pocket upon pulling out my ATM card.  I got back to the office and shared my mother's story and then reached dramatically in my pocket where I would pull out my own feather and I realized.....   It was GONE!!!!  I was panicked.  I needed that feather!  That feather was my key to a successful career, a happy marriage, a large house, ferrrari, boat, a servant's staff of 10, and all the sports jerseys that I could possibly want.  I had to f ind it!  It was my angel!  I emptied my drawers, frantically.  Nothing.  I searched the couch near my desk as my co-workers looked at me, mouths dropped.  Why weren't the helping, God damn it!  If they would help me, I would ultimately give them jobs when my company succeeded (as a result of the feather)!  It was for their own good that I find this thing! I tore through my car as it began to rain.  It was nowhere to be found.  It was the middle of the workday, but I knew that if I were to have a fighting chance in the whole world, I would have to go back to the bank and find it.  

It was the middle of October after a rainless, windless summer, and yet as I drove, a strong wind kicked up and an odd, orange-hued cloud loomed overhead.  It felt like a movie.  The wind was going to blow my feather away forever and I would be poor and fat and homeless and I would probably get some type of rare disease that would cause uncontrollable flagellation and halitosis.   Did God WANT me to fail!?!?!  

I got to the bank and ran to the ATM, my hair blowing in the breeze.  I looked down, and there it was.  My feather.  It started to rain.  It had held off long enough for me to find my angel and now I had it and my life was complete.  The millions and the house and the car were just a stone's through away now.  I put the feather in my pocket, came back to the office to four pairs of eyes, only slightly curious as to whether or not I found the feather.  I had found it, indeed, and by god, I felt GREAT!!!  That night, I called my best friend, my sister, my mom, my girlfriend, and everyone else who would listen to my story.  They laughed as I shared my story.   You should write that down, most of them suggested.  That night, I pulled into my garage in my nice car, walked up the stairs to my beautiful apartment where a loving woman waited for me.  I talked about my amazing job and my brilliant co-workers and then shared again, the story of the feather, waiting to see when my luck would finally change and I would get a shot at the good life. 

Beginnings

One of the greatest things about being caught in the middle of a full-fledged, white-knuckled, crying-in-your-sleep, what-the-FUCK-IS-THE-MATTER-WITH-ME nervous breakdown is that it forces one to look for God is the strangest places. A typical Christian in the thick of emotional collapse may find himself on his knees as he lights a candle in front of an alter or confessing his darkest secrets and sinful desires to a priest in an uncomfortable broom closet.I've come to look elsewhere. During particularly dark times, I have found God along the Pacific Coast Highway, in the back of my vocal chords while screaming songs while getting onto the on ramp of the 101 freeway, or even meditating on a blade of grass in the median while at a stop light along Highland just shy of Hollywood Boulevard.

I used to buy into the mantra that it could be worse. I could be sitting at a bus stop in the rain, eating out of a trash can, or swatting flies off of my dying child in 120 degree heat after a massacre in a Sudanese village.  My face could have been burned off in a terrible plane crash or I could have lost a testicle or two in an unfortunate roller coaster accident. The country is at war, the economy is fucked, and I have a steady job and a place to lay my head. In the eyes of others, I am beyond blessed. I get this point of view.  I get all of it and all of those sweet souls that have so generously offered that very cliché advice are right. It could be substantially worse. But try getting that through your brain as you vomit on the bathroom floor and pray for an earthquake to collapse a freeway bridge as you cross it so that maybe you can get knocked into a coma and wake up two years down the road when everyone in your life has forgiven or forgotten you and you can start over.

In the last years, I have come to view Los Angeles a godless breeding ground of people in search of validation. The “look at me now,” fuel that drives so many people. The “I will be happy when…” ghost that so many chase like dogs at a race track. What I have come to realize is that for so long, I was one of those people I hated. It was the need for validation that led me to my bathroom floor. It was my desire to show the world that I was lovable and talented that brought me to the point in my life that I no longer cared to live.

It was that point that my search for God began. A half dozen self-help books and a prescription of Lexapro didn't seem like a long-lasting recipe for inner-peace so I began to search elsewhere. In the midst of all the egoic flash of Hollywood, the external indulgences in fashion and culinary adventure, and the general Godlessness of the Entertainment business, Los Angeles, at a glance, fails to live up to its title of the City of Angels. That said, it is that same sprawling, unfocused spirit that makes this fair city a breeding ground for experiments in faith. Yoga, colonics, cleanses, aura purification, meditations, charkas, crystals, oils, deeksha, fasts, The Artist’s Way, Tony Robbins, Debbie, Deepak, 12 Step, A New Earth, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, God, mother universe, heavenly father, divine friend, and the list goes on and on and on. Unlike the bible belt, there are a million paths to God in this City of Angels. Given that I was not raised in a religious family and have no deeply routed, pre-conceived notions of what God is, I decided that I would walk some of these roads in an attempt to find the inner peace that each of these faiths, dogmas, beliefs, and ideals portray.

In the last year, in addition to the darkest places, I have found myself at the gate of many beautiful spiritual practices and despite all of their dogmatic differences; I’ve found one common factor amongst all of them. The people that I meet are happy. They, as most, have had that dark-night-of the-soul, but in the moment, when put in the company of like-minded individuals manage to find a little bit of peace.

My goal is to see Los Angeles for the blessing that it is and more specifically, to see my own life for the blessing that it is. I want to see all the different ways that people find peace and happiness and God and the infinite love that resides underneath all that we are. In the past year, as dark as it has been, I have had many profound spiritual experiences based on principles of many different faiths and each one has been a rung in my climb to inner-peace. My intention is to continue this journey and to write about it in hopes that people in this city of angels can find the God or Goddess that resides within them as well.

The Sweats

There is nothing fluffier than an alpaca-fur teddy bear. I learned this as I browsed through a peruvian gift shop on Ventura Blvd. My mission was to find two medicine gifts because that night I was to attend an Indian Sweat Lodge Ceremony. I had first heard of these sweat lodges from a yoga instructor at LA Fitness. Years later, the topic of the sweat lodges arose again and my interest was peaked. I loved a good sweat and I loved new experiences. I had recently discovered meditation so why not see if I could find one of these ceremonies and participate.

After several minutes (a long time in the google era), I finally stumbled across a website for a Sweat Lodge in the greater Los Angeles area. I emailed the lady, Lynn an inquiry. Days later, with no response, I followed up with another email. When she responded, her instructions were simple, if not cryptic. Bring two towels, a change of clothes, two medicine gifts, and a $20 dollar donation as well as a vegan dish for after the ceremony. There was an address and nothing else. Now, committed to this event, I was a bit nervous.

I spent the day of the ceremony drinking as much water as humanly possible, pondering the subject of medicine gifts, and wondering if I would make it out of this strange experience alive. I imagined a tent out in the middle of the desert. An ancient, unsmiling, indian standing stoic at the lodge's entrance. I imagined coyotes howling on cliff sides underneath a full moon and the sound a drum ritual off in the distance. No one but Merideth had any idea where I was going as I didn't quite no how to explain to my friends that I was to spend my Saturday sweating in 125 degree humid heat with a bunch of strangers.

I took the 101 freeway to Pasadena at around 4:30 as I didn't want to be late. I exited on Lake Street and with only three miles to go to the location was a long way away from any type of desert. I took lake down to a small residential street lined with sycamore trees and a sidewalk. BMWs and SUVs sat in most of the driveways and children played soccer in their front yards. No sign of an ancient Indian anywhere. An adobe style house sat at the end of the block. It was the only house without any grass in the front lawn. I looked around for other participants but saw no one. I waited for someone else to arrive and as the clock ticked closer to 6:30, I got out of the car and knocked on the door.

A small 18 year-old mexican girl answered and directed me to the kitchen where I set my vegan dish which was little more than a sack of grapes and a few berries. I made my way into the living room where I joined the young girl, her cousins, the VERY overweight Latina girls and Lyn. Lyn was an older lady with a calm demeanor and a constant but distant, peaceful smile. She was a far cry from the New Age guru-hippie that I had expected. She asked join them in the living room. I sat with the Latinas and Lyn in total silence.

The room was covered in nicknacks. I have never seen so much stuff. It was like a museum of religious deity souvenirs from various foreign countries. Buddhas, Krishas, Native American figurines, feathers, dream-catchers, astrological symbols and on and on. Every square inch of every shelf had something on it. In the dining room was a massage table surrounded by brass bars inexplicably forming a dodecahedron that appeared to hover over it. More people began to come in, most as puzzled as I was and slowly nervous chatter began to break out. Some people had that aged, curious God-searching quality to them. Some were veterans to this process and others were desperately searching to relieve some kind of emotional pain or mend a broken heart. I wondered which category I fit into.

After a brief meet and greet and an overview of the process, we were introduced to Doug, the owner of the house. He was not the stoic indian either, but instead an affable guy of about 60 with a tucked in Hawaiian shirt and a big smile. He told us that he had just returned from Colorado where he had filled the entire bed with his pick up truck with special volcanic rock with high, ancient energy and brought them back to Los Angeles. We would be the first to experience the sweat lodge with these rocks. Everyone was very excited about the rocks.

Lyn then told us to strip down and to prepare to go into the Sweat Lodge. Strip down, I thought... What does that mean? My question was answered immediately, as Lyn took off her shirt and pants, wrapping herself in a towel. She wasn't the only one. Suddenly I was surrounded by overweight, stranger, co-ed nudity in every direction. It became clear why I hadn't chosen to tell my friends about this story. Because what I was about to do was insane.

Wrapped in only a towel and my boxers, we walked out and around the side of the house. The sweat lodge was no more than four feet off the ground and fifteen feet across. It was round and doomed on the top, covered with some type of canvass and blankets to hold in the heat. Seven stones surrounded the lodge, each one representing one of the chakras. Doug stood on the side of the lodge with a hawk feather and burning sage. If my parents could see me now!!! Suddenly weekend debauchery didn't seem like such a strange choice. In front of the lodge was a fire and in it were the stones lugged back from Colorado. Lyn, in her towel, also fanned us with sage smoke using a feather in a native American process called "smudging" as she chanted phrases over us in some Native American language.

We ducked through the flap of a doorway to Lodge and the inside was humid and pitch black. Even without a bit of light, it felt incredibly small. It smelled like a gym locker and the air with thick. I made my way around the perimeter and sat down. Next to me was one of the overwieght Latinas and to my right was another big guy who had "never done anything like this before." Both had admitted to being big sweaters earlier in the evening. The tent filled up entirely. i sat Indian style, my leg against the bare knees of my neighbors. I was already hot and the sweat hadn't begun. Inches in front of me was one of the more emotional of the participants in the sweat. We were packed in like rats and you could feel and hear the breath of each person in the lodge. The loss of sight in such a small, confined area immediately heightened the senses. Even though it was dark I closed my eyes. Lyn entered and called for the stones. We heard four stones plunk as Doug set them into the pit and then he closed the flap. There was no getting out of this thing.

The first "round" lasted fifteen minutes. Within a minute, I was completely covered in sweat. My back was like the surface of a lake and sweat ran down my face at such a rate that I couldn't mop it up. Lyn channeled spirits ranging from Jesus to Lerpachauns and because it was so hot, the mention of the little shamrock-sporring irish elves didn't even get my attention. It felt like I was going to die and I was no more than 10 minutes into an hour and a half ceremony.

The human mind does strange things. In protecting the esoteric nature of the sweat, I will not going into the exact details of what all went on, but with each session, I found myself going deeper and deeper inside myself. The hotter it got, the less I thought about how hot it was. With every prayer I offered danced with the prayers of the other participants and upon the opening of the flap, each prayer was sucked out into the heavens. The number of rocks increased with each time the flap opened and the breathing of the people in the tent got heavier and heavier, with the occassional "oh my god," or "holy shit." I found myself going to a place of peace despite the increasing discomfort. In total silence, I felt a connection to each of the people in the tent. I was only vaguely aware of my physical body at all. At some point, I realized that my leg was cramped but only moved slightly to aliviate the discomfort.

We were in the tent for just over 90 minutes. Total blackness, drenched, drained, and filled, Lyn thanked all of the spirits that entered into the lodge and then the flap was opened a last time. We exited and the air was profoundly cool against my sopping wet skin. Though I had gone to several emotional places in the Sweat, I wasn't sad or happy. I wasn't relieved or uncomfortable. I wasn't hot or cold, I simply was. The blood rushed to my head and I lay down on the ground looking up at the stars and for a brief moment, I found myself completely connected to everything around me.  All these, obese, strange, chatty emotional people that drove me insane not an hour and a half ago, were simply souls that joined me in a divine, and equally uncomfortable experience.  

When all was said and done, we went back into the nicknack-filled living room which was infused with stillness.  We shared our experiences and it was as though everyone spoke from the same calm plane.  After 20 minutes of water guzzling chit chat, we gave Doug and Lyn our energy gifts.  Though I hadn't sprung for the alpaca fur teddy bear, I think my peruvian plate will make a nice addition to the rest of the gifts given from a place of love and gratitude.  I ate a quick bite, craving quiet more so than company and made my way home.  As I drove, I pondered upon how to ever explain this strange, beautiful, smelly, powerful experience and came to the conclusion that there just aren't words that can do it justice.