“I can’t sleep. I’m going for a walk. Don’t worry – I’ll be fine.”
Stepping out into a star-spangled night, I took a breath of salty air. Ah, the smell of the sea! With my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could pick my way through rocks until I came onto a smooth expanse of sand. My feet found their rhythm, remembering hundreds of nights walking the beach in Puerto Rico. Waves bathed the shoreline, leaving squiggly sparkles on the sand – reflections of individual stars in the sky. The moon hid behind a bank of navy blue clouds. Each wave exhaled a humid breath that caressed my skin – a welcome libation for my body that had been braving the high arid mesas of New Mexico the past couple years.
My mind returned to James’ and my conversation at Cobá. What I had tried to remember reading in Jose Argüelles’ book, The Mayan Factor – Path Beyond Technology, was how he related the Mayans to beings from another dimension. He described the Ahau Kines as fifth-dimensional beings who exist outside our concept of time and dwell in Shambhala, the mythical Tibetan realm of Buddha-nature. According to the Kalachakra Tantra (the Tantra of the Wheel of Time), the Emperor of Shambhala at long last defeated the Three Lords of Materialism, spiritually liberating his subjects. Then the whole kingdom evolved right out of our ability to perceive it! Fifth-dimensional beings relate to lower-dimensional beings like us through electromagnetic forms called archetypes. From our perspective here in a dense dimension, the archetypes appear to us as gods, goddesses, and forces of Nature. Argüelles claimed that Quetzalcóatl was one such emissary from a more enlightened realm. He writes,
Until we understand that the fatal fascination with our technological inventiveness represents a turning away from the forces of light and an actual disregard of our own potential as universal co-creators, we shall not escape the consequences of our ignorance. For the truth is that we turn to gadgetry, not willing to own up to the power that lies within our own internal circuitry, a bio-electromagnetic circuitry which is directly connected, through the Solar Lords, the AHAU KINES, to the Sun. So it is that we have come to labor in the pits of materialism. Cut off from the fifth-dimensional guides, blind even to the existence of the fourth-dimensional light body – the “soul” – identifying exclusively with the third-dimensional physical garment, materialistic humanity charts a shadow-course through a darkness of its own making.
Mythically, the Faustian development of global industrialization represents a turning away from the light – our guiding, inner “soul-light” – to pursue the immediate power gains of a facile technological mastery over our material means. In truth, this turning away is a surrender to the force of darkness, called by the ancient Mexicans, Tezcatlipoca, the Dark Lord of Time... the trickster counterpart of Quetzalcóatl. 125
I thought about the prophesied return of Quetzalcóatl. Why not now? Earth was hosting the Sixth Great Extinction, and civilization was in breakdown. Definitely the change of an age. Instead of relying more and more on scientific materialism’s solution of “digital immortality” through uploading our knowledge and personalities into machines, we could evolve organically into wiser beings who realize immortality through our identity as Spirit. Perhaps Quetzalcóatl would preside over a new creation and initiate a new stream of time (or timelessness?).
Daniel Pinchbeck, a New York author and entheogenic researcher, delved into the mysteries of the Mayan calendar and shamanism and emerged with a “transmission” from Quetzalcóatl. Excerpts from his book, 2012 – The Return of Quetzalcoatl:
I am an avatar and messenger sent at the end of a kalpa, a world age, to bring a new dispensation for humanity – a new covenant, and a new consciousness.
I am the same spirit who appeared here, in the Mayan period, as Quetzalcoatl and incarnated at various other points in human history... [Here he mentions Avalokiteshvara (Tibetan Buddha of Compassion), Tzaddik (“the righteous one” of the Qabbalah), and King Arthur.]
In the realm of thought, I practice warrior discipline. As gravity draws matter to it, I have pulled myself back into manifestation in this realm, from the depths of cosmic space, piece by piece and bit by bit, reassembling the component parts, the sparks of thought, that make up my being – which is, primarily, a form or vibrational level of consciousness.[i.e., an archetype]
Soon there will be a great change to your world. The material reality that surrounds you is beginning to crack apart, and with it all of your illusions... What is false must die so that what is true can be born.
You are, right now, living in the time of revelation, Apocalypse, and the fulfillment of prophecy. Let there be no doubt. You stand at the edge of the Abyss. What are those shadows that crowd around you? They are the unintegrated aspects of your own psyche, projected into material form. The word “Apocalypse” means “uncovering” – and in these last clock ticks of this world age, all must be revealed, uncovered, so that all can be known...
The task of human existence is to transform the Earth, to reconcile spirit and matter in this realm. We go deeper into the physical to reach the infinite. 126
My beach stroll had brought me to a rocky outcropping that rose from the sea. The beach ended. Crowning the cliff, a Mayan temple gleamed in the light of the half-moon. It was el Castillo (“the Castle”) of the Tulum ruins, dedicated to Kukulcán (Quetzalcóatl). Tulum, the City of Dawn, had been greeting the sunrise for nearly 1000 years from that promontory. These days, tourists crawled over its ruins, wondering what its builders must have been like... bloodthirsty barbarians? amazing architects? intergalactic space travelers? I thought of James’ idea that one day tourists would pick through the ruins of the Vatican, wondering what possessed its builders to create such art over an obsession with death.
The Mayans must have visualized the Universe as a spiral field, accounting for its infinite nature. They made their calendars in the round, because we spiraled through time, and they kept track of our journey through cycles. Whether it was in 2012 or not, we were at the end of a cycle, no doubt about it.
Through history’s waves of destruction, and rising and falling civilizations, and ages beginning and ending, what endured? Love, I thought. The power of love transcends all the dimensions. When James and I made love, it sent ripples across the Universe, and the Universe flowed into us. We had both felt that.
Archetypal energies, too, I thought. They transcend time. We see them differently according to where we stand, and interpret them according to our framework – tribal, warrior, mythic, rational, pluralistic, or integral. In the fifth dimension, maybe I would perceive a pulsing ball of light; in the third dimension maybe I see Venus rising out of the sea, radiant in her beautiful skin and seductive smile. I breathed in the salty moisture of the Caribbean. And she would smell like this, like the sea, or like roses in bloom.
“That’s the third dimension,” I declared aloud. “So delicious!”
I conjured up the image of Tonantzin-Guadalupe, a personification of the power of love that had transformed a native mother goddess of a massacred society into a modern symbol of hope. She would smell like roses, too! The Conquest had nearly wiped the Mesoamerican people off the face of the Earth, but she had accompanied them, with a change of clothes, through the ages. Nuestra Señora, Our Lady.
I gazed at the half moon skirting the fluffy edges of a navy-blue cloud, casting a patch of sparkles onto the undulating sea. Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, with her cosmic yoni, beckoned me to gaze into the Dark Rift, Xibalba Be, with a black hole at its galactic center. Eternally she nourished life with her mother’s milk, the Milky Way, and I could always connect with her through the black hole embedded in my heart and the black hole in the middle of the Earth, and the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Spirals within spirals.
I turned my back on the ghostly Tulum ruins – all these years keeping watch for the return of Quetzalcóatl? – and began walking the beach to my stick-and-thatch home, feeling each step in the wet sand as a reverberation of the
many steps in my mythical life... cycles within cycles. My heart beat joyfully, caressed by the beauty of this timeless night, and sending waves of love across the dimensions.
THE GRAND UNVEILING
When we returned from Latin America, James threw himself into his artist studio with renewed vigor. My return to work was slower, since Alex was in the home stretch of his senior year on his way to high school graduation. Between helping him to apply to college and for financial aid, and his graduation parties, I was engaged with my last duties as full-time mother.
Alex had realized his dream of attending an American high school, and now even further dreams: he had been accepted and funded to attend Naropa University in nearby Colorado, a college founded by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and Tibetan Rinpoche Chögyam Trunga... a poet and a Vajrayana Tantric Buddhist – go figure! It was with joyous satisfaction and sad longing that I watched my young man leave home. The main milestone of my mothering had been reached. He launched himself into the world with hope and enthusiasm. Our Taos house now had an empty echo in it.
Climax
I would like to say that James and I relished our alone time, but I saw him less than ever. With 63 paintings completed, he now embarked upon the 64th and climax piece of Venus and Her Lover. We had known since that night at Nassim’s house, when we got the download for the final painting, that the deities in it were the heavy hitters of Western mythology. I began my background study of the characters: Isis, Osiris, and Set (Egyptian), Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene (Christian), and Venus and Mars (Greco-Roman) – the progenitors of our ideas about Man, Woman, relationship, rulership, law, divinity, ethics, love, and well... civilization. This was going to be a long devotion, and I settled in with my books for what would become a year of study, before I could write the poem.
James was equally overwhelmed by the formidable theme of “Climax.” Again I heard the “Why Me?” arguments: “Am I worthy to present such a high message?” “My technique is too simple!” “I’m glad I’m not signing my name, ‘cause this is not me, it’s just coming through me.”
Because “Climax” was a large triptych (8 feet by 8 feet; 2½ meters by 2½ meters), he had to stretch canvas over solid wood. “I haven’t painted any of the Venus paintings like that – what if it doesn’t fit in?” On and on, the misgivings.
On the other hand, James was entranced by the job. He said that waves of feeling washed over him while he was painting. James became a maniacal painter, absolutely devoted, eating/dreaming/talking about “Climax” whenever I caught snatches of him. It was like he was scaling Mt. Everest and after many days of climbing through blizzards, he was giving the final push of scaling sheer rock faces to reach the summit, which he knew, was just ahead of him.
One night, after waiting for him to come home for a late dinner, he limped in at midnight. Dinner was cold.
“What happened?” I asked.
“A Climax time warp,” he replied. “Ya know, on my way out of the studio, I glanced back at the canvas to look at it. I just stood there watching it, and then... 45 minutes passed before I realized it, and I was still standing there.”
“But isn’t it still just a drawing? How can you study a drawing for 45 minutes?” I asked.
“Yeah, dig it! It has some kind of power, Becca!”
Months went by like that. Standing at the canvas, James was suffering more pain in his legs and back. He hobbled worse than ever. But there was no stopping him. He would complete “Climax” and his part of Venus and Her Lover, even, as he said, if it killed him.
The Drama and Dance of Dionysus
With Dudaka now based on the mainland, he traveled through the western US to seed more Trance Liberation dances. The weekly dance we started up in Taos flourished, and I did my best to keep it running. From afar Dudaka sent music programs and guidelines for the organizational team, and kept after us to send in detailed weekly reports. During his visits, he would meet with the team to coach us in the proper care of the ritual. On several occasions the coaching escalated into yelling or shaming. Keenly aware that our team was made up of volunteers, not employees, I cautioned Dudaka to back off.
“What else do you expect me to do? Your team is not respecting the rules on conversation in the medicine circle, or how you handle newcomers. Tonight your DJ did not even show up, and I had to cover. I keep asking for weekly input from everyone, which they don’t give. It’s way too loose!” he explained.
“Dudaka, this is Taos. Some of our dancers live out on the mesa without electricity, much less internet. Sometimes they cannot make it into town because of snow or mud. They are not going to be sending in reports, I have told you that. I email summaries to you,” I replied.
“Keep this up, and I’m pulling the plug on the Taos dance!” he yelled.
“Dudaka! This is a work in progress. Do not threaten us! I understand the care that must be taken when you are invoking archetypal energies. I have learned from you how to hold a strong container. But strong does not have to be rigid,” I told him.
“Do you understand about archetypal energies?” Dudaka shouted. “Your facilitation style is churchy, patronizing, and lacking inspiration. You will alienate people like myself, who know what sacred dance means. I’ve asked you to step away from facilitating for a while to receive the healing and inspiration that you need.”
“I will, Dudaka, as soon as the other facilitators are ready. They’re still in the process of following your training. But I can tell you that we keep losing people when you are abusive with them. Please, let us work this out in our way!” I argued.
In a ritual container, we can exercise a wider expression of ourselves. In the case of Dudaka and me, both of our Shadows had been triggered, since both of us played the role of guide of the medicine circle. Underneath that, did our sharp words cut into the tender hearts of lovers?
In response, our Trance Liberation team met for Nonviolent Communication encounters, healing sessions, and talk circles. In these meetings, everyone got to express their feelings, without interruption. Processing, processing sensitivities, sensitivities. Months of it. Thus we were waddling in one of the pathologies of the pluralistic green meme: paralysis through processing. Spurning hierarchy, the members of a circle would not judge anyone’s expression as better than another. So around and round we went.
How many people stick around for prolonged melodrama? Our group suffered hurt feelings and attrition to the point that Trance Liberation and the Taos group cut their affiliation. Returning the music and materials, we renamed ourselves and held our own dances. Sadly, this scenario was repeated elsewhere, until Trance Liberation Dance existed in only two places, and eventually none.
Dudaka set off on a walkabout of Africa and changed his name. Like Dionysus, with tempestuous flashes of lightning, he died to his old identity, only to rise again. The Dying and Resurrecting God.
During our last meeting, Dudaka declared, “Your arrogance betrayed our vision.”
My heart hurting as much as his, I agreed. “Just as your arrogance and rage betrayed it, Dudaka. It is dangerous, what we set out to do. We have recreated the archetypal temple space, the tribal initiation dance, the visionary trance journey... and it has called out our Shadows and demanded that we transform. I, for one, am very grateful. We will both be the better for it.”
Dionysian Dudaka disappeared into Africa, and when he returned to the United States the following year, he did not contact me. I was not to be part of his new creations. With his wider capacity for passion and vision, he was on to another incarnation.
The Coterie: For a Moment of Truth
Love is the deepest relaxation.
~ Osho
Love makes anything possible. And love can make some things impossible, too...
As the Coterie continued through the seasons, we settled into a pattern of gourmet dinners followed by gourmet sex. The Libido Sisters would
dance open the session, igniting everyone’s desire, and then we would jump into the flames of passion, like some frenzied savage tribe that scared the living daylights out of the Christian missionaries sent to civilize them. We made sure we had the finest wine, the darkest chocolate, the most exotic music, the sexiest clothing, and the most aphrodisiac menu of treats and activities to indulge in. Then we would collapse in a heap, rouse ourselves for the dessert course – the most decadent, of course! – before decamping and stealing away into the night.
James and I were working so hard in our respective studios, I think we both welcomed a party atmosphere where we could have a blow-out among intimate friends. I began to hear comments that the format was not entirely satisfying, however: “I drank too much last night!” “It seems like James and Nick are in too much of a hurry to get to the sex.” “Are we getting into a routine?” “What about the Tantra?”
Obviously, several issues were hovering above the group that needed airing. Santo had just accepted a job in Montréal that would take them away for a year. As sad as we were at their departure, we understood what it meant for him professionally. Nicholas had begun seeing a woman named Prudence, and we were all anxious for him to share with her about our group. No one wanted our gathering to be a betrayal of trust for anybody.
So on the appointed evening, we sat around the table feeding one another savory puff pastry and drinking a delightful Riesling wine. When I broached the idea of a deeper discussion, Nick said, “Let’s talk during the dessert course. I really want to feel close to you all first.”
Fair enough, we agreed, and moved to the makeshift bed on the floor. In order to get back to basics, I announced that we would begin by sitting yab-yum with partners and eye gazing.
“Not me,” James said.
“Sure, James, come on,” I answered back.
James glowered at me. “Becca, I really don’t feel like that tonight. I told you that already!” he insisted.
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