It goes without saying that I’m thankful for My Lady Saraswati’s presence in my life. This year though, I’m also thankful for the renewed attentions of Lady Lakshmi. I’m especially thankful for the new People in my life: Amitabha Buddha, Medicine King Buddha, and Marici Devi.
I’m thankful for all of Them, because if They weren’t here, I wouldn’t be able to thank you, my readers, for sticking with me.
It’s the fifteenth of the lunar month, which in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is held to be an auspicious time to petition the Buddha Amitabha (also known as Amitayus).
As Amitabha or “Infinite Light”, he is portrayed as red in color and dressed in the patchwork robes of a monk. As Amitayus, or “Infinite Life”, he is luminous white and adorned as a celestial deity.
Amitabha/Amitayus appears in nearly three hundred sutras in the Chinese Buddhist canon alone, and his practices are popular throughout Asia. He is recommended not only as a long-life deity, but as a guardian to those in need.
No summer sunshine can compete
With the warmth of My Lady’s smile.
No starry night can ever hope
To match her beauty in repose.
No singing bird brings me more joy
Than hearing My Lady’s laughter
No rising dawn can give more hope
Nor falling dusk can soothe my heart
Nothing in this world can compare
Nothing shall ever take her place.
(Oh Inigo, you will never not be appropriate here…)
Mr. Montoya has aided me previously in explaining why the popular (mis)conception of karma as being poetic/cosmic justice is a deeply inappropriate distortion of the original concept. Well, today he will be helping me again.
A poster on a Buddhist forum I frequent (and, full disclosure, where I am now a moderator), recently asked why it’s seen as improper to view karma as retribution or punishment. The answer came almost immediately: who is doing the punishing?
Karma is not a sentient being. It has no mind, no cognitive faculty, no thoughts. It is a force of nature, like a storm. And just as the same storm that breaks a drought and revives crops can flood rivers and drive people from their homes, karma causes both joy and suffering.
For reference, here is part one of this case study.
When I was about fifteen or so, I saw a brief blurb in Time magazine about Asian ball jointed dolls. I filed the information away in my brain under “things to remember for later.”
Then when I was twenty-three, I met her:
Photo: Ringdoll Rebecca Promo
She came home with me that very day. I didn’t know who she was, but she was so familiar, and this was all the more baffling because at this time I didn’t know what I believed in, but it sure as hells wasn’t in living dolls or egregores.
Eventually, she told me who she was: Joren. From then on, the characters in my stories took physical form, for good or ill. I’d say it’s been a good thing, really. It’s made their voices that much clearer to me.
As for Joren, she chose a new shell the next year, one that suited her much better.
(Photo: Fairyland Littlefee Soo Dark Elf Promo)
When I saw that face, I was well and truly lost…
Saraswati Maa
It was My Lady Saraswati who drew me to Buddhism, and that’s when the problems started. I resisted Buddhism, then resented Saraswati, and finally regretted my vows to both. Yet I couldn’t give up on either, and have repeated a tired back and forth between the two for months.
After all of it, I was left with a broken heart and an empty head. My Lady withdrew and took the Dharma with her, and I cried out for both of them to return. When she did, I realized that Lady Saraswati is my Dharma, and that to be Buddhist I must honor her as I would honor the Buddha.
Yes, gods can be abusive
One has only to look at the lore itself. It pretty much doesn’t matter which lore: Celtic, Greek, Norse…it’s everywhere. The gods abuse each other and abuse humans. After all, they are sentient beings, just as we are. They suffer, make mistakes, do good and evil. Do you want to call me impious? Fine. I’ll wear that label proudly. It would be a great disservice to the gods to treat them as if they were something they’re not.
My younger niece was christened today at the local Episcopal Church. Funny thing is, her parents (my sister and brother-in-law) are both atheists. They attend to please my grandmother, who is a devout Christian, as was my grandfather. I will say that it does please my grandmommy to no end to have not only her son and his wife (my parents), but also grandchild and now great-grandchildren to fill an entire pew around her, when for so long, she did not have that support.
The service itself was perfect. There was no other way to describe it. I was frankly surprised by the amount of energy it raised, because as a former Catholic, I still can’t shake the view of Episcopalianism as “Diet Catholicism.” (For pity’s sake, this church has an altar rail!). The energy actually knocked me off balance and made me dizzy. This of course means that I’m now terrified of what would happen should I go to an actual Catholic Mass where Communion is being taken…
I hesitated to post this, since it’s much more woo than normal.
Have you ever had an idea come to life? I mean, really…not figuratively, literally. If you’re a writer of fiction, you’re probably (dare I say “certainly”?) aware of this phenomenon. The people on the page start talking to you, and doing things you don’t want them to do, and for some reason you can’t tell them no.
I make stories. It’s what I do. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. I’ve been trying to write them for probably twenty years or so, maybe a little more. That’s honestly the vast bulk of my life, since I’m not yet thirty years old (will be sooner than I’d like, though). I began to have success with these stories when I was about twelve (I think). That’s when I created the character Aurora, or Rory.
Rory was an OC, even though I was writing fanfiction fairly closely based on a popular anime. She was supposed to be like me: unpopular but loyal to her (very) few friends, irritable but always quick with a joke. But…that’s not what happened when I started actually writing her. She trotted onto the page shy and anxious, without a mean bone in her body, and dead serious.
As I grew older, I lost interest in anime, but not in writing, or in Rory…excuse me. Aurora. I continued writing with her through my teenage years, creating my own world for her, and a fantasy boyfriend for both of us to obsess over. She was pretty docile , and did whatever I told her to do. As a consequence, the stories absolutely sucked.
I must have been eighteen or nineteen when I finally got serious about writing her. I renamed her Joren, and started a novel I called Queen of Hearts. It was a pretty cliched epic fantasy, so it was going to start with some episodes from Joren’s childhood.
That’s when she broke away from me. Joren became truly real in a way that Rory and Aurora just weren’t. The intended “episode” became fifteen chapters. They went around in circles. They made no sense. The plot went nowhere. But…they were fucking awesome. Everyone I showed them to loved them. They were dark. They were brooding. They scared the shit out of people.
I still write with Joren, just to work with her. She helps me feel things I don’t normally let myself feel, and she also helps me resolve those feelings that I keep locked inside. She’s worth it. I’m worth it.
I’m going to start this post with a little family history: both my grandfathers were veterans of WWII. My mother’s father served in the airforce; he fought in North Africa and Europe. My father’s father was in the Navy and Marines. He was stationed in the American territories where he tended the sick and wounded.
My maternal grandfather’s main “war story” was of gaining his future college tuition by cleaning out the doctors in a North African hospital at blackjack. He had a photographic memory and was capable of “counting cards” as it is called today.
My paternal grandfather was fluent in German, and after the War was over, he helped process refugees by serving as their chaperone and guide in New York City.
***
I am a pacifist, and also very passive by disposition. I am also Buddhist, and I hold to the value of ahimsa. Yet warriors are I believe the most human of us, because they have seen humanity at its worst, and also its best. I almost said “I could never be a warrior” but I know that is a bald-faced lie. Everyone has it in them to fight, to kill even.
What I say next is not going to be popular: we should not place our veterans, our soldiers, our warriors, on a pedestal. The current valorization and glorification of the military in US society erases the humanity of…human beings. And in many cases they are human beings who need help and support.
Yellow ribbons and bumper stickers, black flags and parades mean nothing, ultimately. Say “support our troops” all you want. That means nothing. None of it can feed the hungry, house the homeless, comfort the grieving. You want to support the troops? Don’t support war.
Flight of the Hamsa 