on being oya to your chango

Yah, I wanna be Oya to your Chango. No domestic tranquility for me. I was cursed, to tell the truth, so that's how it would be. I think it's worked out pretty well, to tell the truth. And yah, he actually used that word 'curse' — a little dramatic, don't you think? What kind of moron curses in this day and age?

So. I'll be your Oya. We'll have our adventure. We'll ride off and conquer death together. Conquer grief together. You'll raise your battle horn and give a blast. Shofar, the way shofar was meant to be! But at the end of the day, you'll go home. Oshun, with her irresistible smile, awaits you. She'll ground you. She'll hold down the fort for you.

I figured the whole thing out recently. Was trying to explain my worldview, somehow. Not the worldview that I'd like to have. No. The cosmology in which I seem to operate.

I think it was that comment, "Too bad you don't like opera..." that helped me figure it out. See how useful our mothers are? No. I don't want to live inside the opera. It's absolutely true. Opera belongs on the stage, right?

So what kind of hypocrite am I?

A. F. C. Wallace wrote this wonderful article about time. It's published in a fairly recent issue of AOC — Anthropology of Consciousness. Last five years, maybe ten. I don't know, I can't hold on to time. Time-slipping. That's another piece of the puzzle. Wallace talks about three kinds of time.

Linear time: in which events are placed sequentially, and then we call it history. We count in days and months and years. Decades, centuries, millenia. The point is that we count. We keep track. This happened. And then that happened. This is the least interesting of the three, although it does point out that there are consequences to our actions. That's not a bad thing at all. But it makes it sound like this thing led to that thing — if we string the things out just so — and that might not be what's really going on at all. We might have left out a string or two or three in our analysis.

Cyclical time: in which it's never over. In which we have another chance to try it out again. If this cycle doesn't work out so well, hell, we'll just reincarnate, and it'll be better next time. And then we don't have to worry about death so much. Next time, next time — as if there is a next time. As if there are do-overs. As if we get a second chance or third. As if only the truly 'evolved' (spiritually speaking) will get a chance to be released. Then, and only then, are we okay with death.

And then there's:

Mythical time: in which the gods are ever-present. And so is id, ego, and superego. These things do not recycle, and they're not linear, evolving from child to adult; from magical to rational. That's long ago been demonstrated to be absolute nonsense. Mythic time is ever-present. The capricious pantheon of gods — whether Sumerian or Egyptian or Greek or Ugaritic, or the mythic time of the Songhay empire — are archetypic patterns that we play out. We look to the gods and see ourselves. In all our folly, and in our glory too.

Bachofen says that the struggle between the gods takes on a dialectical form. Can we call it dialectical mythology? First, he says, in the earliest myths, the female deities held sway. Goddesses reigned supreme. And in their hubris, they abused their power. The males rose up and conquered them. Gods! And eventually, one god supreme. And when that god becomes so tyrannical that they can no longer stand it, women will rise up, and the goddesses will return. Right.

Bachofen says mythology hands us the pattern. He doesn't say it's historically accurate. He says we carry it all ourselves. Each of us — until we discover our collectivity and rise up — and become gods.

Okay. That's not what he says, that last part. But I like it.

I've inhabited mythic time and space my whole life. I feel more comfortable there.

Teish came over one time. Voodoo queen extraordinaire. Priestess. Dancer. Storyteller... We were working on a project together. She walked into the house. Intake of breath. She walked into my bedroom. Seeing with her expert eye.

"Oya," she said.

It's not the first time I've heard that. Bibbo says it too. Candomblé practitioner from Brazil. He's told me this for years.

Oya, they agree, is the orisha of my head.

There's no Oshun for me.

That. That right there. That was the curse.

Well, fine. I can live with it.

Apparently, my entire house is 'done up' as an altar to Oya. Tribute to her. Her colors. Most of all, her feeling. A place she is at home in.

This does not at all match my mother's description of my home. Early Istanbul whorehouse, is what she calls it. Bordello. Brothel. But my mom, she likes opera. Whereas Teish — well, Teish is just stating the facts. Right?

I don't think I'm as brave as Oya. I don't think I take charge. I don't do battle, that I know for sure. I'm not a goddess of radical transformation. So what the hell are they talking about? But when they say these things, I can feel Oya's heartbeat inside my own. Maybe I don't understand bravery and battle. She's not a man, after all. Maybe Oya's bravery is something else entirely. Maybe I've got it. Maybe I don't.

Maybe Oya takes chances. Maybe Oya says yes, where others would say no. Maybe Oya leaps where others tiptoe.

And maybe Oya is only Oya when she meets her own Chango.

time-slipping through paradise

Woke up with a jolt — and finally knew what to call it.

Time-slipping.

It's happened now four or five times over the past couple decades. I don't remember it happening before then. I think it started after I got hit by the 18-wheeler. I know the visions started right then, 'cause that was the first time I started hearing voices.

My sensei, Jack Wada's voice, to be specific. His was the first to come through. I was covered with broken glass from the driver's side window where the 18-wheeler had slid itself into me, spraying me with shattered shatterproof glass. I looked like the ice queen covered in square little shards — some of which were imbedded into the left side of my face. They were kind enough to not hit my eye or the optic nerve as they shot into a crescent from above the eye across the zygomatic. Lucky me. I mean that. Lucky me. My Volvo — yes, my Volvo gave it's life for me — my Volvo crumpled itself completely around me like a metal cocoon. Everything was in slow motion. And then I heard his voice:

"When you are attacked," he said, "remember to get your breathing together."

Reasonable, I thought, as I shifted into circular breathing.

I was trapped in my cocoon. The truck driver was trying to get the right side of my car open. Cops were there. Fire truck. Safe little cocoon... quiet and peaceful and safe. Somebody used a crowbar, I think.

"And don't forget your keys," my ever-practical Sensei reminded me, "you're gonna need them."

That was the first time I heard voices.

After that it was voice and visions together. After that it was a lot more frequent. After that — time-slipping.

We were at Pasand's in Berkeley, when it was still okay to go to Pasand's. It was during the 1995 conference of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness at the UCB Faculty Club. We were taking a break. I was with four of my former students who were helping out at the conference. I hope I bought them lunch, but who remembers, given what happened...

Group visions! What could be more validating than that? External verification of such a non-ordinary event.

Howard left the table, so he wasn't there.

Sean says he could hear laughter from far away. He couldn't hear us speaking, couldn't tell what we were saying. Had no idea where we — the three women at the table — were. I always attributed the event to the Indian food. It was hotter than usual that day. Probably Howard's doing. When suddenly — we weren't at Pasand's at all.

The wind was blowing hard. The Acropolis was vibrant and whole. It was pretty crowded — but not with tourists. There were politicians in togas. We were in simple long white togas as well — like the maidens of Caryatids— but alive. Not supporting buildings, but standing around just chatting at the Erechtheion. Flesh and blood. Having a laugh.

"Are you really here?" I remember saying. "Are we really here?" Moron. Questioning a vision. But I was questioning. Anthropologist, remember? But I wasn't taking notes.

So, okay. That was 16 years ago.

This weekend we went to Tribal Arts and Textiles at Fort Mason, and I asked her.

"Remember that time in Pasand's?"

"Yes," she answered, hesitantly.

"What did you see?"

We'd been through this before. But it'd been years.

And, yah. External verification. Again. We were all at the Erechtheion together. We were all having a laugh over it. And the guys weren't there. So it couldn't have been the food, right?

Time-slipping.

And it can happen anywhere. Anytime. Office hours! Now that one was embarrassing. Well, I was embarrassed, anyway. This student used to come in every single day, and complain about his lot in life, student loans, working as a cashier, not graduating. Bla bla bla. Every single day I had office hours. And then—

He was Etruscan. And it's ancient Tuscany outside. Mostly orchards, where we were. During Office Hours.

How embarrassing.

And I said it. Out loud. By accident. Which made it worse.

"Etruscan."

"Well, yah," he answered. "So you can finally see me?"

He told me that he had also studied with Bruno. But that was later. Giordano Bruno, the astronomer. That's what he studied — astronomy — and his complaint was that he couldn't find a program in ancient astronomy. He was very very pleased, and not depressed that day.

Time-slipping.

Since then, I've gone all the way back, as far as you can go. To the birth of all things. And I've spent time with Samurai on the battlefield, and you know, this and that. Held long conversations with Vlad, and done his bidding. I've sat on the desert and watched the desert flowers bloom and fade and bloom again. Again, with friends surrounding me. We've been the gods... We've watched the gods... I guess that's what they're called.

"Do you talk to God?" A student once asked me in class. It was a team-taught class.

"I didn't put him up to it," my colleague chuckled, when I turned to him.

What do you say to that? Do you tell him the truth? Do you teach this stuff at school? Time-slipping. Time-slipping through paradise.

"We have a class on that," I said. "It's not this one."

Chicken shit. What a terrible teacher I am. I just left it at that.