Oh, no, you're thinking. She's writing about "beings". Well, I have to write what comes out, folks. It's your choice. But if you stick this one out, I think it'll take us someplace at least as interesting as "the Sled", and probably deeper.
I started moving my head around. I moved my arms. I slinked, really. I stayed close to myself. I did not want to look straight ahead or even see anything. I looked bizarre, like those scary creatures, the skekzis in the movie The Dark Crystal. The ones that constantly humm. MmmmmMMMMmm. HUmmmmmmmm. HmmMMMMM? My whole body became a snake. This doesn't usually happen to me. I mean, I moved out of the way, and allowed this snakelike being to dance me. Not because I felt overpowered by it, But because its weirdness captured my curiosity. It energized my dance.
This invisible dance partner and I stayed together practically the whole class. I recognized him. He plays second fiddle to a much scarier guy I'd learned about years ago in Waldorf Teacher Training.
C.S. Lewis said:
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.In this blog entry, I will attempt to give a couple of devils a little, but not too much, limelight: Lucifer, who appeared to me that Monday in the form of a snake, and his buddy Ahriman.
Yes, the snake who just happened to be "hanging out" in the Garden of Eden when the first couple (and I don't mean Michelle and Barack) went out on their first limb. "Taste this, Eve." the snake said. "Don't you ever wonder where God gets all his power? Don't you wish you could mess with species and change the weather and tell everyone what to do? I thought so. Just take one bite. That's all you need." And she did, then Adam did, and the rest is, well... history.
I can't blame her. I would have done it. Even now, with the planet hemmorhaging and the police cars sirens wailing around the clock, I can dig the snake's message. If I were offered the temptation to force hundreds of people to come to my creative speech workshops and make me rich and powerful, appearing on "Oprah", I'd give it some thought. Power tastes good! It takes a bigger leap of faith, however, not only to like the snake's message, but to accept it as part of our journey.
Have you ever been really hungry for a story, and gotten something else instead? A spreadsheet, perhaps? A news "story" that turns out to be just a grocery list of facts? Or one of those ghastly re-written fairy tales, where the princess doesn't need any help, thank you very much, she's a modern woman, and she's just hangin' out with her friend the wicked witch who is actually a pagan wise woman? (don't get me wrong. I like pagans and I love witches!) And how about this scenario? You pick your daughter up from school.
"How was your day at school, Chloe?"
"Fine."
Fine? you think, That's all I get? But what happened?
What I want to assert is that bad ain't bad. A story without any bad in it is what's bad. It's a lie. Of course, unless she's older than 10, Chloe probably isn't lying, she's just so inside the day she had that she can't remember what happened.
Just what makes a story a story? And why do we need them so much? Well, a story has a beginning (Adam and Eve again), a middle (that's us), and an end (keep your fingers crossed that we make it to happily ever after!!!). It also, to be a story, must have a BAD GUY. Or at least a problem. Otherwise, Adam and Even never become us never become the better people of the distant future. We are going somewhere. But we can't get there without the bad guys. It's a pretty well kept secret that God wanted us to find that apple. The snake's idea was actually God's idea (though the snake hates that): give them a taste of power. It is the only way to learn how to use it. Eventually.
So, Dorit Winter told us shiny-faced teacher trainees one fall night in San Francisco, evil has two faces. I can't remember exactly what she said, so I'll paraphrase, building on my experiences of the intervening 10 years.
The one face of evil holds so much power that we do not even know he exists most of the time. Indeed, he prefers C.S. Lewis' first error, for us not to believe he exists. He can do much more damage that way. Through us, he builds highways, superhighways, internet and cell phone networks, and malls. He tells us these things are there for our convenience. To keep us "connected". The recent film "The Matrix" captures the essence of Ahriman's work in metaphor ("Recent?" says Ahriman. "That movie's ancient history! Get up to speed."). Ahriman, by the way, is the Ancient Persian word for a particular spirit of darkness. In the movie "The Matrix", everyone is actually just sitting still, plugged into a huge machine, and all that we think is happening is just a simulation, a 3-d virtual reality screen. A few people escape and do move and live and act, and they try to free all the others. Ahriman's job is to keep us so deluded by that screen, so busy earning money for the next generation of blackberries which is one nano-second faster than the one we have, that we forget what we came here to do. We forget our humanity. We forget about culture. We forget that we have the power to live outside "the box". He tells us: toe the line; fill in the blanks, that does not compute. Darth Vader comes to mind. Ahriman loves it that I now spend about 4 hours of every day in front of a screen. He wants us to believe that our temporary material existence is all we've got, and that what I call "me" is merely a result of the firing of neurons in my brain, pre-determined by genetics.
The other face of evil, ah, now there's a beauty. Such a refreshing change from Ahriman. Unlike Ahriman, Lucifer hates to be ignored. He wants you to know he exists. He wants a fan club. "Ahriman, Ahriman, Ahriman. That's all you anthroposophists ever talk about. What about ME?" Lucifer doesn't care about the latest blackberry. He remembers the good old days. He wants us to be artistes, or to have gurus. In fact, he gave us one major endowment, without which we can never make it back to Eden.
Art.
Like most donors, Lucifers attached some strings to his donation. He blessed us with the great edifice of Art, but like many a wealthy philanthropist, wanted half of his donation to pay for a life-sized solid-gold portrait of himself in front of it. His version of art often alienates and excludes, puts artists into a rarified, snooty league of their own. He whispers into the ears of many a humanities professor to invent all those new words like the verb "to legitimate" and "to construct", which academics use to show they are smarter than normal people. He wants to lift us off the earth, to say we are gods, that our shit don't stink. People of a spiritual persuasion often fall prey to his temptations. We think we don't need to eat. We think we don't need money. We go on new age retreats. We think we can run away from the world and live in little mini-Edens where problems can't get in. I lived in such a spiritual community for 2 years. Boy, did that shit stink. But thanks to our devils, problems got in. They always do. And thank God for them, because otherwise we would live in delusion forever.
That's why you, Lu, can count me in your fan club. I want art to be for everyone, like the murals on the streets of Philadelphia, not just the operas that rich people go to on Saturday night. But I owe it to Lucifer that we have any art at all. Art is my life. It shows us our truth, like the movie I mentioned earlier. And art has to come out of an individual self, self-involved and crazy as our selves tend to be.
While I'm at it, Ahriman, count me in your fan club too. You gave us science. Remember science? It used to be a glorious, light filled pursuit which included wonder. In spite of everything, in some high school chemistry classes, it still is (thanks, Mr. Runge). Science allows us to stand outside of our subjectivity, to use our senses, to notice details. These two faces of evil are also faces of good. Bad ain't bad. Bad makes a story.
My teacher Rudolf Steiner said that our souls are battlegrounds where Ahriman and Lucifer constantly duke it out. No wonder we feel tired all the time. Here is a familiar battle that they have within me.
A: Why don't you have a real job? You know this novel is never going to pay the rent.
L: I am an artist. I don't need to eat. I can live on light!
A: Yeah, right. Why don't you do technical writing or something. Something real.
L: Only my inner voice is real. To hell with everyone else.
etc, etc.
They could be duking it out to the end of time, if there weren't a third being, One who opens a space between them. This third being is hard to pin down, to even describe, especially as His name now carries many distracting add-ons. He weaves a way for us between heaven and earth, between light and darkness, levity and weight. This being lives in movement. Perhaps that's why some call him "Lord of the Dance". He gives us our true self, a drop from the ocean of God. I call him Christ, source of our becoming.
In the school of Christ, the instructions are always different, according to the need of the moment. Or maybe they are always the instructions Richard gave in his 5 Rhythms class:
"Start with movement, and see where it leads you." Start with a movement, continue with movement, and end with a movement; these are Christ's Alpha and Omega.
There is a screenplay writer who gives exact instructions for how to make a story spellbinding. He writes that at the exact middle of a movie, your hero must fully commit to her goal. Up to this point, she had the option of turning back, returning to life as it was before. "But now your hero must burn her bridges behind her. There is no turning back." Conflict in a story appeals to us because it keeps us moving. Resistance keeps us growing. We like a story with problems because it shows us our continuing story of evolving. Can you see how important our devils are to this process? Not too important, fellas. But important nonetheless.
Not too important, because ultimately Christ Trumps them both. He brings all wars to a halt. When we fall, he lifts us a little. When we fly too high, he throws us a rope. If we ask, he will show us our next dance step.
And when I am really dancing, when there is no me or you, no up or down, no us and them, but a lively current of oneness, I know that the One who gives me my true self is dancing. The only reason we dance with the devils is so that we move beyond them to know Him.
