Ecstasy, With A Lower-Case E

I have stumbled across a couple of interesting pieces recently on the massive depressing atmosphere floating around most of Western Civilization --- as opposed to the massive clouds of dust and smoke floating around Mideastern Civilization, and fuck-all knows of the way Eastern folks are handling it. They keep damming up rivers and drowning people ... that should be pretty fucking depressing.

But I digress. What am it that doth makes us so blue and sad, makes us feel so unconnected to the Great Big Universe, that in general causes people to become NeoCons and Republicans?

It is the BIG DISCONNECT from JOY, RAPTURE and ECSTASY. Yes, some might get an instant reconnect using E, but then your kidneys will fail earlier than age 92, and then where are you?

One writer, Barbara Ehrenreich, who in her new book, Dancing in the Streets explores the experience of collective joy, ponders the questions, “if ecstatic rituals and festivities were once so widespread, why is so little left of them today? If the 'techniques' of ecstasy represent an important part of the human cultural heritage, why have we forgotten them, if indeed we have?”

AMEN, SISTER! That is probably a major sticking point for modern humanity. Have we forgotten how to do this? We don't get down with ourselves anymore in big spectacles of fervor and passionate expression. It is very uncool to want to experience the transport of religion, or great art. The closest we get to it is sporting events, and even those have become big money, anemic affairs where we pay others to cheer and jump about for us (especially hotties). The sports experience has become the Corporation's bitch, and we won't see her set free very soon. Not when sky boxes dominate the price of every event.

What's that leave us with? NASCAR and Snake Handling? Both can be deadly between flying tires and venom.

I remember somebody asking me at church once what I felt was missing from the experience. Remember, it's a Unitarian Universalist church, and I'm a Catholic/Protestant half breed.

What was missing? "Incense, drama and Saints that die gooey deaths." I mean, it was a great place for the peace and inner calm, and for a life-long comparative religion course. But it wasn't RELIGION. It wasn't MIDNIGHT MASS. And it certainly wasn't GOSPEL, or SPEAKING IN TONGUES.

It was kind of dull. I know the kids had a blast, more than adults, because they got to learn every freaky Bible story from the Old Testament, along with its matching Babylonian versions (yes, they are all the same). But for the adults? It was more of a book club.

OK, I'll get off that rag, but you see my point. What have we to compare with the rites of the Bacchae, the Dionysian orgies, etc. Didn't those Slavs used to chase each others' asses around the woods and boogie for days on end? Even the Brits did that way back in Ye Olde Daye. Well, maybe they were Celts, but you know what I mean.

Compared to that, we got nada.

But to experience great passion also means to have strong and sometimes violent feelings on a glandular level, which is pretty much what one sees in those places that hate us Godless Infidels. How could we return to the real experiences of transport and vision, without losing contact with our inner adult? And creating a false temple of passion with drugs like E and acid is a false solution (and idol for that matter).

I guess I'll have to take up fly fishing.