The rolling force
Sun 5.12.19
There are energy currents in the world that we do not as yet possess the mechanism to be consciously aware of, to be able to measure them, utilize them or control its effects. Think of what folks call the dark force, that which descends upon oneself, one’s family, home, country for no conceivable reason, the cancer, the lawsuit, a tsunami, witch hunts, impoverishment. Some have noted a pattern in this force and bring up the law of 3’s. For instance, plane crashes that follow a numerical pattern.
Roman Polansky, commenting recently on the #metoo movement, a man who’s been visited a number of times by the dark force, had this to say, and I’m paraphrasing: There’s a type of madness that overcomes societies for no particular reason at times, an ill wind that comes and just as mysteriously disappears. Castaneda’s Don Juan, called it the rolling force. This force keeps bumping into you all of your life. It starts as a little love tap but as one’s life unfolds the rolling force’s taps, depending on one’s strength or weakness, become body slams until the day one is completely defeated.
Emotions get in the way; we want to blame someone. It’s your fault! It’s a stupid law! Management should have foreseen this would happen! Gee, glad we got that solved. It was so and so’s or that and that’s fault. Some situations can be readily fitted into that paradigm. Doesn’t make it true. We really don’t know why Jeffrey Dahmer ate those people. Psychotic, you say? What is that some dark force floating around, some germ, or maybe his parents abused him?
This need to blame, to shame, prevents one from making a true assessment of the situation and causes one to react inappropriately, even to worsen the situation. Think of the doctors who bled very sick individuals to cure them, or to perform lobotomies on those labeled “mentally ill.”
Assuming one’s life is at the mercy of the rolling, or dark, force teaches one to be prepared for anything, and the enemy, the particular situation, becomes meaningless. How one is able to resolve the predicament or not is the only question worth asking. Many have survived stage 4 cancer, were able to finesse the lawsuit, to establish a better, more meaningful life after the witch hunt, the impoverishment, to accept what you can’t control, to drown in the tsunami and be done with it.
The favorite essay this month has been, Baduisms
Eight o'clock Sunday morning, the police arrive at her apartment in Greenwich Village, "How long have you been living here?" The roommate Elizabeth, after having accepted her half of the deposit money and rent for their new apartment, has called the police.
New York City doesn’t open its arms to welcome her, but she’s arrived and the adventure of her life is about to unfold. She’s come from Maine with an invitation from Sarah Lawrence College to participate in the graduate writing program.
How one becomes a seeress is what this memoir explores. Stories have been specifically selected to illustrate, from the sublime to the practical, a spiritual journey introduced in each chapter by an atout, the Tarot’s major archetypes. From the Fool, to The World, our human journey with its risk and folly unfolds. There is also an artist here alive to her new world seeking inspiration among artists on the Lower East side, learning the ways and foods of her Chinese neighbors, falling in love.
