The Soul
If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It’s a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.
To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese.
Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic, alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane more than a little embarrassing.
But say you’ve inflated your soul to the size of a beach ball and it’s soaking into the Mystery like wine into a mattress. What have you accomplished? Well, long term, you may have prepared yourself for a successful metamorphosis, an almost inconceivable transformation to be precipitated by your death or by some great worldwide eschatological whoopjamboreehoo. You may have. No one can say for sure.
More immediately, by waxing soulful you will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day basis, folks, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Tom Robbins in “Esquire”
At age 70, having spent decades as a “seeker,” I finally awakened to what now seems obvious: I’ve been seeking the wrong things. I’ve been trying to solve The Mystery. How arrogant! And how . . . boring.
My cosmology has been stood on its head. I should have been celebrating The Mystery! Looking for ways to explore it. But trying to solve it? By finding the right books, the right teachers, the right beliefs, the right theology, the right church, the right politics, the right science, the right … whatever? How arrogant! And how . . . boring.
I don’t believe that I have to join an ashram, study with the Dalai Lama, sweat with an Amerindian, drink ayahuasca with a Peruvian shaman, pay thousands of dollars for a workshop, or otherwise participate in someone’s belief system to reach wisdom, touch nirvana, perform miracles, connect with my higher self or a creator, or achieve oneness with all. I don’t believe that there are universal dream symbologies or universally applicable interpretations for the appearance of animals in one’s life. I don’t believe that I require crystals, scents, or food regimes to raise my vibrational awareness or capacity. I don’t believe that someone else holds the key to my path to enlightenment. I don’t believe that others’ rituals will necessarily work well for me, or that what I see is more valid than what they see, or that I can create absolutely anything that I want in life by following their ten steps. I don’t believe my experiences or skills make me more valuable or special than other people. My experiences and explorations suggest that the tools, props, and disciplines espoused by spiritual groups and individual interests are ultimately unnecessary. They can be invaluable starting points or training tools, but they are not requirements and can at worst become impediments to personal exploration, expansion, and finding answers to one’s own best questions.
Natalie Sudman, Near Death Experiencer, in her book Application of Impossible Things.
What finally pushed me over the edge and into the Abyss, where the only “law” is the Law of Love of the Mystery and All That’s In It, is the gift that Niels Holm, R.I.P., gave me when he made a great joke: Steve: I want to create a religion that combines Buddhism and Vudoun (voodoo, to us anglicizers.) So we made up The Church of BuVu.
My best effort, so far, to describe my Epiphany is this:
In most religions, members have adopted a set of beliefs to which they adhere. This is the much admired something greater than yourself. (I now consider this admiration to be misplaced. I think the Self in “yourself” is the selfsame Soul described by Tom Robbins.) I now believe (sorry) there’s nothing better suited than our Soul for adventuring into The Mystery. When Niels Holm conceived BuVu, he humorously melded two religions he admired, (Buddhism, Vudoun), but he knew he was telling a joke. At the heart of BuVu is an absurdity, a nonsense, a void without actual beliefs. As Niels has said, elsewhere, the Church of BuVu is empty:
This void must be filled with the authentic, creative Self (Soul) of the adventurer. (Attempting to use anything else to fill this void – religion, philosophy, science, other True Beliefs, … whatever – is spurious and fruitless. IMHO.) BuVu is formed of the Selves of the members. Nothing more, nothing less.
This one-of-a-kind Self is what we’ve been given to navigate into and within The Mystery.
So, how do we do that? I’m convinced we do that by doing what writer/performer Felicia Day calls “embracing our weird:”
“If you have a great need to make people understand something, or a deep feeling you want to communicate, that is where you will find the seeds of your most rewarding creativity!”
What is that thing in your Soul that is always showing up in your consciousness, demanding attention and generally being a nuisance? And rightfully so! This is your abandoned child. It looks just like you!
Let’s thoroughly mix us some metaphors: Put all the books and tapes and belief systems and dogmas and karmas and whatnot in storage. Go ahead and label the boxes, if you’re worried about losing them. Personally, I would suggest locking the door on the storage unit and throwing away the key. Then forget to pay the storage bill and let the ones who make a living storing that stuff do what they will with it. (But, it’s your stuff. You want to keep paying to store it, go for it. To each their own.)
Then, adopt that weird child. Take them by the hand and let them lead you into the Mystery. You’re not going to “solve it,” because it’s all about falling in love with the Adventure. Wow! Look at all those other beautiful Selves! Look at all that beautiful stuff! Hey, I think I’LL make some beautiful stuff. There’s no end of Adventures.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s what I’ve thought for most of 70 years: Unless you’re really, really good at “doing your thing,” you just need to focus on your day job and the family and home maintenance. Let the professionals and the geniuses “do their thing.” Then we can pay to watch them. Horse pucky. Don’t let anybody talk that trash to your child.
Jesus said it himself: Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall not enter in.
I’m pretty sure he was talking about The Mystery.
Steve Gillard, BuFoon
In March, 2002, Niels Holm, O’Neill Louchard, and Steve Gillard created The Church of BuVu of Port Townsend.