Unlearning a decade of cynicism
by Mira Allen
I opened my first book on shamanism at the age of 15, combing its pages in search of The Answer. This solution I fervently tried to wrap into my being involved all of the normal soliloquy of questions. Who am I? What am I? Who are we, why are we, what are we, and so on.
It was a comical toiling for truth which unfolded over the next five years in both a hopeful introspection and, in hindsight, an illustration of my youthful naiveté. I treasured abstract crystals and incenses, I poured over all of the standard metaphysical books, I partook in mind altering substances, I visited healers, I cast spells, I prayed to countless gods and goddesses, I learned mantras in foreign languages.
My quest landed me on the only nude beach of Mexico at the age of 20. Zipolite is a mile of sand that’s endlessly gnawed at by some of the strangest ocean currents I’ve ever seen. During my month there in a palapa on a cliff, three people drowned. It seems appropriate that Zipolite is said to mean ‘the place that eats people.’
It was there that I decided I would experience the crescendo and reward for all of my devoted studying. I planned the most extravagant soul searching I could think of for myself and started in my typically stubborn fashion, disregarding that I was probably going to become a hindrance to the four other people I was with.
I decided not to eat or talk for 14 days.
My traveling companions humored me enough to make a sign to carry around. It looked like this:
I have taken a vow of silence
He tomado un voto del silencio
J'ai pris un voeu de silence
I got some pretty weird looks from people, especially Spanish and French speakers due to what I’m assuming was terribly impersonated grammar. What I didn’t get was my ticket to that holy and light filled nirvana that I’d been reading about for years. Don’t get me wrong- those two weeks were peppered with divine moments that I will always cherish. I came out of it with a new name and a few beautiful ideas. But I was still human.
Shortly after my Mexico trip I decided to stop looking. The search was taking up too much of my time and I was not getting the results I thought I deserved. For the next ten years I was an atheist, a nihilist, and finally someone who thought even discussing atheism, nihilism or any other ism was just fucking stupid.
I worked hard at achieving a high level of not giving a shit. I slapped a bumper sticker on my car that said ‘losing faith in humanity one person at a time’ and settled into the smug self-identity of someone who was Smart Enough to Know It’s All Bullshit.
It was during this time that I found myself pitching against the railing of a whale watching boat in Hawaii, precariously balancing a heavily poured mai tai and a digital camera. My entire being was focused on getting an adequate shot of one of those behemoth humpbacks in the perfect and dazzling displays they were so generously affording us by breeching the waters around our vessel.
Try as I might, the only thing I succeeded in doing was spilling a fairly hefty amount of my koolaid red drink on the white shirt of the poor tourist that was next to me. Fortunately, his good nature and my profuse apologies avoided what could have been a hostile situation. The ironic parallel of this occasion was lost on me until very recently.
My mission of getting the perfect shot was coming between me and the actual experience. Instead of putting down the camera and feeling the mist of the Pacific on my face and listening to the sounds of so many millions of gallons of water being displaced by the undulation of these gigantic mammals, I hungrily and unsuccessfully tried to fit the experience into a camera frame.
Predictably, I decided that whale watching was fucking stupid the next day.
In the last decade, I’ve taken up the habit of cultivating fierce aversions to certain things. Most of these items are the standard regalia of the new age movement: didgeridoos, certain books, and a frighteningly long list of vocabulary words. Resonate, spiritual, ecstatic and oneness are some of my top vomit inducing words. Another one? Goddess.
Yes, it’s true. I have grown to kind of hate the word goddess, so imagine my chagrin when discovering it was to be this issue’s theme. I toyed with perhaps an overview of Phaedra or Persephone. I toyed with excusing myself from writing anything.
But then things started happening around me. First it was the finch dreams, where I was gifted with a ridiculous ability to write for hours on end (I used to be deliriously slow and unfocused when it came to this), then it was exotic visions during facilitated meditation, then it was the cautious tip toe into my first Martin Prechtel book, then the tarot reading that ripped the heart out of my chest. Events and people spilled into my life that fed my slowly reawakening wonder.
Let it be known that anyone remotely attempting to suggest tarot readings, meditation or Martin Prechtel to me even a few months ago would have been swiftly treated to a long string of expletives and condescending vitriol. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but at some point, for no real reason, I started really trying to see things. Then the dam broke and people, places and experiences flooded into my life.
And they’re still coming. I’m shedding a billowy cocoon that was handy for a long stretch of time but is now becoming obsolete in my life. And I’m realizing a few things here and there that I previously forgot or never knew in the first place. I’m realizing that there’s nothing wrong with devoting myself to something.
It’s the acrobatic way our creative minds bring beauty into the world, in the form of art and music and physical expressions of love. It’s feeling the warmth of the sun still in the tangerine that I plucked from its branch in the late afternoon. It’s chocolate. It’s the smile of the woman bagging my groceries. The sparkle of a beautiful and newly discovered song.
It’s safe to say I’ll probably never own a didgeridoo or become a level 5 vegan. But I’m learning to put the camera down and feel the ocean on my face.