in the hall of mirrors

Explaining Nachiketas

I probably need to explain the previous poem, and the story of Nachiketas, and my own connection with it. I'll tell all this from my point of view... which might seem a bit roundabout, but if you're patient I'll get to it.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were three powerful forces keeping me going after I was diagnosed HIV+; they included my brilliant Jungian analyst Mitch Evans, my equally brilliant writing teacher Terry Wolverton (who was running an HIV writing workshop), and Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati. Ma Jaya, as she is known, is a spiritual teacher with an ashram in eastern Florida, about midway up the coast; she is an amazing and extremely dramatic woman – just one of her many facets is a powerful focus on AIDS activism. In the late 1980s one of her gurubais (or disciples), who also happened to be my AIDS Project LA 'buddy' (i.e. the guy who checked on me, talked to me, saw that I got my groceries, etc.), brought me to meet her on the first of a series of visits she made to Los Angeles (and later San Francisco). Although I am not a particularly religious person – I've never done any formal practice in relation to the ashram – Ma and many of her gurubais are close friends, and an important part of the past eighteen years of my life.

One thing Ma typically does is give people a spiritual name; such names are usually taken from the Hindu pantheon and legendary figures, or related names associated with their qualities or strengths. After I'd known her for a year, she still had not given me a name – as far as I knew; she called me 'Poet' (a real honor of a name, of course!) but nothing else. When I finally asked about this, she admitted that she had a name for me but was concerned that I, and in fact her gurubais, might find the name kind of alarming. When I insisted, she said my name was Nachiketas – and that he was the boy who made friends with Death. I was, and am, frankly proud of the name – it indicates a certain toughness, a certain unafraid quality, that I've discovered in myself over the years, underneath the layers of oversensitivity and complaining that are probably more obvious.

The story of Nachiketas? Well, it was first explained to me by Thomas Byrom. Thomas was a gay Oxford scholar of Sanskrit, who was dying of cancer while living at the ashram; he published translations of the Dhammapada (a major Random House edition, still in print) and the Ashtavakra Gita (which he titled The Heart of Awareness – Shambhala, 1990). He also made a translation of the Katha Upanishad – the most famous and important of the Upanishads – which was unfortunately unpublished on his death, but I have a bound copy. I don't know if it will ever be possible to publish it, but it seems quite good to me – sophisticated but quite readable. In any case, the Katha Upanishad is the story of Nachiketas. Thomas told me all this over the telephone, in the course of several long conversations in those years; we unfortunately never met face to face, because when I finally visited the ashram he had died, in October 1991; he has a beautiful memorial bench along the river near the ashram.

***

Nachiketas was a boy, the son of a Brahmin; his father was making a holy sacrifice, but frankly it wasn't much of a sacrifice – old, skinny oxen, quite unimpressive really; and the boy, who (as we shall see) didn't have much tact, said so. The father, in a rage, told the boy to go to hell: literally hell, to Yama, to the lord of death. Well, the boy was not only direct, he was also extremely literal-minded, so... he went.

And in Hell he stood before Yama's house, but the servants didn't know what to do with him, since Yama was away and this was a living boy; so they left him outside, where he waited for three days. When he returned, the Lord Yama was shamed, as this went against all the laws of hospitality. So Yama offered the boy three boons, whatever he wished to ask. The first wish the boy had was that his father would forgive him; and that was easy enough. The second was that Yama would teach Nachiketas the ritual fire, which he did (I don't understand much of this passage, it's extremely Vedic and archaic, but fortunately fairly short). The third, however, as is right in any good tale, is The Clincher: Nachiketas asks Yama, What is the secret of death?

Yama is not at all pleased at the question, which he says not even the gods are supposed to know; he argues, expostulates, offers the boy riches, anything he wants, and so on. But we have already seen that the boy is rather pig-headed (remember, this is the character I am named for); and finally the god of death has to give in, and he admits: the secret of death is the secret of life.

The story thus leads into the vast explanation of reincarnation which is the main body and heart of the Katha Upanishad. And now you know enough, certainly, to understand the poem – and the name, and what the name suggests. Except – and I almost forgot to say this – its literal meaning, which is: he is just going to wake up.

The Song of Nachiketas

“At last his father turned on him in anger. ‘Enough!’ he said. ‘Why should I give you to God? I’d rather hand you over to Death!’ As a dutiful son, Nachiketas took him at his word, and set out at once for the House of Death.” – The Katha Upanishad, translated by Thomas Byrom

I.

I fought towards Death, arms stiff, my ramrod spine
slammed at the river’s roaring, boiling blood,
my legs’ flesh cooking, yet I did not fall,
stalked through the reeking cries in that black air,
pulled up the smoldering bank, dragged past sharp rocks
before Death’s house, its red enormous door,
and pounded, shouting: Can you not know me?
Behind the curdled glass white twisting forms
clawed at each other, shrieked confusion, cried:
Death is not here, he walks out on the earth.
Three days I stood before that door, and held
my rage in tensioned muscle, fear tied down
to rigid tendons, stared at souls that writhed
in mid-air, cracks across the sky that blew
black storms of hail and fire into my face;
dark lesions purpled down my arms, my throat
was filled with sand, sparks burned unguarded skin;
my left eye burned to ash, my bowels imploded,
tore each other in the bloated sack
of melting bile my body had become:
such waiting, breathing, holding, screaming, pain –
I seized black, ragged vultures’ grimy wings
and flung them into stones, watched steaming brains
drip through rough granite cracks onto the ground.
The third day’s end: a figure strode across
the river, feet unburned, robes red, hair black,
his eyes a deeper black, face livid white.
I wrenched my gaunt charred legs and turned, I dragged
my shattered face to face him, sucked in all
the air like fire, screamed: Know me, O Death!

II.

His smooth white arms grasp mine, he holds me up
and carries me into that great red house,
carved muscled skin beneath my head, my neck
relaxes from the soft heat of his touch.
Great curving stairs, white halls hung with pale silks –
he gently brings me to a broad, deep bed;
the room’s dim light hides colors, but I squint
my eyes to catch faint, half-imagined things:
a chair I know, a quilt I recognize,
and if those curtains opened, I would see
the trees that grow outside my mother’s house.
He puts me down, a precious bundle with
the rope that holds it fraying into threads,
unraveling into pure strands of light;
he asks forgiveness, wipes my forehead, then
he says, unwary: Ask, and it is yours.
I see my chance and pounce, but carefully:
What is the secret of our deaths, O Death?
His eyes grow dark and he retreats, he begs:
No, ask me something else, that is too hard.
But, drowsy, brushing lips against his arm
and breathing in his skin, I gaze at him
with my eyes wide and smile insisting, sweet.
His arms encircle me, I clasp my legs
around and through his legs, I stare into
his face forever, for a moment, see...
(As for the secret, which his eyes reveal
just as his lips meet mine: I drift away
on waters, hearing sounds familiar, new –
a wet exploding, cry, and then: a breath.)

[Los Angeles, 4/20/91-8/29/92]

Birds of Dawn

A beautiful track by Stephan Micus, from his 2002 album Towards the Wind: shimmering, cracked-crystal kalimba accompaniments, with some kind of shawm-like instrument in the foreground. Although I'm sitting on the couch, vaguely wishing I could sit around or snooze and skip today's meetings and working luncheons, this is cheering – sinuous beauty, moving forms, flocks rising into the sky....

Flash of bitterness

While running around today – office, meeting, shopping, home – several things, pleasant and un-, came into my head to write about; but instead –

just one small thing: those New Zealand tourism commercials are running again, with their seductive jingles, beautiful landscapes, and happy families (especially the amazingly hunky, athletic dads with their shirts off); but they make me really angry: the promise of happiness, the possibility that Oceania represents, the utopian image of that (non-Amida-Buddhist) Pure Land – irrational it may be, but they brings up all the bile from my Australian deportation (for being HIV+ – long story), the disappointment of aging, and perhaps most of all envy of those who seem healthy and happy....

I didn't say they were attractive responses. But they are, unfortunately, real.

Luxuries

A bit sleepy/groggy tonight, don't know why. Too much sugar, perhaps?...

Brought back from Spain: turrón, several kinds – egg yolk and sugar, which I love (and which I was told doesn't last, so I bought only one); almond paste and crushed almonds; and chocolate with almonds. Didn't bother with the wafer and egg whites one – had just hacked my way through a whole one that I'd bought in Rome, which was a bit like chewing through stone....

Roasted almonds, roasted hazelnuts (they're better than the ones they sell here). Dried fruit – sounds boring, I know, but these were some French dried fruits that were in the grocery in Sitges that were sort of half-dried and had a very different consistency to the ones I'm used to; the strawberries and apples were especially good (my guests the other night went right through a bowl of them). Buying figs here, at the corner store, reminded me of the much more amazing figs we took off the trees in Crete – G– and K– had become adept at this, watching for certain trees by the side of the road, planning when the green would turn purple. And the herbs there, and the mastikha....

I keep making things a bit more interesting in the kitchen – pesto in the hummus, a cayenne-lemon mixture on the salmon, pistachios in the saffron rice – feta marinated with olives and garlic... That's actually one of the advantages of visiting Mediterranean countries: one relearns that food is supposed to be good, rich and strong-flavored all the time.

One thing I had to leave behind, because it seemed impossible to take liquids through British airports after the Heathrow scare: the chocolate liqueur – not merely chocolate-flavored spirits, but more like pouring chocolate. And they were selling a white chocolate and a vanilla liqueur that were similarly made – ah well, next year....

As I've said, my increased fascination with strong flavors and related luxuries (bath oils, incense) may be associated with living in a northern country (and of course it's turning into autumn). Or a replacement for a sex life (Freud) or distraction from the relative boredom of living alone in a small city... of course, this jars slightly with the Marxist tone of my department: but then I've always been the self-indulgent bourgeois here.

And perhaps I'm just too sleepy to make sense tonight....

Reality

My eldest sister is in the hospital for an operation... it unfortunately brings up some worry; she is always cool and offhand about serious things (she is, in fact, always the unflappably dependable one, the smart one, the one who raises no fuss – typical eldest child in that context).

But of course the rest of us are worried – in fact it's always remarkable how my siblings show at different times different facets of themselves that resemble either my calm, generous dad, who was always interested in practically everything, or my anxious mom, who worries about and guards against practically everything instead.

Thinking about my sister, and hoping she's well – and, somewhat more demandingly, that she will continue to be well....

[untitled]

Ravel glides through my fingers into air.

My touch is shaky, robe falling loose, aches span
my ribs, so tired. Not tired of thinking of you:
dark, broad chords spin out past the lamp’s circle.

Conjuring you into the room behind me:
would you turn away if I made a mistake,
would you leave the room, or stay and listen?

Would you come put strong hands lightly
on my shoulders, lean your hips, thighs
into my back, gently, not disturb my arms,

stand within the reverberant web of notes,
read with me the fine net of lines and figures,
silently share what only musicians know?

I play slowly, trying to never reach the last chords,
wanting to freeze this forward-spinning time, falling
that great distance, afraid to have to turn

and face the empty room.

[Los Angeles, 6/9-10/14/92]

On reflection

The formal articulation of so much mental garbage does tend to leave me thinking I'm being rather silly. I mean, you'd think that at my age I would remember that the best solution to being unproductive/unfulfilled/unexcited is just to get on with it.

A dream this morning, clearly grown from my concerns of the past weeks: something about being disastrously late with homework... which is perhaps the truth about my life. And, as I bark at my postgraduate and senior students and get them to outdo themselves by simply insisting that they make it to the deadline and do the best they can, clearly I need to do some of that for myself....

Next (above) post: one of my favorites of my own poems. Hey, it won an award (from a gay newspaper in San Francisco, the Sentinel, some time in the early 1990s, when poetry about AIDS and mourning was especially common). Anyway: I like it.

Persona

Last Tuesday, I was in a pub with a colleague from another university, and was eventually joined by a circle of friends from my own university (most of whom have blogs, by the way). We had fun, I was rather giddy (saying some tacky things, but I have friends all over the world who are accustomed to my tendency to do that); I enjoyed myself, especially in contrast to my feelings of the previous three or four days (which had given rise to a few fairly depressing posts); but the difference between those emotional states bothered me a bit.

Last night, Barry and his partner Paul, and my dear friend P–, came over for dinner, and to discuss the workshop Barry and I are going to run in October about AIDS and writing. Great fun again; I cooked, rather chaotically (chicken, tomatoes, leeks, all with rather lot of chili oil, in pasta with lots of pepper), and we all got along famously. Then P– stayed over, and that is always satisfyingly and rather domestically comforting; it actually makes this feel like a home, which is wonderful of course. I felt odd about it again, though, and told P– so; he said it was just Catholic guilt, but I don't think I agree – aside from the fact that I'm not Catholic, it doesn't seem that I don't think I deserve to enjoy myself.

Instead, it just feels as though my life is oddly out of balance – oddly because I don't think I'm entirely dysfunctional: always, through the years, I have had many close friends, now scattered on several continents (even in the worst times, I knew there were always wonderful people I could call who cared what happened to me). And, in a social setting, I may be rather silly, but I get along well with lots of people; and I can enjoy things, respond to things, relate to people and places.

So: why is there such a painful gap, such a disturbing lacuna, around the area of editing, research, writing? These are things I enjoy, at least theoretically, and in fact they're the only things I do that really matter to me; and at more reactive tasks (answering the phone, responding to an emergency e-mail) I don't do badly. But generating my own universe on the page: even knowing that all writers and many academics have serious difficulties with that, my own problems seem rather bizarre and nonsensical. I just can't figure out why it's so hard.

And now the school year is going to start, and I can't regard it with anything but dismay (though blahfeme seems actually stoked about it – an apparently admirable emotion I can't even understand at this point, let alone identify with). It all seems so oppressive: needing to engage with a variety of people, to make the usual mistakes, to make real decisions and respond to real problems and personalities – I'm not excited about it, especially as this prefatory week has already included collisions, and as I keep feeling I've taken on more responsibility than I'm really interested in engaging with.

Back when I was doing Jungian analysis in the late 1980s, with my remarkable and rather bizarre mountain climber of an analyst (perfect for me, as I wanted to go far and deep to understand myself – so many therapists refuse to go further than what is necessary to make one content), we discussed my diagnosis. That was kind of a concession on his part, since he knew I would talk and read about it anyway. He said that my experience of myself as diffuse and unclear represented the fragmentation of my personality (in ways distantly related to narcissistic and borderline personality disorders – very distantly in the latter case, I might add, I've never been that screwed up – borderlines are of course pretty scary). He said that the way I managed to get by was through depending on my persona, that is, the external image of myself as presented to others.

This is, of course, backwards: a 'normal' person should have an integrated personality, and base their persona loosely on it. I was sort of doing it the other way around, since my persona was fairly solid and well-defined, while my 'self' wasn't quite so well put together. Which doesn't mean I was concealing myself – on the contrary – but perhaps what I was concealing (and not very well, as I've always complained about this to friends) was my own fragmentation, my own endless uncertainty about what I want.

I'm a long way from that time and from the person I was then; almost twenty years from when I started analysis, and fifteen from when I finished. But the problem, if it is one, is such a basic part of me – I just wish I knew how to move further past it....

Brief Encounter

A bit startled, and disappointed, by the film Brief Encounter (1945). The original one-act play (Still Life, from Coward's Tonight at 8:30) is so utterly wonderful – melodrama perhaps, but such spare, precisely written melodrama, where every character is completely outlined with just a few deft strokes, and the whole story progresses so delicately and inevitably towards its tragic focus. Besides, the whole point should be that they don't have many words for their situation, shouldn't it? – that their feelings for each other are strong but unmanageable – all much more believable, much more powerful, in the original version. Why add narration, flashbacks, foreshadowing, discussion?... ick. I'm afraid I can't understand why this is supposed to be a classic film.

It reminds me of what my friend Laura said, when her beloved youngest brother drowned in a silly vacation accident, and her family, which always expected her (and only her, not even her feckless parents) to be the Adult In Charge; they indulged themselves in the drama of the situation, weeping and wailing and such, and she said quietly to me: "It's already so awful, why do they need to make it awful?" I've always remembered that line – it says a lot about real feelings, and their resistance to being spoken....