Irruption

Every vehicle of transport that I ride upon is pirate ship. It doesn't matter if it is a car, a bus, a train, a bike, or a long board. What matters is that my presence brings pirate purpose to the journey. My presence names the vessel as irrupting ship a-sail on mutable paths beyond national claim. On such waters even the most insipid happening is the stuff of mythic creation.

Come with me: Here I am, sailing along, ever alert for a gift for the likes of you, scanning the appropriately emerging horizon. Suddenly my head snaps left, reflexively following the sight of shiny movement. In free fall dance there is a red and white blaze of sensuous possibility emerging out of my peripheral vision. It catches the gleam of the sun, rolls that blurry blaze, tossing lithe light my way. Into the place of my serious recognition it wafts. I wonder what it will be, what I will be able to give to you.

The possibilities are still endless. I am happily seduced, wanting possession. Now I can only think about stopping my own movement long enough to grab this treasure, to be able to hold it close, to know its secrets, to name it.

Continuously moving I still strain to see more clearly. Then at one moment the vision crystallizes. Recognition reigns, and my sacred mythically oriented questing (Is it sun god? Or fairy soul? Or inscrutable message?) faces annihilation.

I see it, my gift, as an abandoned and empty package, trash blown on the road. My mythic possible has solidified into common litter cast aside

Emile Durkheim, French sociologist, wrote that the dichotomy between sacred and profane is the central characteristic of all religion. The sacred things are those set apart, holy, which resonate the unity of the group. The profane (from the Latin pro, before, and fanum, temple) are those things which are mundane, of concern merely to the individual. No goodness or evil is implied in either. The sacred differs from the profane in its universality which confers its overarching import.

Mircea Eliade defined myth as the breakthrough of the sacred into the world.

Allow me to continue my little story.

Feeling a bit like Micky Mouse as befuddled wizard's apprentice as well as deeply amused by it all, I stopped to muse. Next to me was parked another vehicle. I felt that wonderful sort of déjà vu as I noticed that on the dashboard in the sunlight danced the same red and white numinousness. I began to look more closely, in spite of myself. Would the next defining vision disappoint or redeem?

I left my own vehicle, my approach intrepid. I can only describe my state of mind as carnivalesque. Mikhail Bakhtin uses this term to refer to that which subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant perspective. I was armed with my sacrality.

The profane had no power over me. Litter be blessed.

I asked my fellow traveler what is this appearance on his dash board. What is this red and white blaze that refuses to be captured by the cognitive trap, manifesting through me, that threatens naming into the death horror of inherent existence?

And my friend began to sing: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare.

He smiled: "It is Krishna." And indeed it was. Held in the emptiness of a red and white shrine, he was there, right in front of me. It was Krishna: god-child, prankster, divine hero, perfect lover of the gopis. His name means Existence of Bliss.

And in this eternal bliss moment the distinctions between sacred and profane were no more. The vision of dancing light made empty litter was now made emptiness of shrine, womb to hold the god image. It was not large enough to hold the song of praise in my heart. Hare, Hare: The song smelled of incense and tasted of sweet honeyed milk and danced with the light of my vision and the waves of my pirate road.

This hierophany is my gift to you. In the break in of the sacred nothing is stolen. Instead there is gift. Everything acquires fresh identity through participation in the transcendent.

We stand profane, before the temple. And then we irrupt into that space, creating image larger, deeper, more beautiful than we ever suspected we could.

The pirate journey is never landing.

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse w ho hopes t o inspir e pr ofound mu tiny in all those who care to read. Our Rx ma y be wearing a pir ate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You ma y e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.