(- My 11th day on this post: 06/24/2022.-)
“The Tower” in Spirit Hill Tarot
It’s A Pleasant Summer Afternoon,
Some Years Ago Now,
and the 20-something clean young man,
sitting on a bench before a white picket fence,
and a flower garden blooming behind that,
he’s deep in DESPAIR there, dressed Far
NEATER than the summer tourists.
It’s a HIGH PRIORITY in my work,
paid for in the ticket price,
me to go over, sit down, chat;
(me a fortuneteller too,)
(and i love teaching,)
so i’m hurrying over there
right now.
But wait: Eyeing him, reading him so glum,
downcast staring at his well-shod feet,
his trim square shoulders slumped,
i’d say he’s a Mormon Missionary
on a long-planned side trip,
on a Pious Pilgrimage in fact,
like i’d visit a Buddhist Monastery,
now plunged into a Crisis Of Faith from what
he’s found in our 1830’s History Museum,
which turned out NOT to be Jerusalem.
I walk over, tip my tall top hat,
brief bow from the waist.
“Good afternoon, sir;
If you will,
may i take a bit of rest?
And he looking up,
the Old Timey manners
seemed to ease him
toward a TINY
trembling
smile.
:::
YEARS LATER I’M REMEBERING ALL THIS,
now in summer 2022;
And i’m
finally understanding what i want to say,
what has often niggled at my memory:
That heart-to-heart is a microcosm
of the fragile dangerous state
of our US. politics today.
:::
So why did i see a Mormon Missionary?
Well, two summers before,
a Mormon Motion Picture Company
had filmed a part of a Mormon Movie
in our Historic New England Village;
The main scene shot in our General
Store WHERE I WAS TEACHING;
With my manager assigning me to stand off-
-camera, and to PROTECT OUR EXHIBIT;
As the movie crew were In A RUSH;
Me guessing from the directing:
They’re on a cramped budget,
composing a story-setting
prelude sequence of a contentious
VILE SPIRITUAL BETRAYAL of some sort.
.. What? ..
:::
Dear Reader,
Please Understand:
In its ancient roots
Mormonism is English culture; It followed
the New England Cultural Diaspora westward; ..
First its Founder’s Birth in Vermont, at our region’s
western edge; .. Then west to its Founding Visions in
Upstate New York; .. Then on westward to its first big
colony in Ohio; .. But there for awhile Mormonism
splintered in Lawsuits For MONEY; .. And THEN
finally FAR west to the final colony in Utah,
where Mormonism debauched itself into
HOLY WAR worthy of 1640’s Butcher
Oliver Cromwell .. {-Wikipedia-}
!! HEARTLESS MASSACRES !!
! One infamy in Native American disguise !
=> Mountain Meadows Massacre .. {-Wikipedia-} <=
But unlike old Cromwell,
unlike the US. South,
at least the Mormons were not pro-slavery.
:::
Yet all that Hell was
very far from our museum.
So i’d not yet given any study to the subject;
Thus i only knew what i saw portrayed.
Now i think:
That New England General Store scene
was some terrible dispute
early on the Hell-Bound Path;
And my visitor had seen that film,
imagined a Return To Eden,
but found here
an Ordinary Town!
Do you see parallels with current politics?
Apparently that film’s plot’s genesis was
UNRESOLVED HISTORIC GRIEVANCE,
like far too much of our
politics today.
So my job was:
Talk my new friend out of it;
Even talk him down from needing Eden.
And this was my sense of his need at that time.
:::
But I Felt
Well-Prepared For The Attempt.
For the religious currents of OUR area,
the Massachusetts of Transcendentalism,
were one of our museum’s required studies.
(Ie: Underlying debates in Unitarian Churches;)
And those Unitarian currents
are a COMPLETELY OPPOSITE story;
About:.. !! SPIRITUAL LIBERATION WAKING !!
New England Unitarianism .. {-Wikipedia-}
Transcendtalism .. {-Wikipedia-}
Sitting there, thinking fast,
i mentally dusted off Ralph Waldo Emmerson,
for our museum portrays 1838, one year
after “The American Scholar”,
.. .. {-Wikipedia-} .. ..
(” lifted in infinite space, mean egotism vanishes “)
(” the sun lights a man’s eye, but a child’s heart “)
(” we have nothing to ask that is unanswerable “)
~Emmerson
.. .. .. ..
Or if you don’t kno Emmerson, just think of
Thoreau’s more famous “Walden” .. {-Wikipedia-}
Thoreau’s book “Walden” guided
us 1970’s Hippie Pagans =>Back To The Land<=
(“ the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation “)
(“ not to discover, when i die, that i have not lived “)
(“ in my pantheon Pan reigns, for he is not dead “)
~Thoreau
.. .. .. ..
YES:.. There in Transcendentalist Massachusetts
we taught of church debates at the genesis of
!Hippie Pagans rather than Mormonism!
!!!.No fing bizeltit, man.!!!
Why? Because:
Those debates addressed HOW to
separate the church from state;
How do you shape that law?
Knowing it must be done!
We taught of THOSE
debates at our
museum!
Now how to relate this mild faith to my new friend?
Certainly by speaking in modern language,
but enacting my main character.
:::
~ The Main Character I Portrayed ~
“The Human Path”
My Dears,
As You Might Imagine:
Teaching in the General Store,
with a Fascinating Plethora of
Antique Merchandise displayed,
while Lots Of Fun,
was NOT prone to Abstract Conversation.
(I had a sales pitch for Tooth Powder.)
.. (-wikipedia-) ..
But usually i taught in
a different 1830’s retail space;
Enacting a person who would really
be a Public Intellectual of that locality:
>Mister New England Small Town Banker.<
(For he would act as local Public Consultant.)
And he, adherent of the ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE,
of public education, church-state separation,
so forth, had interesting chats with visitors.
He would sometimes tell of
Massachusetts’ run-up to the US. Civil War,
which shaped local character as much as war
itself would, shaped what i’d tell my new
friend on the bench that summer day.
You understand,
the Civil War was long foreseen,
the regional opinion entrenched in
advance; … It’s preached as Holy War
in the South; .. But in the North, with
Massachusetts as the philosophical
beacon, called practical Civic Duty
in a dangerous country where
evil men claim that God
Gives Them Slaves,
a danger to all.
And this my anti-slavery banker,
keeping to his Unitarian faith,
calming his passion for the
good of all humankind,
would explain to our
museum visitors.
And much in that character,
a denier of a human need for Eden,
i’d speak to my friend that summer day.
:::
~~ Brief Footnote ~~
“Wanderer Above A Sea Of Fog”
– C.D. Friedrich, 1817
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:::
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=> FINAL CLOSING goes here. <=
Thank you. -sr
Stone Riley Druid Classroom 