Devil’s Punchbowl and Simon Says:
“Intimations of Tantra”
…
2.0
The Devil’s Punchbowl
You might not remember that Fr. Steve Shallot, was investigating the exorcist’s, Fr. Robillard’s, murder. Or, was it suicide? He was also seeking Dr. Jack Hartley’s current location. Fr. Steve had left Old Mary’s house after the arrival of that large monk, Br. Benedict, came by to check up on Sister Mary after Jack’s ordeal. Fr. Steve left, but with Mary’s directions in hand to find Dr. Jack Hartley, now on the run– to avoid another deadly confrontation with the Beast(?) These directions guide Fr. Steve to the retreat of a fearsome hermitess on the eastern slopes of California’s High Sierras above a town called Bishop.
…
The sun set as Fr. Steve reached Highway 395 and the long drive to Bishop from Old Mary’s place in the desert. Soon his mind began to meander, uninterruptedly, but for the occasional inconsiderate soul coming the other way with their high beams on.
He and Jack had shared a couple of high school years, and other intimacies. They had competed for girl friends. He even wrote a poem about one of their loves:
We
are roiling clouds pierced by the mountain.
Dominus Vobiscum
At times, I might rebuke this bright passage between two black holes and can only envision the final fall.
But, then
I remember the cover tossing joy of holding you or talking to you,
Then,
I laugh in the morning light, hardly able to wait for the next bright dance to come, hardly able to wait for my next chance to fold myself in your arms…”
Et Cum Spiritu Tuo
…And then it seemed as if Agnes (Stephanie?) was in the car with Steve! Was he dreaming or just hypnotized by the monotony of the road! No, she almost seemed so real. But her clothes were bloodied. Or rather that her clothes had been bloodied by putting them on over a bloodied body. It wasn’t her really, its some kind of visceral, psychic projection. Terrifying for this very straight, otherwise ordinary Catholic priest. He kept driving. His eyes were completely wide open, but still, he seemed to be dreaming. She began to sort of sing. No, not sing really, she began to reminisce:
Here our editor has censored the more graphic images of Fr. Steve’s (Ag’s?) musing. To include that material here would be too distracting. Suffice it to note, that here we treat
‘Intimations of Tantric Mortality,’
as its worldview, for our purposes, yokes best mortality to immortality– with almost scientific detachment. You’ll have to imagine the rest, but for the following:
Night after night, I would go to my room and find Jack waiting for me there. My room was in the attic of our huge old ranch house. Or we would agree to meet in that isolated hay barn at the back of the property. Jack always seemed fresh, fragrant with some new cologne. His body would be so warm that at times it seemed he must be on fire. He kissed me, offered me his naked body. Nor did I resist … ‘But there is something else I want even more, he’d say. I want you. You. I want to touch your soul. There is love you see, and there is Love.
…
This night, we drove to a place about an hour away. It’s called the Devil’s Punchbowl. It’s now a park, but it wasn’t then. It’s where the San Andrea’s Fault comes to the surface. We walked to a place that over-looked the edge of a deep chasm, strewn with huge boulders. It was nearly a full moon in this late autumn warmth of California’s ‘Indian Summer.’ We could see anyone coming from a long way away where we were, but it would be hard for anyone to see us, night or day. It was a perfect place beneath boulders and pinion pines. We spread our blanket on a bed of soft, fragrant pine needles.
… In the soft autumn air, there was the rush of a breeze. And did the earth tremble just a bit along that ‘magnificent fault?’ As a soft fall of garments sounded the beginning of something different… For as Jack gazed into her eyes, so close, so naked- he peered so deeply into her that she was afraid. But when Agnes looked back there was nothing but the gentlest desire in him, on his lips. She gave a long gasp and then her whole body opened up. For an eternal instant they were bound together. He stopped. He stopped and held… His face agonized. She did not understand.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Just wait,” he gasped after a bit.
He started again, his lips pressed to her neck… Then he rolled over away from her as if wild with pain. And she reached out for him. He resisted. She tried again. His body was perfect in its youth, modeled by the soft light of the moon. He recoiled painfully. And once again he inched away.
After many moments, maybe years, she reached over, touched so tentatively his broad shoulders as he lay rolled up in a ball. Then she took him in her arms and held him. Whether in ecstasy or agony, she could not tell. She just held him in the moonlight. Many moments passed, maybe hours.
“Why?” She asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You must know.”
“I wanted to see what we looked like-
inside.”
“Like that!?” Moments passed. “What did you see?”
She felt him withdraw, within himself, away from her soul and spirit. She glances, almost frantically, about her cave as if lost. Yet, something was evoked, boding power beyond imagining. And the moon slipped behind the mountain, leaving them in the dark rocks above the chasm beneath the pinion trees. A night wind blew up the canyon wall and whipped their fragrance into the world.
____________________
Simon
There are moments in the Tropics when the extraordinary oppression of the heat can be delicious. There are times in the deserts of the West when the summer sun can cleanse like a dry sauna in the snowfields of the north. Simon Han, first generation Asian American, has felt both the healing and destruction of his training as sorcerer in such places. But a true relationship with nature is necessary to true ‘power.’ …
Simon’s training took him through long wilderness exposure with people who had the normal spectrum of kindness and aggression one finds among humans. But generally there were not, in the wilds of his exposure, the wildly unbalanced or defensive personalities found in the urban environment. Simon is comfortable in any climate where the magics of life glitter with a potential for survival and propagation. In fact, shortly after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, Simon spent a full four seasons training in a remote Eskimo village far to the north of anything green. Not only did Simon learn the language and culture of the place, but also he learned to survive in sub zero climates of snow and ice in what turned out to be for him a Garden of Eden rather than the freezing horror one might expect.
As a promising shaman’s apprentice, Simon spent many nights of testing, naked in the snow. He was able to keep himself warm by generating what’s called in some places, yogic heat- Tum-mo among the Tibetans. It is the basis of all true magic and has various characteristics. Heat is the useful one here.
There will be more about the ice gardens of the north later, but now Simon is in love, and in trouble. Perhaps the intensity of his passion is a reaction to the extreme deprivations of his earlier training. But in trying to get away from some of the horrors of such formation, he is sweating an even more challenging romance in a hot triangle of the Caribbean.
He and another young sorcerer have fallen in love (and lust) with a slightly older woman. She owns the old hotel on the island of St. Agnes and she has certain powers of her own. But they all represent other agents, or organizations of great influence in the markets and political arenas of the world. They represent intensely competitive people who use their skills– well, some for the good of the whole, and some not. Some are intensely selfish and self absorbed–a cruel isolation, but addictive. This is something of what I meant about urban delusions. This is the history of civilization.
Though Simon Han is a Korean immigrant, he is unusually tall, well built with an inverted triangle of a torso, narrow strong hips, long straight legs. His family came to America when he was a baby for all the usual reasons, but mainly so that Simon and his brother could find a first rate education. One brother ‘did well.’ He became a doctor. Simon, to his parent’s dismay was entranced by other glamors. While at school he fell in with a group of friends fascinated with magic. Not the slight of hand fakery of many a street performer. They wanted the real thing. Mysticism. Against the advice of certain Romantic poets, they studied religion and were caught up in its perennial attractions. Not the sort of popular religion that is just a pacifier, an opiate. They sought ‘meetings with remarkable beings,’ with the Spirit of Being itself. As a consequence they learned, as I will reveal, many practical crafts. What we usually call sorcery. In reality, it is not so easily categorized. It has so many variations- So many different applications. Its character is as multitudinous as there are qualities, or characteristics in the universe.
One such characteristic is our ability to observe the beauty of interior dispositions. By that I mean inner states of awareness or consciousness. The beauty of pure mysticism exposes one to the meaning and value of being. One’s true ineffable self. Goodness to fill one’s heart. Beauty that satisfies every desire. But along the way, there are other qualities, ‘powers’ if you like, that make themselves available to the sorcerer’s research. Dangerous they are. Some vicious beyond fear. Some trade on horror and hunger, eager to dissect one’s life like a biology student extracting the beating heart from a pinned, laboratory animal. It’s a treacherous path. But it has certain advantages…
Simon came on assignment to the Caribbean to seek out this woman, Stephanie. She is thought to be a vampire of legendary beauty and power. Ancient in her craft. But in the process he met young Chris. If one were to compare Chris to anyone for looks, one might think of Brad Pitt in his late twenties- and observe Simon’s curious resemblance to Tom Cruise, though taller. Movie star good looks and vigor. Heros don’t have to be good-looking. Though if they become real heros, their heroism gives them an incomparable appeal. He also is on the island of St. Agnes seeking this sultry, blood sucker queen. Chris had only just arrived when he met Simon. There was an odd attraction/repulsion between the two of them. They met in the dining room at the regal old hotel where Simon lodged– the only real hotel on the island. Chris in his good-natured way was trying to help a family of Arab tourists order from the English menu. Chris speaks with a high British accent that can only be learned at mother’s knee, and private (curiously called Public) schools, or maybe Ampleforth, and then Cambridge or Oxford. His voice carried in such a way that silenced the rest of the crowded room. There was something about his tone that gained the immediate sympathy of the room and the staff. He really was trying to be helpful as the room filled with embarrassed smiles. Though I doubt that family of tourists was ever more cordially served in their travels as the result of Chris’ attention. Who would ever suspect that he was such a practiced killer. Chris and Simon met later in the bar.
The rest of the hotel had the simple elegance of spacious tiled floors, clean white or paneled walls, potted palms, exotic flowers eager for display, deeply carved red mahogany tables and chairs one expects in an old, affluent, tropical environment. The bar was as dark as pirate lore. In fact, it was the original hovel that the rest of the edifice has built around, over the centuries. It is a dark cool cave, as it serves the well-lighted lounge nearby and terrace over-looking the small bay of the island…