124 [62] ‘Achekale’ The White Castle. Oil on Panel 5.5′ x 3.5′ 1987
This painting is from a pilgrimage to eastern Turkey described as follows:
On my way to Turkey, I stood alone outside Le Vadia, a country railway station in Greece, and was impressed with a sense of a kindness and simplicity that is the ambiance of all our endeavors. I was on my way to Thessalonika, then Istanbul via Pythia as it will say on my ticket. I’ve just left the Pythian oracle at Delphi where visions and dream were kind to me. The journey continued in kindness across Turkey; kindness in the people I met, the kindness of God who provided the way and at the last moment in the mountains east of Kars, in the kindness of a fellow traveler, a guide who for the moment was obsessed to show me the “Akchekale,” the ‘White or Pale Castle.”
I knew that it was ‘the place’ I was looking for as soon as I saw it. It was a long way from civilization on a promontory above a deep canyon …
Behind these ancient ruins of a castle, I sat alone in my ritual before the freshly gathered circle of flowers that sang their pure violet to the sacred fire within their circle. The devil-chasing bell sang itself to silence, taking my song along with it in that deserted, white castle, behind its dark tower, between an abandoned water well and a razed church in that place unvisited much, even by Turks much less tourists, a wind blew up the river-cut chasm so far down,
everything fell away,
fell away-
then, The Word,
whispered across perception … and it seemed at that moment that I had died, for how could human biology contain such love. It would have been the same for Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, shaman or priest for it was the heart of creation.
There, in that place of an ancient wound, the sacred fire invoked the Spirit, as some beast roared a wailing cry, a terrible sound that tore through the canyon.
This travel joined my need for healing with the healing that I believe is inherent in creation.
I could not look back at the castle when I left, for fear, for respect. I seldom think about it now because when I do, my eyes tear fully, reminded of such fullness. At that moment though, it was smooth and easy in its blessing; pale green, brown rose, yellow
the light set the land dancing.
CHAPTER 8
In which:
-A plot thickens.
-Ordination
-1st Cuernavaca
-Control dreams
-Migraines
-Black Widow Spider
-Experiment
-4th Dragon
-5th Dragon
-A successful experiment.
My return from Greece met two challenges. One was that I had little understanding of what it all meant. Two, I was to be ordained a Catholic priest the following Spring. One month before that ordination was to take place, I was informed by the then current Vocation Director that he had recommended to the Bishop I not be ordained. I believed, he had attacked me, under other pretexts, for going to India in the first place. Now, I believe the Greece expedition completely colored his mind and heart against me. I have always had my supporters in the institution and those other “friends” whose task it was to challenge and toughen my resolve. He was one such. I do not believe that he was well intended.
I had been friends with the former Vocation Director, but when the new one took over, the ‘bad chemistry’ between us was immediately evident. Because of the nature of institutional operations, such a recommendation from someone in his position had much effect, at least for a while. I’m not saying that I ‘m perfect, but in that situation, I was probably not any worse a candidate than most others who were being ordained without question. (Most, if not all, are excellent men.) I had an excellent record at the seminary. In fact, when the Vocation Director made his unfortunate recommendation the seminary faculty had just voted unanimously for my advancement to ordination. The bishop eventually ruled in my favor. But it was too late for me to be ordained with my class. (This is a point of small but poignant significance within the priest caste.)
I was forced into aggressive psychoanalysis. But within six months of psychic probing, I was pronounced psychologically fit and recommended for ordination to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church by the UCLA psychiatrist that the Vocations Director recommended for me.
I was ordained in 1984.
The night before my ordination something happened that describes my call to the priesthood and a fundamental characteristic of the priesthood, in general, that is usually ignored by contemporary religious institutions. By such ignorance, the mission of the church might be missed. I went out into the Mojave Desert to make a night-long vigil before the ordination. In the morning following, I built a little fire of sacred intention (connected with the Paschal mystery). The air was completely still. But a strong breeze came up and blew the fire to the west, the east, the north, and the south. Then a little whirlwind came up out of the flames and danced around the opposite side of the fire from where I was seated. This, along with a wonderful sensation associated with that place, seemed to be an assent from the powers of the Earth to my ordination. Strange perhaps, but wonderful.
The ordination ritual is a powerful, wonderful liturgy. However, unlike my diaconate ordination which was light-filled, this priestly ordination was characterized by a strong, dark sense of dying. It was beautiful, solemn. Indeed Christ seemed active in this initiation, full in the form and way of guide, mediation, and consolation.
My first parish assignment was in Santa Ana, California. Immediately, my new superior sent me to Mexico to study Spanish. When I went to Mexico I had every intention of learning Spanish. What happened in Mexico was this:
Soon after I arrived in Cuernavaca, I discovered that handsome city and the nearby village of Tepozlan to be powerful in the ways of the “energies.” Really powerful. Not long after arriving, I had a vision/realization, a “message,” clearly from the Greek pilgrimage. This communication told me that if I stayed, I would be badly hurt or would die, that some great harm would come of it. I refused to believe it. I wanted only to fulfill my assignment and not cause any more trouble. I cannot emphasize this last point strongly enough. However, in my heart I knew the premonition was true.
My first weeks there were of high energy, during which I had six instructive dreams in one week. The first three were powerful flying dreams, one that I controlled from a waking state. The fourth dream, plus some shamanizing, tried to resolve problems I had with my pastor, my current superior. The fifth dream two weeks into my stay, was about my home and family; my parents were represented as spirit animals, a great male ape and a mother bear. There were other such animals, but the dream concluded with a big deer-like creature coming over the hill. But the sensation was wild, really wild. Dangerous. With this I felt that the energies were out of control. I was nearly overcome.
In the sixth dream I was a fledgling golden eagle. That seemed to complete a sequence of initiation symbolized by a topically related image at my entrance into the seminary: the eagle. My seminary training included not only theology and pastoral training, but studies in tantra and shamanism; the way of the warrior. The eagle has long been a symbol of the spiritual warrior even before St. John was gifted with this attribute.
(See C.C. Chang’s TIBETAN YOGA for Tibetan techniques of dream control in this reference. Also, Casteneda deals with this in JOURNEY TO IXTLAN.)
During one exploration of downtown Cuernavaca, I ate some food that made me very ill. I seemed to sense that something psychic was happening, although I couldn’t say at that moment that I knew this would eventually allow me to go home before real damage happened. The following Saturday, a week later, I was well enough to visit downtown again. I went into a little chapel that I had seen in passing at the end of a crowded alley, at the top of a flight of stairs. I was delayed from entering by a”sadhu” (or merely a crazy transient) and an immense, white dog, (Cerberus?) with pink eyes. The transient was dancing joyfully to rock music. He frightened me. He looked straight into my eyes, then went away. The dog was quiet until he saw me in the crowd and began to bark wildly. I finally got by and entered the chapel. I sat to pray and then noticed a statue. It was a special statue, subject of much adoration and petition from the faithful. It was a statue that I had seen in a dream, when I was in college, ten year before! (I had been having a series of dreams about Christ. That dream was of particular significance and eventually led me to the monastery. I had never been to Cuernavaca before this trip.)
By now I was sick every day and had just enough energy for classes. I slept the rest of the time. I decided to take a few days off to go to Oaxaca because I sensed it was a place to rest and to wait. I went there and I waited. A priest I had met and with whom I was traveling at that time shouted several times in his sleep one night, “here it is!” in Spanish. I believed him and I continued to wait. The priest and I parted the next day. That afternoon I met a young man from the United States in the market place. He described himself as a yogi, a disciple of a guru of good reputation in the U.S. and I described myself as a priest. We hit it off and began a spiritual exchange that went on for several days. We did some energy exchange exercises involving the central nervous system that was accompanied by a sense of great liberation for me. It was cathartic– a great exchange.
I returned to Cuernavaca. I became very sick once again and finally had to return home. I knew/sensed the experience in Oaxaca was the completion of the reason for my being in Mexico. Being there had to do with developing my understanding of what I had inculcated at the foot of Mt. Olympus two years previous. That was quite clear just before I left Mexico. I now understood and could explain what I had only sensed before. But this will not be the last trip to Cuernavaca. Perhaps, unfortunately–as you will see.
Over the following year, I had increasing trouble with migraines. In a migraine complex one’s blood vessels dilate in the brain. That can cause debilitating anguish in one’s brain and body. I have had migraines since I was 10 years old, but infrequently. They’d grown worse in recent years. I went through the various neurological and psychological therapies. In fact, I first went to the psychologist who introduced me to the study of the “energies” because of migraines. Now, perhaps the conflict between this natural spiritual vocation and an official, too narrowly proscribed role of a Catholic priest produced great stress. The migraines increased to three or four screaming episodes a week. Really deadly. But the medications were more dangerous than the migraines. During this time, in the midst of full-blown migraines I started to have certain realizations. I began to equate the agony of the migraine experience with suffering of the world, and then to the agony of creation’s mysterious evolution. This seemed more than sympathy, but empathy. Associated often with the agony of the migraine’s physical effects was a sense of clarity and beauty and insights about things. Perhaps this was caused by the blood flooding the brain as suggested in the Katerini episode.
During this same time, I had two experiences that have characterized and helped form much of my attitude about religion and human identity. The first has to do with the cure of a man suffering from intense pain. (My second healing) During our healing session he described the “cure” with a mental image of a bubble of pain that passed out of him and up my arm, then disappeared. There were no drugs involved with this cure. I believe it was a kind of release of Kundalini(1) pressure, rather than a “healing,” though the man was relieved of his pain and related symptoms.
The second experience involved a young girl who experienced what could be safely categorized as a spontaneous shamanic initiation.(2) She had no religious background and was from a poorly educated, suburban family. It is unlikely that she could have known about such things as “shamanism.” This reinforced my developing belief that shamanism is part of an atemporal, universal human inheritance and not solely the property of Stone Age tribal peoples, or of New Age dilettantes. It remains a vital active force in the modern world.
At this time, I had the following dream about a black widow spider:
I was in a room at some kind of party. A young man with blond hair was talking to me. We had some kind of teacher/student relationship. A black widow came out from under his collar, walked around his shoulder, across his chest to the open shirt neck. I moved to brush the beast off. (I felt a particular aversion to black widows) I brushed it down inside his shirt rather than off. Either I am dangerously clumsy or this was a necessary interiorization of whatever the spider and the boy represent for me.
The scene of the dream shifts to another room where there is a large ark-like box about the size of a small car. It is a dusty, black, wooden box. On one side are many various shelves, windows and doors. Out of one such portal four black widows walk onto one of the shelves adjacent. Three are very healthy. The fourth is somehow spasmotic. The three healthy spiders raise themselves up on their back legs and from a black telescope like appendage spray me with light. The dream ends.
Late the next evening I was telling a friend about this dream. While telling the tale I began to dream! I told my friend that I am dreaming while talking to him, rather shocked myself. Then I continue the conversation by describing the dream. The four black widow spiders turn to crystal and seem to be some kind of transmitter — mystically — to the contents of the box because the walls of the black box become transparent. In fact, they disappear and are replaced with not only a vision of the universe but a sensation of heaven itself. Wonderful. I still did not suspect anything esoteric about black widows.
The Migraines were terrible. I determined that this migraine problem must be resolved. Medical therapy hadn’t worked very well, so I would try spiritual pilgrimage. Suggested during the Greek pilgrimage was an attraction to places further east.
Over a period of months, in meditation I located a place along the eastern border of Turkey that held promise. I would make a pilgrimage there. A group of friends would join me part of the way. We were to meet on the island of Corfu to commence a liturgy of healing for the world and empowerment to effect our gifts as ministers.
***
We met on Corfu to construct a liturgy of healing in the “Game of Being.”3 It is the game of Love. The divine play of creation; the game of life and death and life. We did it near a place that one among us has described as “vile” with energies. I don’t think it was evil, but a ‘too powerful’ place, not pleasant or easily approached.
This is the third dragon.
Bishop, please remember that the dragon motif represents not only the general reference to “Nature” but a localization of “Grace,” the “Divine Energies.” It is also a “spirit animal” familiar for me. Thus it represents the comparison of motifs of divine or spiritual intervention.(4)
I parted with the last of the “Corfu Company.” I stood alone outside Le Vadia at a country railway station in Greece, and was impressed with a sense of kind simplicity that is the ambiance of all our endeavors. I was on my way to Thessalonika, then Turkey via Pythia as it will say on my ticket. I’ve just left the Pythian oracle at Delphi where visions and dream were kind to me. The journey continued in kindness across Turkey — kindness in the people I met, kindness of the God who provided the way, and at the last moment in the mountains east of Kars, the kindness of a fellow traveler, a guide who for the moment was obsessed to show me the “Akchekale” — the “White Castle.” I knew that it was the place. It was a long way from civilization on a promontory above a deep river canyon… Behind these ancient ruins of a castle, I sat alone in my ritual before the gathered flowers that sang their pure violet to the sacred fire and the devil-chasing bell that sang to silence, taking my song along with it. In that deserted, white castle, outside its dark tower, between an abandoned well and razed church, in that place unvisited much, even by Turks much less tourists, a wind blew up the river-cut chasm thousands of feet down,
then everything fell away,
fell away—
The Word, Christ, whispered across perception…
(not the name but the substance of the name) and it seemed at that moment that I had died, for how could human biology contain such love. It would have been the same for Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, shaman or priest, I believe, for it was the heart of creation whispering.
There, in that place of an ancient wound, the sacred fire was invoked and some creature roared it’s cry. A terrible sound tore through the canyon.
This was the fourth dragon.
This travel joined my need for healing and the healing that I believe is inherent in creation.
I could not look back at the castle when I left, for fear, for respect. I seldom think about it now because when I do my eyes tear fully remembering such fullness. At that moment though it was smooth and easy in its blessing; pale green, brown rose, yellow —
the light set the land dancing.
*
*
*
Now that some time has passed I still have a deep sense of satisfaction about this pilgrimage, unlike any of the other. It is as if the pilgrimage finished something successfully. This is an important juncture. It is true that since then my migraines have stopped almost completely. But there is more. Perhaps the satisfaction lies in the fact that, somehow, the whole approach works. It can resolve personal problems of significance and there is indication that it is a viable means, an empowerment, to address and resolve some problems of the world community- that is by this working with the gods, the psychic structures of creation.
Bishop, if that is the case as now I clearly believe it to be, I anticipate the next event in this evolution with both fear and delight.
93 [53] Pure Fall: Crucifix
Oil on Hung Canvas 8′ x 4′ 1982
This work started out to be a painting inspired by waterfalls in the High Sierras that I had recently seen on a backpacking trip. I was also working on other Crucifix paintings at the time, so this unconscious cruciform appearance is not so much of a surprise. Certain of my paintings contain clear figures of which I was unconscious at the time of their creation. Two examples of this are #60 and #58. This is directly related, of course, to the Abstract Expressionist methodology that sees its art making as a vehicle specifically modulated so that the unconscious may express itself.
96 [59.] Et Al- Mountain Ascent
Oil on Canvas 4′ x 2.5′ 1980
The holy mountain: Sumeru, Sinai, Zion, Kailash are precedents. This might be a Kundalini Yoga, Buddhist or Catholic reference for spiritual ascent.
97 [60.] Unexpected Face
Oil on Canvas 3′ x 2.5′
I had been working on mandalic and cruciform themes in this and several other paintings in a series. Long after I finished this work, someone pointed out a face that dominated the center of this composition. Thus, the title. Ideas about the human form as the mandalic analogy for all reality, as well as Celtic and Greek notions of the head as the seat of the soul, play in my curiosity about this painting.
____________________________________________________________________________
BEFORE THIS POINT IS SINCERE RESEARCH FOLLOWING A SPIRITUAL TRADITION. WHAT FOLLOWS IS SPECULATION AND EXPERIMENT THAT EXTRAPOLATES FROM THE PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE.
It’s allegory- sorry. And there be monsters…
106 [61] The Spell
Oil on Panal 5.5 x 3 1985
The ovoid shape here references Christian Icons, many of which place the Christos in such an ovoid portal. Also referenced here are Tantric and Sex Magic usages of similar shapes, especially when they operate beneath a valence of salvific intention in the artist/practitioners.