Saturday, May 23, 2020

THE OWLS WILL STILL BE SINGING

Been listening to this crazy podcast of late. It's called The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, and it's by one of the people who create The Midnight Gospel, my current favorite animated series on Netflix. What I love about the podcast is that it is basically this guy Duncan having intensely interesting, funny, spiritual, bizarre, free flowing conversations that go wherever they want to go. It's perfect for listening to late at night, or when gardening, or taking a long drive. Today's episode was with Mitch Horowitz, this author on all things occult. The dude sounded pretty cool, actually. When I hear "occult author", I immediately thing of Boris Karloff in the classic horror flick The Black Cat, which is really weird and amazing and I highly recommend. But turns out this guy was nothing like Karloff's character in that movie. He is more like a spiritualist, or thinker, or just interesting person who has some thoughts on life he shares. And they were talking about how we all can have bad days, times when we act like morons, treat others poorly, cut people off in traffic. You know, act like Human beings. And how that's okay. Not that we should strive to be assholes or anything like that. More that we should accept that everyone plays the fool sometimes. The jerk. The creep. Choose your word. And I got to thinking. Do I come off as someone who thinks they're perfect? Do I come off like I think we should all grow up and get over it and stop whining so much? Maybe I do. I do think we can get through this. I do think there have been worse times to be alive in our history. But I do realize that this is a hard time. That people are depressed. And lonely. And worried. So, if I have made anyone feel crappy about how they are dealing with this virus, I'm sorry.

I think, sometimes, in a very twisted way, that growing up in an alcoholic, co-dependent house with lots of psychological abuse and the occasional slamming against the wall - while horrific and a drag- did give me something to gauge other bad times against. It also messed with my head, and I am fairly certain if I didn't go on a spiritual quest that began with a stint as a full blown Born Again Christian in high school that I would most likely have ended up in jail. Still, I know what it is to feel lost and scared and like I am living on a different planet from everyone else. And that has come in handy of late. But I think it might make me a little less tolerant of other people's pain. So, thanks Mr. Trussell and Mr. Horowitz, for helping me figure that out.

It's Memorial Day week end. Doesn't feel like it. Feels like... I don't know. Feels like a time I've never lived before. It's kind of unique. I guess labels have gone bye bye. And that's cool. Each moment is ephemeral and not to be seen again. But in the old, pre-Covid days, somehow I was able to pretend that was not the case. There would be days and feelings and times I would just think "oh, it's the Monday blues", or "it's Friday Night out with the gang", or "it's clean up the house day". Now, every day is different and new and while that can be tiring, it's also invigorating. Maybe the sheer boredom of routine confined to a limited space has forced me to open my third eye just the tiniest bit and look around and see things more clearly.

Maybe.

One more thing. I saw a young owl today in a tree. I've always felt like when I see an animal in the wild, it's the world trying to tell me something. Owls, in particular, have always felt like harbingers of mysticism and romance. Some people think when you dream of an owl that means you were abducted by aliens. Or that a ghost walked your house while you slept. I think it was bringing some spirit guides to help me finish the first draft of my screenplay. I also think it is yet another sign of how happy the planet is to have been given a slight, very brief break from all the horrible treatment she has received at the hands of the human race. We really need to be better about how we treat our home. I like owls, and clear skies, and sea turtles, and life in general.

Here's a song. It's Night Has Turned to Day by Fantastic Negrito. Feels good.


1 comment:

Songwright said...

Some of our real reality is actually virtual reality. The mind uses filters to process information from our sense and assemble a version of reality that may be a bit inaccurate. You can show a picture of jellyfish to a computer and say, "Show me the dogs," and then something weird can happen. After looking at enough weird things, I find I want to look at normal things for a while. And yet, art is like looking at normal things in a weird way, and I like art. It's like when Douglas Adams said, "The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn’t a mirror big enough." Therefore, I will put The Midnight Gospel on my Netflix list. It looks like weird, good art.

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