THOU MAYEST HOWL

Many, many moons ago I stood on a cliff with friends and howled at the end of summer. We were in Big Sur, and had all worked together at the Western Stage theatre company in Salinas. It was an intense time, in the best sense of the word. One of those times that sort of set the tone for how we would live our lives. I don't think anyone knew going in it would be that. We had simply auditioned for some shows. But life is like that. You walk into a room expecting one thing, and pow, something else happens. The big show we all worked on was a nine hour, three part adaptation of Steinbeck's East of Eden. If you haven't read the book, do. No spoilers here, other than it's beautiful and epic and funny and sad and uplifting. We worked our asses off, day and night. It was pretty much our existence. It filled out off hours, our few days off, our nights spent blowing off steam and talking about the show. And we all blended our souls in the process. We were one. And we were magic.

I think, to a certain degree, we are all going through a similar process right now. Our lives are dominated by one unifying event. It fills out days and nights, our conversations and our dreams. And it is shaping who we will be moving forward. I can, and do, call people I did Eden with, all these years later, and it is like no more than a few days have passed. Because we still have bits and pieces of each other inside of us. There are songs we sang, movies we saw, days at the beach, highs and lows, that attached themselves to our DNA. And isn't that what's happening now? Won't all of us, whether we watched it or not, have a gut reaction whenever the Tiger King is mentioned? Will any of us, ever, for the rest of our lives, look at someone wearing a surgical mask the same way we once did? The entire world has a stamp on it now. A bit of our souls are now infused with this time. And we are part of it too. And we howl. We listen to the Chimes at Midnight. There will be a a name for us, some Gen X or Millenial or Greatest Generation or Lost Generation moniker that will arrive, unbidden, from a surprising source. And it will fit, and that will be that.

One more thing. In East of Eden, there are two things I find relevant to life today. First, the line "life made to look beautiful to the weak and the foolish teaches nothing, cures nothing, and does not allow the heart to soar".  I have always found that to be so, ever since I first heard it. It resonates stronger than ever. Don't believe me? Turn on your television. The other thing is Timshel. It's an old word from the Bible. It means Thou Mayest. Here is the section from the original book. It's part of a conversaation between Samuel Hamilton and Lee, two of the greatest characters ever.

Do you remember when you read us the sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis and we argued about them?” “I do indeed. And that’s a long time ago.” “Ten years nearly,” said Lee. “Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word.

The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have- and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this- it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”

Do you remember when you read us the sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis and we argued about them?” “I do indeed. And that’s a long time ago.” “Ten years nearly,” said Lee. “Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word.

The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have-and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this- it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”

We have a choice. We choose how to respond to this crisis. 

Here's a song. It's Rafe Hollister singing Look Down that Lonesome Road.

And here's a bonus link of an interview I took part in about The Western Stage.