“BARDO OF THE MOMENT OF DEATH”
Words by KEATS ROSS
Illustrations by ERIC J. MILLAR
“Are you still obsessed with death?” – An Ex-Girlfriend
The answer is “Yes…?”
But, let’s retire “coffin-creeper Keats” and recalibrate this misinterpreted obsession. My obsession with death, well, it’s evolved– it’s concerned about transmutation, about change. I suppose it had always been, even when I was a mallrat in Crow makeup as a gothy kid.
That said, I’ve always been deeply perturbed and fascinated with the control of change, however much one is afforded agency over such things. So, no more wallowing about the inevitability of the big dirtnap, or even in the possibilities of a hollow abyss, or a lackthereof, or whatever-comes-after the big dirtnap. It was never about the big death. It was always about the little ones.
Sure, morose and morbid is all fun and games until you get to your 3o’s and realize that despite the best efforts of your 20’s, you’re still kickin’, you’re still beating. For me, this is when the obsession with the big death changed, and well, it died itself a small death. I began to celebrate the splinters, these little deaths; cycles, the conclusion of narratives, self-destruction, routine spontaneous combustions. I began dancing upon the grave of passions and pillars now laid to rest.
Through my personal practice of magick, I’ve learned to imbue these otherwise mundane splinters with heavy magnificence; the importance of ruminating and reacting to these splinters has meant I am more accountable for the next chapters. I’ve begun to revel in the jig so to speak. The idea, now, is not to speak ill of the dead, but to dance upon an ash heap of ex-habits, characteristics, relationships, hair follicles and unrealized projects. When faced with a burning house, what would you save? It’s time to give these mythical cycles of change and of reconfiguration their proper burials.
I (we) am (are) constantly living in the afterbirth of what was…or like some strange precrime, serving a solemn sentence to future regrets. This sundry of sorrow, this baton death march of relationships, hairstyles and philosophies shutter, shift and shake up. Always. Do we knowingly conclude them? Do we just survive them? They served their commander well, give the Mrs. my regards and carry on.
The Dharma Bum in me glees at cleansing things by fire–I see now that my routine to do so may come off as a bit, well, macabre. I can be a bit aloof when in the throws of a sea-change, unwilling to be sentimental, wearing seemingly inhuman skin to mask the anxiety within. It’s a defense. And one I aim to change. It’s about time I give credit to that ol’ obsession with the end of things and celebrate the true danse macabre, the creation of things thereafter. Alchemy. Living, breathing alchemy.
The death, nay, the change of personal myths, of stories, is my true obsession. And that’s why we’re gathered here today, to celebrate the past lifecycle and to look forward to the next. Shit is changing. And I’m rolling with the punches. Metaphysically and literally. And I’m using this transmutation to enrich the next narrative. So, If you’re looking for sad-eyed Peter Murphy in a batcave of regrets, you’re in the wrong livejournal, Sam.
Magick works. And Chaos Magick works messy.
Things are messy.
To smother that metaphor with another, I’m in a current deluge of sorts. I’m relinquishing the first ever apartment I’ve maintained longer than full moon or two, and my reaction is to reconstruct. This is a stasis I’m all too familiar with, one that I’ve conjured and created in many a time, but this time around is meant to be a temporal stasis–and I’m going to be using this temporal stasis to exorcise some ghosts both material and immaterial, foster my magicks and well, finish my opus: “ZOZOBRA“
I’ve been working on a graphic novel/record for longer than a decade called ZOZOBRA. It concerns a facsimile of me, the character of DAKOTA SLIM (my solo-music moniker), in a sort-of historical and fantastical theological fiction. Slim is an aimless drunkard and broken desert dweller (as I once was) who is robbed of his meandering life among the civil war era Rio Grande in late 18oo’s New Mexico territory. It’s peppered with the narration of Zuni, Navajo and Anasazi folklore, as well as utilizing southwestern urban legends, cautionary tales, and myths like La Llorona (the lady in white) who pulls him under in an arroyo’s deluge; Slim effectively “dies” within the first few pages.
This “opus” weaves a retrofitting of the history behind the Fiesta De Santa Fe’s “ZOZOBRA” festival – a festival that has been burning in New Mexico since 1924, and one that inspired (a bit literally) BURNING MAN because the apex of the festival is the burning of a man- “OLD MAN GLOOM.”
“Old Man Gloom” – is this large marionette made to burn from attendee’s various regrets and failures scribbled on cinder fodder. Dakota Slim becomes the uncredited inspiration for this. It’s a long-winded tale, no doubt, and one that I’ve been weaving for far too long: That even the dogged death of a mislead life can amount to a brilliant, albeit unknown, ripple across time and space, creating something radiant and much bigger than the spark that ignited it.
Slim goes on to battle his way through dimensional rifts in time and space, each chapter resembling a Bardo that’s illustrated in The Tibetan Book of The Dead, albeit loosely. The realms of the “afterlife” are the stages of grief in a way: The Realm of Hell being Anger, The Hungry Ghost being Depression, etc.–all on his way to a literal rebirth. These bardos manifest as everything from fragments of his sordid past, or fictional stories that inspired him–anthropomorphized and radically stylized–both purely fantastical and historical. And all mostly literally taken from my own life. Such as this one, the “Bardo of the Moment of Death.” What’s happening now.
M-m-m-my Zozobra
I’ve held my home in the Narrows of Portland for three years this month.It’s burned through two relationships, one romantic, both creative and helped birth two full-length albums, a comic, a podcast, a literary journal and an art collective. And yes, I’m losing it at the end of the month.
Why? Well, a number of things, but I’ll put it this way, things reached their boiling point with my routine. I felt static. I felt like I was flickering in between the cells of a film reel, while adamantly wanting the projector to just burn through. I felt destructive of my rhythms.
Recently, I went rock climbing for the first time. Because of the chaotic state of flux my girlfriend, Mary, and I have mandated that we push ourselves to experience new things throughout these big changes (more on that later). As I surveyed the wall and the many thick-calved, chalk-fingered experts dancing at the top, I remembered something… I had recently developed a fear of heights.
My new fear was discovered at a recent trip to a secluded river where I was ushered to jump off a 4 story bridge into the river below–my gusto, assured it was no thing, crumbled as I stared at the green water below. And like withering flower I disintegrated into the soggy wind, contorting and squealing all the way down in what was probably the most horrifying fall my company had ever seen, I screamed in triumph. I survived a newfound phobia, but I had won my confidence points (just barely) and didn’t do it again.
So as my crotch is being fitted with knots, I’m transported back to that bridge… but it’s too late to bail, the man strapping me up would never let me live it down. Because I had festered, because I had not thrown myself into a danger, I developed a fear. A fear! I was pissed. I was mad.
So I climbed.
As I scaled the wall the first time, all could do was look above, and pull. Driven by the very gusto that sprung me off of that bridge. An angry gusto. This is not who I am. Who I am is not afraid.
When I made it to the top and needed to repel down, all I could was look above and pull. I had signed a contract, you see, to get to the top, no matter what, I just never thought about coming down…
Anyway, as I had brutally tumbled down the wall, dangling like a dead spider that died of a heart attack mid-weave, I had discovered something: Sometimes my confidence is so great it blindly supersedes my fear. How, though? How did this dumb bravado allow me such a feat of self-rebellion?Because I knew the process would construct instead of deconstruct experience? Maybe, but through this column I plan to explore this. As I’ve said, I’m ready to construct.
I thought of Dakota Slim meeting his fate as La Llorona pulled him under. I thought of him laughing all the way down to the river bottom.
Mary and I were in Long Beach recently, and as we danced around the February beach I had a moment of realization. I am done struggling to survive. I work to live like a ghost in a home meant for two, a home with ghosts of its own, slaving unhealthily to make ends sort-of touch and for what? Mary and I would eventually want to start fresh somewhere, so I knew I was on borrowed time at this place. I was just…there…unable to move in this palace of anger and crooked weird–I had fought tooth and nail to continue haunting that place…and for what? It was time to go. And then I got the call.
My landlord flat-out refused to approve any roommates, leaving me to the fight for the place truly alone. And in that instant, I gave him my 30 days. “You obviously don’t want me there, and I don’t want to live there anymore.” And just like that, my gusto took control, my brazenness took hold and I climbed–and I fell–against better judgement, but for all the right reasons.
The Sigil is The Map
The house, as I’ve said, is haunted. It’s haunted with the ghosts of failed relationships, with echoes of negative interpersonal dramas absorbed into its walls. Time to exorcise. Time to usher in constructive change, to hail chaos, to serve it. So I put in my 30 days without knowing where I’d end up, but I knew I would end up where I needed to be. How do I get through?
My friend, Elizabeth Kennamer, had gifted me a meditation a few months back. The guided meditation acquaints the user to the ten spheres of the Hermetic/Qaballistic Tree of Life – each sphere representing a different realm, a different reality – all tethering the micro and the macro. It’s through this meditation that she also introduced me to Hermes and Hekate, yes, those very same ones. You see, Elizabeth is an oracle, she communes with unseen beings and deities, and she incepted an introduction of Hekate and Hermes into that initial guided meditation. Whether my subconscious is just using these two to represent the mother/father, the inner/outer, the duality of my being-ness or if I am, in fact, communing with myths-cum-literal is beside the point because I have been communing with them.
Recently, through a meditation, Hekate (Hermes seems a bit more aloof, or I’m far more interested in Hekate because the trifecta turns into just me and her a lot of the time) showed me that I didn’t have to traverse the spheres linearly, meaning, sphere 9 to 1. She showed me back doors, how to get to the realms through others. I had asked her to give me something to bring back to this reality, something that I could use to help me in my waking life. And this ancient God, or my version of her as a gorgeous Gorey or Betty-Boop meets Burton visage, gifted me a sigil:
I freaked out and texted Elizabeth when I came to. I texted a picture of the sigil drawn on my left wrist and asked, “Does this look familiar to something?”
Elizabeth replied, “So you are moving energy from the overworld mind sphere down into the underworld knowledge and freedom spheres. The underworld tree has more spheres. So you are going from mind, to knowledge, to freedom. It is a map through the trees of life.”
All I could reply was “!!!”
“Draining the Mind Sphere of what doesn’t belong there.” – Hekate via Elizabeth Kennamer
During my daily sigil sketches, I draw all pertinent sigils on my left hand on the reg-u-lar as part of my morning routine, I had incorporated this very sigil. Only now do I realize it’s OLD MAN GLOOM!
Mary, had gifted me a book this past year. It’s John Steinbeck’s journaling/letters to a friend as he was crafting the EAST OF EDEN. Steinbeck and me share TOO MUCH astrology (That’s all I’ll say about that) and upon reading this wonderful behind-the-scenes look at a masterpiece I realized something…
The fucker had it good.
He was afforded the whims and the fancies to craft his masterpiece. He speaks of days where he just mulls about his office seeking inspiration or talks of light disagreements with his beautiful wife… the point is, life afforded him the mental, spiritual, physical and emotional space to weave his epic. But it’s not like that for most of us. Certainly not me.
You see, I’ve realized I’m going through a sort of ZOZOBRA myself: an incendiary end to a major life cycle, and one that I plan to document and treat as a myth-building principle to incite and inspire actualization. To burn OLD MAN GLOOM and dance upon the embers of unnecessary squabbles and negative habits. I am going to pave this rocky road with cobblestone, motherfucker.
So, as I put to use Magick, New Thought / Mind Metaphysics, Trippy Communions with Hekate and Santisma Muerte and other metaphysical musings to navigate life, I’ll also use them to finish that first draft of Zozobra. And as I succumb to a material deluge myself… It’s time to finish the tale:
“THEY FELL DOWN WALLOWING AND COVERED THEIR EYES WITH THEIR ARMS AND HANDS…”
Decrepit female hands grasp at Slim’s neckerchief. We then are introduced to the gaunt ghost that is LA LLORONA
“YET EVER AS THEY LOOKED TOWARD THE LIGHT, THEY STRUGGLED TOWARD THE LIGHT…”
Slim scrambles in sheer horror as La LLorona pulls the young boy closer to her face. He looks up at the yellow surface of the water.
“THEY STRUGGLED TOWARD THE SUN…”
As Slim tries to pull for the surface, Llorona has both of his arms grasped in her hands. Their eyes lock for a minute. Her eye’s black and vacant.
LLORONA: Chupa mi teta, Yo soy tu madre…
Slim’s eyes widen and he tries to bolt for the surface. The sun glistens the top of the water; Slim frantically faces upward pushing all his strength towards the air.
“THEY STRUGGLED TOWARDS THE SUN, AS MOTHS…”
Slim manages to rip away from Llorona. Yet, her nails cut deep into her forearms causing burst of red to penetrate the water.
“AND OTHER NIGHT CREATURES…”
Slim births out of the ravine into the sun bleached sky. Water explodes all around him as his mouth is agape to the hot air.
“SEEK THE LIGHT OF A LAMP FIRE.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
ZUNI TALE: “Men of Early Times.”
ZOZOBRA Prologue Notes © Travis Keats Ross 2007
And I plan on logging the trials and tribulations of in this here weekly column.
NEXT WEEK: 33RD BIRTHDAY, BACK TO THE DESERT FOR A PHOENICIAN CRUCIFIXION, HERBAL & TAROT READINGS, THE DISRUPTION GENERATOR SOOTHSEES
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Fucking amazing!!!!! This hit home on so many levels for me, I loved every little bit of this and am excited to read more from you, that comic sounds special,I cant wait to read it
The illustrations and format had me sucked in from the git go, you guys crushed this!
Hope the move goes well and your communion with Hekatate and Hermes continue to be fruitful and enjoyable, what a fascinating idea to use both trees of life’s different sephiroth as a way to navigate more efficiently and effectively, you sure that bit didn’t come from Hermes haha thanks for sharing!
Couldn’t have begun better.
Very enjoyable experience.