The River God Speaks

So … my Friend on the River had some interesting things to say when I visited last.

Below is the transcript of his … well, sermon, honestly. I think I’d put this up there with the Sermon on the Mount. Pretty powerful stuff. A few big surprises and adjustments that I need to be thinking hard about, too.

I asked my servitor Theo to go with me. Theo sharpens my intuition, deepens my trances, and serves as something of an entheogen, which is where his name comes from. Entheogen means “to feel God within.” So when I journey to NORspace (non-ordinary realities) he’s a handy fella to have along.

I used 4 beat per second drumming to enter trance and bring my brainwaves into Theta, the Shamanic Journeying state.

We start at an old hollow tree that used to be up at the Prairiewoods Center, but probably got lost in a storm at some point. It was big enough around that two people could stand inside if they didn’t mind being a little close. Michael and I stood in there together once and … said some things. I use the memory of that tree as my entry-point into the UnderWorld because it’s a powerful memory and because it was a powerful thing.

There is a stone altar beside the tree in my mind, with three hollows. In the first I pour some whisky for the UnderWorld; in the middle I leave bird and critter food for Middle Realm; and in the third I place an incense cone to send sweet smoke to the UpperWorld. Then I place my hand on the tree and ask if it’s okay to enter. The tree lights up with green and white fluttering light, and Theo and I step in.

It’s a bit like going into a Star Trek transporter: you’re turned to mist, and then you land in the UnderWorld, only you’re the You that you are in your head, not in the mirror. Sometimes I am a white fawn, but usually I’m just Me. Theo is Theo, a tall, slender monk in a long brown habit, with unruly curly brown hair, brown eyes, and a rather full beard.

We walk quickly to where the River God, Jahiowa, waits for us. He lives on a bend in the Iowa River, and right now there are leaves turning golden and falling like treasure into the water. He’s tall and gloriously muscled, wearing very little despite the chill, his vining tattoos on full display on arms, legs, and torso. His hair is shaggy and long, a chestnut brown with a few strands of silver, probably just for the gravitas. His eyes are the greenest green. His face is chiseled, and once you get used to the antlers they are, as I stated last week, dead sexy. He wraps me in a bear hug, and grins at Theo, saying, “Who is this fine fellow?”

I make introductions, and then I say, “Jahiowa, last week I saw the most beautiful mist on your surface, and I am struggling to write a song about it because it was just so … Otherworldly. Michael suggested that it was some kind of message or story that you have to tell me, and said I should just come and ask you.”

“A message?” He laughed. “Well, if it’s a message you want, I can give you one, my love. Sit, this might take a while.”

“You have been thoughtless and careless stewards, interested only in how to exploit, not how to enjoy. You have forgotten that you are animals, that you are part of a system. The Mother made you, gave you form, over billions of years. She adapted, tweaked the recipe, changed this, made that better. You were created, and for a time you remembered who and what you were.

“There is this idea you have, that Earth is a hell-place, made for suffering and pain, as a prison for paying off Karmic mistakes and accepting punishments. This is a lie. It dishonors Her, who made you capable of experiencing Joy, capable of creating works of art and music to express it. But you rarely ever revel in the beauty of this place, of the miracle of your bodies, of the harmony you have been gifted to have as your home.

“Yes, the ape is your brother, but so is the butterfly. So is the river. So is the tree, and the stone, and the fish and the birds. Look at the blue of that sky! Look, there are rainbows on the river! Look at those green leaves, shining in the sun! She made this feast for your eyes! Eat! Drink! And then create. Tell the story of your love. Her greatest sorrow is that you have squandered your capacity for Joy.

“You were made to dance, to caper, to be alive and know you are alive; to be in love and know you are in love. To be joyful and to know joy. You have the capacity to express all these things, and yet you prefer to be angry, to complain, to cling to your pain, and to hurt each other so the pain is carried on and on. Yes, every creature has the need sometimes to fight for resources – the children must be fed, the Tribe kept strong. But She never intended you to live like this, isolating yourselves from Her, from each other, so you can no longer feel the song She sings into all of you.

“Remember your heritage. Deepen your love for Her, your connection to Her and to the Whole and to each other. Revel in what IS, in the Creation, the Kingdom. This is neither Hell nor Heaven. Those are your inventions. This is Earth. This is a paradise that you were made to be part of and contribute to by your knowledge and your art.”

At this point he pulled me in front of him and turned me around to look out at the land. I could see a glorious aurora of energy, light, life, and love, pulsating around us, gold, yellow and orange, feeding the trees, feeding the river, feeding us. It pulsed and shimmered and moved like language. 

Jahiowa said, “This is Her. This is your Mother. This is your home and heritage. This is worth worshipping. See Her. Feel Her love. This is who made you.”

We stare at the aurora for a while before the callback sounds and Theo and I take our leave.

I spend most of the day mulling over some of the revelations, like wow, this place is not a prison for working out Karma and accepting punishment. This is paradise, and our purpose here is to create works of beauty to contribute to the glory of this wonderous planet.

It kind of throws things into a new perspective.

I’m an antelope running around in the wild, innocent AF – an herbivore no less – just living my best antelope life, and one day, I’m somebody’s lunch. Well, big cats gotta eat, I suppose. But still, seems a little … pointless?

Or I’m a deer, and I’m out deering around in the wild, hangin’ with my family, eating leaves and twigs, and generally living my best deer life – and one day, a hunter comes along and shoots me and I’m lunch for a whole bunch of people, several times over. Again, people gotta eat, but … hmmm.

Okay, I’m a human, kind and generous and decent, and I’m humaning around in my car, listening to some tunes, maybe eating a Snickers bar, talkin’ to my squeeze, and all of a sudden WHAMMO some other human in a car hits me, and hurts me really bad, maybe even kills me. And we cry, “What’s it mean?” Well, nothing, really. And that’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It just happened, because sometimes things just happen, what the hell.¹

We have this neocortex that wants things to mean something. The neocortex run on logic and rationality, and they get cause and effect. They crave meaning so much that they make it up out of thin air. This happened because that, which means this other thing. But what if … what if we get to make the event mean something by how we respond to it? By how we reach out to our community for help, by how we handle pain or suffering with grace, by how we express our gratitude for the love and assistance of the people who surround us. What if we make meaning by choosing to look for the opportunity in events instead of seeing only the misfortune? What becomes possible now because this thing happened?

So here’s a tough damn pill to swallow, y’all. Our lives, if they are shit, are shit because we’re no longer being animals as part of an ecosystem, cavorting and reveling and baltering about singing and telling stories and having a blast, and then creating wonderful works of art or music or stories to celebrate it. Instead, we’re clinging on to the worst stuff in our lives, wallowing instead of reveling, and shit is just lining up to hit our fans.

We aren’t connecting with the people in our lives, or connecting with Spirit in any genuine way, which are the best ways to feed the soul, and so we fall into a funk because we feel alienated and alone and distressed. We have fallen out of the habit of being part of a community, part of a collective. We’ve detuned from the World Mind. We lose our capacity to see the good in things and people, to see the opportunity in the problem, to even ask and be grateful for help.

“Her greatest sorrow is that you have squandered your capacity for Joy.”

Ouch. Mom’s not pissed about all the stuff we broke. She’s not even disappointed in us. She’s sad because we have withdrawn from each other, from Her, from Nature, and in separating ourselves from the Creation, we have lost our way to the Kingdom Within. She saw some cool monkeys doing some interesting stuff and thought, “Hey, those monkeys are nearly onto something. This might be awesome if I just tweak here and shift there …” And, to quote Suzy Eddie Izzard, “Monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, you.” And for a while we were connected, we lived in symbiosis and harmony, and mental and emotional coherence with our humans, with nature, and with Her. But then something went haywire and somebody decided that land and people could be owned and ugh. Thousands and thousands of years of misery happened, and we utterly forgot Who We Are.

Michael says, “A cup of dust from an ancient star.” Yes. All that and a bag o’ chips. Only not Doritos, those are just chemical shitstorm.

So yeah, all of this is turning into at least two songs so far, so stay tuned for that. I’m just beginning to think all this stuff through. But expect a lot more JOY from me, because we are here to know joy and to create awesome stuff. And just sign me the fuck up for that, please. Right now.

1. According to the Ephebian philosopher Didactylos. At least that’s what Terry Pratchett says. ↩︎

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