When is a weekend not a weekend? When you spend it back in the arms of the New Age. I had a yoga event this weekend that I organized. This isn’t really the forum to talk about it, as it’s one of those pieces of my life that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of it. Though that’s the crazy wisdom gear shifter, drinking one day and meditating the next.

I have a certain cache’ in the local quester scene, what with my longhair-ponytail-intellectual-disguise. I can appear reverent in the strangest of settings, mostly because I think I am genuinely open to new experience. You could say I’ll try almost any belief system once. If I get nothing out of it then at least I have source material for fiction.

Joseph Heller just had a birthday, which makes me think I should write the New Age Catch-22 with Yosarian naked in the tree doing sun salutations; you’re dammed with an ego and worse off without one.

New Agers and their ilk say, do, and believe the oddest of things and then here I am, on Hume’s birthday no less - my favorite cynic and skeptic of them all, helping to propagate a world view that I am lukewarm about at best. I mean it’s as plausible as anything else I suppose. I just get a kick out of how close-minded and sectarian they can be, each one sure that this latest teacher has the red phone to the Kremlin of truth. When they get egomaniacal about the death of their ego it’s a laugh riot. Hyperbole is also common in this crowd when referring to the best energy with the most sacred source, or the best experience, etc. It’s all chutes and ladders in the land of the new age, as you climb to the top and watch the fools take their rides. Give me the chute any day, that’s the fun part.

To be fair, it is with a broad brush that I paint the New Age as in common parlance anything Eastern or “other” gets lumped together under this umbrella of archangels and aliens. My guy is not a New Ager. If anything he’s a very Old Ager drawing from ancient Samkhya, which many noted academics agree predates Christianity by a couple thousand years. In a historical pissing contest, trying to hit the mythic golden age of spiritual truth, all things Indian have that Aryan edge. Stick a goddess river valley culture in a hierarchical press with a militaristic priesthood on top and you can squeeze out some ambrosial amrita.

When the lawyer boys talk about their cases they say “I got a guy who…” or “my guy”. This is useful in that they are the agents of these guys, their actions are confidential in particular but not in general, they are able to distance themselves such that they can act in the best interests of their client without feeling in any way compelled toward sympathy with the individuals in whose name they act.

So I got a guy and he’s just back from India so I hooked him up with a local venue, ran some ads, did some leg work, and we had a really good turnout for his series of workshops. I got roped into attending all of them so I have been through the meditative transformational ringer. I’ve been mostly vegetarian and totally alcohol free for days (this from the grill king). I have also been a St. Louis tour guide through many restaurants, the Zoo, and other points of interest.

I have had my charkas aligned through the musical playing of quartz bowls that were remaindered from the manufacture of silicone chips, had an introduction to shamanic journeying in a cave of sorts with a very large sacred drum that beats with the heart of mother earth, met a women who heals people with dolphin and whale energy surprisingly far from any porpoise of purpose, hugged a stupa, been blessed with lignum water, gazed into the eyes of St. Therese, had a chat with my Matrilineal ancestor line, and been cured of sleep apnea through the ingestion of magically blessed water (maybe), and other similar solipsisms to numerous to name.

My cohort is having cocktails at Brad & Beth’s and I must not be free of desire yet, because I wish I were over there with them.

My philosophy in contrast with that of spiritual hierarchs: I’m driving in the park with my guy and he says, “Wouldn’t it be great if all these people were here on a spiritual retreat?” and I said, “They are.”