Addams Family Values


One summer my little girl came to visit, probably she was ten, then, and the summer began with our walking down to the base of Market Street, through the Farmer's Market. There was a band playing; Bolivian, I think, with flutes and guitars. "They were in my dream last night," she said. "There was a Jester standing on his head, and there were flutes playing."

That was the opening of the summer of making friends with the shadow. As we walked along I talked about how in Europe the King is always paired up with the Jester, or Fool. There is no limit to the inflation a King might suffer if not for the Fool's bringing him back to earth. The fool turns conventional logic on its head, thus the Jester standing on his head, introducing the new energy.

The flute is the instrument of choice for Pan, and for Coyote. This was energy coming through from the creative mystery, and we were dancing with it. We went to visit my sister in Reno, and she put on "The Addams Family" movie. It was the perfect celebration of the energy that was coming in, and I gave Jas a copy of the movie on her birthday, when she went back to school in Arizona.

We also talked about related symbols, such as "The Hanging God," Odin (Wotan, Wodan, Woetan), who had hanged himself upside down in a tree as a corpse in order to learn the secrets of the Runes . He was a shapeshifter whose normal form was a man in his fifties wearing a blue cloak (the color of emotion). He had only one eye, having traded the other eye for knowledge, or, "insight." The symbol is one one eye looking inward, which involves a period of hanging, or crucifixion, during which time one is "dead to the outer world."

Odin was a war god, and inspired the berserkers who went into battle naked, foaming at the mouth, and biting their shields. It is thought that his name means "furious." At any rate, he helped Christianity spread northward because the devotees of Odin saw Jesus as another hanging god, and his crucifixion as reflective of the sacrifices Odin made for his insight.

When Jas had to deal with what she thinks of capital punishment, in school, she remembered the story, and recalled that hanging as a form of execution began as a sacrifice to Odin. A human being who was behaving in a way reserved for gods was hanged to effect the ultimate cure for ego inflation; behave like a god, leave the human realm and go to them.

I don't recall all the details of that summer, but I remember that making friends with the shadow seemed to tie in nicely with the next summer's thematic core. It was that two seemingly disparate, or separate, elements can be brought together to form a new and more interesting creation.

She had just arrived, and one thing that was on her mind was getting a haircut. We took the streetcar downtown, and got off at Powell, to walk back up toward Union Square. On the way we ran into a friend of mine who cuts hair. I told him Jas wanted a haircut, and we met him at the shop a bit later.

As he was cutting her hair, he began to do Tuvan throat singing. He is acquainted with Paul Pena, who wrote "Big Jet Airliner," and was the subject of the movie, "Genghis Blues ."

She was pleased with the haircut, which was very clean cut. I took some pictures of it.

A couple of weeks later, we met Lilly, a friend of mine, at the Castro Theater for the premier of the movie, "Genghis Blues." As we were walking up Castro we saw a store with all kinds of wigs, and went in so Jas could try some on. There was one wig which was multi-colored, like a Macaw, and she liked it. As we were sitting in the theater, she whispered, "Do you think the wig store will still be open when we leave?" I said, "No, but it'll be open tomorrow."

We watched the movie, and after it was over, the Director got up and talked about making the movie. Then the Tuvan singer, Kongar-ol Ondar, came out in full native regalia and took the stage. He began to sing. It was amazing. Two tones vibrated at the same time, and other tones moved back and forth between them. We were transfixed.

The next day I brought Jas back to buy the Parrothead Wig. We parked in a lot beside the theater, and as we came out with the wig we met Ondar in the parking lot. Jas and I were really surprised to see him there, and to be shaking hands and talking with him. We told him how much we enjoyed seeing him and hearing him sing.

We got in the car and turned on the radio. It was KPFA , and they were playing a selection off the soundtrack to "Genghis Blues." It was the combination of blues and Tuvan throat singing. The summer's thematic statement began to clarify, as I talked to her about how creativity comes from bringing together two things and making a new, third thing. The working of the Spirit was palpable as the Tuvan throat singing and American blues began to intertwine.

I took pictures of her in the Parrothead wig, and put them beside the pictures of her clean cut image. It was quite a contrast.

Before she went back to school she drew a picture. It was of a young woman in a bright yellow dress. Her hair was carefully cut and combed, as her's was after the haircut. But it was streaked with the colors of the Parrothead wig. The two extremes had been skillfully blended into a third thing, that combined the best elements of both, and eliminated the extremes of either.

For her birthday, I bought her the soundtrack to "Genghis Blues."

Posted: Wed - March 3, 2004 at 07:14 PM