December 23, 2002
He got it. He got it right, right there, in dead-on color. He probably doesn’t care that I think he got it right, didn’t have that in mind at all. But it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right….with me. Even the she-warriors – spiked and metal-breasted and demonized. That’s right on. Right on.
I spent the solstice driving out toward Boston to get my grandson and his folks. I listened to “The Antelope Wife,” a novel on tape by Louise Erdrich, a Native American novelist. I love the way she weaves together myth and language and dreams and reality – the natural, the unnatural, the supranatural. This from her book “Love Medicine.”
The earth was full of life and there were dandelions growing out the window, thick as thieves, already seeded, fat as big yellow plungers. She let my hand go. I got up. "I'll go out and dig a few dandelions," I told her. Outside, the sun was hot and heavy as a hand on my back. I felt it flow down my arms, out my fingers, arrowing through the ends of the fork into the earth. With every root I prized up there was a return, as if I was kin to its secret lesson. The touch got stronger as I worked through the grassy afternoon. Uncurling from me like a seed out of the blackness where I was lost, the touch spread. The spiked leaves full of bitter mother's milk. A buried root. A nuisance people dig up and throw in the sun to wither. A globe of frail seeds that’s indestructible.
I drove thinking of the solstice, the double dorje. I’ve had a single brass dorje for years, along with the bell that accompanies it . When I take a smooth stick and run it along the edge of the bell, it emits the purest, clearest tone that goes on, and on, and on, thrumming into my bones, vibrating my blood.
I had never heard of a double dorje before, so when I got to my daughter’s, I got on her computer and surfed around for some information on it. I’m a dilettante about spiritual paths just as I’m a dilettante about just about everything else. So, here’s what I found out about the singing bell and the double dorje:
The Singing Bell …symbolizes female energy in the form of Wisdom expressed as "going beyond wisdom." The …Dorje …symbolizes male energy in the form of Method expressed as "compassion." They are inseparable companion pieces, with the bell held in the left hand and the vajra [dorje] in the right. Used together, they can activate energy and clear a space of negative energies. The bell is used as a sonic focus for meditation, a cadence factor for mantra recitation....
The Double Dorje … represents the principle of absolute stability…. This emblem represents the indestructible reality of the Buddha's mind as the unshakable throne of enlightenment. Tibetans regard the double dorje as the symbol of that which is unimpenetrable.
My new year gift to myself is going to be a double dorje gau. I’ve been looking for a symbol to wear around my neck. I am enamored of symbols, metaphors – those short-hand reminders of much larger cosmic constructs. The double dorje will be my guiding symbol for this new year. Who would have ever thought I would have found it where I did. I just love the magical way the world works. Even the blog world.
This is how I like to make the trip – full circle but back to a different place. The smooth way a spiral slips along, like the Slinky I used to play with as a kid.
A Merry Yule to you all, each and every one.
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Old Comments (3)
mare on 24 Dec 2002
What I love most about Erdrich is her dedication and loyalty to telling a story. My first work from her that I cannot seem to let go of in my thoughts was the collaboration between she and her husband Michael Dorris in Seraching for a Native American Identity.
Her serenity and calm translate quite well through the story.
Elaine on 24 Dec 2002
I remember early on reading something written by the both of them, but I can't remember what it was. At any rate, what a tragedy that he committed suicide!
Tish on 25 Dec 2002
Merry Yule to you.