WHAT IS ANYTHING?

Resentments can't be real if you aren't.

Dear Diary,

I keep an ongoing gratitude list with three good friends who I’ve known for decades. It started during Covid, when gratitude was in short supply, thereby necessary. Three of us select different emojis each day to bullet-point each item we’re thankful for, and one does his by hand and takes a picture. I think everyone should do a gratitude list - if, for no other reason, so that you can tell ingrates they should maybe keep a gratitude list, and not be a poseur.

Anyway, on one list today was the entry, ‘What is anything?’ I feel so moved by such questions, or by the related statement, ‘Nothing is real,’ in which ‘Nothing’ can be swapped out for anything, like, ‘Bodies aren’t real,’ ‘Money isn’t real,’ ‘That person I’ve been resenting for nine years because they once rubbed my belly and asked me if I was pregnant and then when I said, Nope, I have a baby, though, then asked me if it was a beer belly, to which I replied, Nope, I’ve been sober for twelve years (I’ve now been sober for 21 years, that’s how long I’ve been nursing this grudge), and then they just shrugged and/or giggled impishly and walked away ISN’T REAL.’ This last realization, of the essential un-real-ness of the offensive person, helped me drop my resentment / cease to care, thus enabling me to see their art performance the other night, which was super great, though I’m not going to mention it here because this whole entry is feeling super gossipy when all I wanted to do was speak to the sensation of deep liberation I get when I’m reminded WHAT IS ANYTHING? No one can say for sure, not even the brainiest physicist - though their investigations are tantalizing. Recently I read an article claiming consciousness is a by-product of memory, which we needed to develop for survival. Popular Mechanics is always publishing these great articles about consciousness that say stuff like, ‘Scientists think that perhaps all matter is conscious,’ which definitely vibes with my spiritual practice/s.

All day, as my email inbox floods with emails I may or may not have time to answer today or ever, I will think WHAT IS ANYTHING? and feel a bit of relief from the horrors of the grind, one half of which is capitalism, one half of which I’ve done to myself. Take this here Substack. Thank you for reading. Thank you thank you-thank you for those who send me actual cash money for these thoughts and the time it takes to render them full of typos on a screen. I really appreciate it so much! And, also, I might go for a minute without posting, because life is full of, like, meetings and responsibilities and a child and a marriage, stuff, and also other writings, right, and travel, and other people’s writings, and it is so, so easy to neglect this thong right here, especially because I SWORE to myself I would not make it a job, even if people paid me for it, so, again, thank you paying people, for you are paying me not for this, really, but, like, for existing perhaps, which truthfully everyone should get a stipend for. All of this said, I will try to be better about showing up here and blathering, because it’s fun.

Like, here’s something related - last year I went to the big sound path yurt in the desert, I can’t remember the name of it because I’m perimenopausal which, for me, means I have a 21-day period and can’t remember basic words, names of actual friends I’ve admired for years. It would be embarrassing if anything were REAL, but as it’s been established that nothing is - except my belly really is two sizes larger than the rest of my frame, since having a baby - so, since nothing is real I’ll let it ride, and look, here’s the word: The Integratron. The amazing sound bath hut in Landers, California. Built by a guy who communed with space aliens on a nearby rock, he built it as a sort of giant orgone container to help us live longer, since something he learned from the aliens - they were Venusians - was that humans just don’t live long enough to adequately raise our consciousness. This was an amazing act of service for humanity this dude did, but it didn’t work. Maybe because orgone isn’t a thing, regardless of how truly incredible Olivia Laing’s book about Wilhelm Reich is, or how many hipsters crouched in William Burrough’s orgone accumulater in Kansas. The Integratron does, however, have wild acoustics and makes for a transformative sound bath - wait, did I write about this already? What a haunting thought. If so, did I share how, when the man conducting the sound bath - bathing us, I guess - invited us to stand in this weird part of the building where, if you speak aloud no one can hear you though it sounds boomingly loud to your own self? And how I went over there and made an intention or a wish or whatever, as we were invited to, and mine was that I drop my resentment towards my ex-spouse? Because it felt so icky and crunchy and sad inside me, and holding onto it was obviously not the way to relieve the burdensome feeling of it, letting go of it is, even though it feels like if you let go you’re somehow complicit in the shabby way you were treated. Like you’re co-signing injustice. But, as I learned whilst doing a 12-step inventory on my resentment of the very concept of injustice - it’s not real. Injustice isn’t real. Justice isn’t real. We still have to fight for it, just like we have to clap to keep fairies alive, and believe in love no matter how our heart may have been shattered by that particular concept. Are you with me? Good.

Anyway, I dropped my resentment there at The Integratron. Later, in my office, which is also my spiritual headquarters, I was meditating. I’ve been part of a six-month Mahayoga training, which is not yoga-yoga; as my son helpfully pointed out to me the other day, my arms are flabby, I don’t work out. This is mystical philosophy, chaotic devotion and tantric transformation. I like this path because it too asks, WHAT IS ANYTHING? and then low-key gives you the tools to affirm Anything is Not Real. I was engaged in such a meditation this night, and per usual my mind hacked up a memory of my ex doing or saying something that really hurt, and how they’ll never apologize for it - might not even ever know that they did such things (wonder what things I did that I’m not remembering????) - and I felt that familiar yucky glop of injustice and thought, I can’t drop this resentment! Who will carry the torch for this injustice, then???? If I stop being resentful, then I’ll never get an apology - like my bad vibes are somehow controlling anything other than my own nervous system. Sigh.

I worked with this wad of mind phlegm. I thought - if there is no me, who is it that is mad at my ex? And, reader, I got something! So much of the spiritual work I’m engaged in is about trying to scrape the ego off of whatever is chilling out beneath it. Ego is not about being conceited, which I used to think, it’s about believing you’re real. And all day our nonstop ego grabs at every little fucking thing that shores up the illusion of our real-ness. There’s a lot for it to work with, but resentments are huge. I feel mighty real when I’m fuming about a shitty interaction that made me feel like shit. My ego loves resentments. I get it - I got it! If I wanted to be mad at my ex, I’d also have to feed my ego. I’m trying to starve my ego. I dropped the resentment. My mind still spits it at me sometimes, but it’s much easier to let go of, and even makes me laugh a little, as the thought that immediately follows they were mean to me is ME ISN’T REAL.

Anyway. I love this Substack because I never know what I’m going to write about, which is fun and also somewhat terrifying. Before I go, I do want to let you know I have a new book coming out! A type of follow-up to Modern Tarot, it’s called Modern Magic: Stories, Rituals and Spells for Contemporary Witches. If you prefer believing we are real and that ANYTHING is SOMETHING, and you would like to hold onto your resentment, there’s a good binding spell in it. I cast it once and it exploded in my face - proof of its power! There are essays about my grandmother, about Catholic Saints, about Cookie Muller (a Catholic Saint?), and about how magic might be nothing but even so, it’s still everything. You can pre-order it. And I’ll be doing some events for it, live in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and virtual, too. Thank you for your SUPPORT. Happy to be experiencing this grand illusion with you.