Trading stories with the Devil

THE DEVIL, XV (part 1)

Heard any good stories lately? There are certainly a lot spinning around in and out of my head these days. Here's one that quite insistently came forward - she truly desires to be shared.

I'll begin by saying: unless you are a professional hair stylist, I don't recommend telling a black woman what she can and cannot do with her head.

I recently had an experience which I found mostly amusing, but also incredibly informative. I had complimented someone on a cool hat she was wearing. I don't know what style to call it. Perhaps one of my many fashion-conscious friends can fill in the blank here - it was a fine piece of felted craftsmanship with a wide brim, not a cowboy hat as far as I can tell, but something like it. I don't remember exactly how or why, but for some reason the conversation unexpectedly turned to... well, me, when she said,

"Oh, YOU can't wear a hat like this."

(Is there anyone else whose ears immediately perk up when they hear the words: "You can't..."?)

I thought I must have misunderstood or missed something, so I posed a probing question. "Why can't I wear hats like that?"

The response: "Because your hair is too big. Hair like yours doesn't work with hats like this."

Gentle reader, I confess that internally, I experienced a range of rather UNgentle emotions. Outwardly, all I could do was grin though, because really... it was funny as hell. And to date, I can't figure out what's funnier - the statement itself, or the absolute certainty with which it was told. Nevermind that I own a fairly similar hat. Somewhere in this individual's timeline, a story was created or shared about who can wear what type of hat.

Here's another story.

When I was an adolescent in science class, my classmates and I learned about the mysterious proportions of the human body, and some interesting facts: that one's height approximately matches the span of his/her outstretched arms, and that the length of one's forearm matches the length of one's foot. Of course, at the time, 20 or so teenage girls put their shoes up onto their desks to see if it was true. It seemed to check out.

However, I was perplexed by this, because a friend of mine is significantly taller than me, yet has much smaller feet. I couldn't wrap my teenage brain around it, and I remember consulting someone close to my family who was enrolled in med school at the time. The response I got was, "It's not possible. Her feet can't be smaller than yours." When I think back to my teenage self having that conversation with a trustworthy, educated and supposedly knowledgeable adult, I find that same ole grin on my face.

That smile has definitely become second nature by now. It's the best tool I've got to keep myself from going absolutely bananas when I'm given a story about what's True, despite lived experience that is evidence to the contrary.

What's up with this?

I now recognize that when I find myself in these situations, I'm In the Devil's Territory. (Let me give credit where credit is due: this is a nod to an utterly strange, absolutely mesmerizing song of the same name by Sufjan Stevens. You can listen to it here if you want: https://youtu.be/_AJe17LgrTc )

On this anniversary of the world grinding to a halt due to a devastating pandemic, it seems worthwhile to examine the ways in which we humans create, receive, and pass on the stories we live with.

First, I just can't get Dr. Li Wenliang out of my head. He's the Chinese eye doctor who first expressed concern among his colleagues about a mysterious virus that seemed to afflict several of his patients, and was forced by his government to confess to making false comments and spreading rumors about the disease. He died of Covid-19, and is now considered a hero, although he was branded an instigator before his death. In hindsight, it seems pretty clear which story makes the most sense to believe. Sadly, it was only after his death, and the death of many others, that the official story changed to accommodate his lived (and dying) experience.

Story-telling is a human super power. With our stories, we create our realities, and destroy them. I'm sure anyone reading this can think of several examples, like the story that the 2020 election was stolen, or that the coronavirus is a hoax made up to make an elected official look bad. I can think of far more stories that are just as insidious and harmful, but perhaps less obviously false. They're the stories that we may never consider questioning because: 1) they've been passed on to us in tradition; 2) their sources are individuals or institutions with authority or in power; 3) it may threaten our mental or actual physical well-being to question them.

I could think of examples for days and days. Here are just a couple that quickly come to mind:

-"Racism is over in the United States." (If you didn't believe this but cared to try, could you find people living with experiences that would provide evidence to the contrary?) -"Homosexuality is unnatural." (Personally, I was able to concretely debunk this one for myself at the age of 21 when I saw two male dogs happily going at it. After a double and then a triple take, it dawned on me that their coupling was about as natural as it gets since I watched them find each other without any human intervention.)

You know who else is a really good story-teller? The Devil. I don't refer to any specific religious depiction of the Devil, though that can be useful if it serves your imagination. Since this is a blog inspired by tarot, I'm thinking specifically about the Devil card, XV. (Interestingly, XV has some noteworthy commentary about the use of tarot itself, especially for those of us raised in religious households who were encouraged to steer clear of anything that seems to hold a whiff of his influence. I suppose that's a subject worthy of another post.) I'm actually quite grateful for this card, even though it makes me sigh, groan, or roll my eyes when it shows up.

It's because when XV flips out of a deck, I know I need to start paying extra attention to the stories I'm taking in, taking for granted, or telling myself. He tends to point to the assumptions I make about a situation, and is REALLY good at exposing when I've fallen prey to the Plague of Binary Thinking. Here are a few examples of how The Binary Plague shows up:

• I'm right, and __ is wrong.

• If ___ doesn't agree with me, they're against me.

• Since I'm ___, I can't be ___.

That damned Devil LOVES to paint life in binaries. Black or white, here or there, right or wrong, male or female, in or out, for or against. What I've taken away from my ongoing practice is that of course there are dualities in nature; a yin/yang principle seems to be True to some extent, and it allows me to define something by describing or defining what appears to be its opposite.

But XV increasingly shows me that I can observe in reality how two seemingly opposite concepts both insist on being True. It's a real mess, and it's a real pain in whichever body part you choose to imagine it in.

We have our work cut out for us. If we're brave, we become willing to pull back the veil to discover the sources of the stories we tell each other, and ourselves. (Thank you, dear Toto, for yanking down that curtain and exposing the wizard for what he was: a sad, scared man.) Where do our stories originate? Whom do these stories actually serve? What are the stories we take in from others about who we are, or who we're supposed to be? ... who others are supposed to be? And here's a doozy - what is purposefully omitted from the stories we tell and receive in order to make them go down more easily, flow better, contradict themselves less?

XV invites us to look more closely at What We Think, and asks us to question the sense of security we wrap ourselves in when we have Answers. In this way, this card is one of the strangest of allies. Much of the imagery in XV cards show humans bound and chained to something, but... loosely. It's as if the people depicted could quite easily wriggle themselves out of their bondage if they wanted to. So, I guess I have to thank XV, because beyond his throne is an invitation from a deeper, even more mysterious Source that begs us to cultivate some sort of comfort with not being able to produce concise, definitive answers. It beckons us to set up shop and learn to thrive in the messiness of following Unknowing into Discovery.

So.... I'm thinking of getting a new hat. I'll order it a size bigger if I have to.