Trinity Day

In the early morning on Trinity Day, I did a peace ritual in the courtyard.  Ming recorded me.  Please see the video.  It’s mostly a prayer.

I post the words of the whole ritual in the description.  Thanks for praying with me, or using this ritual to design your own.

I planned and wrote it early in the morning while Ming was sleeping.  Then when Ming woke up, he went outside with me.  We had to get the objects set up, see the test video for the framing, worry about the sound.

Ming almost fell into a cactus, tripping over a bench.  Twice R came out of his house, and we had to start over.  So the ritual that made it to youtube was our fifth try or so.

imperfect

I’m not 100% keen on it, but you know me–I’m not a perfectionist.  I’d much rather release imperfect work into the world than agonize and withhold.

A friend taught me a long time ago that it’s our jagged places that people can connect to, with their jagged places.  Maybe the few things I don’t like about the video will make it easier for viewers to latch on or open up.

But it’s vulnerable, to let anyone in the world hear about my family who got harmed in this bomb test.  Or even to let people see me, see my body–I’m a fat person who gets a lot of shame heaped onto me, for defying what culture says I should be.  I know some people will criticize me for that, if only in their heads.

honor

As for Trinity Day ritual content, maybe some people won’t like that I honor the people who did nuclear violence.  Maybe they will be mad, like, “Don’t you see?  They were killers–please spurn them.”

But I’m not always good at spurning, and what better place than a ritual, to ask Mother God to bless these people who did this racist harm.  I’m sorry for those people.  Either they live in denial and never saw the bad of what they did, or they were racked with guilt, to have caused so much horror and death.  Neither is a good choice!

In my own life, being abused harmed me in ways I can’t even understand.  But at least as traumatic was doing wrong to other people.  Hating myself for the violence I’ve done in my life is really painful damage.

When I hear of high suicide rates for old men, that’s what I think of.  A fuckton of guilt for the bad they did in their lives, and the people they drove away with violence.  From the elder perspective, looking back on their life story, maybe they can see what they didn’t admit, before.  And they feel no chance left, to find new love.  So it’s hard to live with pain and low prospects.

Blessings to those people who feel alone and without hope.  I’m working on a zine about love skills and not finding ourselves in that position.

afterward

Afterward I didn’t go back indoors right away.  I stayed outside and started uploading the video from my phone.  Felt thirsty but didn’t want to transition back to regular life and find water.  I blew out the candle and let it cool.  Ming left for the Worker to serve the hungry, and I took my time returning to regular life.

Then I felt restless, unsettled, and not my favorite self.  I shared the video with some people and posted it on the Nevada Desert Experience facebook page.  That kind of social media work is mostly a pleasure to me, mostly writing.  You know I love speaking my truth.

magical

But the Trinity Day magical thing happened earlier!  I got up around 2am.  At 4:30am, I went outside to see the world, because 4:30am is the time the Trinity test took place.

Oh–I was mistaken.  It was 5:30am.  Well, that’s ok.  An hour off, but at 4:30 here, it was 5:30 there.  So I guess that’s right, actually.

Anyway, I went outside to see the world.  It crossed my mind to wonder if there was a free box on the sidewalk.  For more than a month, there was no free box.

But wow!  Did my eyes deceive me?  Yes, in the streetlight light, I saw some sidewalk materials.  I got four yellow squash, a cucumber, a can of tomato sauce, a pound of white beans, and 20 pounds of potatoes.

I want to make potatoes for many people.  It’s hard when it’s too hot to cook.