Gibbon’s Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper… for the last several years this book has stayed in my consciousness and has been my bible. it has been a deeply spiritual experience whose intensity has never wavered. for years I sought to share that experience with like-minded friends, but I never found them to have had the same kinship to this work that I have had. the experience of truth is highly personal. we’re told no two individuals see color the same (in theory), so how much more complex must spirituality be? still, it makes me sad that I am alone in this way; but then, many things make me sad, and perhaps that sadness, something I can almost touch, helps me frame the borders of my path, which is otherwise invisible to my own eye.
the ideas espoused by this story help me to grasp the violence of my own world view. so overwhelmed am I by the violence and hatred, the blatant sexism I experience in this world, that without this framework I had found myself stunned and adrift. the patriarchy whose power forms the very core of what I see as Evil in the World forms a stark relief to the good that I experience in individuals, both male and female. but this book is no religeon to me:
Formalities are gates… Catechisms and rites and canons, all these are gates. We believe that each of us has an inner and outer path toward (Wisdom), each of us must find our own. This isn’t a place of worship. We believe that nothing worthy of our worship would want our worship. This is merely a place of reverent attention.
…Sheri S. Tepper, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, pg. 401
my current foray into conscious celibacy is merely a rite. it’s not something offerred to a power greater than myself. it is offerred TO myself, a device which acts not as blinders but as an act to remove a veil blocking my vision, a veil of my own making. until sex, or seeking sex, or truly, seeking the intimacy that goes along with sex, is something more than an intoxicant, I wish to eschew it. it blunts my desire for something I need much more, truth, or wisdom. until I find that missing part, or more likely rediscover it, sex and love will never be more than a fix when it should be a life-affirming celebration.
It is hard to be wise in the body. Hard to be wise when one is hungry, or tired, or lusting.
…pg. 386
“End of story?” Carolyn had asked, enthralled.
“No,” Sophy had replied, staring into the distance as though mesmerized. “I have to give it a new ending because of all the new stories I’ve learned. I think that Elder Sister was very angry, and she started making a new medicine bag right away, and every time there is a rape, she weaves a little. Every time a man beats or kills a woman, she weaves a little. Every time men lock a woman up, or veil her face, or beget children on her out of pride in their manhood but without regard for the children’s future lives, Elder Sister weaves a little, and in the fullness of time the bag will be rewoven and sex controlled once more. Then we will see one another clearly and we will have peace again.”
…pg. 168
