Go with the flow, but choose the flow, ok?

The usual disclaimers apply today: This is a weird one. Also I'm not intent on anyone agreeing with me. There are many truths.

One way I like to describe the reality I inhabit is as a river with many different currents or flows. Some are fast moving, some sluggish. Some will suck you underwater in a heartbeat, others are buoyant. There are dark flows and light flows and flows of every color. It's up to us to float, swim or row, row, row our boats as we navigate the river of reality.

The Holocaust is a dark flow, a deep inky black storm that is still unwinding. It is still very much a part of the river of shared reality, faded, but still powerful. At its height, that darkness entranced people, turned their minds to mush. All the arguments about how the German people willingly ignored what was going on are unfair. They were in an altered state, most of them. There were rumors, there was propaganda. Very few really knew what was going on. I seriously wonder if Hitler himself understood, inside his mind, what was going down. All of Germany swirled in the darkest flow imaginable. Very few were able to keep their heads above water.

I can remember times in my life when I became entranced by the dark flows. I remember the very few times I went with a group of colleagues to study with the grandmaster of a very dark art. That man was so disturbed! He spoke to us about putting death curses on people, he even joked about Satan. We sat on the floor at his feet, taking it all in - and please understand that every member of my group was smart and interested in social justice. But we didn't challenge him, we surely did not. He was very good at his dark art, he really was. We were stupefied.

At the conclusion of these "teachings" we inevitably and always went straight to one of our favorite bars and proceeded to get stinking drunk. It was our tradition. None of us wondered about this behavior. Maybe we said "Oh he's a character," or something, but none of us ever put it together - that he was no spiritual teacher for any decent person, and that getting drunk right after an alleged spiritual learning points to something very wrong with the process.

I'm happy to say I woke up and got the hell out of that tradition. While I was involved, I never put a death curse on anyone nor did I ever worship Satan. Other than being a bitch and an asshole in relationships, and power struggling within the alleged non-hierarchy of my tradition, I did no wrong. That was a long time ago, thank god!

But I'm still drawn in by the dance of the Holocaust, and may I say I'm not the only one. Hitler is invoked all the time, still - probably more often now than right after the war. There is a pure darkness about the Holocaust that's hard to let go of. There's something irresistible there. It's creepy super dark S&M fascinating. We aren't supposed to admit that of course.

How can we remember the Holocaust without getting pulled into darkness? It's tricky. I think the first step would be to understand that there is an allure about pure darkness, pure evil. People get pulled into darkness all the time, even those with the best of intentions.

I'm going to think about it through tomorrow's super moon, then put the topic away for awhile. When I get too wrapped up in the Holocaust I suffer. Finding my way back to the bright flows has sometimes been a real struggle. I am no longer interested in that struggle.

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies
within something of another nature,
in repose, distinct.

--Denise Levertov

He was looking right at me. They're so smart!