Acrobaddict (48 page)

39

THE SOUL

I
N 1907
D
R.
D
UNCAN
M
AC
D
OUGALL MEASURED PATIENTS AS THEY DIED.
H
E CLAIMED THERE WAS A LOSS OF WEIGHT IN THE BODY OF VARYING DEGREES AFTER DEATH, BUT HIS RESULTS HAVE NEVER BEEN REPRODUCED AND HAVE RECEIVED LITTLE SCIENTIFIC MERIT.
H
IS RESULTS STATED THAT THE AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE HUMAN SOUL IS TWENTY-ONE GRAMS.

T
HE SOUL IS PERCEIVED DIFFERENTLY IN DIFFERENT RELIGIONS AND BELIEF SYSTEMS.

A
NCIENT
E
GYPTIAN RELIGION HELD THAT AN INDIVIDUAL IS COMPOSED OF VARIOUS PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS, A BELIEF ALSO SHARED BY ANCIENT
A
SSYRIAN AND
B
ABYLONIAN RELIGIONS.

T
HE
B
AHA’I FAITH STATES THAT “THE SOUL IS A SIGN OF
G
OD” AND BELIEVES THE SOUL IS IMMORTAL, CONTINUING TO LIVE AFTER PHYSICAL DEATH.

B
RAHMA
K
UMARIS BELIEVES SOULS ARE INFINITESIMAL POINTS OF SPIRITUAL LIGHT EXISTING IN THE FOREHEADS OF THE BODIES THEY RESIDE IN.

B
UDDHISM BELIEVES THERE IS NO SOUL AND NO SELF, AS EVERYTHING IS IN A CONSTANT STATE OF CHANGE AND FLUX.
I
N
J
UDAISM, THE WORDS
nephesh
(
LIFE/SOUL
),
ruach
(
WIND
),
AND
neshama
(
BREATH
)
TOGETHER DESCRIBE THE SOUL.
I
T IS BELIEVED THAT
G
OD BESTOWS THE SOUL ONTO THE BODY UPON THE FIRST BREATH.

T
HE
C
HRISTIAN BELIEF, BASED ON THE
O
LD AND
N
EW
T
ESTAMENTS, STATES
, “T
HEN SHALL THE DUST RETURN TO THE EARTH AS IT WAS: AND THE SPIRIT SHALL RETURN UNTO
G
OD WHO GAVE IT.”

R
OMAN
C
ATHOLICS EXPRESS THE SOUL AS “THE INNERMOST ASPECT OF HUMANS, THAT WHICH IS OF GREATEST VALUE IN THEM, THAT BY WHICH THEY ARE MOST ESPECIALLY IN
G
OD’S IMAGE
. S
OUL SIGNIFIES THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE IN MAN.
”

O
RIENTAL
O
RTHODOX AND
E
ASTERN
O
RTHODOX CHURCHES SIMILARLY BELIEVE THAT THE SOUL IS INDIVIDUALLY JUDGED BY
G
OD AFTER DEATH AND, DEPENDING ON THE OUTCOME, THE SOUL IS EITHER SENT TO
A
BRAHAM’S
B
OSOM (TEMPORARY PARADISE) OR
H
ADES
/H
ELL (TEMPORARY TORTURE).

P
ROTESTANTS HAVE TWO DIFFERENT BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL’S COURSE AFTER DEATH: THE FIRST HOLDS THAT THE SOUL FALLS INTO AN UNCONSCIOUS SLEEP UNTIL RESURRECTION, AND THE SECOND HOLDS THAT THE SOUL EXISTS IMMORTALLY
.

S
EVENTH-DAY
A
DVENTISTS BELIEVE THAT THE SOUL IS A MIX OF BODY AND SPIRIT (BREATH OF LIFE), WHILE
J
EHOVAH’S
W
ITNESSES USE THE
H
EBREW WORD
nephesh
,
REFERRING TO THE LIFE FORCE OF ALL ANIMATE LIVING THINGS
.

L
ATTER
-D
AY
S
AINTS BELIEVE THAT THE SOUL IS THE UNION OF THE SPIRIT, PREVIOUSLY CREATED BY
G
OD, AND THE BODY AS A PHYSICAL FORM CONCEIVED ON
E
ARTH
. A
FTER DEATH, THE SOUL RETURNS TO THE SPIRIT
.

H
INDUISM USES THE SANSKRIT WORDS
Jeeva
(
IMMORTAL ESSENCE OF A LIVING ORGANISM
),
Atman
(
TRUE SELF
),
AND
Purusha
(
COSMIC MAN) TO DENOTE THE INDIVIDUAL SELF
.

I
SLAM BELIEVES THAT THE SOUL IS PUT INTO THE HUMAN EMBRYO FORTY DAYS AFTER FERTILIZATION
.

S
IKHISM BELIEVES THAT THE SOUL IS A PART OF
G
OD
.

T
AOISM BELIEVES THAT EVERY PERSON HAS TWO TYPES OF SOULS CALLED
hun
AND
po
,
OR WHAT WE CALL
yang
AND
yin
.

V
OODOO BELIEVES THAT THERE ARE TWO PARTS TO THE SOUL
,
ti-bon-ange
(
LITTLE GOOD ANGEL
)
AND
gros-bon-ange
(
GREAT GOOD ANGEL
).

D
OES THE WEIGHT OF A SOUL GIVE ANY INDICATION AS TO THE LIFE IT HAS LIVED
?

I had four years in recovery, and my soul was growing restless. How many performances would I have to do before I could move on to something new? How long does it take before the love and passion for the same performance melt into the politics and reality of the business, before Astraea’s scales are tipped out of balance?

A year had passed, and I had fallen into a deep depression. The tour brought us to San Francisco, and my sadness rolled alongside the fog that tumbled over the Golden Gate Bridge—not too golden from where I stood. My ongoing dilemma began to weigh heavily on me as I kept asking myself what was wrong with me, and how much more of this could I endure. I faced every one of my demons head-on, but I was crippled by loneliness and began to isolate again, as I had during the creation of the show. I longed for a close friend on tour, but had avoided most social situations to protect my recovery, as many events revolved around alcohol. I knew what I was seeking from life could no longer be found at the bottom of a beer bottle or the tip of
a syringe. Between my own busy demands and going back to school, I believed I was missing out on many experiences.

In an attempt to find rejuvenation, Jonathan and I went on a much-needed vacation to Hawaii. While there we traveled to the Palace of Refuge (“Pu’uhonua o Honaunau”) where a broken warrior could be forgiven for his sins, failures, and defeats. I felt it was a place of power and a place where I could find some divine healing. Jonathan and I walked to the end of the lava rock that jetted out into a deep-turquoise ocean. The jet-black rock glistened and sparkled with minerals. Together we sat in front of a small tide pool that captured the reflection of the sky above. We watched the sun fall beneath the horizon line into the sea as the waves splashed up against the rock. We both closed our eyes and meditated until a dark sky shifted over our heads. In my silence, in perfect solitude and somber desperation, I prayed to God with every fiber of my being for restoration; for freedom from myself, my ego, my hatred, my pain; and for the ability to continue on.

When I returned to the tour, the memory remained, but the powerful cleansing emotions quickly evaporated. I knew if I was to survive this tour, stay in recovery, and remain sane, I needed to develop a stronger social structure. I needed to reevaluate what I wanted out of life, and what type of person I was becoming. Out of pure curiosity, desire for entertainment, and need for an outside point of view, I made an appointment with a well-known psychic in the Bay Area.

I always expected to cross over a mystical veil upon entering the home of a psychic, and was saddened to remember they lived like everyone else—no floating clouds, secret doorways, or magic potions, just happy, ordinary human beings with the capacity for sight in a place where I was blind.

I walked into his room, sat on the couch, and waited for him to begin. I imagined that for one who really did possess the gift, my past would be easy to see, given how destructive, shattered, and colorful it had been. He looked at me, studying something around me, and said, “This has only ever happened one other time in my life—when I
gave a reading to someone who had already crossed over to the other side.” Checkmate! My death card returned, and I grew pale. “The reason why you have so much pain in your life is because you know what home feels like, and your soul craves to go back. You know heaven, and now you suffer on Earth because life is full of pain.”

I knew that feeling all too well. It described what it was like to enter recovery again and again, knowing what a powerful feeling it was to be fully drowning in heroin bliss, then falling back to Earth’s sober state, into the body’s daily aches, pains, and constant emotion.

He continued, “You crossed over twice, actually, but within the same time frame, and it happened quite tragically. I am going to say it was drugs.” Inside, deep inside, of course I knew this to be true, but I had not heard anyone articulate this back to me since the doctor right after it happened, and his words grabbed my heart: “Joe, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.” But was it? What if I was going to live out the rest of my life as an incomplete puzzle, forever searching for the last piece that did not exist on this plane? How does one make peace with that? He then said something that echoed the first psychic I’d seen years ago: “You have something to tell the world. You can’t give up on yourself.”

I had many questions I wanted to ask, curious about my future, what I was supposed to do in life, and how I could cure the chronic pain erupting in the center of my heart. He said, softly and quietly, “You are so lucky.” I wanted to punch him square in the face, just to show him how lucky I was.

He continued, “You’re lucky because you feel so much, almost the same way I do. If you are around people in pain, you pick it up like a sponge, but if you are around happiness, you also pick it up. You have the ability to absorb everything, the good, the bad, the joy, the pain, the ecstasy, and the darkness, and in this way you are truly a being who has experienced all the ebbs and flows of life. You have already lived a very full life.”

The truth was that I didn’t want to live life like this, and on dark days preferred to be hidden under a thick brown layer of heroin. I
wanted to leave our session hopeful and happy, knowing I would never experience another painful moment for as long as I lived—but that was not going to happen. I left feeling . . . afraid.

The tour was beginning to feel endless—country after country, city after city. I hadn’t planned on staying this long, but the longer I stayed on the road, the more I adapted to this lifestyle, even though I knew it wasn’t the healthiest existence for me. Like a tree, I needed to have roots embedded in the Earth. Even birds that fly wherever they want always return back home to where they came from. Many people I knew loved touring, and I admired that quality in them, always wondering how they did it. In my perception, it seemed like many people fell into the illusion of what a tour offers, an escape from themselves. It was no coincidence that many musicians drank and drugged in this kind of traveling existence. It was a miracle I hadn’t picked up heroin again, and I wasn’t sure how long I could hold on.

For the first few years of recovery I had clung to it, fighting off the urge to use from moment to moment. Once the desire to use had lifted, life began. After that I had learned how to become employable, showing up on time and working like the rest of the world. Now I found myself at the stage where my emotions came back, and I began to understand the reason why I ever used drugs in the first place. Emotions were the most difficult thing for me to handle because they are the body’s reaction to thoughts, and we humans think constantly. Thoughts are invisible and impossible to catch, and in the past I had used a butterfly net made of substances to catch and contain those thoughts. I couldn’t use that net anymore and so my thoughts ran free, and I was powerless over them. I wanted to use again. I wanted those fuckers to slow down, but they didn’t.

I realized I had been using the same coping mechanisms since I was a child, and they no longer worked in my adult life. I was a fighter standing in a wide-open field, shield and sword ready for battle, armor fastened, prepared for war. But there was no more battle to fight, and the only thing I was warring against was me. If I was my own worst enemy, and the only voice I could hear was my own, what were my options?

We traveled from San Jose to San Diego. I went back to the Old Globe Theatre, where we had performed
The Times They Are A-Changin’
, and felt old memories of hard work and sweat wash over me. The show poster still stood tall among the giant palm trees, and I thought of Jonathan. After seven beautiful years our relationship came to an end, and I was remembering all the amazing times we had had together. I walked through Balboa Park with its perfectly kept foliage, trying to recapture the original spirit of what it felt like when I was newly in recovery.