Saints and talismans

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I have cancer, and this is no time for quibbling about what helps and what doesn’t. Lots of people of different faiths have said they’re praying for me, and I accept their prayers gratefully. Why in the world would I be stiff-necked enough to say: “Nah, I’m an atheist. Save your prayers”?

And I am not un-superstitious. I read Tarot cards, after all, and I look at horoscopes, and find profitable information in them. (Not the newspaper ones, kids. The real ones.)

So who am I to scoff at talismans and charms?

When my father was diagnosed with cancer in 1975, I was in my sophomore year at Gonzaga and just on the verge of converting to Catholicism. As you can imagine, I became very devout in no time at all. I attended mass almost daily, and said novenas, and prayed like a banshee.

Dad died anyway, in May 1976, despite all my masses and novenas. But it didn’t stop me from believing, deep down in my soul, that prayers and talismans are effective, if you only use them correctly.

For years I carried two holy medals on my keychain: Saint Dymphna (who guards against mental illness) and Saint Peregrine (who guards against cancer).

Somehow both of them disappeared from my keychain some years ago. And look what happened!

I found Peregrine and put him back on my keychain a few weeks ago, and told him to get back to work.

Also: Partner, being a cradle Catholic and understanding my state of mind, recently gave me a medal of Saint Blaise (who guards against afflictions of the throat).

Whatever happens now, I’m prepared.

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Lucky

 

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Now that I have an inconvenient medical condition, I think about what I did to cause it. I smoked for fourteen years, knowing that it was a terrible thing for me, knowing that Dad died of lung cancer, as did several of his brothers and sisters. I think about eating badly, and exposure to all kinds of pesticides and chemicals and god knows what over the years.

Also, being superstitious, I think about all the taboos I’ve broken: all the salt I’ve spilled without throwing a few grains over my shoulder, all the ladders I’ve walked under.

Mostly I think guiltily of all the people I've been unpleasant to, or actually hurt, either accidentally or on purpose. (Of course I have. You have too. But we’re talking about me, not you.)

But I have had very much happiness in this life – more than I deserve, really. Partner is largely responsible for much of that. But I was lucky to grow up in a place that was as beautiful as Washington state; lucky to go to a funky Catholic-liberal college like Gonzaga in the crazy 1970s; lucky that my first city was Spokane, an easy-to-navigate place that wasn’t at all threatening; lucky to get into Brown for grad school (though I threw it over after a year); lucky to find my way to Providence, my dear dowdy hometown for thirty-five years now; lucky to get into the Peace Corps, and meet all kinds of interesting people, American and Moroccan and British and Tunisian, some of whom still keep in touch with me; lucky after that to work at Brown University, in a job that has mostly been very good for me, and to work alongside people whom I have grown to love and respect.

And then there’s Partner.

I cannot even tell you what he means to me. We met in 1995, and I knew as soon as I saw him that I probably loved him. Does that sound silly? He tells me that he felt the same way, and I respect him too much to tell him that I have a hard time believing that anyone could ever love me at first sight. At any rate, we were living together within a few years. We moved to our present residence in 2002 – a nice little apartment, just right for the two of us. I’ve grown to love Partner’s family – his two sisters and their families – and I think of them and love them as my family, just as I feel about my own family back in Washington.

Partner and I have grown older together. We’ve traveled together. We’ve been angry with each other, and reconciled. We’ve been sick, and taken care of each other. We shop for groceries together, and go to work together in the morning.

I’d be lost without him.

To paraphrase Frank Herbert: My life has been mostly (undeservedly) sweet. But Partner has been the sweetest thing in it.

No matter what happens from here on, I consider myself very lucky.

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Reading the signs

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Sometimes I mock superstitious people for their credulity. It’s all very silly, isn’t it, all this hokum?

Oh dear. I’m such a hypocrite.

I myself have about a million little superstitions. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I used to walk to work, and I always noticed playing cards in the streets. (I never see these anymore. What’s happened? Don’t people play cards anymore?) Playing cards match up with Tarot cards, and I used to tell my dailyfortune by the cards I saw. The nine of hearts foretold a very good day; the ten of spades meant a very bad day. And so on.

Now it’s finding change in the street. I’ve decided that finding money is a good omen. A penny will do; a nickel is better, or a dime, naturally. Some days I find handfuls of change (Providence is installing more parking meters, and people seem to throw change around in all directions). Once in a while I find folding money. Those are special days.

(Why do I do this? Why do any of us do this? Simple: we look for meaning in the world. We believe instinctively that everything is linked to everything else.)

(Not very logical, right? But very human.)

Not long ago, I was anticipating a pretty awful day. I walked to work as normal, hoping to find (at least) a penny in the street. But I found nothing.

Then, suddenly, on a wire fence, I saw a huge crow. It cawed, and suddenly something dark moved in the tree above, and I saw another.

Two crows.

Ah.

One crow sorrow, two crows joy;

Three crows a girl, and four crows a boy.

Five crows silver, six crows gold;

Seven crows a secret never to be told.

I can’t even remember where I learned that rhyme, but it cheered me. Two crows joy. An omen!

And then, a few moments later, I found a nickel in the street.

And you know what? The day turned out to be pretty good after all.

(The world is a mysterious place. Anything is possible.)

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Saint Anthony of Padua

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I am mostly an atheist. But that doesn’t mean I’m not superstitious.

The other morning I lost my phone. I knew it was somewhere, but still I couldn’t find it. (For more information on this topic, see my recent piece on “the aging brain.”)

I had great faith, however, that my phone would be found. No one would have stolen it. Also, I’m very good at losing things that get found again.

So I took a walk at lunchtime, as I usually do, serene in the certainty that my phone would be found by the time I got back to the office.

And, just to make sure, I said the sure-fire St. Anthony prayer / invocation:

Something’s lost that can’t be found;

Please, Saint Anthony, look around!

And I came back to the office, and no one had found my phone.

But I found it myself, within a minute or so,

Saint Anthony was a Portuguese who became a Franciscan. He was often sickly, but wanted to be a preacher, and even set out to proselytize in Morocco once (although he didn’t make it there). Legend has it that he came to a church to preach, but found it empty; to shame his congregants, he went to the oceanside and preached to the fish, who rose to the surface and listened to him (although they fell into their old evil ways later).

Here is Janet Baker singing Gustav Mahler’s song on the subject:

Reading the cards

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I think of myself as very irreligious. I don’t really believe in any god, except inasmuch as there may be more powerful or knowledgeable entities than me in the universe (which is completely possible). But a personal deity? One who cares about me, and who can help me in a real way? I don’t see it.

 

 

On the other hand, I think the universe is full of odd connections and synchronicities. I think that “fortune-telling” – horoscopes, cards, palmistry – is just a way to tease out the synchronicity, and maybe latch into a feeling about things that are happening around you.

 

 

I have an especially strong feeling about card-reading. You shuffle cards in the here and now, and the cards fall into a shape that’s dictated by what Kurt Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians called “the structure of the moment.”

 

 

The cards fall a certain way when you draw them and lay them on the table. An experienced reader can find all kinds of interesting things in them.

 

 

Why not?

 

 

I have read cards – regular playing cards, Tarot cards, and even the cards of Madame Lenormande – many times. I feel them in my hands as I deal them, and I can tell if the reading is going to be the real deal or not. Sometimes the cards get annoyed with you, especially if they know you’re asking a stupid question (a stupid question is a question to which you already know the answer). Sometimes you get what I call “static” – nonsense answers – but not very often.

 

 

Most often, the cards tell me (very sincerely) what’s going on in the world.

 

 

Example #1: Back in the early 1980s, I was in a dreadful job, and was applying for a much better job. I was assured – assured! – by the new employer that I was the leading candidate for the job.

 

 

I was thrilled. So, just for confirmation, I read the cards.

 

 

And they told me I wasn’t getting the job.

 

 

I resented the cards’ bad attitude, and dealt them again. They told me again – in very definite terms – that I was not getting the job.

 

 

Foolishly I dealt the cards a third time. The cards hate this. (I know I’m anthropomorphizing the cards, but it’s difficult not to; they have moods.) This time, the DEATH card came up.

 

 

And – what do you know? – I didn’t get the job.

 

 

Example #2: A few years later, I was offered a Peace Corps job in Morocco. I was excited, but uncertain. I read the cards. I saw:

 

 

Uncertainty.

 

 

Strife.

 

 

Difficulties.

 

 

Travel overseas. (No kidding!)

 

 

And, at the end of it, The Sun. This card represents – let me quote an online source:

 

 

The Sun promises the querent his/her day in the sun. Glory, triumph, simple pleasures and truths. This card symbolizes discoveries made wide awake. This is science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect and youthful energy. Like the Sun, the querent will likely come across to others as warm and radiant, and he/she can be told that this is a good time to make decisions.

 

 

In short: Oh, shit, go ahead and do it. It’ll turn out just fine, despite the difficulties.

 

 

And it did turn out just fine. There were twists and turns and unexpected things, just as the cards had warned.

 

 

And at the end of it, the Sun: radiant happiness.

 

 

I am timid of the cards. I do not ask them casual questions. I play with them, and meditate on them, but I respect them.

 

 

(Do I sound superstitious? I suppose I am.

 

 

(But I believe that the present holds the seeds of the future, and that – if you know how – you can peer into the structure of the present and glimpse, dimly, the shape of the future.)

 

 

(Want me to read for you someday?)

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