reBirth2009

Introduction

After I graduated from Boston University in January 2004, I would think of my coming future and feel a nauseating uncertainty that fed a growing ambivalent paralysis.  At that time in my life, I had no confidence and no portfolio of accomplishments that could sooth my panicked feelings of a wasting life.  So, I thought really really hard about the meaning and purpose of my life and eventually I resolved that: 

 1. I wanted to find vast beauty within every moment

2. I wanted to make a positive impact in the world

But, at that time in my life I hadn't learned the architecture of my subconscious nor had I learned how to build a bridge of communication between my conscious and subconscious selves.  I knew that if I didn't do something 'extreme', I would forget  and let fade away all of my heartfelt resolutions.  So, I took a vow that I would not cut my Beard Mullet (a piece of beard underneath my chin) or my Head Mullet (known as my Mullet of Mission) until I went on a sacred journey of life where I tried my absolute best to make a positive impact in the world.   The purpose of my hair was to remind me everyday of my vow.  The weirdness of having a beard and head mullet would make people question me and this would further remind me of my vow.  I also determined that I wanted my sacred journey to rupture my feeling of normalcy and comfort and push me into a new era of growth. 

For nearly 6 years, I waited for the day when I would be ready for my life journey (which I used to call my mission).  In that time, I became a teacher at Waltham High School and for the first time in my life, I felt that I was actually good at something.  I had grown so much! 

But, with each passing year I felt a greater stagnation that reeked of complacency seeping up from the bedrock of my being which then fed a growing underlying restlessness to realize the vow I had taken.   

I knew the time was coming to leave teaching...and that would be one of the biggest changes of my entire life! I absolutely loved teaching. I felt free and sometimes I would enter into a flow state.  My universe of creativity, SOMDEland, was born and raised within my classroom.  I felt that I was making a positive impact.  I was feeling good too, my diet and workouts were getting better and my negative internal dialog started to turn into a supportive positive internal dialog.  I was also very comfortable living at home with Mother.   It took me so much focused hard work to build this heaven on Earth. 

 I was worried that I would lose it all...there was so much uncertainty about my  new destiny.  During my final year of teaching, I searched for many NGOs in India and finally settled on CECOEDECON. I took a leave of absence from teaching for a year and I went off into an uncertainty where I didn't know whether my vow would even fruit.  

The reBirth Ceremony of 2009

In July (near my birthday), I held the reBirth Ceremony of 2009 which began the largest and most extreme change to my life. 

Because this rebirth ceremony was one of my earliest ceremonies, it did not have the same structural machinery as my modern reBirth ceremonies which often have a thematic progression of Reality, Digestion and then Ceremony.   Instead these early reBirth ceremonies primarily consisted of the hair harvest ceremony.  Hair is symbolically important because it represents the passage of time where I incubated the ideas that I was birthing.  Hair can also be seen as a symbolic crop that I planted during the last rebirth ceremony and that I harvested during this one. 

In the picture below towards the left, you can see the length of my 3-year head hair and then my lower hand shows the length of my 6-year Mullet of Mission, most of which had been pulled off in martial arts.  In the middle picture, my hand shows the length of the longest strand of my beard mullet.  In the right picture, I am doing a nastypose next to Master Tree #1 before the ceremony began. 

Harvest of the 6 year Beard Mullet

This reBirth ceremony was divided into two parts. The first was the Harvest of the Beard Mullet which occured at Boston University and the second was the Harvest of my Mullet of Mission and Head Hair which occurred at my home.  Because I was leaving the United States, I wanted to say goodbye to my MasterTree #2 (my first MasterTree is in front of my house).  The significance of MasterTree#2 is that it symbolically represents the 4.5 years of my life when I was at BU. 

Traveled to my Master Tree 2

My years at Boston University were very important in the development of my core ideas.  While the Hair Harvest ceremonies started when I was in high school, my community-based reBirth ceremonies started when I was an undergrad.   

For the 4.5 years I was at BU, nearly every weekend I would take the red line and green line to go home and then come back to BU.  The ride through the T became a ritual.  To honor that ritual, we all took the T to BU and, just like in the old days, we studied while riding to our destination. 

Stretched by my Master Tree 2

After high school, I wanted to be born broken and then be forged in the furnace of raw intensity.  I did this, in part, by majoring in Physics and minoring in Mathematics and Computer Science.  I also pushed myself to my limits by first training for and then going to Officer Candidate School for the Marine Corps.  When I began training, I could barely run 2 miles without my asthma leaving me suffocated, and, I could barely complete 1-2 pullups.  

Many days of every week, I would go to the bike path along the Charles River to train. Everytime I reached the bike path after crossing a bridge (underneath which there was a highway), I would place my hands on the same oak tree which eventually became my Master Tree #2. I would stretch and gather my strength as I tried to balance my anxiety, self-doubt and self-loathing, and then, I would push myself to the point of maddening pain as I ran, some of which came from my shin splints.  Eventually I got my 3 mile time down to 19:40 and I maxed out the USMC physical test requirements of 20 pullups and 100 sit up in a minute. 

For this reBirth ceremony, I placed my hands on my old friend once again as I stretched and I shared the details of my upcoming journey.  Afterwards I went on a brief jog to remember the 3 miles I would train on the bike path.  I wore my Super Jacket #1 and a toilet paper roll.  After I had graduated from BU, I gave myself the duration of time it took me to finish a whole roll of toilet paper to find a new destiny.  I was unable to accomplish that, so I made a necklace out of the toilet paper roll and wore that often until I got my job as a high school teacher (nearly 6 months later). 

Braiding of my Beard Mullet

My beard mullet was a patch of beard underneath my chin which grew for about 6 years. I never shaved that portion of my beard.  Like my head mullet, it was meant to be unusual because it would remind me of my vow everytime that I looked at the mirror and everytime people asked me about it.  In that way, my beard mullet became like a mantra that was chanted across 6 years of time to remind me of my vow.  

In the ceremony, my Mother braided my Beard Mullet so that I could harvest it. 

Speech 

Now that I am documenting this ceremony 17 years later, I have no memory of my speech but luckily I took a picture of my notes (below).   

I spoke of how I began my journey into undergrad feeling overwhelmed with a sticky nervousness.  Back then, I had thick and persistent social anxiety.  Not only was I unable to make eye contact but I would have to look sometimes 20 degrees away from the face.  I would find it difficult to enter into stores that I had never been in before.  On top of that, I had never been away from home or from Mother, so there was a childlike innocence within me. 

I then talked about how I learned to survive with minimal resources.  Even though Mother provided everything financially, I felt such guilt taking money from her because she supported my sister and brother by herself. I would save every receipt, vowing to pay my Mother back some day.  I learned to spend only $20/week on food but I grew dehydrated and malnourished because I was too overwhelmed to cook and listen to the wisdom of my Mother on proper nutrition. In that time, I also fell to the addition of TV.  

Next, I shared about my journey through Officer Candidate School for the Marines.  This was a true test of my determination and courage.  I went to OCS to test my theories of life.  How would my ideas on happiness, pity, stability and identity change when I was pushed into a scary, difficult and brutal environment where there was great uncertainty? I also went to OCS as a way to overcome what I called my 'laziness' but really what I meant to say was that I was looking for a way to motivate myself to accomplish long term goals.  As a side note, even after the extreme discipline of OCS, I still was not able to do it. Instead, it took years of incremental victories to change my reward-landscape, which I talk about in this video.  

Then, I talked about how my MasterTree #2 saw me grow across my years at BU.  It saw how I could barely run 2 miles and barely complete 2 pullups.  The Tree saw how I trained with the ROTC and slowly transformed my fears into wishes and triumphs.  Nearly every day, I would put my hands on this tree as I stretched for my run. I even stood by the tree as I strongly contemplated dropping out of BU from a deep feeling of disappointment and waves of depression. 

I finished by sharing how Master Tree #2 saw me experience ineffable and beautiful moments  when my runs mixed with the spirit world.  I would sometimes run when no one else was there such as during hurricanes, rain, crackling ice, blizzards and purple skies.  The tree also saw one of my first nastypose  which was born at a dumpster near by dorm.  The nastypose was initially an expression of self-hatred but eventually became a vehicle for self realization.  Finally, I spoke of how I found one of my mastersticks in the first year of being at BU, where gloveless I picked it up from a frezzing ground. I thereby took a thrown and wasted piece of wood and gave it new destiny.  Some of my sacred things like trees, clothing, sticks and rocks can be found described in my Treasures section of SOMDEland. 

Honoring my MasterTree #2 and the Harvest of my Beard Mullet

As my Mother drummed on a poland spring bottle, I devotionally cared for my tree by giving it water.  And then, the moment had come after 6 years of training and waiting.  I harvested my Beard Mullet to realize the next stage of my life and destiny!  This little beard mullet existed through the entire 6 years of my high school teaching. One funny story is that I remember trying to clip it into my normal smaller beard to hide it during the interview process of beign hired.   

The Nastypose

The Nastypose was born during a time of deep self-hatred.  It was in front of a dumpster near my dorm.  Overtime, as the nastypose swam through moving time, it collected meaning and purpose.  My distended stomach represents potential energy (fat is a form of potential energy) that contain all of my dreams.  My hands represent the possibility of kinetic energy (movement) and therefore the possibility of realizing my dreams.  But, I ask, 'Why am I so nasty' because, especially at that time, I felt completely incapable of realizing my dreams.  With each recitation of my nastypose, I reminded myself to conquer my comfort and push hard until my dreams were realizable.  Afterwards, I took a fallen leaf from my MasterTree and, I believe, it is still taped onto the ceiling of my room. 

Harvest of the 3 year Head Hair and 6 year Mullet of Mission

The second part of the ceremony happened at home in the grace of my first MasterTree.  In this way I honored the two places where I gestated and birthed the core symbolism and ideas that led to my vow of going on a journey to make a positive impact. 

Introduction to the Main Ceremony 

The Main Ceremony (the Harvest of my 6-year Mullet of Mission and my 3-year Head Hair) began with a speech.  Unfortunately, because I documented this event 17 years after it happened, I no longer remember what I said.  

Next to me are all of my sacred Master Sticks and in front of me are my sacred Master Pants. I wear my Super Jacket and my ceremonial Master Pants. 

Harvest of the Common Beard

In front of MasterTree #1, we did the harvest of my common beard.  This beard was small and therefore it did not span a large history of time. Nevertheless, the details of this ceremony were recorded in the growth of my beard.  So, everyone harvested my beard by cutting a piece of it. Then, as is seen in the central picture with my sister, everyone sprinkled the cut beard hairs into the wind while making a wish. 

Fanfare  

We started the fanfare with some improvised music where likely my Nasty Chords were played.  Then, I lighted a small magnesium strip that created a phenominal display of brightness-burning.  

The Sacred Sticks 

When I was a child, I lived underneath the oppressive rule of my father.  My feelings of helplessness, anger, and frustration corroded the essence of my being. 

Then, one day, I went outside with a stick and start breaking pieces of nature that had naturally fallen into my backyard and it was a true catharsis.  From then on, a few sticks became sacred.  Eventually, these sticks became ways to explore the world around me, where I would use them to poke and prod things like rocks and logs. 

Documenting this, 17 years later, I have forgotten exactly why I had people do this, but I would imagine it is to honor this method of catharsis that could convert helpless frustration into something more than just stagnation.  

Honoring my Onion Daughter

Usually I plant an Onion Daughter during my Hair Coming Down Ceremony after my Hair Harvest.  So, I am not sure why there is an onion daughter here. But, as a quick summary, when I was at BU, I rescued an onion that my roommates were going to cook.  This onion had already sprouted and my roommates were kind enough to give it to me. I then put it in a bottle water and watched its roots grow. I called it my child. Then, I married it to the Earth in the springtime.  Here I am honoring another onion that was perhaps rescued in a similar matter.  My sister and brother hold my hair, making me look like an onion that has sprouted leaves above ground. 

Sharing something meaningful

I love having deep discussions and share sessions.  In my more modern ceremonies and events, I have a Digestion section where people try to meet someone new and have conversations around deep ideas that were shared during the Reality section.  

Braiding my Head Hair and Mullet of Mision

It is hard to see in the picture but, in the back, I had my Mullet of Mission which grew for 6 years and the rest of my head hair is 3 years old.  Because the mullet had thinned, it mostly mixed into the rest of my hair. 

In this part of the ceremony, my family braided my hair to be harvested. 

Harvest of my 3 year old Head Hair

Every member of my sacred community who attended the ceremony, chose a lock of my braided head hair and then harvested it by cutting it off.  They then took the harvested hair and gave it to me while doing a modified nastypose.  

Symbolically, my hair represented the previous 3 years of focused dedication to the fruition of the vow I took 6 years prior of going on a journey to make a positive impact.  In that time, I searched, contacted, and interviewed with a few NGOs and then constructed the general trajectory of my destiny for the next year. 

The hair harvest is occurring next to my first Master Tree. I am surrounded by my Mastersticks while I do a nastypose during the harvest. 

Harvest of my 6 year old Mullet of Mission

The Mullet of Mission was the first mullet that I ever kept. After that the tradition became that I would do a full harvest (cut off all my hair). Then, three years later, I would shave everything off except for the mullet.  This mullet represented taking ideas from the last 3 years and then applying those ideas to the next 3 years.  

My Mullet of Mission started after the reBirth of 2004 which is when I planted the seeds of my vow.  For six years it grew and everyday it reminded me of my vow.  It saw my entire journey of being a high school teacher and it witness my spiritual metamorphosis from self-hate to self-love.  Because my Mullet of Mission reminded me daily of my vow, it helped me overcome my feelings of fundamental fright that would send waves of panic throughout my being.  I was scared of change even though I embraced it.  My comfort, my way of life, my sense of identity and my feelings of accomplishment were all going to experience uncertainty and change. 

So, after all of my head hair had been harvest.  I grabbed my Mullet of Mission and after six years, I cut off my mullet and then gave a long and loud howl.  

After the Harvest