A 1 Act 4 Idealism

Scene: A dusty smoky brothel. A single oppressively bright lamp shines down on a table occupied by Nietzsche’s distant and under appreciated half-brother. He is drunk, still drinking. A woman with rosy cheeks, a woman with sunglasses, a woman with no makeup(confidently), and a woman with dusty dry curls of brown sit with him at the table. While he rants in a slow and confident drunken slur, the women watch him and occasionally pass knowing glances to each other when he’s not looking.

Nietzsche’s half-brother:

Sustainability for some is a collective immortality flag; some may never see sustainability. Religion for some is a collective immortality flag; some may never see how religion promotes sustainability.  

Many read the history of war and violence – the history of oppressors, and see no signs of religion wholesome and in touch with a deep ecology.

The work of religion goes unseen.

Woman with rosey cheeks:

the oldest silence speaks the loudest under the deep green sea.

Nietzsche’s half brother:

I can take back the power of that word – it is not an institution – if for no other reason than to make useless an academic brand of non-theology that would hold history like a chalice; if this were true we’d all be drunk and drowning in its wine.

Looking at history, religion is an artifact. Living in religion is experience. Is it the lack of wisdom in the past you seek, or the abundance of wisdom in the present? This present has a rich past, bloody and bright. How will it be useful today? We learn from our mistakes, and learn from the mistakes of others. Hypothetical lacks of ecology (in the past) inform ecology.

(He hiccups)

How truly it is time that broadens our sense of interdependence. Over geologic time we see how countless phenomena precede and have produced our very being. How great history is!

Woman with sunglasses:

Temper your humanism with humility

Diversity loves humility

Nietzsche’s half-brother:

Religion works in the silence of violent histories, its absences; works besides the toiling slave, works beside the complacent consumer.

Religion lives not in religious things.

Friction firing spark and light, speeding in giving, slowing in taking.

Woman with dusty dry curls of brown:

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Nietzsche’s half-brother:

Religion is a collective acknowledgement of the power of action and ultimately unknowable consequences and causes.

Religion is the cultivation of attitudes and beliefs and behaviors conducive to the wellbeing of a world that is not your own.

Woman without makeup (confidently):

Know your limits

Nietzsche’s half-brother:

This world is not “an” ecology. Some see religion cultivating institutional control and mass suffering. Some see institutional control cultivating religion and mass suffering. I see religion cultivating personal habits of harmony. 

There is a difference between protective and productive criticism. Productive criticism does empty the cup, but only to fill it with something more satisfying. Protective criticism hides the cup from all who would pour.

If Bron Taylor is not hiding an empty cup, what does he propose? Solutions that ignore their history (by not seeking in their traditions) even as he makes a historical claim that takes these traditions for granted?

(He rubs his tired eyes and his voice dry)

Religion seeks solutions and power in its traditions, and thus seeking, the tradition is transformed.

(He sighs and rests his head in his hands, so he is barely understood)

Account for Tolstoy’s adaptation of Christianity informing Ghandi’s practice as a basis for Martin Luther King.

(The woman with rosy cheeks, the woman with sunglasses, the woman with no makeup(confidently) and the woman with dusty dry curls of brown all rise quietly from the table, Nietzsche’s half brother continues to mumble)

Testaments to religion alive and useful abound in the world’s religious traditions.

There are methods in these traditions, not only practical in quality, which are conducive to sustainability.

These religious contributions are accessible and based in actions.

(He sighs from in his hands)

Analytic Linguistic analyses confabulate epistemological ontologies of non-disseminating.

(The women giggle, then fall silent. They take hands, making a circle around the table and around Nietzsche’s half-brother. The lamp’s light turns orange)

Women in unison:

In direct defiance of human logic I offer my rebuttal as prayer.

Let my thoughts pass as thoughts, and let the passing free me.

Let my organization speak for connections unseen but deeply known.

Let these words lay like the diver’s clothes, lying empty on the beach.

Woman with rosy cheeks:

Interdependence & the Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion

Woman with sunglasses:

Man and/or Nature

Women in unison:

And when this innumerable, immeasurable, infinite number of beings has become liberated, we do not, in truth, think that a single being has been liberated. 3

Woman with dry dusty curls of brown:

Holistic keys based in mindfulness of living

Woman not wearing makeup(confidently):

Cultivating intergenerationally

Woman with dry dusty curls of brown:

But this model too will fail us.

Women in unison:

you should know that all of the teachings I give to you are a raft. All teachings must be abandoned, not to mention non-teachings. 6

Woman with rosy cheeks:

Humble acceptance

Woman with sunglasses:

To continue to learn the humble complexity accepts

To continue to…

Women in unison:

the highest, transcendent understanding is not, in fact, the highest, transcendent understanding. That is why it is truly the highest, transcendent understanding. 11

Woman with dry dusty curls of brown:

A deep human need

Woman with no makeup(confidently):

For ecological structures?

Woman with sunglasses:

Structures of equality?

Woman with rosy cheeks:

North = South?

Women in unison:

when a bodhisattva practices generosity, she does not rely on any object – that is to say she does not rely on any form, sound, smell, taste, tactile object, or dharma – to practice generosity. 5

Nietzsche’s half-brother stirs, the lamp dims blue, the women let go each others hands and fall slowly silently to the ground. He moans and then erratically digs a finger into his ear as if something is stuck in there. He rubs his eyes and sighs

Nietzsche’s half-brother:

Structures claiming moral authority

In the service of human need

Women in unison, from the floor where they lay:

Strong minds are lonely

Big hearts are blind

Nietzsche’s half brother:

What I mean

Women in unison, from the floor where they lay:

Meaning

Nietzsche’s half-brother:

What I see

Women in unison, from the floor where they lay:

Seeing

The lamp’s light turns green Nietzsche’s half brother doesn’t move. The women from where they lay begin to slap there hands against the floor and stomp their feet against the floor, in rhythm but not with each other. They rise, stomping and slapping as they rise, each in their own rhythm. The green light gets brighter and they all begin to stomp in unison. Clapping their hands first against their thighs and then clapping their hands together, not quickly, but forcefully and all in rhythm, they keep this slow loud rhythm.

Woman with rosy cheeks:

The Divine Milieu

Woman with sunglasses:

The sublime in you

Women in unison, still stomping, clapping, slowly, they speak slowly:

Nothing is more certain, dogmatically, than that human action can be sanctified. Through it the touch of matter is a purification, and chastity flowers as the transfiguration of love. 113

(They sing back and forth now, following just after each other, still stomping and clapping slowly)

Woman with dry dusty curls of brown:

My friend told me

Woman with sunglasses:

I live in a world where a lot is sacred.

Woman with no makeup(confidently):

Living in a world is sacred.

Woman with rosy cheeks:

Living affirmation of living

(keeping their slow beat)

Women in unison:

No object can influence us by its essence without our being touched by the radiance of the focus of the universe. 114

Woman with sunglasses:

Interdependence is mind boggling.

Woman with rosy cheeks:

Interdependence is mind opening.

Woman with dry dusty brown curls:

Interdependence is optimistic.

Woman with sunglasses:

Unity is relation

Still stomping they return to a circle around the table, holding hands. They sing the next part playful and sassy:

Women in unison:

All the communions of a lifetime are one communion.

All the communions of all women now living are one communion.

All the communions of all women, present, past and future, are one communion.

              Have we ever sufficiently considered the physical immensity of woman, and her extraordinary relations with the universe, in order to realize in our minds the formidable implications of this elementary truth? 124

Woman with no makeup(confidently):

Be it in speech

Woman with rosy cheeks:

In gift, in embrace

Woman with sunglasses:

Organizing in celebration

From off stage a woman calls:

Celebrating community

From off stage a different woman calls:

limitless complexity

The light turns bright white, then as the women in unison, slowing their dance, quieting their dance, the white slowly dims until darkness, and they speak the next part

Women in unison:

Embrace that reality as a whole in its widest possible sense: to give it its full abundance as it reacts not only to our scientific or analytic investigations, but to all our practical activities. 106

A spot light on one side of the stage suddenly lights up a woman in galoshes. She stands like she is waiting for a bus

Woman in galoshes:

Dialectics and Dualities

The spot light goes off then another spot light on the other side of the stage suddenly lights up a woman in a wedding dress

Woman in a wedding dress:

Dance

The spotlight goes off and in darkness all the women in unison, in gentle voice, calming;

Women in unison:

The essential marvel of the divine milieu is the ease with which it assembles and harmonizes within itself qualities which appear to us to be contradictory. 113

Still in darkness, we hear Nietzsche’s half-brother say:

I have a synthesis complex

Almost immediately the lights come on, and both the table and Nietzsche’s half-brother are gone, and all the women are standing in a line facing the audience. The woman with rosy cheeks takes two steps forward. As she begins to speak, positive and bright, all the other women gracefully execute asanas.

Woman with rosy cheeks:

Nor would the integrality to which we aspire be real or even possible, if it were confined to the individual. Since our divine perfection embraces the realization of ourselves in being, in life and in love through others as well as through ourselves, the extension of our liberty and of its results in others would be the inevitable outcome as well as the broadest utility of our liberation and perfection. 44

The woman with rosy cheeks takes up an asana as well.

All the women in unison, while in posture, chant:

Yawn and bore for those who take this magic from religion.

All the women suddenly fall out of their asanas to the ground.

After an uncomfortable pause, the woman with the galoshes sits up, looks at the audience, and smiles, then one after another the other women sit up, look around and smile. Then starting opposite the woman with the wedding dress, the woman with the galoshes stands up, all the other women watch her.

Woman with galoshes:

Blessings

The woman with galoshes runs off the stage. The woman with no makeup(confidently) stands up, all the other women watch her.

Woman with no makeup(confidently):

Blessings

The woman with no makeup runs off the stage. The woman with dusty dry curls of brown stands up, all the other women watch her.

Woman with dry dusty curls of brown:

Blessings

The woman with dry dusty curls of brown runs off the stage. The woman with rosy cheeks stands up, the remaining two women watch her.

The woman with rosy cheeks:

Blessings

The woman with rosy cheeks runs off the stage. The woman with sunglasses stands up. The woman in the wedding dress watches her.

The woman with sunglasses:

Blessings

The woman with sunglasses runs off the stage. The woman in the wedding dress stands up. She spreads her arms and breaths deep and then claps her hands together and holds them there.

Woman in the wedding dress:

Blessings on those who seek without knowing

The woman in the wedding dress runs off the stage. The lamp light turns orange, then slowly to blue, then to green, then back to its original bright lamp light.

The woman with sunglasses peaks her head from behind the edge of the curtain, smiling and watching the audience. The curtain begins to close, and the woman with sunglasses follows along, still just her head showing. Just before it closes entirely she calls out, bravely, like a call to battle.

Woman with sunglasses:

Never alone!