I’ve taken many steps down the uncertain path of self-inspired spirituality. This has led me away from the Catholicism I was half-born into. Yet last weekend I recognized something I do value about religion.
It came as indignance not epiphany. Imagine discovering that not even one extra day of the God-given right to a 4-day Easter weekend was going to be honoured by the masters of the Apple on the Eastern Shore. Heavens above it’s a religious holiday and tradition and I was deprived of it!
Indeed, you reach for the hypocrite button but that’s nothing I deny. Its been plainly evident from my always refusal to eat Octopii (they have 3 hearts!) to an acquired honourable act of not eating Crabs to the relevant indulgence of Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday.
How would I be able to enjoy these delectations while smeared up against the coalface of my current film project – unable to squeeze in even a ray of daylight?
It’s a long shot but eternal redemption may lie in even a strand of inexplicable dogma adherence. So twinning that with the lottery law of “you have to be in it to win it” I make sure I do leave the office on Good Friday in search of my winning ticket to heaven in the form of a delectable Bun, Crossed and Hot.
After a few wanderings around god-forsaken Times Square all I found was the most blasphemous cling-film-wrapped masqueraders. Hardly the most tempting of your work Satan! Aside from dubious consistency these things visibly contained those chips of mangy fake fruit all shiny green and red. I have standards and these would not do. So, I was forced, by weight of calvinist work ethic (I blame my atheist father), back to the office empty-handed, bereft of hope.
Sigh.
But when long past dark I made it back to the Apple Core, Gabriel himself made a visitation in the form of the superlative Miss Sparrow who’d equally scoured the Orchard and found 2 types of Hot Cross Bun! So while I normally appreciate these in the morning at least I was able to scoff them in the evening! See them here in all their finery next to the small shrine of special things I’ve assembled in a short few rounds of the sun.
A few of the more observant among you might notice a half-zested orange in that shot and the curious among you will wonder what significance it might hold in a religious “still life”. It signifies that this weekend was also to be a belated birthday weekend. In the annals of Lobster-lore, there is an allowance to defer the true celebrations if a birthday is had on the far side of the planet from one’s lover especially if it’s a big one! I was filming in Manila for my last “sun-circle”. And orange zest is essential as an ingredient to the icing of a Carrot Cake. And Miss Sparrow’s is indeed a formative religious experience. So that evening was like Michael and Gabriel popping by together.
As for growing up… from the beginning of ‘all-things’ the universe has strived to get as big as it can as fast as it can. And right now its exponentially expanding to more area all the time. Me too! Probably more like a Hot Cross Bun in the Oven expanding at the speed of yeast than the speed of light but now I am a 40-year old sphere of existence! The orb of my life expands 40 years in all directions giving me a much bigger surface experiential area than when I was a mere 38, 29, 7, 1 year old globule. And intriguingly this reminds me of the saying “The greater the searchlight, the greater the circumference of the Unknown”… This explains quite well how the more one knows the more one might be aware ones does not know.
So this ‘Me-sphere’ abuts with more unexplored territory than ever before and this fuels my thirst for horizon expansion. I understand this may fuel those perceptions some have that I will never be happy nor satisfied with what I have. Let’s not think because things are good that one shouldn’t continue to adventure!
But I think we’re less ‘Bun-beings’ than ‘Bubble-people’. Gorgeous cosmic existences, appearing, swelling and finally popping to scatter traces of our iridescence across all the spectral dimensions. I await my ‘after-bubbleness’ with all the expectation that my floating has served something else’s purpose.
Hope you had a great Easter – mine has been in a bubble of loving joy!
Much love
Doctor Lobster
ps here are a few other sphere-ish places I've been or things I've seen recently...
