Brushing Feathers: The Lesson Of The Fool

What does it mean to connect? I understand connecting as the act of knowing how to see another human being and to let oneself be seen, simultaneously. This look between people who see each other, listen to each other, accept each other and love each other is a revolutionary act. Today, the new generations (including the millennials) have learned to connect with social networks - and I am not at all critical of the new ways of relating. But I think it's true that we've lost the practice of being genuinely present with each other. I feel there is a fear - not new, but intensified - of being caught in the heart. It's as if the mask we wear in our social networks has gained territory over our “real” identity. And in that strange duality -which artists or celebrities experience so much- we confuse being seen with the fear of being discovered.

My childhood friend (with whom we were ass and shit from the age of three until we were fifteen) has been visiting me for a month and a half. We are the kind of people who don't talk much when we are on the other side of the world, but when we meet again, the essentials haven't changed. And the new is an expansion of our beautiful connection. I know that the bond we generated during all those years is still with us in the form of an invisible thread that unites us forever. And nothing and no one has been able to break that thread. No matter how many years go by, our friendship will last in time and space - and if I get romantic, in another life as well. And it is only possible if you connect “for real”, with your soul, like children do. It is a powerful and magical connection, which is totally applicable to the connection with nature. But we will talk about that in another chapter.

For now, my intention is to relate Connecting (or rather, the longing for connection) to the rise of fascism in men between the ages of 18 and 36, in the last five years in the West. They are not the only ones who have gone to the right, but it is the first time that young men have become the most right-wing population group in all of society, and it is the first time in history that there has been such an obvious ideological gap between men and women. There is clearly a relationship between masculinities and neoliberal and fascist ideas. Why? Well, to give you a bit of a preview of the conclusion (which I'm sure you have already guessed), I will say that I think it has to do, among other things, with men's lack of emotional intelligence. Which leads us to the emotional dependence of men on women - be it the mother, the girlfriend, the wife or the grandmother, leaving us women with the eternal responsibility that has been given to us and that is imposed on us, to take care of our little problems, but of theirs as well. Because if not, we get all this wave of violence, impudence, hatred and rancor.

What the hell do we have to do to protect ourselves? And what can the left, radical or more moderate propose to face the current fascism that is misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, racist, classist, moralist and more imperial and colonist than ever?

In order not to make this a theoretical and superficial sermon, I am going to tell you a story that I am going to title:

“The Fool's Lesson”.

In October, the NoLimit Sound System threw a party in Northern California to celebrate the collective's tenth anniversary. If I remember correctly, it was a party that lasted about three days. I went alone from Oregon because the guy I was seeing, who I wasn't connecting with too much, something happened and I calmly told him to fuck off. I could have gone with friends, but some aren't very ravers and others just couldn't go. And I don't mind going alone. In fact, I love it. But this time I went with the emptiness that characterizes the thought that one is incapable of connecting deeply. So I set out to have a good time and connect. In whatever way I could. And it went well on the first day. I met up with a friend and we spent practically the whole party together, almost gooey. If I left for a while, she would ask me where I had been. In the end we had a temporarily toxic relationship.

I made the bad decision to take a whole pill after the first one wore off, because I wanted to feel the love you feel the first time you try MDMA. I longed to not feel fear. The fear of being seen. But aside from not feeling any of that, the comedown was terrible. I had the opposite effect. I felt like everyone saw me, hated me and rejected me. I started avoiding people's gazes until I wanted to leave. But I couldn't. I stayed anchored in the hope that by some miracle, that paranoia would transform into a positive revelation. It didn't. I fell lower and lower until I found myself lonelier than a zero. Miserable and undeserving of even an ounce of love. Since I was no longer the cheerful babe that arrived, the toxic friend began to connect with other, cooler people, with more friends. It was already daylight and I decided to go to the bookstore-cafeteria we set up with two other women to make coffee for people. I felt weak, absurd and sad. When I went to get the water for the coffee, there was a French man in his forties, blond, blue-eyed, I had met him quickly the night before while he was serving shots at the bar and when I was still in a good mood. That night he told me that he liked my eyes. That he attaches importance to eyes because they are the gateway to the soul. I was chatty but I didn't pay attention to the conversation of such a door. It seemed shallow and presumptuous to me. I told him that I wanted a shot and he made me hit the roulette wheel, a needle made of cardboard, which spun around until it pointed to one shot or another. I drank a shot in disgust and that was that. That morning I wore sunglasses, since the day was sunny and my eyes were quite cloudy. You don't want any kind of mancanzas to be seen. And you try hard to hide it and wear it in style, if possible.

When he saw me that morning while he was cleaning some dishes, he greeted me without recognizing me. He let me pass since I only had to refill a small bottle. He looked at me and said “you are the girl with the eyes from yesterday”. And I said, “Yes, that's me. Good morning. I'm going to make coffee over there in the cafeteria, if you'd like a cup.” She ignored my proposal and changed her body posture, clearly directing all her attention to me. The undesirable thing at that moment, honestly. He said, “Let's see, can I see your eyes again?”. I had no desire to show him anything. But I gave in, thinking it would be for a second, nothing more, and then he would leave me alone. I took them off and showed him my brown eyes, badly painted and with invasive pupils. When I was about to put them back on, the guy stopped me saying - “no, no, no! It's just that if you take them off, I can't connect with you”. And there I stood. Trapped like an imbecile, with my hand locked in my sunglasses,. I felt naked. Paralyzed and exhausted, I stared at him with uncertainty, while he began to give me the same sermon of the fucking soul gate. That if I put on my glasses he would not be able to know myself deeply, because the eyes hide the truth and who one really is. He became passive aggressive, as if giving me to understand that if I put on the glasses I would disrespect him. Then I also became rude and told him that I had not slept, that it was sunny and that I felt like putting on my glasses. I told him he couldn't go through life asking people to take them off. He told me why. All he wanted to do was “to connect” (the little fucking word felt more and more like a cop knocking on the door of a drug dealer with a house full of amphetamines). I told him that maybe people don't want to connect with him, or they're just shy and need their time. That was the only thing he agreed with me. When I said those words, obviously thinking of myself, I couldn't hold back a sea of tears. It was sudden and totally unexpected. I was embarrassed and looked away to the side. He saw me. “You're crying,” he said. “See, you're pulling things out. How beautiful. How gorgeous. The tears of a woman...”. As if I were a killer whale in an aquarium, imprisoned behind an impenetrable glass, to admire the sadness of her reality. But always from another place, always from another reality, the reality of the privileged, or what is the same, the reality of the fool.

I could not say anything. Tears escaped me without any control. I ran away covering my eyes with my sunglasses. The last thing he said to me was “that, go learn your lesson”.

I hid in the shadows of some big rocks and cried non-stop for half an hour. I felt like my soul had been raped. That jerk, who thought he was the shaman of connections, put his finger on the sore spot. The aquarium glass broke and now I was drowning, alone, not knowing where to turn. What was I going to tell them? That a guy with blue eyes had raped my soul without my consent? Besides, people were out partying, happy. Who would want to listen to the bullshit of a middle-class girl, sad because she doesn't know how to connect? Indignant with herself for having allowed the dumbest fool of the whole party to penetrate her gaze? Not only that, but I allowed him to see me crying. He saw me. In his own way and with his blue, ugly, shallow gaze. But he saw me.

When I caught my breath, still with humiliation in my body, I became erect, trying to hide the heaviness of all the water in my being, and went to the bookstore to make coffee. I thought it was the most dignified thing I could do. To forget about myself and serve people - as a good heiress of Christianity that I am - a cup of hot coffee, on a seemingly bright morning.

Some people spoke to me and I responded in automatic mode and with a monotonous, flat, impersonal tone, like a robot aware that it doesn't have a heart. I had never experienced anything like this before. I really felt as if the most precious part of my being had been taken away. There was nothing left. A body, nothing else. A face without eyes. Without a portal to cross, for when there is nothing behind the portal, what is the point of creating a portal? I became invisible and went to another reality. To nothingness. But it is in nothingness that one experiences a kind of phantasmagoric lightness where there is no weight of expectations, no weight of desires. And where, for a dreamlike instant, I feel something close to freedom. Crying cleared my gaze and I found pleasure in observing my surroundings, from nowhere, in silence and with a cup of hot coffee. I regained my gaze, which was now clear as the pure eye of the killer whale in the ocean, ready to hunt.

Right in front of the bookstore there was a small stage, and there was a French DJ playing, tiny and elegant in the way she played with the machines. I enjoyed watching her because I could tell she was having a good time, offering us the music she had taken the time and effort to select for us to listen and dance to. Suddenly, a tall, black-haired man, French too (not discrimination, just a description), appeared on the stage and, without asking permission, started touching the buttons on the DJ's mixing board. She repeated to him several times not to touch anything. He ignored her. She kept insisting. He laughed and touched other buttons and other machines. Finally the music stopped and she made a gesture with her arms bouncing off the side of her body, indicating her indignation and anger. He didn't care. Not only what she might’ve been feeling, but he didn't give a shit if anyone was witnessing his attitude of superiority and arrogance. Like if he knew no one was going to point anything out to him. As if it was normal. His daily routine. After a minute the music came back on and he left, just like that. At that precise moment, the DJ's gaze was a reflection of the gaze I had lost a few minutes before. I felt it so much in my own skin that I wanted to scream. But I remained motionless. I felt I had to be patient and keep watching. During that minute of silence in the world of lost gazes, a flame was born within me. “Here it comes. My engine, my purpose.” I decided I wasn't going to shut up. I lit up a cigarette and followed the guy with my eyes and saw him laughing with other males. I don't know what they were talking about, but while they were having a great time, the DJ was left with abitterness and the best moment of her party ruined. And that infuriated me. I wanted revenge - and here it is.

After a few minutes, a tall, black-bearded man of unknown nationality was staring at the asses of the women walking past him. Without dissimulation, without shame and, again with total impunity. Without fear! I was disgusted by his abominable gaze, full of immediate desire. Women, these things that walk around with a nice ass. How nice, how beautiful, a woman's banger. And they are beautiful, don't get me wrong. They are much more beautiful when seen as a whole and without objectifying or depersonalizing the subject. I looked away from that slug and continued smoking.

I dared to leave the bookstore and go to greet two women whom I appreciate and who I know think like me. I dared to tell them what I saw. They told me that the black-haired French guy is like that all the time. I asked them if these situations happened often, and without giving me a yes, the look they exchanged between them said it all. I told them that I felt very sensitive and indignant, but I didn't dare tell them what had happened to me.

Then I saw that the girl who brought all the material to make coffees in the bookstore, was sitting where the poufs and pillows on the floor, along with other women. Among them, the toxic friend who had gotten bored with me. I told them that if they wanted a coffee I could make it for them. They said thank you very much. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I saw the fool again. I watched him with my eyes covered, my chest about to explode with rage. From the tip of the gold cloak he wore, he was dragging a part of me. I took in oxygen, exhaled, clenched my mouth and held back tears. The water boiled and I prepared the coffee. I went to bring it to the girls and dared to sit with them. I was still paranoid that everyone hated me. Damn ego...I was not comfortable. I wanted to ask the woman of the cafe -who I know is more connected to the California trimmers circle- if macho acts were frequent. Surprisingly, and unlike the two other women I spoke to, she said no. She asked me why. But I felt hesitant to share what had happened to me and what I saw. The fool was nearby and I asked her if she knew him. She said no. Again I grimaced trying to hide my urge to cry. At that moment I felt I had to tell something to justify my weird presence. The crying was unavoidable and it was better to try to let it all out rather than break down right there. I told her my story in fits and starts, disorganized and without any kind of sense (Tip of the day: don't justify yourself, especially not by crying to someone you don’t know). I could no longer contain myself and during my one failed attempt, I collapsed. She put her hand in mine and said to me:

-I don't know how much you have worked on yourself, but.....

I don't remember the end of that sentence. It was enough for me to understand that I had the problem and that I had to solve it alone. A constant, high-pitched beeping sound was superimposed on the ambient sound. I felt ridiculous and weak. She told me if I wanted to tell her better when I was calmer, and if I thought we should do something, that we could do it. I didn't know what to say. I was confused and my tears made me terribly embarrassed. So I ran away again. I got up, told them I was coming back and went to hide as far away as possible.

I came to a place where there were some giant gas canisters. I sat there and cried as much as I had left to get out. It was getting dark and I asked the moon to stay with me for the rest of the night.

And the moon, dear and with her watery presence, soothed me. Like a little girl seeking comfort from her mother, I told her everything I had been sweating about and that cleared my head.

The community of trimmers, mostly European and mostly straight, living between Nevada City, Chico, Oroville, Covelo and Willow Creek, are an environment I can't help but feel part of, but also somewhat alien to, since I live in Oregon and only see and connect with them when the NoLimit host raves. In other words, my gaze comes partially from the outside. Although we share nationality and language, we are nomads who have found a temporary sedentary life on the West Coast, we work in the same job and we are constantly adapting to the customs and ways of another country, the fact that I don't spend my day to day with them, makes my curiosity to know how they organize and relate to each other, a mystery to be solved. Over the years, I have come to understand their way of thinking a little better and so I have been adapting as best as I can. When I was not yet a spiritual person, I was shocked by the fact that practically all of them were. I was shocked that in some conversations I had about it, some women would say things like “I am not a feminist or a gender advocate. I believe that we are all human beings”. It was especially on the subject of feminism that I found a barrier that took me a long time to understand. When I had my first spiritual experience, all my beliefs and ideologies fell to the ground, in just one damn second. Feminism too. I understood with my heart what they meant when they said that we are all human beings. And I had to keep my mouth shut for a long time trying to find a balance between my ideology, now in question, and between that religious experience that collapsed what gave me and gives me an identity and a way of being and surviving. It was a humbling and beautiful lesson for which I am eternally grateful. In fact, although in the trimmers' community there are macho dynamics (as everywhere), I must say that it is also where I felt a precious power in women. I experienced it myself. And during that day, at the Halloween party two years ago, in Chico, in a magical place where a singing river flows by, I connected more than ever with some of the women and with myself as well. I had long and deep conversations about miscarriages, pregnancies, ghost babies, synchronicities, magic, enigmas, sexual abuses that happened that very night, and unusual ways - as irregular and unprotected as we are - to face those violences with our own means. Never, anywhere else, have I felt that strength and power that is so quickly forgotten. That day I was born again. This time from the bowels of the earth. I experienced a peace with myself that I had never known before. I experienced that “we are all human beings, we are all one, with the earth, with each other and with the universe”. I experienced what they call “consciousness” and I understood what compassion was.

I had to speak to the moon, that night of allowed humiliations, to remind me that if I chose to return to that state of consciousness, I could. That was what the woman of the café referred to. I don't know if she is a working class woman, but as I learned from my friend Gabi, who she is, no one here is going to lift a finger to make things easy for you. So, one, alone and firm, manages as best one she can and moves forward. Then the light bulb went on and I thought that, that philosophy shared by most of the trimmers and that had conflicted me so much, maybe it was something as simple and animal as the survival instinct.  Perhaps it is a struggle of the working class adapting to a capitalist and individualistic system, in the most neoliberal country that exists. We are also adapting to a new spirituality that teaches us that the more connected we are, the fuller and more secure we are. Understanding it this way, it is not that the woman of the café was telling me that it was my fault for having allowed myself to be humiliated. I feel the guilt because I come from a Christian tradition. But I have a choice whether to feel it or not. And in that sense, I prefer to feel compassion for myself and tell myself, as the moon tells me, that it is possible to become conscious again and that it is possible to be connected and at peace again - despite the attacks and the unsuspecting robberies.

To pay a small tribute to my dear David Lynch, who has just left us, he insisted a lot on explaining what scientists call “the unified field”, which is nothing more nor less than that experience of consciousness. The experience of knowing, of unity with the whole, of the connection that can save us from hatred, so present lately.

Facing the moon, I looked into its deep cratered eyes and recovered my soul. I thanked her and I went to sleep.

Still, and to end, I want to point out a coincidence. The time I have been here in the USA is now four and a half years. Almost the same time that the extreme right has risen, every year more and more, all over the Western world. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this story, this is the first time that the ideological gap between men and women has been so large. Young men between the ages of 18 and 36 have been veering towards fascist ideas because whoever controls the information - like Elon Musk (who says he will provoke coups wherever he feels like it and “deal with it” and who has just celebrated Trump’s victory with a nazi hail) and like Mark Zuckerberg (who has just allowed on Facebook, that homosexuals can be called mentally ill) - they and the power they have, target this branch of society, on purpose. They build a direct and clear link between masculinities and the new neoliberal and neocolonial fascism. They need them for their own personal and capitalist interests.

It is worth asking whether or not our trimmers community, made up of people between 25 and 45 years old, is immune to the new manipulative and reactionary wave of the right wing. And if it is not that, apart from becoming conscious (spiritually speaking), we are also simultaneously adapting to the demands of a generation of wounded men who, among other things, use spirituality and its language, so that we remain silent, complacent and submissive.

In my case I have felt how I have been suppressing words like “deconstruction”, “privilege”, “machismo” from my vocabulary because suddenly they started to bother too much. Not only in the trimmers community, but also in the Oregon town where I live. At the same time, I again had to put up with “you're a hoe”, “fragile generation”, “feminazi”, etc. type of comments. And it's not that these comments stopped being used (they were used less, being more united than ever), but what has changed now is the immunity and celebration of these. And it is in that space where fear and silence grow. It is in that silence -which individualizes us- that it is easier and easier to perpetrate white and male supremacists attacks.

But at the same time, spirituality can seem conservative and even fascist when it is only observed from a rational and Eurocentric gaze, which is what many leftist intellectuals and journalists do. In that sense, people who begin to experience consciousness (spiritually speaking), when they see that no left-wing leader mentions the radical change in human consciousness that the world needs, if people have no political, class or racial consciousness, it is very easy for them to move to the right. Simply because the right wing are the ones who dare to take neoliberal capitalism to the extreme, in this case. And people need an extreme change.

Back to the issue of connecting. One of the consequences of us living in this technological and reactionary dystopia, is that women and the lgtbiq+ community, despite the fact that we are working on “emotional bonds” (another expression that is hated, by the way), we are “working” them because we have also lost the ability to connect genuinely and deeply. We are all lacking in meaningful connections and, instead of achieving this together, we are being divided by purely capitalist and imperial interests. The fool, my poor fool, is desperate to connect. But since he can't and is frustrated, he has to go around forcing women to take off their sunglasses to project his impotence. It is in that lack of emotional intelligence where, as he stuck his finger in my gouge and made me believe that I was incapable of connecting, the State (or rather, private multinational information companies) make young men believe that the way to go is hate. They make them believe that they cannot connect with women's demands or, worse, that these issues are only hysterical women's issues. And in that false inability to take responsibility for one's own frustrations and insecurities, women and the lgtbiq+ collective are blamed for the shitty world we've been left with. It is infinitely easier and more superficial to accuse and hate the other, than to love. Love!  That implies consciousness. To be conscious implies work of self-knowledge. And self-knowledge implies daring to feel every single emotion. Otherwise, what the fuck have we come here for?

Dearg fool of mine,

I'm sogui you ar so disconnected. You ar not the only one, my fool. Next time, grab a cup of ot coffee, that's a betteg stargt. In the meantine, guesistance to new govegment of Trgumpet and guesistance to the cowagd ate. Love and light.

Let's connect!