Voodoo’s Got a Grip on My Soul

The whole Voodoo and Zen thing isn’t just some cute little phrase I thought up for fun. It’s my explanation of our dichotomy, what people call our regular selves and our “dark side.” I think the whole Dark Side thing is just silly; it’s not like we’re all charming angels, perfect in every way, and then we have this sinister (which comes from the Latin for “left,” an insult to all us lefties) side we have to squelch.
Nah. We’re all just a bundle of stuff, some “good,” some “bad,” mostly just Stuff. But we have to have some way to talk about the various impulses and urges and to make sense of our seemingly-conflicting natures. So other people think of their baser instincts as their Dark Side; I explain mine as the voodoo of Voodoo and Zen.
Voodoo is the illogical earthy, impulse to believe in mystery and want revenge, to make up stories about why things are the way they are and to try to control life with spells and amulets, entreaties and magic.
In short, the interesting part. The gumbo.
Zen, on the other hand, is cool and logical, detached and calm, peaceful and serene.
It’s tofu without seasoning. But, oh! It’s ever-so-much better for you than sausage and chicken stock and shrimp over rice. Alas.
It’s New Orleans and Santa Fe, emotion and intellect, hot and cold. Passion and detachment.
I strive for Zen, but my heart is filled with voodoo. I realize this is true because I keep losing jewelry.
Huh?
I don’t lose stuff. I hardly ever lose anything, and I surely don’t lose jewelry. I can remember the last piece of jewelry I lost, back in elementary school when I wore the moss agate ring my father had given me as a scarf ring—cinching the tails of a scarf I wore, oh-so-jauntily, around my neck. By the end of the school day, of course, the ring was gone.
In all those intervening years, I maybe have lost an earring or two—nothing fancy, just one of the 10 silver hoops I have in various sizes to go in the 10 holes in my ears. That’s understandable, right?
But here in the last month, I’ve lost two pieces of jewelry:  a bracelet and a ring. I lost the bracelet several weeks ago, before we went to Portland. It was a silver Möbius bangle, stamped with the metta prayer, you know:

May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature.
May all beings be free.

It looked like this:

And yesterday I lost my ring, the one I had made that was stamped with

Be.

Here.

Now.

I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing something here. It’s as if my soul is so black that the jewelry—which I wore to remind me of my quest for compassion and being present—just couldn’t stand it and leapt off my body to flee far, far away.

I really liked that bracelet and especially that ring, though, and that leads me to think that maybe it was Zen that took it away:  teaching me again about problems of attachment.

I have to admit, I’m not a Zen kind of person. Oh, I try. I do. It’s just that staying calm and staying in the moment and feeling compassion for every other living thing, even the rude skanky people shopping at midnight at The Wal-Mart—well, it’s a reach. A real reach.

I’m much more at home pulling out my box of sharp little pins, lighting a candle and burning a little bit of hair. . . .and my jewelry apparently knows this.