The Pagan City » Invisible Neighborhoods

Invisible Neighborhoods: Graete

Raleigh — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:22:07 +0000

Everyone, it seems, wants to move to the neighborhood of Graete: they call it charming, they call it chic. The high rents and lack of public transportation add to its appeal, apparently.

But denizens of the City, not the newcomers from the ‘burbs who suddenly feel the call of urban living think there is something inelegant about the place.

Perhaps its the flat tires on the new cars. Perhaps it is the sunflowers with missing petals. Perahps it is the proliferation of dented cans of marinated artichoke hearts in the grocery stores frequented by gourmets. Its as if the idea of the wheel never made it passed the local zoning board.

Everyone has been to Graete. Everyon has a friend or two who live (or have lived) there. Its thoroughfares and convenient parking are known to all. So why do we all keep coming back?

The smiles of the inhabitants never extend to the ends of their mouths or their eyes. Old friends always look delighted to see us, or did we arrive just in time to keep them from crying?

Graete is the neighborhood of violated expectations. Its other name is Regret. The only truly happy people in the whole neighborhood are the self-help authors who arrive at the Border’s to sign copies of their latest best-sellers. They get to go home to a different neighborhood.

We stay.

Invisible Neighborhoods: Prax and Dox, Dox and Prax

Raleigh — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:57:32 +0000

Rabbit came down from the moon and entered a neighborhood whose inhabitants could never decide upon its name: Dox or Prax.

You see, at first Rabbit was impressed. Some inhabitants were busy fasting and praying, observing rituals with great srcupuosity. Others studied sacred texts and learned them by heart. They followed each piece of advice from mystics and prophets.

Then Rabbit saw something disturbing. Those who called their neighborhood Dox were always trying to get everyone else to believe just as they did. Each Dox individual believed only she understood just what the mystics, the prophets, the sacred texts meant on how to live a life of faith and honor to the Gods.

Meanwhile, all of the denizens who called their neighborhood Prax ran around yelling, “No! No! No! You’re doing it all wrong!” They would then try to get everyone else to say the prayers, sing the songs and perform the rituals exactly the same way. Each Prax individual believed on he understood how to honor the Gods and live a life of faith by performing the rites a certain way.

Dox or Prax, Prax or Dox, there was always a lot of argument going on.

When they saw, Rabbit, they accosted him: “Ho, stranger! Do you best honor the Gods by what you believe or what you do?”

Rabbit was silent, thinking very hard. Finally, he spoke. “It is good to follow protocol and observe the rites in a traditional manner. It is also good to hold the Gods dear to your hearts and seek to imitate Them. At worst, it is prideful and wicked to put your conception of yourselves and the universe above all else and each proclaim that you and only you know the path to Divinity. At best, aren’t you all overdoing things a bit? I mean, really…”

At this point the citizens of Dox and of Prax threw rocks at Rabbit and called him a heretic.

Hopping away, Rabbit returned to the Moon. He spoke with the Queen of Heaven about what he had seen. She praised his wisdom and told him, “Life would be too easy if we spelled out everything for mankind. How would they ever grown and join us?”

Sighing, the Queen of Heaven pulled out her to-do list and scratched off the entry that read: Answer the prayers of Prax and of Dox.

Invisible Neighborhoods: Ubashti

Raleigh — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:50:56 +0000

From time to time, I will post descriptions of “Invisble Neighborhoods,” a sort of homage to Italo Calvino and his excellent novel Invisible Cities.

In the shade of the Third Pyramid, you will find the pleasant neighborhood of Ubashti. There you will find pleasantly sunny streets and plazas of well-groomed sand.

Here a tabby lounges on a balcony, there a smilinng milk seller deposits chilled bottles of cream.

Then, it will occur to you, how simple and trusting are the inhabitants of Ubashti: It is not that there are no locks, but there are no doors.

Windows remain open onto fire escapes. Gardens are bordered by balustrades. There are no loud noises of drums, no lovers quarelling, no dogs barking incessantly at paperboys. Ubashti is neat, is clean, is quiet.

The only untidy aspect to this neighborhood are the still squirming fish, who seem to have fallen out of the buckets the men brought up from the River. Or, there is the occassional bird who is injured and stirs up dust among the well-planned gardens of papyrus and catnip. Or, there can be heard and then seen a mouse, lame in a foreleg, scuttling along a back alley at half-speed.

Suddenly, the visitor to Ubashti realizes that this neighborhood is not for him. That any place on Earth, a city, a mountain, a verandah, a jungle do not need him: the man. He may be welcomed, but he is not integral to the survival of Place.

This is painfully apparent in Ubashti, a neighborhood designed solely for the comfort of cats.

In the shade of the Third Pyramid, you will find the pleasant neighborhood of Ubashti. There you will find pleasantly sunny streets and plazas of well-groomed sand.

Here a tabby lounges on a balcony, there a smilinng milk seller deposits chilled bottles of cream.

Then, it will occur to you, how simple and trusting are the inhabitants of Ubashti: It is not that there are no locks, but there are no doors.

Windows remain open onto fire escapes. Gardens are bordered by balustrades. There are no loud noises of drums, no lovers quarelling, no dogs barking incessantly at paperboys. Ubashti is neat, is clean, is quiet.

The only untidy aspect to this neighborhood are the still squirming fish, who seem to have fallen out of the buckets the men brought up from the River. Or, there is the occassional bird who is injured and stirs up dust among the well-planned gardens of papyrus and catnip. Or, there can be heard and then seen a mouse, lame in a foreleg, scuttling along a back alley at half-speed.

Suddenly, the visitor to Ubashti realizes that this neighborhood is not for him. That any place on Earth, a city, a mountain, a verandah, a jungle do not need him: the man. He may be welcomed, but he is not integral to the survival of Place.

This is painfully apparent in Ubashti, a neighborhood designed solely for the comfort of cats.