When I can among the boiling pots on the stove I tend to this piece called Out of Hell Comes Christ, a passion play of sorts and one that when I have hours not currently usurped and embalmed by my job, I can complete with a full fervid thrust, which it needs because it has many mouths or one mouths with forty throats, as it should; in it, Jesus returns, not to preach to millions but to one. To pass the torch. And to find his woman Mary Magdalene, the sexual molecule that turned water into wine. It’s just bits and pieces but give the heightened state of nowness and urgency surrounding every breath and movement I make to plunge into that invisible doorway that follows me around, I’m posting a monologue. As Jesus says in the play, ‘It’s time, Judas, to break open the Bible and see what falls, or flies, out.’
Jesus (to Judas/Joe)
This is how it came to pass before we met. Every night Judas, every night it is what speaks and what does not speak, what asks to be expressed, what begs to be, and what needs to be kept in stillness. Some nights they feel as constrictive as an eggshell, these voices of a life time. I kept telling myself, it’s only flesh, it’s only flesh, the spirit can crawl through it and envelop it, the spirit becomes master and for years I struggled, pouring every ounce into this battle, this supreme awareness where my eyes widen and sharpen, my limbs become tight as a leopard, my senses became enlarged, they became more than what they were meant to do, as if they could swirl together and create something new, several new senses and I could see all of history unfold like the tongue of a snake, and then through the window of a snail, and I could spin myself in any direction and see what happens next in any way I wanted— Then, like the Universe, it expands and I am beyond the vision of the mind. This battle continues, more epic, deeper, more invisible and visible, I can hear the rotation of stars. I can even feel them, Judas, like a razor on my face. I marched up and down, at night, feeling alone and seeking a solution to the growing inner strangeness that I could not explain to anyone, could not describe but only pray was some defect inside me, something that crafted itself merely from my wild imagination or some dusty roadblock of my inner sanctum. That this strangeness was unnatural and becoming more of a burden. I began to lose sleep, then it would cycle away for a while and I felt at peace and then it would return without an invitation but some almost rude presentation of itself with my head on a platter, Judas. My head! My soul, too. I realized this strangeness felt both of myself and something outside of myself. That it was a carefully prepared storm cloud of magic and love drowned in flesh; that second part I got from her, for she both soothed and overwhelmed me, Judas. She was sorrowful and replete with such deep understanding I need not even reach out to her; she gathered me in like a broken branch floundering down rocky rapids. Her nightmares were my understanding and the reverse I felt was also true. And with her came a wisdom so powerful, and so complete that I wondered if it were Love in it’s purest form or some sort of mimicry, some sort of imagery that was concocted for a purpose, to capture me, drown me, fulfill some prophecy that I wanted no part of nor felt any obligation towards. But she loved me Judas and I loved her; and somehow, we managed to maintain that contact through a wild system of rules of the Universe that only mystics could explain without giving away the ingredients. It was beyond romantic notion, it was a sexual perfection that expanded the heart to include the seventh sphere of unity, between two entities so inclined to the ritual. And I use ritual here as a positive, loving and generous exchange between two souls that can inhabit space and time while honoring what is beyond those limitations.
So every night, when you go to sleep, and you feel you’ve sinned by not honoring your entire soul and you frown, know that there is something inside you that demands full attention now, and that is the only thing that will lighten you, relieve the burdens I know you carry like an overstuffed burlap sack on your back; these miniature little forgivenesses that rest inside you need to be released. It is time Judas. It is time. It is time. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I’m here to remind myself; I get lost too Judas.
