A Personal Archeology – the Buried Things…

courtesy of traumwerk.stanford.edu

I have always been fascinated with buried things. As a rule – I’m more interested in what’s underneath than what on the surface. The surface is too obvious. While Notre Dame is beautiful I hurried through it so I could spend more time in the galo roman ruins it’s built on. I’m pretty sure that imposing edifice was constructed to try and eradicate any remaining doubts about the power and control christianity would wield. The dusty poorly lit rooms that displayed the ruins were far more interesting to me – it held the bones – the reasons and the drive for the structure above. In my travels last year I wandered through graveyards wondering about the remains under the ground, under church floors. I contemplated what was buried behind or inside prison walls, on battlefields, in decaying castle gardens. I wanted to know what’s underneath the obvious…

The faces I have worn through my life – my edifaces constructed carefully to conceal the truth buried beneath…

courtesy of panoramio.com

It comes to me that humans are remarkably similar- erecting imposing edifices called our stories, our careers, our children, our aquisitions, our degrees, our homes and holdings – built over the bones of our pasts – the ruins left behind as a result of our weighted process from a free spirited inspired child to a well behaved, conforming adult. What’s interesting though – is underneath…..

I mentioned in my last post that my own edifice – my personal construct carefully built to tell a particular story to the world was largely demolished in the recent tornado called Urge for Authenticity – to know what’s real…

As I continue to prize away the lids on the unearthed boxes to survey the artifacts of my ruins below my own particular facade – I am struck by all the fantastic things a person can accomplish when they’re angry – really angry – for years – for decades. While kind of impressed with the litter of my achievements – I wondered at what was really driving most of them. Sad to say – it wasn’t joy in the simple doing. More like “I Must Prove Myself”, “I’ll Show You!”, “Notice Me – Look At Me” (I know – the absolute height of pathetic). Any number of similar rationales that – viewed in retrospect – make the various accomplishments seem hollow.

Anger by itself isn’t a bad thing so I’m told. It’s fuel plain and simple. But its also like fossil fuel when you are on a journey like mine. Its not renewable unless you want to keep drilling for more angy bitter stories. And let me tell you – there is a price – a heavy price. How much do you think its costs a person to drag around a 33 piece matching louis vitton set of personal baggage? Kinda like the mileage you get from that Hummer you just have to have to impress who?? Or Whom? It’s just not worth it in the end. Too much, too little, too late, too expensive on so many levels with a seriously sucky ROI… Such is the journey of personal archeology – a search for something beyond the obvious…

I’m still digging in the buried things. In these artifacts I used to call home. I can’t stand the energy they generate or the residue on my skin, on my spirit. Time for something cleaner, renewable without such a cost. Sustainable, expansive, inspiring, freeing…