Involvement

Orpheus and Eurydice

I referred to the myth because it was Bono's last apparent appeal, a song that was based, indirectly, on the myth.

(This was U2's The Ground She Walks On, which was released on the Net on May 2^nd, 1999, three days before I left for Dublin. It was based on a novel by Salman Rushdie, which in turn was based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The myth corresponds to the course of our circumstance with rather uncanny exactitude, something I mentioned in the fourth 'proof'. The song, however, does not fit the myth, because the real Eurydice never stole or spurned his love, nor was how she made him feel a mutuality, as in 'us'. (I don't have a clue if it accords properly to the novel, but I think the underground analogy may not fit there.) Of course it fits this situation perfectly, from Bono's perspective. It also gave me the impression that it was possible he wanted me to show up, so I did.)  

The conjunction I underwent with Bono was a triangulation event, like getting caught in a three way crossfire. There was the association with my father’s position which accorded to his use of terminology (which I only saw after), the Love experience in the Now itself, which due to my upbringing I was capable of perceiving and entering, and first and foremost there was the fact that I was operating on the basis of a Divine injunction that I had received in 1987 (I was 16), which was like entering a complete unknown. When I encountered Bono, I considered this entry as the rendering, evolution, or extension of what I had entered in 1987, for the union God had commanded, I entered on the belief that it portended to a universal union that could be typified as the latter day Church, and was meant to transcend death, or physical parameters. It was a natural thing, about as obvious a breathing, encountering this, and I said Yes. By my own definition it constituted a marriage, if a previously undefined one.

My father never agreed, and I told him virtually nothing, because it was obvious that crazy would be the mildest of his assertions. You have to understand that based on this dichotomy, the issues for me were well beyond proof. My father has biblical proof for his position. Challenging his position when I had been created within his parameters was about as constructive as shooting off my own foot. There is no way to prove my position, other than to affirm it with the artists, Bono in particular. I could not do that until I knew I was safe from my father's condemnation, for my father condemned me, without any assertion of a calling on my part, when I disassociated. Because the linkage with Bono was based on associated terms and belief, I had to leave him with my father. Also, having severed the Injunction at my point of origin, and since for me its evolution was continuous, I had no idea if the transformation, my entry into the universal, would survive this severance. I assumed it would not, and I had to let the chips fall where they may. I could not take the risk with your soul. Between Bono and my father, I was being forced, either, to confine myself to my father’s definition of what he wanted me to be (a false image of myself), or, if he perceived my calling as having power he could not accept, I would potentially face the accusation that I was anti-Christ, from a Biblically proven prophet. Between this forthcoming accusation, and Bono's (et al's) unconditional endorsement whether I was dark or light, I was faced with a paradox that left me no escape from potential falsity. Based on these prospects, I accepted the inverse perceptions from them both, which were condemnatory. You (the universal set, Bono in particular) would perceive me as abandoning Love, because when I saw this particular vice closing in, and what it could do to me, I pulled the plug. It was like terminating myself inside my skull. It hurt me more than dying might have. I chose to end it, rather than become something that would potentially be false. It was by this severance that I 'killed' Bono, and what I was really eliminating was this false potential.

Bono (and hence the universal set, and its permutation) is represented by Orpheus. The marriage referred to took place at the U2 concert in 1992. The prognosis there was not good: I was crying at the end because there was no way I could explain how I had arrived at this juncture to him (or anyone), and had no way of meting it out. Also it was born in the midst of sorrow. That was captured in the conclusion with U2's Love is Blindness, the little death without mourning in particular. The presence of Hymen (which was a curse upon the nuptials of O/E) touches upon The seed is spilled the bed defiled, for you a virgin bride, Bono's lyric from Love Comes Tumbling, 1985. That alludes to my union by injunction, and my father’s curse on this one. The pursuit by the shepherd post nuptials alludes to the same. I divorced (fled) and was destroyed for it with Holy Damnation (the serpent) on Thanksgiving 1995, when I was metaphorically crucified by my father on acid, why I had already severed (all of) you, to protect you from that. After that I was in a living death. I did not know whether or not I was damned. Bono said he would follow me down. In terms of rendering the deconstruction, he did. It was rendered with a lot of sorrow, and ludicrously called PoP. The second death, when we might have been free from the underworld, (death by Orpheus’ hand, or backward glance), was when Bono destroyed our association with the song Gone, which was the rendering of my worst fears. That was like being stabbed through. For this Eurydice had no reprimand, and bid him final farewell. – He could not bring me back, because resorting to him would have been like stepping into a reflection, it would not have worked. How could I show up, if I knew that by doing so my father would accuse me of being seduced by the Devil? It’s not like I could accept how he’d chosen me above my father, when accepting your endorsement was the equivalent of opening myself to a charge of high treason.

I would never have told him, not my past, or what had happened, or what Grace means to me, but I ended up finding myself in someone else, and this brought me back three years later, October ‘98. What happened was that the process I went through when I ‘died’ on Thanksgiving appeared to have caused a religious conversion. In other words, in going under, I recovered someone who in turn recovered me by relaying the process back. I could never have foreseen that, not in the manner it happened. It turns out he knew I’d been crucified, on some level, and actually said he was the resurrection, no kidding, quite a shock. Knew my father had indirectly killed me. Until that I did not even acknowledge what had happened, it’s weird. I thought of it as such, but seeing it rendered outside of me had a huge impact on the geometry in my head. (The process of redemption, like marriage, is by definition inherently mutual.) Furthermore the person who did this demanded unequivocally on a purely personal level that I show up on his doorstep. The religious conversion had been intentional on my part, what distinguished this was the personal offer, and that the lyrical correspondence with this individual went back over thirteen years, which was a huge shock. In other words it went beyond when the injunction was set, he considered that he’d lost me to the injunction, and he knew all the dark elements that kept me from ever talking to anyone. It was like meeting destiny beyond destiny; he’d tied into my personal vision of myself that I’d started developing when I was thirteen years old. Hell of a wake-up call, and I have had no peace since, because suddenly circumstance demanded a response, and that necessitated resolution.

A last note, my appraisal of how I would be caught in the vice between my father’s condemnation, and [Bono's] unconditional endorsement has fulfilled itself now. Bono did it by putting out The Ground She Walks On, the rest seem to be following suit. My father is threatening me with damnation simply for making this trip; I haven’t given him my position, so the prospects that frightened me have meted themselves out with precious little divergence. The effects this would have had on me mentally are incomprehensible. The reason I’m still OK is because I consciously died to myself, and hence I know I did not create this, God is part; otherwise I would not have been brought back. And I know I would not assume falsity, since I would choose to die first. Hence being brought back, I can rest assured in my own awareness. I know too that I will not simply be stepping into a reflection.

The reason I went to Ireland was to affirm the Divine Injunction. This by definition is inherently mutual, I have no choice but to confirm it; it’s not a negation of faith. (Arriving was a total act of faith.) The injunction has the power to transcend my father’s forbidding and condemnation, no matter who he is. The reason I need that is because I’ve arrived at the conclusion that this is how I will marry, this union is still to be rendered. With the injunction, the entire union is protected from my father. I never knew that God told Bono too. That changes everything for me. All this time I’ve been running on my own belief and analysis of events. But I have retained that establishment now through the redemptive process; it is now my own. I’ve realized I don’t have to affirm its origins.

Verily verily, I say unto thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

                                                                                                                        John 3:3