As many of you know, I live in a small French village that saw its heyday in the 12th and 13th centuries. It's now got all the modern conveniences, including 8 Mbps Internet that really measures closes to 7 Mbps. So I'm sitting there working on the Internet last night and there's a big explosion outside and I look out my window to see the transformer that routes elec- tricity to our village go up in flames, just about the time the lights clicked out. Here, for those who are interested, is what a weird Tantric Buddhist does in such a situation:
* First I got up and lit a bunch of candles in my house, smiling inwardly at those friends who had laughed in the past at my candle fetish. I have something like forty candlesticks in my house, most of them of the wrought-iron medieval variety. Hah!, thought I. Who's laughing now? * Then I lit a fire in the fireplace, both for light and for heat (my heating is electric). * Finally, when the house was warm and cheery, I went out with a flashlight to see if the whole village was blacked out. It was, including the street lamps. Seeing the opportunity for a really FUN experience here, I scrounged around and made myself a torch out of a stick and some rags, and wandered through the streets for a while, seeing it as it was literally designed to be seen, by firelight. Too cool to even begin to describe. * After about an hour I wandered back towards my house and noticed that a number of my neighbors, who had the same faith in the efficiency of the EDF (power company) as I did, were preparing for a long night without electricity by having a party in Place Astruc. The proprietor of the Comptoir de Singe rolled out a big barbeque pit and lit a fire, and put on a big pot of mulled wine, which he passed around to everyone for free. Several of the local musicians brought out their guitars, accordions, violins, and drums and started making music. Some young people danced. Hell...even some of the old people danced. * At a certain point I started talking to a young Irish tourist. She was out with the crowd because (she said) her room at the Gite had no windows, the Gite owner had no candles, and she was afraid of the dark. So we danced for a while and talked for another while and finally I invited her back to my house, to get her some candles. Even though she was attractive, she was also young enough to be my granddaughter, so I really didn't have much in mind other than giving her the candles. * She took one look at my place and flipped. Suffice it to say my house is decorated in an eclectic manner -- real Tibetan and Japanese art from the 12th through the 18th centuries next to real Art Nouveau next to modern art next to racks of computers and TV equipment next to my collection of Plastic Jesuses (or is that Jesi?) next to my stuffed Wile E. Coyote and figurines of him chasing the Roadrunner, the floors covered with Navajo and Pueblo Indian rugs. It all looked quite smashing by candlelight. * So we sat in front of the fire and drank wine and talked for hours. It turns out that her family line was started by an Irish Catholic monk who got tired of living in a cold monastery and denying himself the things his neighbors enjoyed, and decided to shack up instead with a sweet young thing from the village, raising ruckus and a passle of kids. One of my ancestors did exactly the same thing in Scotland. We watched 'The Name of the Rose' on my laptop until its little batteries gave out. Providentially, they lasted just long enough to get us to the scene where the young monk Adso is seduced by the young peasant girl. It's a fairly hot scene, and after watching it, she was a fairly hot young Irish girl. Life is good sometimes. It's easy to focus on the light *in* the light. It's sometimes more of a challenge to find light in the darkness, but that's what makes the Tantric path so much fun.
