Tame To Save: Turning Innocent Fire Dancing Into Religious Ritual

Fire dancing is a lively example of the childish—childish as a term of affection, not as one of derogation—creative capacities that are usually suppressed and repressed in our modern culture. If one mentioned people dancing around a fire with scant clothing and hypnotic drum beats, what would probably pop into your head is something akin to this:

Common commentary would be that this dancing is somehow related to a specific religion (which it may very well have been in the first, but no westernized modern interpretation could do it any justice) and is occasioned by spiritual other worldly concerns. However, what wouldn’t be admitted, or even conceived of, is that the fire dancing may have—in its original conception—been completely related to living in this world, and enhancing the time that these humans were having when they lived here. This thus turns us to consider the childish immediacy of experience that isn’t naturally concerned with death and an afterlife as an end in its own right, an often overlooked point. If nothing good and lucidly enjoyable came in this world, why should a people even create after-life as a concept? What out of this world could have originated the notion of a perfect and beautiful afterlife if there wasn’t something good and perfect occasioning this world from which to conceive of it? Perhaps what follows from this is a situation where specific geographic locales with an especially austere environment, breed atheists who flourish there because the idea of anything good or perfect is so alien to the entirety of their experience. Their cold living space has so colorblinded them to sketching a blueprint for an afterworld, for how could they never having had any exposure to the blues?

There must have been some original sacredness to this world (that I don’t think is beyond redemption) that could have allowed the original childish enchantment durable to be fully embodied by the full grown adults likewise—I think here specifically of Columbus’s description of the Arawak Caribbean Natives. The originary non-religious necessity of fire-dancing that I am positing is also given support as a default as by the question: could humans have even wanted to conceive of an extension beyond death in a state of lived sacredness? This is my thinking at present, which may regress or evolve to argue with myself if you, dear reader, don’t beat me to it.

Jumping back into our own time, the fire dance could only survive modernized adult ridicule if it was to be ensconced in ritual. The ritual aspect protects the pure creative joy of fire dancing that was the immediate enhancement of experience, by both a vital warmth and the visual dance of the flame, an intensely differentiating allure taking place at the very most complex mereol level of our day—the chemical. In possibly a beta iteration, what I’m saying is that these ancient people who wanted to protect the childish vitality of their world and their very existence, put a ritualistic air around such an act as dancing around a fire. Possibly what they thought in so doing was that this was the best way to weather the siege of increasing seriousness as humans “aged” out of innocence into civilized rigidity.

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I have a great need of haste as the ideas for posts pile up and the demands of the civilized worlds draw me away from this blog, not to mention dilettantism in our complicated world spreads one very thin. So, to that end—and you may see the connection as I do to the rest of the above post—I will dump, rather uneloquently, as is not my wont, a Tonka meme that speaks to modern adults embodying the negative connotation of childish (and maybe you’ll catch my vibe that I fucking hate shiny misused trucks):

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Hating On “The Police”

Hating On “The Police”—not officers suck and such—The Correct Politically Incorrect Way

If you have strong feelings against the police and want to voice them, but you don’t want to polarize people related to police officers, you can utilize the following tactic:

During your tirade, make sure always to say “the police” and only that, not even any variations such as “police officers”. The reason for this is that police officers are frequently only 1 or 2 degrees disconnected from any social relations we have. They are a colleague’s husband, the father of a friend, the sister of an acquaintance, and so when you start bashing on the police, you can expect them to utter the words “fuck you, my [load the blank] is a police officer!”. If you had said “the police”, you just have to simply reassert that you are referring to the coercive institution, and you don’t have to get caught in a debate where your views are nuanced and watch the wind leave your sails. Remember, if you’ve gotten to the point where you are voicing these ideas, you are too busy fighting something too large to get caught in the many traps of awkwardness that language ensnares us in; be politicking in your own political incorrectness!

It is possible you want to get into the personal acts of horror undertaken by individual police officers: the husband, the father, the sister may very well deserve individualized attention because they especially suck at being human. However, emphasizing the role that the police as an institution had in allowing them to amplify their horribleness is much more important. That they compromised by joining such a narrow-minded institution of control speaks volumes to their individual character; that they can stomach being the biggest tools—being coerced into a mentality of kill or be killed—shows how little to do with humans and our attractions to freedom these people actually have. Further, too much focus on the behavior of individual police officers acts to excuse the larger oppressive institution when the horrible violence does surface. A pattern of bad apples can be blamed on the rotten tree. (apologies to trees everywhere for analogizing you with the police institution!)

Most of the violence undertaken by police is normalized and so it is not dubbed violence. The police exist to channel and dam up the efforts that might threaten the governmental system that employs them, and such damming, such deterrence is in itself violence. It is limiting the human inclination to mobility and wandering as we previously used to. It is violence akin to the road that destroys subtle and complex connections among ecosystems; the asphalt that tramples life underneath itself, while also forever altering (and not for the better) life on all sides of it. Many police officers join the force knowing that in so doing they are being anointed to the status of the public’s official bullies. The exceptions are those dreamers who want to actually help save lives and make the horrible mistake of joining the police in order to do this. One doesn’t have to wear a badge and hide behind weaponry to save lives and do the right thing. More to the point, sometimes doing the wrong thing precludes one from being available to do the right thing.

Government Suffers From A Staff Infection And The Police Are The Most Virulent Strain

To reiterate/elaborate: focus on the police instead of individuals unless you’d like to get into arguments with hecklers you manufactured into your argument. I think anger would get the best of me in such situations, and so when speaking (orally, at least, if not in this post) about police I will make sure to follow my 2015 advice.

Unused Ammo

– Just by putting on the uniform (gun included), putting on the car, being a body in such a skin, dark glasses in lieu of eyes, stirring anxiety in the masses and constantly committing acts to maintain societies negative labels, the police are not for us; they are a fraternity that warps the fabric of our daily life and effectively makes being human seem like a crime waiting to happen.

– Any future mini-articulations I have that speak to the harms the police cause in our world will be logged here.

– A previous post about police can be read here: Cops, Our Knights In Shining SUVs.

Cops: Our Knights In Shining SUVs

Police are already positioned to make a relatively smooth transition into a role as “knights” in a post-globalized, disintegrated United States. Their vocation has afforded them a high visibility and a societal normalization that few occupations can match—their existence has become irrefutable and self-evident. There are parodies and hatreds at the margins, but in “times of seriousness” there is a common public consciousness (and servility) that their presence is above questioning and deserving of honor. One thousand overweight D.A.R.E. officers would be invited to speak to an assembly of youth before a single anti-corporate revolutionary would. They have an active and deep rooted fraternal structure evidenced by the PBA pay-to-play scheme. How can anyone be against cops when you are in a friendly relationship by two degrees of separation or less with one? (I can name three cops that friends of mine have as friends). If the government were to make an honest attempt to downsize ahead of the financial calamites headed our way, police will be the last and fewest to be trimmed. Their pervasiveness is astounding, at roughly 800,000 strong, more visible for sure in the densely populated states (spiders hiding behind trees, ready to pounce on speeding cars). And of course, there are a few “bad apple” cops out there, but they were rotten individuals, their badness never stemming from their profession.

                It’s these common notions that exist at the ground level—not in need of reiteration or reporting—that will persist, regardless of which large systems implode and erase abstract authority and control. In addition to their presumed powers that come with the badge, their individual and institutional skills at controlling areas tactically and through the blunt threat of force give them a situational advantage. Many police officers will already be well aware of their power in the dynamic situations confronting our society in limbo, while others will catch on later and realize their prominent role in guiding affairs as people look to them for answers and protection.

As the crisis starts surfacing, on an institutional level the police force will be an active presence before their necessity can be brought into question. As the crisis drifts towards an unstable feudalism, they will remind us, perhaps through curfews or bulletins, that there are marauding gangs and opportunistic raiding and looting parties out there. Their power will attract to them sycophantic opportunists (and family ties) which will further solidify their roles at the top. “Knowing” a cop will carry a lot of weight, positively for that person and negatively for any enemies. All the while we who would rather not be ruled over by the police-turned-lords won’t be given the chance to assert, or the opportunity to discover, that we also have powers of defense and deterrence and don’t really need this parasitic group that will drag on us in an already dire scenario. They will insist that we need to support them, and they will keep us safe, and for their more honorable contribution they expect the utmost praise and privileges. In short—the beginnings of a modern feudal relationship. Police, like the nobles of the middle ages, will insist that they should not be taxed or forced to labor their share, as they are already providing a public good in the form of protection. Those who join with them will provide under-scaffolding, propelling them beyond mere knights to barons.

A few generations in, all memory of this life we are now living will be lost. The former rights and horizontal relationships will be gone, and its on to serfdom for those outside the cop circles. Unless… we begin our vigilance and assertiveness, break free from dependence… and we begin now!