What Gods?

Doing It, Religiously

All last week when I couldn't eat solid food I hated all the gods and cursed them. Now I can eat again I feel better about them and I'm ready to make up to them by putting in a small word or two of praise.

As I've said, gods are inferior beings, only fragments of consciousness and personhood, if that. Still, they have their uses. They enable us to see. Even those who don't believe in them see through them. It's the gods who do the believing, you just utter the belief out of "your" mouth. What belief you are uttering depends on which god has you by the nads at the moment.

Often, Cindy Holly has me by the nads. Cindy is not only my Muse but also a goddess. She's OK.

The ancient Hawaiians had a god and goddess named Laka. Laka, the god, was the god of canoe building and woodwork and carving. He was also sort of the Inigo Montoya of Hawaiian mythology ("Hello. My name is Laka. You killed my Father. Prepare to die.") He also was identified with the hula, and the composition of chants and prayers, and fertility. Laka, the goddess, nurtured the forest. Some people said the two were really the same, gods can be one sex one minute and another sex another.

When preparing to carve, my friend Lani would sing an invocation to Laka calling on him to supply the necessary mana through his nads. I find it easier to ask a goddess to supply mana through my nads than to ask that of a male god. Call me homotheophobic, I don't care. I call it an aesthetic choice. I also feel women are far prettier than men, on average. How sexist is that?

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because I'm big on the overlooked aesthetic component of religion, and plan to talk at length about it, eventually, and this is fair warning.

[Above right: Man Ray's portrait of Kiki as "Le Violon d'Ingres".]