Been thinking about…Devils and dust

Hot afternoon light filtered through the Stone County oaks in the fence row, hot afternoon light in a row of interminable hot afternoons, a heat wave that remains unabated. At the crossroads ahead, a dust devil swirls oak leaves into a spiraling dance, even as the sun sinks toward the western hills and the orchard grass trembles. The leaves dance around the truck as I breathe a tentative sigh of relief.

Dust devils are, for me, a good omen. I need it. The festival is only days away.

It’s all just superstition, of course, but I have the memory of the dust devil that formed and twirled behind me at the end of that very first StateoftheOzarks Fest, some nine years ago, even as I was being interviewed on camera. I was breathless. “Did you see that,” I asked the guy interviewing me. He hadn’t. But that didn’t matter. Dust devils remind me of a time long ago when there was safety and love and good magic in the deep, black earth.

Big festivals are scary, especially when you’re the one in charge, especially when the festival in question is so personal. The vapid comments leading up to the event often become a chorus. “You’ve done this so many times, it must be easy.”

“Are you going to have…?” [Invariably we aren’t, for whatever reason.] “Why didn’t you…? [The answer would take too long and the questioner doesn’t really care.] Consumer solipsism is monumental and toxic. Solipsism is the acidic idea that we, individually, are the only thing real in the universe. Translated to the masses, it makes for powerful consumerism. “You,” the seductive line goes, “are the only one who matters, so buy product A, or B, or C.” This particular form of self-centeredness eats away at community, as the idea of community is that in some strange way, we are all in this crazy thing called life together.

Solipsism in commerce is one thing. When solipsism winds its tendrils into faith and religion, it becomes particularly virulent as the customer is not always right, even as the customer is me, myself, and I and also you.

Some six weeks ago, I sat down and listed the remaining tasks — 157 disparate jobs, and more coming down the pike. I swallowed hard that night, fighting back the urge to panic. For reasons beyond my control, we began festival planning months later than usual this year. It’s always good to replace panic with work and so, for six weeks, my days began about 6 a.m. and began to end around 1 a.m. Then, suddenly, in the midst of all the crazy, came the opportunity to don real armor and fight for real on festival day.

It was then I found myself in a sweaty gymnasium being put into 15th century armor by the incredibly patient fighters of The Order of the Red Boar. “This is an Eastern kit,” I remember Canaan saying, “and it is brutal.” I shoulder the 110 pounds of hardened steel and wool padding and try to move around enough to swing a sword.

It’s 4 a.m. festival day, and my alarm is singing a Miley Cyrus song in my ear but I’m already nearly awake as stars wink high in a black sky and I’m pulling on an orange safety vest and joining a team of exceptionally hardworking volunteers on a dark street, ready to bring something like 100 vendors into a festival space normally reserved for cars and pedestrians, and doing it all efficiently in just under three hours. The goal is to make it look easy even when it’s not and we succeed.

A few 2 p.m. raindrops plink down on my armor as I stoop to enter the lyst — the wooden fighting arena built for the day by the Red Boar. My brain is working overtime trying to remember my lessons, such as they have been, some even just now as I’m in the fight. “Grip the sword pommel like this,” I remember hearing and my brief break from round 1 is over and the red knight is already striding to the center of the ring. There is no ceremonial crossing of the swords this time, and I’m hit on the shoulder and the head and already out of breath and maneuvering out of the way as best as I can.

Fighting, and festivals, and autumn and the oppressive heat of summer blurs into a single, monumental challenge. It takes a certain kind of crazy to put oneself out on a limb like this, and by that I mean this festival, not the fight. Beyond the sweat and the combat, I know that no matter how hard I work, how much I create, or what I do, the effort in some way will never be enough. That is the glaring mortality of life. I can only do what I can do and it will always be crazy and scary and far too much work and all of it over far too soon. If I do my job correctly, tonight we will look with satisfaction over a warming and empty blacktop street as the last of the evening light touches the Old English buildings — a perfect backdrop for a fight like this — and there will be no trace of what happened here. Anyone who did not attend the festival will never know what we did.

It is that history we never know, the sweat, the blood, the tears, that we never saw, never felt, and so we childishly believe that the things never happened. It’s thinking like that which lets us walk over the footprints and graves of our ancestors without acknowledging their importance or even their ghosts.

The red knight and I disengage, and I am panting hard. Two rounds in this armor and this heat, with high physical exertion, is tough. Duels like this are tough. “Brutal” is the word that keeps getting thrown around within my earshot. “Can we splash water through your helmet,” I am asked. No. Getting water up my nose at a time like this sounds less than fun. My sword is no longer in my hands. This third one-minute round is fisticuffs. We are just to hit each other and the red knight is already approaching me, fists up.

This kind of fighting is surprisingly accurate for AD 1470. Armor had become so sophisticated by that time that killing one another with swords and axes was surprisingly difficult. Instead, opponents wore each other down until the fight devolved to close-quarter fists and knives. The red knight and I circle and then close in for fists, punching and grappling. My overthinking from the first two rounds slips away, even as I’m no longer aware of my labored breathing.

“Life is a fight,” I remember someone saying, “and living in the hard part. Dying is easy.” I believed once those closest to me were immortal and could not imagine a life without them. Now, they are all gone, just like the last nine years of festivals on this street. Yes, dying is easy. The fall leaves and the summer heat of some nine seasons have gone by in a snap of the fingers. Of the litany of those who have pledged their support and appreciation for me and my crazy vision of community, most are now gone of their own volition, more important things replacing me for greener pastures. They got what they wanted, what they needed. Sweating one’s life out in the public arena is a strange, slow way to die.

The red knight is hitting me, punching me, grappling, working to gain access, to wrap his arms around my shoulder and head and knock me to the ground. He’s doing a good job.

The leaves are still swirling on the street, a light breeze blowing outside this thick armor. Memories of this street just two seasons ago are still immediate. Faces of friends, smiling, posing with me as I wear the antlers and cape of Cernunnos, just as I have for every festival. The antlers are worn for entertainment, yes, but also to remind us all on some archetypal level of the transient nature of the season, of the passing of the years, and the importance of gratitude for each moment as each moment passes by all too quickly.

“Since you are actively inviting and acting and dressing up to embody these demons and spirits, they’re coming to possess you….” It’s the morning of Halloween two years ago and I’m reading an email from a former “friend,” who, not six weeks earlier was photographed, smiling, with me and my antlers. I sigh. There’s not enough coffee for mornings like this. The email is long but the point is simple — I’m evil, I’m demon-possessed, the only way to save my soul is to seek absolution, conveniently enough through this “friend’s” available ministry. Misguided hate like this has never been my cup of tea. I draft a simple, polite response: Thank you for your time with StateoftheOzarks.... I don’t beg for forgiveness from man.

The red knight is still hitting me. I am no longer aware of the crowd. No longer aware of my minimal training. My overthinking gives up, replaced instead with the midnight stairs, the weights, the sweat, the night-after-night workouts in a gym that blissfully stays open 24 hours a day, allowing me to keep training through this whole summer, beating myself up over and over and over again, far more effectively than anyone else could, just me, and the gym with the punching bag.

My feet are moving — never give a sword to a man who can’t dance, says the old Irish proverb — and the red knight and I circle each other entangled. I feel my stance strengthen, my fists connecting over and over and over. We briefly disengage. I keep punching, keep moving. Another entanglement, and the red knight is grabbing for my helmet, finding purchase, and I turn again, getting out of the hold. I turn, hit again and find leverage. My fist connects with the red knight’s side and he loses balance just enough and goes over. I’m vaguely aware of the crowd again but even when there are cheers, there is no feeling of victory.

Out of the ring, I walk to Jeff, the red knight. “Thank you,” I say, “It is an honor.”

“You were hitting pretty hard,” he replies, “I think you were working through something.”

And so I stand there amid the crowd, alone, sweat streaming over my body. “Yes, yes, I have been,” I think. My breathing slows a bit and my shoulders ache from the weight of the 110 pounds of Eastern kit armor. A part of me may remain here forever, dancing briefly amid the devils and the dust.