I'll Have the Lucky Combo #7

We all have our demons. Some live inside a bottle, some inside a bag of potato chips. My biggest demon is the myth of My Inner Disfigurement. I say myth, because even though I embraced it as doctrine for most of my life--having adopted it, as most do who are accompanied by this imp of Satan, in childhood, or maybe it is better said that I was taught to believe it, just as I was taught to believe in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--I've loosened my grip the last year or two or so. You see, I was holding on to all the things I thought was holding me, in the immortal words of Gift of Gab with the Blind Boys of Alabama. (I've written about this before now, so you may want to yawn and click yourself away.)

Sometimes I try to banish my demon on my own. It's old news, I hate to keep calling the committee with the same old song (in the immortal words of the Four Tops)--even though it is inevitably the same old song that gets me every time, and even though I do eventually break down and call the committee for reassurance. Sometimes when I am walking the aisles of Walgreen's and wearing sunglasses to hide the tears. Sigh.

And then there is that I sometimes discover new and not so charming traits in my demon. This time, my demon got its warty toe in the door with a phone call I received a few days ago at 4:30 a.m. in the morning (intentional redundancy to emphasize the ungodliness of the hour--4:30 a.m. in the morning is happy hour to demons, as anyone who's ever experienced insomnia knows), and seeing my demon in the dim light of dawn gave me some new insight into its character. (I think it is new insight; it may be repetitive learning. I am a slow study in that regard.)

I've got this book on the coffee table, a book I'd picked up for a quarter at the library book sale, a book on Chinese astrology. I love Chinese astrology. You would, too, if you were a Dragon. See, I like to look at the descriptions of the Dragon, my favorite adjectives in the list being "lucky" and "blessed." In a way, it's like reading Thich Nhat Hahn:

The Milky Way doesn't say, "I am the Milky Way." It is the Milky Way. In reality, the wonderful reality is life. We are that wonderful reality. We ourselves are present here with a clear light that can illuminate and reflect everything as it is.

Reading the dictionary, which I habitually did as a child, would probably have the same effect. Or any other book with lots of nice words. It's not like fortune-telling or psychic readings, it's more like thinking about archetypes, it's a way to see how it might be possible to choose something to believe other than the baloney peddled by my demon. Why not decide to feel lucky and blessed and then look for supporting evidence. Why not.