Gargatholil
How Gargatholil chose his name
One day, driving home in traffic, hearing
our children prattling in the back seat of our 1976 Honda Civic,
my wife remarked how our children's names seemed to fit their
personalities so well. She turned to me and asked whether
I thought my name fit me. I unhesitatingly said,
"No." She then asked, well what name do you think fits
you. I thought a long time and then I told her,
Gargatholil.
Now, I will say that I had been reading Tolkien to our oldest
child, our daughter. And I very much identified with being
elvish. So, it was natural that I should choose an elvish
name. Gargatholil resonated with my core identity.
After all, I have a yod involving Saturn and Uranus and the Moon
in Capricorn cusp Aquarius. And, I have Pluto in the
fourth house. I have always felt a lot of heavy depth,
which is where the name starts. But, especially since
experiencing the Small Enlightenment during the sixties, there
has been a part of me that flies away into lightness. That
is where the name ends. Yes, the sound of Gargatholil
steadily rises from a deep place and floats off into the
Light.
Early
awakening
I was brought up Roman Catholic and, when I was young, I
believed all of that and was relatively pious. In fact,
one of the town toughs, with whom I went to catechism classes,
once told me that what was wrong with me was that I was too
holy. When I was about ten or eleven, a nun told our class
that the Blessed Virgin Mary had delivered a letter to two
children (I think maybe at Fatima), which had been given to the
Pope with instructions to open the letter in 1960, at which time
something momentous would be revealed. I eagerly awaited
this event. Well, 1960 came and went and nothing was
revealed. That shook my faith and I began to think that if
what the nuns told us was untrue in this instance, what else
might not be true.
I began to see that all those Bible stories did not make a lot
of rational sense. Then I discovered Darwin (I didn't
actually read Darwin, just about him and the theory of
evolution). I began looking for proof that what the
Catholic Church taught was true and found none. I was also
interested in history and beginning to read about the history of
medieval Europe and the corruption of the Church further
undermined my faith in Catholicism. For me, the Church
soon lost all authority and I began seeing its rites and rituals
as empty and meaningless and its rules and mortal sins against
the Church as having no rational basis. After confirmation
(for my faith had not completely disintegrated at that point and
I was bound by my parents' wishes, also), I graduated from
attending catechism to meetings of the Catholic Youth
Organization (which my parents forced me to attend).
There, I had the opportunity to question the priest about my
emerging theological questions. I found that he could
provide no satisfactory answers. Later, I would come to
realize that the parish priests did not themselves understand
the meanings of the teachings of the Church (conveniently called
"mysteries").
Having lost faith in Catholicism, I began an exploration of
other religions. First, I examined the Protestant
denominations and quickly concluded that they had no more access
to Truth than did Catholicism. I then began to study the
teachings of non-Christian religions, particularly those of the
East. However, I found that every religion ultimately told
their followers to accept the teachings of that religion on
faith. Moreover, every religion claimed that its teachings
and beliefs were true (with the implication that the tenets of
all other religions were not true) and only by following this
religion and conforming to its prescribed practices would one
achieve salvation. Obviously, they could not all be right
in their assertion that their particular religion was the bearer
of the absolute theological Truth and, so, I concluded that none
of them could be right. I think I reasoned that, if a
religion claimed to be the only true path to God or to some
Divine state, and there was no proof beyond its own assertion
that it was indeed the true religion, that claim itself must be
false and, being false, all of the other teachings of that
religion were suspect.
By the age of fourteen, I had become a confirmed agnostic.
I did not not believe in God, but I understood that there was no
way with the rational mind to be certain of anything pertaining
to God, even that God existed, or did not exist. Faith, I
saw as an illusion that would not stand up to the test of
reason. I am sure that a good part of my concluding this
was the prevalence, in all religions, of beliefs that were
patently illogical or could be disproved by science.
My agnosticism did not end at the sphere of religion, however,
for I began to explore in my mind the great epistemological
questions about the nature of perception and the possibility of
knowledge. Frankly, I'm not certain whether I was exposed
to any Plato at that point or not. However, I followed the
course of reasoning suggested by Socrates that our perceptions
of the world were not trustworthy. Therefore, how could we
trust any knowledge thought to be gained from the perception of
our senses. Furthermore, reason could not be an infallible
guide, for people applying reason came to different
conclusions. I began to see that what we call truth was
relative and I also discovered in my mind the principles of what
philosophers would call nominalism. We "know" a certain
thing by calling it a name and we agree on the names that we
call the phenomena we experience. However, since it is
impossible for anyone to actually experience the perceptual
reality that another human being is experiencing, we cannot be
certain that the phenomenon that I give a name to is the same
phenomenon to which you give the same name. We may both
call a color "yellow" but how do we know that our experience of
"yellow" is the same as that of others or even that our
experience of color itself is the same? How then, can
there be any certainty in knowledge?
By the end of my fourteenth year, I had become not only an
agnostic, but a philosophical skeptic, as well.
Were there any astrological markers for these events?
Nothing in terms of progressions. However, transits may
offer some clues, possibly. In 1960, Uranus had transited
my natal Pluto and, retrograde, had stationed less than a degree
from Pluto in my fourth house. Now, of course, this is a
generational transit and, so, there must be a presumption that
even at that early age I was particularly attuned to the
energies of the outer planets. Remember that Uranus is
involved in a yod in my chart. The fact that this
conjunction was happening in my fourth house would indicate that
the very grounding of my being was being shaken in a deep and
powerful way. Meanwhile, Pluto was transiting over my
Venus, which is my primary ruling planet (along with Saturn with
which it is conjunct). This could indicate more
disturbance at a deep level and an obsession with discovering
the truth or a ruthless drive to evaluate the world against an
uncompromising standard of truth. Anything that did not
measure up was to be thrown out. Is it stretching the
coincidence too far to note that my Venus and Saturn are in
Virgo, the sign of the Virgin (Mary)?
Transiting Neptune had conjuncted my Mercury in Scorpio when I
turned ten, so that astrological event preceded all of this
mental turmoil. Yet possibly this symbolized a receptivity
toward fluidity in my mental processes, the disillusionment with
fact-based reason, and access to intuitive mental realms.
By the time I was fourteen, Uranus had entered Virgo conjuncting
my Saturn and then Venus. Saturn is at the other sextile
end of the yod. Symbolically, this could denote the
destabilization of all fixed constructs. While my outer
life was quite stable, all of the mental equipment supporting
the conventional order had been blown away. I was in a
suspended state where anything was possible.
Further
explorations
My conversion to philosophical skepticism was just the beginning
of an intellectual/philosophical exploration that continued
through my high school years. In a sense, my philosophical
skepticism opened the door for intellectual exploration that was
unhindered by adherence to any one school of thought or
paradigm. I was free to enter anywhere, knowing that any
and all conclusions I might reach were tentative and not binding
on me. These explorations, which were purely the traveling
of the intellect through deep and prolonged thought, set the
stage for later realizations that, under the influence of
altered states of consciousness, seemed more profound but, in
retrospect, had already been grasped, but not realized.
One direction where my thoughts led me was to absurdist
existentialism. I had at my disposal not only the writings
of Camus, Sartre and Kafka, but more importantly my own ability
to reflect on my experience of the world. I clearly saw
that the activity around me, the entire course of human life (at
least in my age-limited experience), had no meaning. Just
like in the song that Pete Seeger sang, "Little Boxes," we
sought an education, so that we might work, so that we might
have a home and raise a family, so that they might seek an
education, so that they might work, etc., etc., etc. We
earned money to eat, drink and do what else to keep our bodies
alive (hopefully in relative comfort) so that we might procreate
so that our offspring might eat, drink and work and
procreate.
Looking at history only confirmed the meaninglessness of human
existence. A reading of Shelley's Ozymandias is all it
takes to grasp that there is no meaning in the exploits of
humankind. All crumbles into dust and, eventually, even
one's "place in history" will be lost and forgotten. I
discovered Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West
which not only confirmed the arrogance of our Euro-centric view
of history and the world, but exposed the fallacy that Western
civilization epitomized the pinnacle of human development and
would continue to evolve indefinitely in never-ending
progress. The idea that human progress gave life
meaning--meaningless.
If we would look to virtue or any such value as meaningful, this
will not survive the realization that everything is
relative. This is the inevitable conclusion to which
philosophical skepticism leads us and it is a conclusion that,
if we take off the blinders of our belief in absolutes and
objectivity, becomes self-evident. Enter Nietzsche
proclaiming that there is no Good or Evil. What is left
but pleasure? But looked at honestly, we must fail to find
meaning even in the pursuit of pleasure.
Now coming to view existence as essentially without meaning
could drag the psyche into a dark, depressing place. And,
indeed, I bore my share of existential pain. But two
things saved me from depression. One was the adoption of
the hero's stance. Fortunately, my reading of the
Romantics had primed me for an emotional mindset in which I
could view my facing the cold existential truth as heroic.
Thus, I was able to enjoy my melancholy. (It helps that I
have a strong 4 wing to my 5 on the Enneagram scale.)
My second savior was the theater of the absurd. This
allowed me to see the cosmic joke in all this existential
meaninglessness. It allowed me to put life in a better
perspective and to ride the cosmic wave of detachment. In
my senior year of high school, I wrote an essay (which
incidentally won the school prize) titled "The Art of
Schizophrenic Thinking," in which I explored the possibility,
the existential necessity, of holding two contradictory views in
mind at the same time--being able to recognize the illusion and
live in the illusion simultaneously. I was being prepared
for a lifetime of dealing with paradoxes.
Metaphysics was a second direction that my thoughts were taking
during my high school years. This branch of thought had
been stimulated by my studies of Hindu and Buddhist thought,
particularly Vedanta. Of course, I recognized all this as
speculation, but it was very interesting speculation. I
also came across a book, whose title I wish I could remember, on
Western mysticism. It had a cover with a painting of a
room with the same painting on the wall, so that the sequence
disappeared into infinity. There, I discovered the
Neo-Platonists, Plotinus, Origen, the Pseudo-Dionyses. I
also read about Timothy Leary and his experiments with LSD and,
so, became exposed [in theory only] to the idea of altered
states of consciousness. All this began percolating in my
mind. In my junior year of high school, in my honors
English class, we had weekly in-class writing assignments.
I remember that one of my essays was titled "Everything is
Nothing," in which I put forth that Everything, being an
all-encompassing unity, was equivalent to Nothingness because
that entity would lack an objective point of reference through
which to recognize its own existence.
Suffice it to say, that through my metaphysical studies and
speculations, I became familiar with some basic
mystically-oriented concepts--the Oneness of all Being, the
Void, karma, reincarnation, emanation, and levels of
consciousness or Being. These concepts would become more
defined during the next phase of my intellectual and spiritual
development.
Astrologically, Pluto, Neptune and Saturn were all in empty
spaces in my chart but Uranus early in this period was on my
Saturn-Venus conjunction, especially working on Venus before
moving on. At the same time, my progressed Sun was trining
natal Uranus as it began to approach my Scorpio Mercury (though
it would not reach Mercury till after high school). Since
Venus is a ruling planet in my chart (ruling both Sun and
Ascendant), I take this as significant, with the energy from
that contact remaining in sway until the next major astrological
event. The symbolic emphasis of Venus here is value
system, particularly the search for meaning and the shattering
of any stable repository of meaning. With Venus in Virgo,
this also took on an analytical cast. Also evident is my
receptivity to insights from the Higher Mind. Furthermore,
what I learned to value during this period was the life of
intellectual discovery and my own individual uniqueness.
How firmly this all became wrapped up in my identity is
symbolized by the progressed Sun-Uranus contact.
Musical
development
I want to go back now to
a parallel track in my life--my interest in music. No, I'm
not a musician (though I did play the trumpet for a number of
years and amuse myself on the recorder). Music has always
fed my soul, though, figuratively speaking.
When I was seven or eight, I discovered American Bandstand (with
Dick Clark). It came on every afternoon after I got home
from school. I would come home, turn on our black and
white TV and dance to rock 'n roll. Soon, I was singing to
the tunes and memorizing the songs. This did not make me
popular with my peers, however (I must have had an awful singing
voice).
About the same time, I became exposed to classical music.
Those were the days of Green Stamps and special supermarket
promotions. One of those promotions was the sale of the
World's Greatest Music series of classical music albums and my
mother started collecting them. As was the taste of the
mid-1950s, the series was heavy on the Romantics, which was just
the right hook for my imaginative eight-year old mind. I
thrilled to Listz's Les Preludes and Sibelius' Finlandia.
In my nerdy fashion, I would "conduct" to the music.
Later, my taste in classical music would deepen when I
discovered Baroque (at the time of the Baroque revival).
We lived in central Connecticut, just close enough to New York
that I could pick up WQXR ("the radio station of the New York
Times") on my AM transistor radio. Being on the AM band
and 90 miles away, I learned to listen through the static.
But, the result was that, as classical musical tastes developed
in mid-century America, so did mine. It was through WQXR
and their live broadcasts from the Met, hosted by the inimitable
Milton Cross, that I discovered opera. When I became old
enough to actually check out books from the adult section of our
town library (as opposed to sneaking down from the children's
room), I discovered a wall of classical record albums to be
checked out and my taste expanded further.
Back to rock 'n roll, I soaked up those early days of rock 'n
roll, faithfully watching American Bandstand and listening to
the two pop stations out of Hartford, WDRC and WPOP. Then,
around 1962, rock n' roll almost died. Just as automobile
tail fins had receded into a growing blandness, so rock n' roll
had become increasingly insipid. The influence of my
parents' generation seemed to be taking over, with Perry Como
and Nat King Cole getting way too much airplay all the raw
excitement being squeezed out like so much processed TV dinner
food. So, I took a break from rock 'n roll and started
looking for more authentic musical experience. Ironically,
this was just when my cohorts started to be entranced with the
pop music scene, so this (among other traits) set me
increasingly at odds with my classmates.
What I found to replace rock 'n roll was folk music.
Fortunately, I had much better exposure to the folk revival than
Hootenanny. WOR, another New York station, broadcast a 2
or 3 hour folk music show on Saturday nights. It went on
past my bedtime but I just put my transistor radio under my
pillow with the volume turned real low and the pillow made a
perfect amplifier to my ear. Pete Seeger. Woody
Guthrie. Ian and Sylvia. Dave Van Ronk. Cisco
Houston. New Lost City Ramblers. One of the first
albums I bought was Bob Dylan's Freewheelin'.
About the same time, I started to be interested in jazz.
My first exposure was to Dixieland. I still have one of my
first jazz albums--Kenny Ball's Midnight in Moscow. I
quickly discovered a New York station with a late night jazz
show and was exposed to straight-ahead jazz and bebop.
Other albums I acquired included Dave Brubeck's Time Out and
Getz/Gilberto's Girl from Ipanema. My favorite jazz musician,
though, was (and still is) Thelonius Monk.
During my high school years, I also got my first exposure to
world music through an album, Music of Southern India.
This was quite by accident, as I happened to come across it in
the record rack of the music store where I took trumpet lessons,
put it on the turntable and was intrigued. The next (and
only other) Indian classical music album I was able to purchase
was Ali Akbar Khan's Traditional Music of India. These
albums transported me. An Indian friend once described to
me that, for him, listening to this music was like dancing in
his head. It would be some time before I became familiar
with other world music genres.
When my little brother left the crib, I got to move into our
finished basement and my father rigged up speakers that were
connected to our stereo console (record player and AM/FM
radio. This meant undisturbed extended listening.
Although by this time I had started appreciating the incipient
counter-cultural influenced rock that got airplay on pop radio
(Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Byrds), the presence of reborn rock 'n
roll on the pop charts was too sporadic to merit alone-time
listening to those stations. So, it was my growing record
collection and the new FM spectrum that fed me. This was
before FM became the dominant (and commercialized) medium.
In Connecticut, it was primarily the domain for classical music,
folk and jazz. One particular station played a rotating
set of the "100 best classical pieces." One would think
that this would have been watered-down musical schlock, but
no--these were great selections.
My next musical leap occurred at the start of my second
semester, freshman college year. I knew there was
something really big going on in the counter-cultural music
scene but had not really been exposed to it beyond what creeped
into pop radio. So I asked a musician dorm-mate what I
should listen to and he recommended Jefferson Airplane. I
bought Surrealistic Pillow, took it back to the dorm, played it,
and decided it was too conventional. So I asked for
another recommendation and he said go listen to the Mothers of
Invention. I bought Freak Out and totally dug it.
Then, I went back and bought Surrealistic Pillow again and
finally appreciated it. From there, the floodgate was
open. Not only were tons of good albums coming out but
alternative FM radio was playing whole album sides back to
back. And, later, as the back-to-the-land counter-cultural
trip had its influence on the music, I got into mountain music,
particularly through intense exposure at a fiddler's convention
in Boone, NC.
With the end of the sixties (which actually occurred from 1972
to 1974), the high-energy Spirit that had permeated
counter-cultural rock 'n roll withdrew, and what was left turned
relatively insipid. A lot of it was good, musically, from
a technical viewpoint, but nothing like the outpouring of
totally great stuff that had gone before. So, for that and
other reasons, I went into a listening hiatus, even giving away
my record collection to my brother-in-law (who returned much of
it later).
It wasn't till I had children that I began to be turned on to
some new forms of music--early MTV (Talking Heads, The Cars,
etc.), funkadelic, punk and politically progressive hip
hop.
So, what music don't I like? Country (as opposed to
authentic bluegrass, old-tymey, Western swing). Pop.
Gangsta Rap. Smooth jazz (e.g., Kenny G) and other forms
of elevator music. Broadway. Crooners. Twelve
tone and other purely dissonant classical music. That's
about it (though I can take only limited amounts of hard core
punk).
To be
continued with more about Gargatholil (looking
at another facet of my early years)