On Myths, My Birthday, and Metonic Cycles (Blog #532)

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There’s a theory regarding myths and fairy tales that they exist not to convey historical facts or to simply entertain us, but rather to teach us truths. Better said, they exist to teach us truths about ourselves. In other words, you should be able to identify every character (at least every main character) in a myth or fairy tale as PART OF your own psyche. For example, in The Wizard of Oz, Glinda the Good Witch would be your light or conscious self, and The Wicked Witch of the West would be your shadow or subconscious self. Interpreted this way, the marriage of a prince and princess (or the rescuing of a damsel in distress by a gallant knight) would signify the coming together of two opposite forces within you, such as your light and shadow sides, your conscious and subconscious selves, your yin and yang, your male and female powers, your sun and moon.

This “joining together” is the idea behind “happily ever after” and is what the mystics call “going beyond the pairs of opposites.” In the Biblical tradition this transformation from “duality” into “oneness” is depicted as the going back to The Garden of Eden or eating from the Tree of Life rather than from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Note that Good and Evil are, again, opposites.) In the Hindu tradition, this marriage or re-union is alluded to (for instance, in proper yoga) when a person’s Kundalini energy rises from their first chakra (at the base of their spine) and flows up their spine in a criss-cross pattern through two “opposite” channels called the Ida and the Pingala and eventually “comes together” at their seventh chakra or the crown of their head. In drawings this is depicted as two snakes criss-crossing up a spine and is, interestingly enough, the same process that the symbol of the Staff of Hermes (the Caduceus) “speaks” of.

Joseph Campbell says that all of this is exactly what’s being depicted in Homer’s The Odyssey, in which Odysseus represents a person’s male or solar power, and Penelope represents a person’s female or lunar power. You remember the tale–Odysseus is separated from his wife (that is, from himself), but through a series of events that include Odysseus’s going into the underworld (that is, his subconscious self or shadow side), the two are eventually able to be reunited (as one whole, integrated person).

I say all this to say–this morning at 8:47, I not only turned 38 years old, but I also completed my second Metonic Cycle.

I’ll explain what a Metonic Cycle is shortly, but first let’s talk about how I partied.

My birthday celebrations officially started last night with dinner with my dear friend Ray. We ate at one of my favorite restaurants in Fayetteville–Theo’s. It was delicious. Plus, the conversation was delightful. I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much. The whole thing was the perfect slow-start to my big day.

This morning–believe it or not–I actually woke up early in order to do a Live Video on Facebook at the time I was born. I’ve wanted to do another video since hitting my 500th blog post a month ago, but life and work have been a real bear lately. Whatever–it worked out this way–and in the video I thanked the readers of the blog (that means you), as well as read an essay about accepting help, saying goodbye, and realizing you’re doing better than you think. Anyway, if you want, you can watch the video below or alternatively on the Live Videos page at the top of the blog. It’s about 22 minutes.

This afternoon I went out for Mexican food with my friend Bonnie (I love Mexican food), then we went to Fort Smith’s new bookstore (I love bookstores), Bookish. The store was super cool, and Bonnie gifted me with a book about the stars and constellations. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks where they gave me a FREE DRINK (of my choice) just because it’s my birthday. How cool is that? Then we went back to Bonnie’s house and ate part of a scrumptious chocolate cake she made me. Y’all, I drank a WHITE-CHOCOLATE mocha while eating CHOCOLATE cake WITH VANILLA ice cream. Talk about joining together things that are opposites!

Seriously–it was nothing short of a spiritual experience.

To top off the day’s festivities, I went out to eat with my parents this evening. I know, super exciting. My life is really sexy. I can read the headline now–Thirty-Eight-Year-Old Man Goes to Dinner with His Mom and Dad (Who Happen to Be His Roommates) on His Birthday. But we really did have a lovely time. I mean, we WERE all together 38 years ago and we’re STILL all together now.

Why not have a little party?

In short, it’s been a fabulous day. Not only have I spent time with some of my darling friends and family, but I’ve also been ravished online with well-wishes and words of encouragement. (Thank you if you participated in this virtual celebration. If you didn’t, it’s not too late. I’m totally okay with belated kindnesses.) Anyway, as I said yesterday, what’s not to like about growing older?

But back to the completion of my second Metonic Cycle. (Hum. How do I explain this?) For the longest time, society has observed a solar calendar in which a year is basically 365 days long. However, some historical societies observed a lunar calendar in which a year is basically 354 days long. (Certain religious groups still use this lunar method for keeping time and calculating holidays.) Anyway, a Metonic Cycle is a period of 19 solar years (or 235 lunar months) and is a way of linking or JOINING TOGETHER the two calendars. Think of it like this–if the Sun and the Moon were (from our point of view) occupying the same space in the sky, it would take 19 years for them to RETURN to that same space in the sky at the same time.

Does anyone want to guess how long Odysseus and Penelope were separated from each other in The Odyssey?

That’s right–19 years.

Another way to think of the Metonic Cycle is that if the moon were in Scorpio at the time you were born (like it was for me in 1980), it would take 19 years for the moon to return to Scorpio AND be in the SAME PHASE as it was when it was there before. For me this means that the moon was WAXING CRESCENT in Scorpio on the morning I was born, it was waxing crescent in Scorpio again on the morning of my 19th birthday, and it was the same thing again this morning.

You can live happily ever after.

Now. Does this “mean” anything? I don’t know that it does. I’ve scoured the internet for theories about why your 19th, 38th, 57th, and 76th birthdays might be significant or important but can’t find a single one. Personally, I know that 19 was a big year for me, since I started dancing just two weeks after my 19th birthday, and that’s certainly been a significant PHASE in my life. But does this mean something just as significant will happen during these next 19 years? Again, who knows? It’s fun to think about. Surely if the sun and the moon can come back together after years of being separated, anything is possible. And surely if princes can marry princesses and knights can rescue damsels in distress, then I can marry myself and I can rescue myself, and I can live happily ever after.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Nothing is set in stone here.

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Something Sweet Indeed (Blog #394)

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This morning I woke up at eight and couldn’t go back to sleep because I was worrying–well, thinking intently–about my bank deposit that magically disappeared yesterday. I spoke with customer service last night, but my plan today was to show up to the branch where I made the night drop and, if necessary, raise hell. You know, flip tables, use words like “preposterous” and “unacceptable,” ask, “Just what kind of institution are you running here–losing people’s hard-earned money?” I actually envisioned this scene unfolding as I lay in bed this morning, all the tellers standing around stunned and apologetic as I’m threatening to “take my money elsewhere.” Then, after a moment of appropriate silence, the manager would grovel–

“Would you like that in nickels or quarters, Mr. Coker?”

Fortunately, this didn’t have to happen in reality, since just before I crawled out of bed at nine, I checked my account online one final time. A friend had messaged during the night and told me that their deposits had frequently gotten “stuck” in the night drop, so I thought, Maybe the bank will find it first thing this morning. And y’all, just like that, after all my worrying and convincing myself that the universe hated me, the money was there. Phew, that was close. Another crisis averted.

I guess you’re okay, universe. But let’s not make a habit of this behavior.

In addition to (apparently) needing time to worry about nothing, I got up early this morning to attend a three-year-old’s birthday party. When I asked his parents, my friends Aaron and Kate, why they were having a birthday party at ten in the freaking morning, Aaron said in complete seriousness, “All of his friends have naps later in the day.”

You should have heard him wail.

The party itself was great. It was outside at a local park, and the weather was glorious. (It’s beautiful today.) And whereas I’d planned on not eating anything at the party and generally feeling sorry for myself for being on a restrictive diet (Autoimmune Paleo), that didn’t happen either–there were plenty of fruits and vegetables for me to snack on. (Once again, life doesn’t totally blow.) However, there was one problem at the party. Aaron and Kate’s kid had a TOTAL meltdown, all due to the fact that his cake looked like a puppy dog and he didn’t think it was at all cute when his mother put a carving knife through the little doggie’s face. You should have heard him wail as Kate sliced that little sugary pooch into several (what I’m assuming were delicious) pieces. “No, Mama, no!” he cried.

“It’s okay, baby,” Kate soothed him. (Slice, slice.) “It’s not real.”

Eventually, Aaron and Kate’s boy calmed down. I think he got distracted by a football. Later when I was talking to Kate, she said, “He was up late last night.” I replied, “See, this just goes to prove my theory–nothing good happens before noon.”

When the party ended, I spent part of the afternoon overanalyzing the situation (like I do). Y’all, nobody knows what to do when a child cries. Hell, when anyone cries. For example, the whole time this adorable child was bawling and squalling, most the adults were laughing, like, “Isn’t that precious? He thinks it’s a real puppy dog. (Nom, nom, nom.)” Not that I knew what to do, but I did remember a time when I was little that something similar happened. I was maybe six or seven, and the family had gathered at the dinner table to eat cornish hens. Baby hens! Well, I was undone. I couldn’t imagine such a thing–eating an adolescent bird.

I left the table crying.

When you believe something, you’re locked in.

My family and I joke about this story even now, but y’all, I can still remember what it felt like to believe that we were EATING something that I thought should be my little feathery friend. (It didn’t feel good.) And if Aaron and Kate’s boy this morning felt even part of what I felt all those decades ago, then it’s no wonder he went from demure to Defcon 1 in 3.2 seconds. I mean, when you BELIEVE something, you’re locked in. (My puppy friend is being cut up and devoured!) For you, the world is falling apart, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else says or does. As Byron Katie says, “That’s the power of imagination.”

Thirty years after the cornish hen incident (or, “the cornish hencident”), I guess I still get caught up in imagination. Last night I was convinced that the money I deposited in the bank had been lost, that my world was falling apart. This morning I was sure I needed to have a confrontation, that my oratory skills and powers of vocal projection would be best used by me walking into a local bank and proceeding to flip my shit. And sure, I assume several people who read about this predicament last night thought, It’ll be fine, Marcus. There’s nothing to worry about. Maybe they even laughed, just like part of me did, the part that “knows better.” I look at what happened now and think, That’s the universe for you, once again proving to me that it’s not such a bad place to live, that things really do work out. And yet for a while most of me was caught up in a dream. Not unlike my young friend this morning with his birthday cake, I was looking at something intended by life as a gift and innocently terrifying myself instead of seeing it for what it was–something sweet indeed.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Pressure, it seems, is necessary to positive internal change. After all, lumps of coal don't shine on their own.

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