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J-R Legacy Tour Day 9 – J-R’s Birthday in Montségur, Tarbes, and Israel

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A perfect day for J-R’s birthday. We visit the ruin of Montségur, a castle that was the last Cathar stronghold, where many were burned at the stake after the castle was besieged. The Cathars were given a choice, to renounce their faith or be burned, and reports said that they went to their death singing. On the bus Leigh Taylor-Young gives us a heartfelt and well-researched synopsis of Cathar beliefs and practices. They emphasized personal experience of God without intermediaries like priests; they did not believe that ritual could bring people to an awareness of God, but that spiritual practice was necessary; and they did a kind of ordination/initiation called the “consolamentum” that was for those who wanted follow a higher spiritual path in this life. Those on that path were called “perfecti,” and they were mostly celibate and vegetarian. Others were simply called “good men;” they were not looked down upon for their choices. Both men and women could be perfecti, and women were not considered to be inferior.

The Cathar teachings about a negative power that entraps us in the flesh, and a positive power that brings us to the Light, are very similar to information presented in sound current lineages such as MSIA. They also believed in reincarnation, and that the goal of life is to transcend the wheel of incarnation. Their conduct was said to be exemplary—they emphasized deeds over words. Bernard of Clairveaux, a leading Catholic figure of the 12th century, said of the Cathars,”If you interrogate them, no one could be more Christian. As to their conversation, nothing can be less reprehensible, and what they speak they prove by deeds. As for the morals of the heretics, they cheat no one, they oppress no one, they strike no one.” Leigh talks about how they had no objection to other people’s faiths, but simply wanted to follow their own, which they believed sprang from the original teachings of the Christ, but they were persecuted anyway because they were seen as a threat to Paris, and to Rome. John calls in the light and J-R at the castle, and then we have another circle in a field down below, in the area where the Cathars went singing to the their death. It’s said that some people were so impressed watching how the Cathars approached their demise that they joined and took the consolamentum too, even though they knew they would be killed. Some people in our group sing a song, invited by John, and I feel a oneness coming in on this cloudless day on a green hillside. It’s a J-R birthday.

We stop for lunch in a country restaurant whose name translates as “field of happiness.” The food is incredible, local, fresh and organic. Even the grapes have a distinctive,  multilayered flavor that I haven’t experienced in the States—I think they haven’t been hybridized so much, so they’ve retained their personality. There’s also a local honey that’s out of this world. Our hosts are so friendly and attentive. (There’s even miniature golf so John gets to play golf on J-R’s birthday.) We hang out with their horse, donkey and dogs in the sunshine, and nobody wants to leave.

Then we’re back on the bus, through some more green hills and farms, more old villages, more beautiful southern French scenery. The feeling in this part of the world is warm and relaxed, the pace is easy, the people are incredibly sweet and giving…but there’s also more graffiti and billboards than there used to be, more fast food, more rasping digital noise-music at highway rest stops. And in the cities you can feel the economic difficulties that are rolling through all of Europe. Culturally I see strong resemblances to the USA, because it’s multi-cultural—southern Eurpean/northern European/African/Middle Eastern. Britain, even with all its immigrants, is to me much more of a mono-culture, as are Germany and Scandinavia. The French have developed a reputation for impatience with foreigners, but to me they seem extremely polite and have a love of etiquette and other social forms that communicate consideration. They get impatient when those forms aren’t followed. On hiking trails people you meet look at you and say “bonjour” in a quiet, almost singsong voice, with the “bon” at a higher pitch than the “jour”. These social forms make sense when there are different cultures coexisting in a small area, exhausted by centuries of conflict. I think I’m beginning to understand France better now: It’s a melding of southern/Latin and northern/Germanic cultures. Somehow France has sold itself as a distinct culture, with its art, food, etc., but I think that’s more like marketing by Paris, and an attempt that France has made to overcome its inner conflicts. Now France seems much more multi-racial and culturally scattered, and there’s enough graffiti to make any American feel right at home. As we study the history of the Cathars, the idea of a French mono-culture seems more Parisian and northern, more like a conquest than an assimilation. Looking at all the maps that show how medieval France was divided, with large areas dominated by England and other peoples, it seems like a more strife-torn and unstable version of the U.S. People in southern France could easily be Californians, just as the landscape and climate could be mistaken for California.

After the bus ride we land at Tarbes, and settle into our ultra-modern hotel, all metal and glass, with see-through, glass-enclosed bathrooms, glass-doored elevators, dark brown or black walls, and red flower-like chairs that look like something out of A Clockwork Orange. Some of our staff, led by the unstopping, caffiene-fueled Roger Wakefield, got here early and have been preparing all day for the J-R birthday Skype hookup with Jsu Garcia and Nicole Tenaglia in Israel. Miraculously it all works, and the oneness from earlier in the day goes up a few more notches as John and other people in the group share about John-Roger, with Jsu and Nicole joining in, projected via Skype on some curtains in the front of the room.

People’s devotion to J-R always seems to bring in this loving oneness. It’s not something that’s just emotional. It’s sustained by flesh-and-blood experience. Our stories about J-R are physical and tangible, so those evanescent emotions are solidified and made usable. Our romance with J-R is a relationship, not a fling, and talking about him brings a reality that moves through all the levels, not just the spirit. It’s as gritty and wrenching and transformative as a marriage.  Having John in the room physically and Jsu’s face projected, we have contact with two bodies that have absorbed that J-R energy over many years, and are radioactive and radiating. And people’s sharings, stories and songs create an opening for the energy to pour through. We watch a Moment of Peace about J-R and then suddenly it’s over, and we each go back to our individual flesh-enclosed worlds where we have our choice of whether to maintain that energy or wander off in some other direction. Luckily, in our grace-kissed modern world, our choices don’t include renouncing our faith or being burned at the stake. But there are some some great-looking desserts at the back of the room…

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