Mardi Gras, the Muses, and Desire

Friday night I attended the best parade of the entire carnival season - Muses. Scheduled to run its uptown route the previous night, but postponed due to rain, Muses was the last krewe of the night, and it was well worth the wait. The Muses krewe is all-female and is named after the Greek goddesses, who inspired artists, philosophers, poets and musicians. The nine muses, incidentally, are also the inspiration for corresponding street names in the city - Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania. Friday night, the krewe of Muses parade had beautiful lighted butterflies, roller derby girls, and Elvises on scooters.

The first thing I notice when arriving on the neutral ground searching for a place in the crowd is that I immediately find my mind in a state of wanting. I want those throws. I jump in front of others to get them; I feel jealous of people who get the really good throws (in Muses, it's the coveted glitter shoes). I immediately realized that I have an incredible opportunity to pay attention to this state, one that is not unfamiliar to me. In this case, an entire space, indeed the entire Carnival season, is set aside to experience constant desire (and to act on it). "Throw me something, mister," is the phrase said by many an adult and child alike throughout Mardi Gras (in the case of Muses, it's "throw me something, sister!"). People leave these parades with bags full of beads, lighted trinkets, stuffed animals, and plastic cups. This American version of Mardi Gras, a holiday tradition that dates back to Medieval times (some attribute a pre-Christian version of it to 5000 years ago to the ancient Greeks), emphasizes what seems to be something basically human - greed, gluttony, revelry, bacchanalian celebration. It's food, drink, and fun.

Just to completely experience this state with full attention is clarifying. I notice how I don't want good and pleasurable experiences to stop. I want more! Spiritual teachers have tended to emphasize the use of painful experiences and the accompanying suffering as a departure point for learning about the human mind. But, pleasure, desire, or any state, can be a powerful opening.

I think it's pretty easy to be critical of the indulgence of Mardi Gras, from the perspective of a Protestant upbringing, or pick any ideology that tends to denigrate gratification of the flesh and self-indulgence (and there is also the racist/classist/sexist element of Mardi Gras to be critiqued, which I also hope to write about soon).

But, what follows Mardi Gras? The Lenten season, of course. The Lenten season is a time for reflection and temperence, the other side of the pendulum. Unfortunately, I think many people miss this point, but nonetheless the opportunity is there to understand this great dynamic of existence - winter and spring, life and death. It's all okay; to everything there is a season.