FORGED IN THE FURNACE OF HELL
I woke up to a dark tangerine sky. The world was on fire and the smoke was blowing West toward the ocean, passing by my home on its journey out to sea. Reluctantly climbing out of bed, dressing I ventured off to an appointment. While driving south to San Rafael, the sky grew darker and deeper orange the closer I got to San Francisco. A glowing sky pressing down on the land in the middle of the day was eerie and terrifying, but beautiful- in an apocalyptic sort of way. I returned home, fed the dog, cat, chickens and myself, got into bed and pulled the covers up over my head-hopefully until winter.
In the wake of an incurable pandemic, sheltering in place, the exposing of social inequities, an unstable dictator at the helm of this country, and plenty of people drinking the Kool aide offered by sociopathic spin masters, an orange sky was just one more presentation of the furnace of hell we have been cast into. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Some days I just want to give up trying to create sanity in the midst of this sea of chaos.
The next morning I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed, made coffee and sat down on the reading chair in the living room. After checking emails I began flipping through the latest edition of Vogue Magazine for a little confection, to see what people who care about what they put on their bodies in the morning are wearing. I was not prepared for what I was about to receive. Within the pages of Vogue I found multi-ethnic men, women and children standing fully in their beauty and power in ad after ad. Below the picture in one ad, Ralph Loren wrote,
“We believe in a quality of life that is authentic and optimistic-one that embraces a spirit of togetherness, and honors the individual beauty in each of us.”
The Nordstrom ad, also with diverse models, read,
“At Nordstrom, our goal is to reflect positively in the communities, places and people we serve.”
One of the Nordstrom ads featured a young woman wearing a shirt with, the power of the people is greater than the people in power, written on it. The ad went on to quote young people, Like Renell Medrano who wrote:
“Everything that’s happening is for a reason. At first, it was so hard to think of it as a positive, but I honestly feel like there will be change after all of it. Our generation is being involved. We have a strong voice and we have a platform.”
The designer Brunello Cucinelli took out a full two pages that features a man and two children looking at a large antique map of the world with the quote, “From here on, I would like to resume the journey towards Universal Humanism.”
I took a deep breath for the first time in months. When we’ve given up, when hope is lost, it can return to us from unexpected places. Zen teaches that everything has Buddha nature, nothing is left out. Some think of fashion as a superficial concern, something that can be left out. But we live in world that is both absolute, the dharmakaya, and physical, the nirmanakaya. These two worlds meet one another in the realm of imaginative thought, the sambhogakaya. Fashion drapes the body with imaginative thought and delights in creative expression. This impulse to adorn is timeless and universal.
Although I’ve always loved fashion, I went through a period when I believed that adornment was a shallow pursuit. I cut my hair short and wore dull shapeless clothing. My mother called this my vipassana drab period. I honor the monastic who has made the choice to dress simply. There is value in stripping away all but the essential. But not everyone is called to be a monastic. I am a lay woman and have different responsibilities to culture. Ours is not to turn away from adornment but to express ourselves through all the elements of our life without becoming attached. In doing so we can become a bridge from the purely self- centered life of most people to a deeper understanding of reality.
The world of thought and the mind are important, but so is our body, our imagination, and the expression of beauty. Meeting dour circumstances with drabness only makes the world a little greyer, a little less creative and certainly less playful. With all the darkness heaped upon us at this time it helps to create as much beauty as possible to counteract the darkness and inspire hope in those who are weary. Washing our face, brushing our hair, and dressing ourselves with dignity, creativity and perhaps a modicum of joy is life affirming. There is a reason that adornment has been, and continues to be, part of every culture throughout history. I thought I could only find hope during this time of darkness in ancient Buddhist tomes. Yet anything, including a fashion magazine, can lift the weary out of visions of Armageddon by displaying the beauty of the human spirit as it rises from the ashes.