On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for July 23rd
The Portland Book of the Dead
One must carry the dead down Vista from the hills and onto Broadway via Burnside and ending at the river Willamette.
One must give the dead a prayer so that the dead can find the land of the dead in the rainforests. This prayer will help find a guide.
Place two Sacajawea coins in the eye sockets of the dead.
The river will guide my dead to its final resting place. Let the boughs of firs and cedars guide the dead into the arms of the ságh-a-lie ty-ee’. Let no log catch the dead and keep it from traveling to the end of the river.
Place a small Dramalite Tourmaline in the dead’s pocket to protect it from scavenging animals.
Introduce the dead to the different Gods and then say this prayer,
Open all the eyes of the tsil’-tsil. May the creator defeat the trickster who wishes to unravel the night sky like a sweater. I give you an honorable mem’-a-loost, who wishes to find a home in your tum’-tum. Take the dead away from all the cheechakos.
Make sure you sing the sun-gods away. Rain is the only way the dead can travel.
Now do a spell to the Autumn Gods, for there are many. Portland is always in some state of Fall:
All the evil on the dead should be removed;
What is evil? Is sin evil? What makes this person good? Purify the evil with your murky, muddy water, Willamette.
Now, garnish the dead with a crown of Rhododendron flowers and long leaves.
Open the dead’s mouth, so that it may drink the river and say its peace.
Pray: Let the la boos speak truth to the skookum of the valley.
Decorate the body with things the deceased was good at alive, so that it may carry it to the land of the dead.
Write the dead’s name on a piece of cloth and pin it to the dead’s wrist – yes, piercing the skin.
Draw a heart on the dead’s chest.
This is the dead’s tum’-tum. Let it beat to the sound of the Gods’ breaths.
Take out the heart and weigh it. Record the weight into your notes so that those who steal hearts can’t steal any part of the heart without risking persecution from the river wardens.
Do not put any edible items on the dead, for there are animals that can still eat the dead.
Place small dots under the lips and down the chin to ward off snakes.
Draw a square on each shoulder to ward off otters, muskrats, beavers, and other river mammals.
Tie on an ascot so that the dead can’t be decapitated.
These protections are to help the dead not die twice on their way to the land of the dead.
Let the siblings watch so that they don’t take the dead’s place by accident.
Put butter on the wrists and ankles so that the dead can’t be enslaved.
Put a stone in each shoe so that the dead can walk upright and not upside down in the afterlife.
By blowing wind into the open mouth and filling the wind’s full mouth with river water, the dead is now able to breathe and drink water once more on its journey to the end.
This will help prevent the dead from catching fire from a careless otter’s cigarette or beaver’s pipe.
Help the dead transform themselves if needed. The power to transform can help the dead pass tests and obstacles. Tear up pieces of paper with the different animals, plants, and minerals listed on them, and sprinkle the body with them.
Sing like the many birds you know. You will now wear a bird mask.
Give the dead plenty of bribe money to use ferries and get through the many tolls that line the pathway to the land of the dead.
Sew gold and silver and trinkets to the clothing of the dead.
List the many confessions of the dead. Make sure you list 42 sins, for 42 is the answer to everything. The question may never be asked, but it is good to have all the answers to the many questions never asked.
Fold the fingers of the dead into OK signs. This will ward off the Gods of the desert—the gods of the desert hunger for the flesh of the dead.
Make the dead a totem of 7 animals. Make sure you pick the right animals, for these will be the dead’s guide and guardians in the land of the dead.
Make amulets for each dead thief.
Ruby for the Djinn, for they will eat the dead.
Opal for the angels, for they will misguide the dead.
Topaz for the demons, for they will educate the dead.
Quartz for the devils, for they will cherish the dead.
Jade for the dragons, for they will become the dead.
Put a mint leaf in the dead’s mouth so that they don’t eat their own feces or urine.
The dead will then float upstream. The dead will find themselves going up the Clackamas River. The dead will disappear on the side of Mount Hood.
You will only hear the wails of the wood nymphs receiving the dead high up in the cold, crisp fir forests.
Clean yourself off with sand and no water. You don’t want any dead to stay with you.
They will haunt you for the rest of your life.