Spiritual Healing - A New Age Therapist Counsels Washington

Arthur Blanding lived in a small town in the Mountain West, a blessed place, set in a broad fertile valley, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.  Linville was a Grover's Corners kind of town - pleasant, accommodating people, kind and considerate, ranchers mostly, cowhands, and clerks for Barron's Hardware, Fincher's Saddle and Seed, Carron's Pharmacy, and Dot's Kitchen. 

There had been no crime in Linville since '04 when Bobby Billings stole Harry Hopkins' F-150, rode it up into Devil's Canyon where he rammed it into a cottonwood.  'Joyriding', his attorney pleaded, for Bobby was barely a month over 18, had too much to drink and 'meant nobody no harm'. 

The crime - grand theft auto - was reduced to a misdemeanor by a judge who knew the Billings family and had for years.  Ordinarily Lineville's hanging judge, he was lenient in this case, for he felt the boy was mostly good and deserved a second chance. 

In any case Arthur Blanding, when asked how he embarked on his career path of Spiritual Healing, credited the environment - the pure mountain air, the clear, brilliant sunshine, and the generosity of the people of Linwood, 'a perfect storm of spiritual renewal'.  

He did a desultory business in Linwood and in the surrounding farm communities - a happy people don't need counseling - and his real interest was in a place that certainly did.  What with the election of Donald Trump, a man whose every instinct, enterprise, and ambition was antithetical to principles of deep spirituality, oneness, and universal harmony, Washington was becoming a rude, ruthless, and spiritually bereft place. 

 

He cringed at every official pronouncement - Elon Musk and DOGE bulldozing the very institutions of democracy, the home of governance and stewardship; the scouring of homeless encampments, sending thousands of helpless men and women into the wild and to certain miserable death; the despoilment of the environment, the digging of polluting wells, and restarting leaky pipelines to the Gulf of Mexico already polluted by the oil refineries lining the shore. 

Elizabeth Petty, aka John Petty, was Linwood's only transgender, and in his male days had been a friend of Arthur.  He had confided to him about his sexual doubts and anxieties, and had been encouraged by Arthur to give in to his inner feelings and 'transform his spirit'.  Shortly thereafter, Petty came out, became Elizabeth, and took a job as a waitress at Dot's Kitchen - a far cry from driving a cross-country rig hauling lumber and hogs, but a role for which he was destined. 

Dot, a religious woman who had been born and raised in Linwood was a kindly soul, and was one of a kind.  She warmly embraced the new Petty, responded to Elizabeth's faith and belief in the miracles of Jesus Christ, and was happy to have her waiting tables.  

Her business was never better. Ranchers who had never tried her eggs-and-bacon Double Breakfast Special stopped in to have a look at the new waitress, and until she became a routine fixture, she doubled revenues.  The ranchers, good, solid people whose hard life on the range gave them a certain moral durability and acceptance of life, looked at Elizabeth/John as one might expect - she might be more 'unusual' than the Barnum & Bailey side show attractions that came into town every five years or so, but it takes all kinds. 

 

Only the crudest of the ranchers wondered whether she had her balls cut off to make room for a cunt, and what would fucking that feel like? but most of the others said live and let live until she took up with a woman who had made the switch from Edna to Edward.  Linwood had never seen such bedtime speculation since Lucinda Peters was asked to leave town.  Who did what to whom was the endless discussion at Dot's and the Briarwood Bar. 

This is all by way of saying that Arthur Blanding's compassion for Elizabeth Petty and for all transgenders was shaken by Donald Trump's campaign of 'Return to Normal' according to which gays, lesbians, and transgenders were no longer to be such a big deal, were to be left on their own, given no preference or hearing, and hopefully would in a generation disappear. 

This arrogant assumption of sexual normality was only one expression of the President's moral vacuity. His actions from closing the southern border, to denying welfare from the needy, rewarding billionaires, and wreaking havoc with the environment were even more virulent signs of his turpitude and complete lack of a spiritual center.  The man was all about things and the grasping for them, and never once had he exhibited any signs of a soul. 

And so it was that Arthur made his way across the country to a shabby hotel on the outskirts of the capital, a seedy trucker's motel on New York Avenue under the railroad tracks and in the shadow of two industrial warehouses.  There was something penitential about his lodgings. Coming from such a pure, pristine place line Linwood to the dire moral straits of Washington on a mission of mercy required such a dismal, nasty place.  It put him in right mind and spirit. 

Now, as hippy-dippy as Arthur might seem, he did have a head on his shoulders and knew that he needed an entree, and that he found in a Congressional aide from his state - the nephew of his father's old logging partner who had made good. 

The aide sat quietly while Arthur explained his mission: 'You and I are both from God's country', he said, 'and yet we find ourselves here in a land without light and air, a stifling, suffocating place of moral insurrection and ignobility...'

At this, the aide wondered whether Arthur would ask him to get down on his knees and pray for forgiveness', but the young man simply rattled on with a marvelous confection of New Age philosophy, Anima Mundi, Maya, shamanism, and Judaic mysticism until the aide had to say, 'Whoa, Arthur, let me stop you there' and with that politely but firmly let him out the door. 

So much for Western friendships, but this was Washington after all, and one did not play by the same rules here, which is exactly why Arthur had come; but how, he wondered, would he find a pathway to power?

He met Bob Muzelle, Director and CEO of Humans For Social Progress, a liberal activist group whose mission was to promote the principles of progressivism which, Arthur soon found out, were little different from his own.  Both men believed in progress, discovery, goodness, and spiritual prosperity; and while Bob was a bit chary of Arthur's eagerness to 'reach the heart and soul of Washington', he welcomed him as a volunteer in his organization.  He would defray some of Arthur's costs, but his would be an unpaid assignment. 

There was something quite likeable and disingenuous about Arthur that appealed to Bob - some inner quality that was missing in most of his political associates, so he was confident that with his natural simplicity and personal eagerness, his message would be listened to. 

'Rough around the edges' said Bob to a neighbor in the back row of the assembly hall where a series of speakers on women, the environment, gays, and inclusivity had been invited to speak.  It was a progressive jamboree, and each speaker was rousing in his appeal for action.  'The environment cannot wait...the black man's time has come...one and done with heterosexuality...etc. etc.'; and when it was Arthur's turn, energized and enthused by the ambition of the previous speakers he felt strong and confident:

Our Mother Earth has given us life, but we have chosen to ignore her pleas to use that gift.  We have become itinerants, aimless voyagers, pilgrims without a purpose, drifters, and somnolent bystanders.  All the while our beings cry out for solace, reprieve, and expression.  Our wounds are but pathways to our hearts, said Rumi, and we must listen to him.  Each of us is endowed with the innate ability to hear the music of life around us, to incorporate it into ourselves, to cherish and celebrate it...

Bob noticed that the audience was rustling in their seats, staring at the ceiling, and clearing their throats.  Arthur would soon have to get on to Donald Trump and his lack of soul and moral integrity; but Arthur kept up his spiritual beckoning and soon drifted into a familiar world of happy beings, sylphs, and druids - a utopian world of spiritual harmony. 

'Hippy dippy', said Bob's neighbor, 'yank him'; but there was no way other than to rudely interrupt the proceedings to do so.  Bob stood up and gave the universal 'cut' sign, but Arthur was too far gone to notice.  He went on and on, making less and less sense, meandering, wandering, but always smiling with exuberant hope. 

'Trump', said Bob to him after he finally, thankfully had finished.  'Donald Trump is the focus here', but Arthur was still floating on air, inspired by his own words, anxious to sit down with anyone in the audience and help him revive his soul, come out into the clear, pure light of beauty.  

Arthur. disconsolate and perplexed that Washington didn't want him, returned to Linwood and hung out his shingle, but soon he realized that either the happiness that he had always felt there was real and heart-warming; or that people there were as troubled as anywhere else but wanted a more traditional therapist. 

In any case, the shingle came down and he found work as a forklift operator at the rail yard - not exactly what he had been trained for, but all in all good, steady, respectable work.