Marshland Monday

Well, this weekend was a good weekend overall. We're trying to get a room-mate for the condo once again, but we did find time to make it out to a Southern-style "pig picking" in Northern VA.

It was FABULOUS...the food and drink was good, and the music was fabulous as well. The combo played Dixieland and classic-type jazz...there was a keyboard/sax player, a cornet player, a trombonist, a banjo/guitar player and a tuba player (for the bass), and a drummer/washboard/various tin cans, bells and whistles player.

Yours truly even got to sing a number with the band, and it was a lot of fun. They were so good and polished, and it was easy to fall in line with them.

Any band who includes the song "I've Got a Bimbo On The Bamboo Isle" in their repertoire can't be all that bad...

So anyway...on to other topics...

They're never more than 15 feet apart and they're celibate?

What?

Ugh.

Here's the basics:

What if rain or shine, no matter what, you and your partner, well, never parted? That is the case with Michael Roach, 55, and two decades younger Christie McNally, two Buddhist teachers who are literally attached at the spiritual hip, so to speak, and took vows to never be more than 15 feet away from each other. Oh and P.S.: They're celibate, too.

This is too much for me. Seriously...no more than 15 feet and no further incentive plan than some kind of transcendental celibate love thing going on? Yuk. That sounds less like love and more like mind control.

Here's as far as it goes...

Half of the year, it's fairly simple, since they both live in a tiny, 22-foot yurt (or tent) in the middle of the Arizona desert, where they read books at the same time and follow each other like shadows. (They first moved there to do a silent retreat, so from 2000-2003, they lived in complete, silence and meditation.)Things do get a bit more complicated when they travel. For example, if they can't get seats next to each other on a plane, they simply refuse to board. If one gets up to go to the bathroom, the other must follow and stand outside the door.

Why be like that? Wasn't it Khalil Gibran who made mention of the whole "spaces in our togetherness" thing? Come on. As much as I've loved my various and sundry boyfriends/spouses, I've needed time away. They have too. And not getting on a plane just because they can't get seats together? Don't even get me started on the potty rule...

To me, that's less about love than about mind control. The dude is 20 years older than his partner and not even really supposed to have a wife (since he trained under the Dalai Lama to be a monk, and they take a vow of celibacy). I can't imagine anyone telling me I couldn't be more than 15 feet away from them under any circumstances, or being willing to go along with that.

Read the article in full...it's very odd, and scary. What do you think of this concept? And NO, even if it involved George Clooney would I affiliate myself with this ideal...no thank you.

Let me know in the comments, folks...