Comedy Sex God
Page 21
While I held her hand, kissed her forehead, and manned the playlist, Val did the most impressive, badass thing I’ve ever had the privilege to witness. Valerie is a goddess. She is Beyoncé.
And I will worship her for the remainder of my days.
AS SOON AS WE BROUGHT OUR NEWBORN DAUGHTER home, we noticed right away that we were experiencing life through a completely different lens. We were outside of time. As we got up to feed and comfort our baby, we noticed that numbers like “3:47 a.m.” were meaningless to us. We were in Baby Time. It wasn’t midnight, or eight, or four. It was always Now, and all that mattered was the love circulating among the three of us.
We laughed, and sang made-up songs, and slowly lost our minds to sleep deprivation. We barely ate, as feeding ourselves seemed so unimportant. Even when the baby slept, the two of us stayed up watching her, coursing with new-parent adrenaline, tripping out on the idea that we had brought a new awareness into the world. The greatest mystery of the world—consciousness—had flipped on in Val’s belly while I was sleeping in bed next to her. Cells inside Val’s body went from one thing spontaneously to two, a miracle in itself, and kept replicating and growing and bonding until there was a nose, and two feet, two hands, fingernails, hair, and a brain that was becoming aware of itself.
All while we were just sleeping, or eating, or watching movies.
The following weeks, I felt like I was my baby. It doesn’t make any sense, but I saw no separation between her and me. Or Val and her. Or me and Val. When I lay down in bed, I felt like I was wearing a giant mascot outfit of my baby. Kissing Val felt like kissing the baby. Kissing the baby felt like kissing Val. We were all melted into one thing, outside of time, pressed together and sealed like a grilled cheese sandwich.
For all the mushrooms I’ve taken, it was the trippiest thing I’ve ever experienced. We felt like we were behind the veil. I was pleased to find that the baby wasn’t taking me away from my pursuit of the Mystery, the baby was God come to visit. She was the newest and most powerful impetus—stronger than drugs—my next great teacher. This little eight-pound baby was shoving us into the Now for longer stretches than I had ever experienced.
In my regular life, thinking of myself and everyone I met as a soul was still something I had to work on, something I had to remember to do, but holding our baby I found that it came naturally. How could she be her personality? She didn’t have one yet. How could she be her thoughts? She wasn’t yet thinking in words. She had nothing in her to sell or insist to others was “her.”
She just was.
Looking into her eyes, Val and I felt, as cleanly as I had sitting with Ram Dass, just pure awareness staring back at us. She was pure, beautiful, luminous emptiness. As empty as the sky, and as dense as a mountain. While I had at times worried that having a baby might be a hindrance to spiritual growth, once she arrived it was clear that she was not just the next item in my curriculum, she was a master class, a bundle of simply being. Just a drooling, giggling dollop of I Am.
The Mystery had come to us in yet another new, unexpected, and breathtaking way. We had entered the next phase of this cosmic dance. The play of the Divine had unfolded into a new chapter through her, and once again we were in love.
We named her Lila.
Baby Lila meeting Ram Dass, 2018
Acknowledgments
I’D LIKE TO THANK MY WIFE, VALERIE CHANEY, WHO listened to me read numerous versions of this book out loud to her and gave me her wonderful feedback and praise. Thank you, SLV, for loving me perfectly every step of the way. You’re my favorite thing.
I’d like to thank Baby Lee for being our Light and our heart.
I’d like to thank my salty British editor, Luke Dempsey, for his patience, guidance, and talent, and for extending deadlines more than once. It all worked out, my friend! Thank you for believing in this book.
I’d like to thank Kristen Bell, who read early versions of this book and helped shape it into what it became, and Rob Bell, for gracefully changing my life for the better—inward and outward—with his writing, his friendship, and his surfing lessons. You guys are family.
I’d like to thank my great teacher Ram Dass for opening my heart and for sharing Maharaj-ji with me. Extreme gratitude also to Father Richard Rohr, Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle, Duncan Trussell, and Joseph Campbell.
As Paula D’Arcy said, “God comes to us disguised as our life.” To everyone on this list, I’m so glad you were the wonderful costumes He chose.
Further Reading
I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING:
The book The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers, and the PBS special of the same name. The film Finding Joe is also a good intro to Joey Cambs.
Anything by Rob Bell, especially Love Wins and What We Talk About When We Talk About God, and his podcast The RobCast.
Anything by Eckhart Tolle, most notably The Power of Now (especially as an audio book) and A New Earth. There are also so many great talks on YouTube.
Anything by Richard Rohr, particularly Falling Upward, Everything Belongs, and The Universal Christ, and his audio series The Sermon on the Mount.
The podcast The Duncan Trussell Family Hour.
Anything by Ram Dass, specifically his audio series Experiments in Truth and Love, Service, Devotion, and the Ultimate Surrender, and his books Grist for the Mill, Polishing the Mirror, Be Love Now, and, when you’re ready, Be Here Now. Also the movies Ram Dass, Going Home; and Dying to Know.
Anything by Alan Watts, starting with his audio series You’re It!: On Hiding, Seeking, and Being Found. There’s some amazing content on YouTube as well.
And lastly, The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas.
About the Author
PETE HOLMES IS A COMEDIAN, WRITER, CARTOONIST, “Christ-leaning spiritual seeker,” and podcast host. His wildly popular podcast, You Made It Weird, is a comedic exploration of the meaning of life with guests ranging from Deepak Chopra and Elizabeth Gilbert to Seth Rogen and Garry Shandling. Pete also created and starred in the semiautobiographical HBO show Crashing, which he executive produced alongside Judd Apatow. An accomplished stand-up with three hour-long television specials and innumerous late-night appearances, he continues to tour regularly to sold-out crowds. He lives with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles.
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Copyright
COMEDY SEX GOD. Copyright © 2019 by Pete Holmes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover photograph by Steven Agee; cover illustration © Aluna1/iStock/Getty Images
All photographs by Dassi Murphy
Digital Edition MAY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-280399-3
Version 04122019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-280397-9
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* Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (New York: Anchor Books, 1988), 68.
* Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (New York: Anchor Books, 1988), 69.
* “Unconsciousness” is a definition of sin Eckhart Tolle has used in multiple talks.
* Ram Dass, Experiments in Truth (Sounds True, 2006).
* Ram Dass, Experiments in Truth (Sounds True, 2006).