Healings FAQ No. 21, Marty Anderson
Healings FAQ No. 21, Marty Anderson
"I learned that on so many levels, when it came to my physical health, I only had so much control."
In case you didn’t get the memo, this week is Marty Anderson week at Healings. Marty’s someone I met nearly 20 years ago back when I was a “music journalist” at an “alt-weekly” — things that are up there with travel agents and Blockbuster Video in that they’re basically extinct, vestiges of a bygone era, casualties of the March of Progress. Speaking of, did you know the Oakland A’s played their last game ever at the Oakland Coliseum this past Thursday, breaking the hearts of their diehard fanbase (which includes me), the one that’s been supporting them for 57 years, so their scum-sucking pig of an owner can move the team to Vegas? Internalize it, friends: The only constant is change.
Anyway, back to Marty. Here’s the story I published in 2005, and here’s the story I wrote about that story that I posted on Thursday. To summarize: Marty’s been sick for most of his adult life—first with a rare, persistent, and debilitating form of Crohn’s Disease, and then, years later, colon cancer, with all the myriad side-effects and drug dependencies that attend such things. It’s tempting to say his life has been defined by illness, but the miracle of Marty is that the opposite is true: It’s his music and the spiritual seeking that suffuses it that defines him.
I was first drawn to Marty’s music when he was in a band called Dilute. Then he got sick and the band broke up, and since then he’s been making music as Okay, recording everything in his home studio. Okay’s label, Absolutely Kosher, just released a very nice box set collecting the band’s first three albums, and asked if I wanted to reconnect with Marty and write something about all that. I said yes, of course. And again you can read all about that here.
One thing I didn’t really touch on in that piece is Marty’s spiritual practice. I hope it’s not lost on the devoted Healings readership (hi, Mom), that I am a proponent of developing and pursuing a spiritual practice of some kind—especially if you’re facing the kind of hard times that come with a serious illness and/or substance misuse issue. In Marty’s case, the fragility of the body and spiritual seeking and music aka creativity are all braided together into a single radiant thing. This little newsletter of mine doesn’t even come close to achieving the level of virtuosity that Marty does in his weaving of those three elements, but boy oh boy does it aspire to.
And so this again gives you a sense for why I was so excited to reconnect with Marty and his story and come to understand the ways in which it has converged with my own. And I’m sure it also gives you a sense for why Marty is kind of the ideal guest for the Healings FAQ, which of course I asked him to do and he graciously obliged. His answers are below. They are amazing. If you want to listen to an Okay record as you read them, I think that’d be a great idea.
What happens when we die?
It depends.
Some realized masters escape completely and merge back with the 5 elements in a rainbow-light body, ending the cycle of rebirth.
This is the goal, but it’s rare—nearly impossible.
So for most of us, I believe when you die you enter a transition realm (bardos), at which point your life/heart comes under scrutiny by natural law.
Depending on that judgement, your next life is determined.
If you can grow spiritually and get to a higher operating frequency each life, you can progress towards unity (rainbow-light body).
I have studied many traditions, but I hold to the idea that I do not know anything for sure except what is revealed to me directly through meditation, creativity, devotion, or grace.
There is a manner of proof there.
You can experience the truth of these things.
It is a process of surrender.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being terrified and 1 being it’s never crossed your mind, how afraid are you of dying? Explain.
That's really hard to answer. It depends what you mean by “dying.”
If you mean afraid of what comes after you die, I would say a 4 or 5.
I have fear around the bardos.
You can get stuck there, especially without enough preparation or help.
But if you held a gun to my head, or set me on fire, I believe my fear would be considerable.
I am not very sophisticated in that regard.
But if what you mean by “dying” is the body's process of death, then I would say 8 or 9.
I am definitely afraid of that.
I am afraid of my body—of the physical and mental pain it can cause when ill.
My body has tried to kill me many times.
It has been a brutal and cruel prison at many points in my life.
I learned that on so many levels, when it came to my physical health, I only had so much control.
So I am always afraid of returning to that type of experience/limitation with my physical health.
It effects your capacity for creativity and spiritual growth, which is a big part of the fear.
For most of my life, the type of spirituality I have had to embrace is one that can be held while in agony
What’s the closest you’ve come to death? What did you learn, if anything?
The closest I've come to death was in 2005 when my Crohn's disease was at it's worst.
I was hospitalized.
I could not eat, walk, or drink water.
I was 90lbs.
I learned that there are states of being where death is welcomed as a relief.
Do you believe in God? Explain.
Yes.
But belief and knowledge are different things.
I have all kinds of intellectual ponderings and spiritual beliefs,
but that is different from knowledge of God.
That comes from the feeling at the center of my heart.
It is not intellectual or based on academic study,
but direct spiritual experience centered in your heart.
That is the only proof I have.
I have studied and been initiated into the non-dual Tantric tradition.
Kashmir Shaivism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Hinduism are the pillars of my lineage.
But belief doesn't give you knowledge—at least not the way I look at it.
Belief will give you the structure, but only by experiencing the actual state of being yourself can you truly know.
Do you have a spiritual practice? If so, what is it? If not, why not?
Yes.
I study the texts of my lineage, I meditate, I paint, I write music, I surrender.
I consider these methods all part of the same practice.
The frequency is the same.
Apart from that, over the years I have shaved off a lot of the iconography of my practice and today mainly have a very simple practice of devotion and surrender.
Incineration and surrender is the process.
Give me an example of a sacred text, for you personally—a work of some kind (book, album, song, painting) that’s essential to the formation of your spiritual worldview. Explain.
Tantraloka (Kashmir-Shaivism tradition) by Abhinavagupta is a masterpiece and truly endless. Fathoms and fathoms. I have still only scratched the surface.
It is a magnificent spiritual science. It is hard to believe that humans once existed with so much knowledge.
An encyclopedia of Tantra but not easily understood.
I was lucky enough to have a teacher to guide me into the basic tenets, but I still consider myself a novice when it comes to deep academic study of Tantra. It is incredibly dense and layered, maybe one of the hardest subjects to penetrate on earth, because so much of the understanding of it depends on your actual state of being.
Capacity is limited according to your level of surrender.
But Abhinavagupta believed you did not need monastic surroundings to grow spiritually.
You just needed discipline and devotion.
This Tantric idea of a “house-holder” tradition, where you incorporate every-day life into your spiritual practice was an important concept for me to embrace.
The idea that you could still be saved even in the worst of circumstances helped me endure my health issues.
This is the how Tantrāloka begins...
"The Mother Śakti—(jananī) (is) the One whose Might (mahā) (expresses itself) as the ever-new (abhinava) manifestation (sṛṣṭi) which rests on (āśraya)
the Stainless (vimala) Absolute Freedom (kalā), and (ca) the Father—i.e. Śiva—(janakaḥ) (is) the One whose Body (tanuḥ) is Full (bharita) (and) who has a secret (gupta)
zest (ruciḥ) (for the aforesaid ever-new manifestation, which is carried out) by His five (pañca) Faces (mukha)—the five Powers of Consciousness, Bliss, Will, Knowledge and Action.
(May) my (mama) Heart—Bliss that comes from perceiving the universe as the Self— (hṛdayam), which is full of (mayam) the Emission (visarga) of the State (bhāva) displayed (sphurita) by that (divine) Pair (tad-ubhaya-yāmala) (and) which is the Seat (kulam) of the Nectar (amṛta) of Anuttara—the Highest Reality—(anuttara), become expanded (saṁsphuratāt)!"
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Healings is written by Garrett Kamps and edited by Tommy Craggs. Ayana H. Muwwakkil provides art direction.
Healings is about illness, recovery, spirituality, and related topics, and began in the summer of 2023 as a chronicle of Garrett’s battle with cancer. We make no guarantees that it will hold together, thematically speaking, now or ever.