Tarmac The Magnificent's Show of Ignorance

 

In his "Notes Toward a History of Juggling," Marcello Truzzi claims that the art was practiced in the early civilizations of Egypt, India, Japan, China, Tibet, Iran, Southeast Asia and among the Aztecs and other American Indians.

 

"Jugglers in these early cultures were often prominent in the religious and mythological rituals. It is probably here that juggling had its origin along with other forms of dexterity for some forms of juggling are found even today in primitive tribes, practiced by their shamen."

 

Truzzi does not say whether these shamen--priests or witch doctors claiming contact with the gods--used juggling to wow the congregation with powers far beyond those of mortal men (the reason most of us juggle today) or whether they tossed things up to get themselves closer to the godhead.

 

Probably the former, but the latter offers intriguing possibilities. Because anyone who has done a little juggling and little meditating is struck in the head by similarities between the two. This is not surprising. Most meditation relies on rhythmic repetitions to entice one gently out of one's rO\ltine mind. Zen disciples count their breaths; transcendental medi­tators repeat two sound over and over.

 

Jugglers do it different. We rely on the rhythms dictated by the hard laws of gravity to take us out of our cluttered heads and put us in tune with the cleaner music of the spheres-­whether rubber balls or the planets. Everyone who has jug­gled has been lost in this music, however briefly.

 

The question then arises of why it has taken so long for juggling to be recognized as what might pompously be called a "Spiritual Art." The answer must be that not until now has there been a large number of amateur jugglers, and histori­cally professional jugglers have not tended to be articulate people.

 

But there is evidence that the connection between juggling and soul has not gone entirely unnoticed. In the famous

early 18th century Japanese treatise on the art of swordsmanship, Tengu-geijutsu-ron (Discourse on the Art of the Mountain Demons) Chozan Shissai has his head tengu, or demon, say: "Although mastery in all arts from juggling balls to balancing plates atop sticks is attained through practical exercise, its highest exercise is brought about by means of the Life Force."

 

The Life Force referred to here is a sort of vital power inherent in man and nature, according to Reinhard Kammer, who re-published the treatise under the title Zen and Confucius in the Art of Swordsmanship. But for us the key idea is that even then it was recognized that juggling balls requires the same spiritual development as the mastering of swordsmanship by a Samurai.

 

Somewhere one of our members is approaching Nirvana by juggling three crystal balls, nude, in a black, sound-proof room lit by a single scented candle. Here's hoping he writes in with the recipe while still able to communicate with mere mortals.