Rendez-vous With Joan of Arc
Thursday, December 29th, 2005RENDEZ-VOUS WITH JOAN OF ARC
by Roy Freesinger, Copyright 1997
I had a friendly rendez-vous with Joan of Arc this summer, 1997, while DJ and I were hiking in the Vosges Mountains of northeastern France. Maybe you’d like to read about it, maybe not. Perhaps you can figure it out. I’ve been a Deist for about 50 years, like many of the most important founders of our country; George Washington, Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, Ethan Allen, Madison and Monroe, and later on Abe Lincoln; but that unexpected photographic meeting in Domremy has me bemused and wondering.
The Vosges are low, rounded green hills with lots of dense forests, dairy-meadows, hundreds of tiny farming villages, cows grinding out milk-butter-cheese, creeks and ponds, hiking and ski trails, and friendly farmers ready to smile and chuckle politely at my fracturedfrancais. Whenever I speak, French people smile and chuckle, and that is better than speaking correctly. One sunny day we stopped to chat with a jolly, octogenarian farmer, exchanged some pleasantries, he asked where is chez vous? “Californie”, thinking that everyone in France knows California. He shook his head no, so I tried San Francisco. “Ah, oui, Les Rues de San Francisco au television. Quelle jolie ville!” making up and down the hills motions. Well, after a week of happy hiking in clean air, embraced by sunny, loving Nature, I was studying the Michelin map for more good hiking trails when, Sacre Bleu! I saw it, DOMREMY, LA-PUCELLE!
“Dumb Ramie, the what?” DJ doesn’t speak fracturedfrancais. She speaks fractureddeutsch.
Domremy, La-Pucelle! The ancient home of Joan of Arc’s family. The place where Joan heard her saints telling her in 1429 to lead the armies of France against their bitter enemies, the English and their Burgundian allies, during the last phase of The Hundred Years War (1337-1453)”. That by itself is a very interesting story much too long for me to tell in this short essay. Joan wasn’t her French name; it is ironical that we know her by an English name when it was her aristocratic English enemies who gleefully burned her at the stake for heresy and witchcraft in 1431. She was a witch and whore in English lore for hundreds of years. Even Shakespeare (1564-1616) derided her. There are two superb modern bios of Joan: Frances Gies, Joan of Arc; The Legend and the Reality. And, Marina Warner, Joan of Arc; The Image of Female Heroism.
As she explained at her trial, her name was Jehanne, or La-Pucelle. In modern French she is Jeanne, which is pronounced like zhun (un as in run). La-Pucelle is what she and her military comrades called her. It meant “the Maiden” with the connotation of “the virgin-maiden”. She did not use her father’s family name, d’Arc. As she explained at her trial, it was not the custom in her village. Her mother also used her own family name, Romee (accent aigue on first e). Clearly there has never been a person named Joan of Arc; just as there was never a person named Jesus Christ. His mother and father gave him the good Aramaic name Yeshu, and later his disciples added Meshiha. Jesus Christ was a Roman name (derived from Greek), then transliterated into English. The Aramaic speaking Jews of that time hated the Romans, who were the Nazis of that time to them and many other peoples. Can you imagine a Jewish peasant family in a Galilean village giving their baby son a Roman name? Oi vay!
“Joan of Arc! Let me see. Yes, there it is, Domremy, and it’s only about 45 kilometers from here. Let’s go tomorrow morning”. So we did, in our sturdy little Renault Clio, along two lane roads, through the countryside and bucolic villages. Suddenly, we were there, tiny Domremy, perhaps 200 people, no priests and nuns, no tourist industry like Lourdes, no souvenir sellers, only two small shops and one bar-restaurant-hotel; none obtruding on her ancient home. We parked in an unpaved parking area, tall old shade trees, clean old toilettes, an info kiosk, a few other cars and tourists. Before us was the refurbished, stone home, steep roofed, 4 ground floor rooms, a loft above, fireplaces, no furniture, anything stealable was long gone. A pleasant, quiet, cool, contemplative place. We went outside, chatted with the two pretty lycee age attendants; then I noticed a very small brick monument with a bronze plaque in French attached.
“Jeeeez! Look at that”
“What? What does it say?”
“This is the exact spot where Jeanne said she first saw and heard her saints, Marguerite, Catherine, and Michael in 1425, when she was about 13. And it isn’t even fenced off. I can walk right up and stand where she did, and touch the earth”. Formidable! Mon Dieu! I was excited, but I didn’t know what to do or think. No-one else approached the historical spot, perhaps they were more religious than I, which wouldn’t be difficult. I thought of the loving, lovable sisters who taught me for 10 years in Chicago Catholic schools before World War II. Joan was their favorite saint, an uneducated, feisty, very intelligent peasant maiden who had more courage, devotion, and wisdom than all of the aristocratic rulers, knights and religious leaders of France and Britain - all men. Jeanne was possibly the first non-aristocrat, peasant heroine in history. We know of her because of her powerful will-power.
I felt like I should do something, but what? Fercrysake, I was standing right where Jeanne did almost 600 years ago! Should I say a prayer for friends and relatives; prayers I don’t believe in? Do you ever wonder about the efficacy of prayer? Why did a family of Baptist fundos driving to a prayer meeting suffer a fatal blowout, the whole happy family killed? Why was a village of Catholic peasants in Colombia buried by a mudslide, nearly all killed? Why do so many horrible tragedies afflict the devout worshippers of Allah, though tens of millions of them pray five times a day? I haven’t prayed in 50 years, I’m 74, fought in a World War, and did many, dumb life threatening activities, and I’m still okay. Bernard Shaw didn’t pray and lived to 94, still feisty and creative. There are hundreds of millions of times every day that good people pray for rescue from unhappiness or tragedy, without efficacy. Do we hear about that on TV or in the papers; but if a child, or a downed US airman in Bosnia is rescued and people assert it is because so many people prayed for them; it is reported as proof of the efficacy of prayer. “Whatever ye ask of The Father, ye shall receive”. What think ye?
Well, I said a prayer to Jeanne anyway just for the helluvit, for my young Rock friends in San Francisco, Holland, and Denmark, Robin and Symon, Jake, Adam, Kevin, and Sven, and my brother Chuck. That’s all I could think of on the spur of the moment, but I didn’t believe it would do any good. Standing there I tried to speak with Jeanne, in English, then French, but no answer, as I expected. I asked DJ to take a picture of me standing there on the same geological spot where Jeanne had stood. She did so, and then something happened that did not become apparent for several weeks, until I had the film developed back in California.
We drove back to the mountains, hiked for a few more days, then up to eastern Belgium for hiking in the Ardennes hills; very pretty, but more touristic and congested, then up to lovable, lively Amsterdam where I bought a Space Cooky, then down to interesting Antwerpen, Brugge, and Gent; finally to Normandy, and Compeigne (where Joan was captured when she was “about 19″, and sold to the English), from there to de Gaulle Airport, and happily exhausted after 34 days, back home to California. Just remember, I ate the cooky after Domremy, not before. Now as I reminisce I wish we had stayed in the Vosges much longer.
About two weeks later I had the two rolls of film, 48 photos, developed. Very mediocre photography, I decided to throw most of the photos away, until I noticed a mysterious defect on one. All the photos printed correctly except the one that DJ took of me standing next to Joan’s plaque, where she had listened to her saints. DJ has taken many dozens of pictures on our European trips, and they have all printed okay. She’s not a pro, nor am I. We just drop the film in, look through the viewfinder, and click. The photos always print right, and occasionally a picture is very good.
So, on that picture, as you can see, there is a white, half-moon, blank space, edged with color where I was standing! Jeez! I am blanked out of the picture! The rest of the picture, the bronze plaque, the tree and leaves, the bricks, are there in normal color and shape. But I am missing. I don’t feel rejected or hurt, I just wonder what the hell happened!
I showed the picture to a few friends who are normally secular in expression, and, was surprised at their hidden religiosity. One said, “Joan zapped you with her aura for being bad”. Another said, “That happens sometimes on the last picture on a roll”. But it isn’t the last picture on the roll, there were six or seven taken after as we walked up the country road to the hillside where Jeanne and her brothers tended the family sheep; and to see the huge, grandiose basilica built in her honor long after her death. My 10-years younger brother said, “Joan is calling you back to Catholicism!” Sheesh!, and he’s a history professor. A friend who knows how to develop film said, “Once in a while something touches the film during developing”. Sure, it could be a defect in the film, or a defect in developing, but why exactly there on 48 photos, right where I was standing, and nowhere else? And why has it not happened on hundreds of other photos? Is it a miracle? I don’t believe in miracles.
There is a strong possibility that a defect in camera, or film, or developing is the cause of my absence from the picture; I don’t deny that. But just for the pleasure of using our minds freely and creatively, let’s think about some other possibilities. I won’t expect anyone to agree with the conclusion I have in my mind; I may not do so myself. I offer it for the pleasure of freethinking, which isn’t a pleasure for everyone, as we know. Why should anyone care what I think? No reason at all.
I was “born Catholic” as everyone in our big loving family in Chicago expresses it proudly. I was Catholic in the minds and desires of my mother and father long before they met; just as they were, before sperm met egg in the first dance of life. “Hi, wanna make a baby?” “Sure, let’s go for it!” Let’s think about it for a few minutes; why, until recently, were nearly all babies in Europe and the Americas “born Christians”, plus a very small minority of “born Jews”; and why are nearly all babies of Islamic countries “born Muslims”? Is it because as we grow into our societies we are taught about all of the religions of the world, and then our indoctrinators tell us we are free to choose the religion we believe to be true? Hallelujah, sisters and brothers! Are your minds free?
The two most important functions of all religions are the soothing of the many fears of everyday life, and especially fear of death. All religions promise their adherents personal life after death in various ways, if they believe and obey the belief system of the religion. Original Buddhism seems to be an exception, except that it was, and is usually combined with ancestor worship. If one’s ancestors are still alive after death, then so can the living worshipper be a spirit-ancestor after death. There are many other social, economic, and political functions and powers of religions, but soothing the many fears of life and death are the most essential.
Christianity was the first religion to offer personal life-after-death to all believers, including the vast majority of inhabitants of the Roman Empire, poor peasants and workers - women, men, and children. Several mystery religions offered life-after-death, for a hefty price, to initiates, but only initiates - who could also belong to other religions. Please remember that I am not a Christian, nor a member of any other religion. I am completely secular. The aristocratic Sadducee rulers of the Temple in Jerusalem and of orthodox Judaism specifically denied life-after-death, because it was not promised in the Torah, the first five books of the Tanach, the Jewish Holy Book. But another sect of Judaism, the Pharisees, challenged the Sadduccee rule at the time of the Maccabean Wars (167-142 BC) against the Greek Seleucid rulers of Syria and Judea. The fundamentalist Pharisees, precursors of today’s ultra-orthodox Hasidim, became a powerful religious force in Judaism, and it was they who expounded the doctrine of life-after-death within Judaism; but only for the orthodox. Many other sects contended with the Saduccees and Pharisees for control of Judaism, and Yeshu (Jesus) was one of many popular, itinerant prophets like John-the-Baptist. Yeshu was creative and independent, but like all creative thinkers he derived most of his beliefs from his societal predecessors; the Pharisee doctrine of life-after-death was blowing in the religious winds of that time because people yearned for it so longingly, as we do today. Yeshu, a poor, homeless prophet, promised it to all who believed in The Father and himself; and therein lives a long story that you have heard a few times already.
Back to Jeanne, La Pucelle (Joan of Arc). Jeanne was a very dynamic, feisty, forceful, energetic, persuasive, highly intelligent peasant woman of 18 or 19 when she left her tiny village to go to the court of cowardly young King Charles VII to persuade him that her saints had commanded her to lead the armies of truncated France against England, and their allies the Burgundians; to defeat them and drive them out of France. She did so with great courage and military genius, as the many officers and soldiers who fought alongside her testified with friendship and love. It was the cowardly French King Charles VII, his aristocratic court and church who jealously refused to ransom or rescue her from the English. During 1429-30 she led and inspired French forces to drive the English out of the 1/3rd of France that they occupied; until they were driven back to the port city of Calais. Her life is very well documented by the court recorders who documented in French & Latin her intense inquisition during her 14 month imprisonment, trial, and conviction in 1431 (she was burned at a stake on May 30, 1431); and by hundreds of admirers and good friends who testified for her in 1456 during her Rehabilitation Trial. Of her many admirable qualities, the one that stands out most prominently to me is her amazingly powerful will!
Is it possible that her powerfully integrated will held together after death and has asserted itself at that special place in order to tell us that there is the possibility that similar powerful, integrated wills can live on? I have been having a very hard time trying to finish this study because I do not believe in the supernatural miracles and claims of the various religions and cults of the world. But I prefer to believe in the possibility of a spirit afterlife, though no-one has ever produced any evidence of such a state. Shortly after I returned from combat in WW II, I decided that I could not believe in any of the religions of the world; but I developed a strong lifelong interest in the histories, dogmas, and belief systems of the various religions. I have investigated them profoundly and I do not believe in their claims to super-natural powers and knowledge; they have never demonstrated any proof of their beliefs. During the last weeks of January I chatted with an interesting friend, Keith, a psychotherapist. Keith was very interested in my little experience and especially the photo. Without the photo no-one, including myself would be interested in this study.
KEITH - I don’t believe in all that Christian dogma about life-after-death, but I do believe in a spiritual life after death. I hate the idea that at death all I have worked so hard to become will be extinguished; that I will never again see my friends and all the people and places I’ve loved. I love life and refuse to believe that death is the end of all I have worked so hard to be. I realize that may just be “wishful thinking”, but I’ve been to several places in the world where I have felt very powerful spiritual forces working on and within me. One was the Temple of the Oracles of Delphi high above the Ionian Sea. It is easy to understand why the ancient Greeks were attracted to that special place.
RF - The oracles were wrong as often as they were right. For example, they told the Athenians that they should surrender to the Persians or they would all be massacred and enslaved.
KEITH - Oh, okay, nonetheless, I felt powerful spiritual forces working on me there; another place like that is Sedona, Arizona. But, getting back to the picture I believe the white space is caused by an emanation of your spiritual energy, or force.
RJF - Spiritual means religious to me, and I am entirely secular.
KEITH - Okay, but looking at the photo again I can see how it could be interpreted as a mistake in developing or something like that; but I also have to ask myself why did it happen right there, on that very spiritual place, at that time, right where you were standing? I still think that is your spirit force.
RF - Okay, that’s alright if you think so, but if there is such a state of spirit life after death, I believe it is Joan’s spirit, not mine.
KEITH - Fair enough. We can agree to disagree with friendship, just for the pleasure of using our minds freely.
We spoke several times, at greater length than this; I hope I have summarized our talks accurately. We agreed that all over the world since the beginnings of recorded and archaeological time people (not all) have believed in a spirit or ancestral life after death. They do so today in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto, Mazdaism, Buddhism (though Buddha denied the existence of Gods; he was an atheist), and in the hundreds of tribal religions. The saints of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are essentially spirit and ancestor worship, as are the gods of the ancient Greek and Roman pantheons. It is easy to understand how ancestor worship started and continues. Strong willed persons closely related to us in our families, friendships, tribes, and our national cultures live on in our memories; live on strongly; and billions of people when they are in serious difficulties seek help from spirits and ancestors of the family, tribe, and larger cultures. That is how prayer developed.
Billions of people all over the earth, in all religions believe in various kinds of spirit and ancestor worship; as well as nature and king-emperor worship, and magic. If ones ancestors are conceived to be still alive after death, then the believer can believe that he or she can also live after death. Does belief by 90% of humanity in spirits, saints, and ancestors prove that there are gods and goddesses who guarantee us life-after-death? Is there any empirical, factual, or scientific proof of the existence of god, and life-after death? A Catholic friend said recently, “Well, when we die we’ll know whether or not there is life-after-death”. He is a very caring gay guy who has seen many good friends killed by AIDS, so I didn’t say, “Only if there is”.
I, too, yearn to believe in a spirit life after death. Now, as I have successfully survived into my middle-70s, I think more often about the end of my life, but as infrequently as I can manage. When I was 44 I decided that I would do my best to live until 88, and spend as little time worrying about the end until then. That worked very well, until recently. I bicycle, swim, and exercise often, eat a healthy (not perfect) diet, use very few drugs (legal or illegal), try to be cheerful and friendly (life is too serious to be serious), we have a pleasant little home and modest life style, and I get a lot of help from my good wife, son, brother, friends, and country (which is too conservative). But I ain’t the man I was when I was young, 65, not complaining, life is still good, I can still write and compose, and sing. But it makes me feel sad when I think of leaving my wife and son, friends, San Francisco, home, reading and learning, traveling, Nightbreak, Paradise Lounge, Denmark, Holland, USA, Europe, myself. Life is often hard and distressing, but with few exceptions the life force is so powerful that we refuse to give it up. I don’t know what the photo means. I hope it means that Joan’s spirit lives on, and that she wants us to know of that possibility; but the photo could be meaningless. Do religions bestow life-after-death upon their believers? Is there any evidence to support that dogma? Has anyone ever communicated with us from an after-life? What think ye?
Since I completed this essai I spoke with my friend Rabbi Abraham from Canada; he studied the photo and said, “Roy, I don’t understand this on a rational level. There has to be something spiritual that happened there”. And I showed the photo to Lotte from DK and Yuri from SF, two pro photographers who have developed and printed many thousands of photos. They discussed it and concluded that they could not find any reason for the white space. Lotte said, “If something had gotten in front of the lens, the space would not be blank. There would be some kind of grainy grayish blur”. I will conclude this with a verse from one of my songs.
Some people think that walking on water or in the air is a miracle// No, a real miracle is that we walk on earth, Today, step by step!// A real miracle is that we are alive at this moment in history// When there is only one chance in hundreds of millions// For our conception and birth!// (Rhythm break)// Nature has given us the right and ability to be happy// Often that is very, very difficult// We all know that and need to remind each other// That happiness is very possible// If we exert our strong powers of wisdom, work, courage, love, and laughter// Today…step by step…on Earth!
Au’voir, Jehanne…a bientot, Jeanne…merci pour l’aventure, Joan…je vous aime….
The exact place in Joan’s 1420s garden where her saints spoke to her.