Looking Deep Into Madonna's "Confessions"

The great M has managed to put the Catholic church into yet another uproar over her quote-unquote blasphemous images on her "Confessions Tour." I attended opening night in Los Angeles and let me tell you, the show is anything but blasphemous. (I have tickets I need to sell for Fresno on June 6 by the way. If anyone wants them, email me!)

I was surprised that the Vatican's response to the show was so harsh, claiming it was all for "shock value" and to sell more records. The last thing Madonna needs is more money or attention. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look a little deeper into her "Confessions" show to see that the woman has a personal tale to tell with a message for her audience.

I implore you, if you go to the "Confessions Tour," look deeper. It will intensify your experience. Here's my take on the show.

Madonna opens the show with "Future Lovers," interestingly enough the song I chose to play here on KabbalahCurious.com as a Coming Soon teaser. She promptly tells the audience in no uncertain terms what they're about to witness: "Let's forget your problems, fears, administration, ills... come with me. Connect to the sky, future lovers rise, every nation's high, would you like to try? Put aside your pride, let me be your guide, future lovers hide love inside their eyes. ...in the evidence of His brilliance."

The theme is equestrian: larger than life, intimidating black horses appear on the screens behind her and she appears in riding gear with her dancers in horse muzzles and black leather straps on all fours. Everyone knows about her infamous horse riding accident that left her with many broken bones and a fear that she may never be able to dance like she did before. This is Madonna's artistic expression of taming of the beast and facing her fears.

It was only here in this opening number that I really realized for the first time what a huge deal that riding accident was to her. You have to think, Madonna no doubt views herself as completely invincible by this point! Indestructible! For her to have such a near death experience really must have been a wake-up call to her own sense of mortality, one that sent her, literally and metaphorically, crashing to the ground. What's more, she is an utterly self-professed control freak! Well, you don't get more out of control than being confined to a bed. Not to mention that during recovery she was forced to alter her usual diet and workout to accompany her healing.

I'd guess Madonna has a very interesting relationship with horses now! And that is all showcased here in the opening number of the show.

This is followed by an intimate solo performance of "Get Together," as Madonna seizes the opportunity to really connect one-on-one with the audience before going further into her tale.

An interesting adaptation of "Like a Virgin" is up next as Madonna all but makes love to a carousel horse while x-ray photos of her broken bones appear on the screens behind her. She sings, "You made me feel shiny and new," seemingly thanking the formerly seen "beast" horses for what has become a re-virginization. She has been born again because of that accident.

"Jump" features moves by Madonna's dancer, Cloud, that are so impressive I wanted to cry. All her dancers are spectacular, but I've never seen a dancer lead with his heart like that. He infuses the pop culture of crump with the heart of ballet and marries the physical with the emotional. A great segue to her next number, which has become he most infamous of her show.

After a few confessions from her dancers about their own abusive pasts, Madonna is raised from the ground, hanging from a giant cross, wearing a crown of thorn. She opens her mouth and sings, "I have a tale to tell...," for the first time in over 14 years performing "Live to Tell," a song highly associated with domestic abuse that was written during her tumultuous marriage to Sean Penn. Here, for the first time with this song, Madonna stops pointing the finger at her attacker and turns it around at herself. (You didn't think it was just a coincidence that the cross was made of mirrors did you?) Accepting that she is the one who has crucified herself is the first step in no longer being a victim.

She falls to the floor for a bit during the number before dramatically raising up as though she were "resurrected" (another rebirth! sensing a theme?) and sings, "If I ran away, I'd never have the strength to go very far." This is hardly shock for the sake of it. This is a message about self-victimization and comment on how most of us in some way crucify ourselves every day. Sometimes a full on resurrection is needed to exorcise those demons. And maybe, just maybe, that's partially what the Bible was really saying all along.

I felt like Madonna was sort of playing with the recent Magdalane phenomenon with "Forbidden Love" as she wrapped herself lovingly around the cross and sang, "Once upon a time, there was a boy and there was a girl. Hearts that intertwined, they lived in a different kind of world. Forbidden love, are we supposed to be together?" There's lots of homosexual undertones from her backup dancers here too that was really beautiful.

"Issac" and "Sorry" are clearly commentaries on the abuse of women in society. A huge cage appears on stage with a woman inside, cloaked in sheets that reveal only her eyes. She convluses throughout the song, throws herself against the cage and begs to be released from the prison. Madonna sets her free, her religious garments finally shed to reveal a sexy belly dancer outfit. She connects with her inner sensuality and is liberated. Fast-forward to America where "Sorry" shows us how the boys in the gang can treat their "bitches" when you're living in the hood. The gals have the last say, of course, and turn the tables on the boys by the scene's end.

In her defiant closing statement to this controversial portion of the show, "Like It Or Not," she boils it down to a simple Cabaret-style chair dance and a declaration that, "This is who I am, you can like it or not. You can love me or leave me, but I'm never gonna stop."

A reprise of "Sorry" is played on the video screens as Madonna demands of world leaders of past and present from Bush to Hitler: "Don't talk. Don't speak. Your lies, I've heard it all before."

At this point on the journey, now that Madonna's been resurrected, she is liberated and feels a sense of being able to let go and tap into the energy of just being in the moment, a song that is personified by "I Love New York." Madonna's said before, it's not about a place, it's about a state of mind. To her, that state of mind is surely liberation, as New York is where she learned to make it on her own, stand on her own two feet and find her inner strengths. Naturally, this is followed by similarly themed songs like "Ray of Light" ("...and I feel like I just got home.") and "Let It Will Be" ("...anyone can see, you've got to let it be.") She really "lets go" in this segment, rocking out on guitar, throwing herself all over the stage in freestyle unchoreographed dance and even tossing her mike off stage for someone to fetch with a "devil may care" attitude.

She slows down to ponder her fame and its place the big picture with "Drowned World/Substitute For Love" and "Paradise (Not For Me)," two really touching moments in the show where I think we get close to seeing the real core of who Madonna is and what she's still searching for after all these years.

There's an homage to "Saturday Night Fever" up next as Madonna dons Travolta signature wardrobe and moves for a spiced up version of "Music" that is peppered with "Where's the Party?" and "Disco Inferno." If this works into theme chronologically, it's a stretch, but I'd guess it's her way of saying that after all her self-analysis and searching, there's only one thing she knows to be true in her heart and soul and that is quite simply that "music makes the people come together."

That and that her love for her husband is what keeps her going! As is made evident in the following number, a totally retooled version of "Erotica" that now reads like a love letter to Mr. Ritchie.

To end her tale, Madonna dons the cap of the ultimate Kabbalaist, though 80% of the people who see the show will probably never know it. Madonna performs "La Isla Bonita" with celestial-like islands on screen behind her and a sense of camaraderie and family amongst her dancers. The message: Madonna, like all Kabbalists, believes there is a place like this that exists beyond the pain and suffering of the world she has just shown you, the one we all live in, and that our goal is to find our way back to this proverbial Garden of Eden.

They say she has no encores, but I believe the final two songs are her encores. She just doesn't believe in pretending she's going to not come back out and forcing a crowd to blow their lungs out for her. But it's a perfect choice of bookend songs: a nod to her past with "Lucky Star" and a nod to her present and future with "Hung Up."

And those, my friends, are Madonna's confessions. Blasphemous? Hardly. Shocking for the sake of shock value? Please. Even since the days of the burning crosses in the background, Madonna's rarely done anything that didn't have a meaning more than meets the eye. You know what that's called? Art.



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JasonCurious.com
JasonSechrest.com
DV8Entertainment.com


RELATED SITES:
Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
Exclusively Kabbalah Group
The Logos
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com

London & Paris's Revelations

Recognize this from "The DaVinci Code"? The Pyramid Inverted!

Miss me? ;-)

I was vacationing with my boyfriend, celebrating our one year (if you don't count the five we were platonic best friends) in London and Paris. And now I'm on my way to Chicago in just a few hours, but I wanted to give you a few excerpts from the London and Paris diaries, which you can read later today at JasonCurious.com. I don't have time to post the whole thing, nor would it probably be interesting to all of you, but here are some of the more spiritual moments on my trip overseas:

At the Egyptian sphinx temple to Isis along the River Thames in London: So much flashed before my eyes here and it was the beginning of me realizing that this was going to be a really surreal trip! This Egyptian sphinx right outside our hotel was sanctioned as a temple to Isis, who was worshiped in Greece, Rome, Egypt and just about everywhere else in the world as the Goddess of Motherhood until the time of Christ. After Christ, Constantine sensed the trend and as a political move, converted the masses to Christianity. Viola! Isis was replaced by The Virgin Mary. (You'll see more of Isis later on this trip later! I think her spirit must've been following us.) The only people to continue worshiping Isis were Pagans who refused to stop worshiping deities of nature as a way to connect to God. To be sure the masses converted, they deemed them devil worshipers (the furthest thing from the truth) and had hundreds of thousands of men, women and children viciously tortured and burned as heretics. This was the beginning of a long line of blood shed (still going strong!) in Jesus's name and the beginning of people saying, "In Jesus's name we pray," and "In Jesus's name we kill," and "In Jesus's name we deem you unworthy." The beginning of the promotion of separation instead of unity. The division of Lust (Magdalane) and Love (Mary). The beginning of organized religion teaching you how to be mastered instead of teaching about being your own master. The beginning of "I am not capable." Sucks to be Jesus. Doubt this was his intention and it does make you wonder if it were between he and Lucifer, which would be more likely to be a member of the Christian church if they were alive today. And I've got news, they are alive today. All of this was running through my head as I sat here at one of the few temples to Isis that still stands. It was an honor to be at her feet, our original earth Mother.

At Westminster Abbey, London: This is Westminster Abbey, where tens of thousands of people are entombed within its walls and floor with monuments to them throughout the building. It's basically one big house of death, but death has never looked so beautiful! It was built in the shape of a crucifix and is the home of the remains for everyone from Sir Isaac Newton and Winston Churchill to Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. No one really struck us as giving off any major energy until we got to Elizabeth I. The aura around her tomb was so strong you could just feel it from your head to your toes. I felt the presence of my grandmother here too and I don't have the slightest clue why. Maybe they knew each other in a past life or know each other now. I took something away from Westminster though. Being surrounded by so much death and so much beauty simultaneously, I don't think I'll ever be scared of death again. Inside its walls, these tens of thousands seemed to whisper, "It's just a new page." And I believed them.

At Saint-Chappelle, Paris: Next, we headed to a cathedral I'd been dying to see, Sainte-Chapelle, known for having the most intricate and extensive stained glass display in the world. These photos couldn't possibly do it justice. The windows span nearly the entire length of floor to ceiling. And its just one after another after another after another. The church says that the windows have magical powers, which is interesting because Catholics usually denounce the word "magic" so heavily. Oh and remember our friend Isis from London? This church was built over an old temple to her. Might have something to do with the "magic." These little buggers had fallen from the church's exterior. If you'll notice in the first photo of the church from the outside, there's lots of gargoyles which are used frequently in cathedrals here to keep evil spirits out. I was so intensely drawn to these two that had fallen, the one on the far left and the one on the far right. They seriously called to me, I've never experienced anything like it. With the magic of the stained glass all around me, I walked to them, pushed aside in the corner with no one paying them any attention whatsoever and they started speaking to me. At first, it was like radio frequency coming in scratchy until I could figure out what was going on. The one on the left was speaking a foreign language (Latin?) I couldn't understand and the one on the right was serving as translator. The message I was getting is that all of the gargoyles felt incredibly used. They were saddened by the church's lack of understanding and these two had fallen in hopes of finding something better, someone who would understand the power of darkness embraced as opposed to the weakness of trying to shut it out or deny it. "They shun us and yet use us, beg of us to keep our own kind out," they said. While the other gargoyles did dutifully as they were told, these two had a different path. "We could stand here no longer." They said they would come with me only if I promised to always embrace them as well as the light, to never deny both sides of myself and remember that there is darkness and light within all of us, that there can't be one without the other. "Embrace us and we will protect you, guide you and help bring you light and the everlasting beauty you see shining through these walls. Like our glass house you see here, there can be no beauty without light but there can be no light without darkness." I carry their spirits with me now, one on each shoulder, my left and my right.

We visited another church later in the day, one Mikey's mom had wanted him to see where two nuns' bodies had never decomposed after death (they were supposedly NOT embaled) and so they were made saints and put on display there in glass cases. I didn't get any messages here, though I really tried to listen for the sisters' voices. Their spirits seemed gone from those bodies and gone from that building.

On the flight back to America: Flying home the next morning, I could think of nothing but one word: Soil. I couldn't wait to touch American soil. Don't get me wrong. London and Paris both have their charms and I learned a lot about people's perception of America and I feel their points are very valid. But it is home. In fact, this trip made me look at it as more than home. It's family. Dysfunctional family, sure, but family none the less and Lord knows I'm all about defending your family at all costs. I have such a greater appreciation for the ground I stand on and what it must've taken to make this place what it is today.

I guess I realize now that when it comes to your land, you're either a caregiver or you're a taker.

So glad to be home. :-)



JASON'S OTHER SITES:
JasonCurious.com
JasonSechrest.com
DV8Entertainment.com


RELATED SITES:
Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
Exclusively Kabbalah Group
The Logos
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com