Lost in the Cosmos

temporary appropriation of godhead by transcending self, e.g., “I am Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds,” “We have known sin,” etc.
(2) The radio repairman
Self’s Relation to World :Immanent, with intact elements.
Self’s Relation to Other Selves :Concentric social communities—family, business, social, marketplace, church (Presbyterian), politics (Republican), American.
Identity of Self :Unreflective, consumer-oriented, partly specified by being against them (Hispanics, Indians, Catholics), but also against those, the transcenders (scientists, Communists, professors, liberals); yet also to a degree specified as intact self by religious transcendence, i.e., he would say if asked that he believed in God, that he was not God but a son and creature of God, that other men were also sons and therefore his brothers.
Motion of Self vis-à-vis World :Placed in a place, once Texas, now Santa Fe, New Mexico, but not placed like the old Pueblo Indian at the center and navel of the Cosmos. Mood of placement: often aggrieved and frustrated, but also exhibiting a core geniality, reliability, and goodwill: “How you doin', son? Well, all right. You lookin’ good. Let me give you a hand with that.” Etc.
(3) The divorcée from Westchester
Self’s Relation to World :Problematical, with elements of transcendence and immanence. She has left what she conceives as an immanent world of a failed marriage and the boredom of housewifery and is seeking a new world with some vaguely transcending components such as “art.”
Self’s Relation to Other Selves :Loss of old community; isolated, but with prospects of new community. She envisions both immanent and transcendent relationships, sexual adventures perhaps, but, more important, a meeting of minds with a certain person on such things as reading, ideas, and a co-savoring of local immanent features, e.g., the Corn Dance. Further, she has begun an expensive collection of primitive kachina dolls and regularly visits all festivals at the pueblos. She has also registered for a course in flamenco guitar.
Identity of Self :Tentative and problematic. Her own perception of herself is subject to others’ perception of her. For example, at this very moment at the Corn Dance she is aware that the scientist and his friend have noticed her, and so she is acutely conscious of not appearing to them either as tourist or as local dried-up leather-skinned dykeish Anglo. So she’s dressed casually in jeans (long before the current craze) and Eastern blouse. Her silver-and-turquoise jewelry is old, heavy, and oxidized and not the new tourist junk. Even her mien, her way of looking at the dancers, is both casual and calculated: I’ve seen this before, true, and some of it is hokey and put on for the tourists, but still it’s a fascinating spectacle, isn’t it?
Movement of Self vis-à-vis the World :Exilic. She’s left her old home for good, glad to do it, and newly arrived at her new home, where she’ll stay. She’s begun her new life but has not yet quite achieved total reentry into her new world.
(4) The Catholic priest
Self’s Relation to World :Specified by relation to God, i.e., self, world, and other selves seen as created by God; selves in the world yet capable of transcending world through love of other selves and of God. Yet this relation has for him grown perfunctory and quotidian over the years, giving ground to loneliness, dislike and fear of bishop, and consumership, e.g., Lux Radio Theater, Brooklyn Dodgers, a nip or two or three of Bushmills before supper. A humble and mediocre man, he is actually a better priest than he knows, a soft touch for beggars and drunks, and dutiful in the discharge of his priestly obligation.
Self’s Relation to Other Selves :Good-natured and dutiful, with tendencies to accept both the deferences accorded his social role as priest and the ambiguities of his priesthood as perceived by the Indians who accept him—and the kachinas of the West—with varying admixtures of indifference, belief, and unbelief.
Identity of Self :Intact and secure in its relation to God, yet hardly afire with love of God and fellow man. Secure also in his identity as a member of a special class of selves, i.e., the priesthood, with its promised reward in heaven, yet aware too of his failings and accordingly staking a great deal on the mercy of God. Differs from transcending community of scientists and artists in his recognition of his own creatureliness and limitations. His