The Parade Part 7
March 21, 2026
The Parade Part 7
Before I ever knew what Mardi Gras meant, I knew what it felt like. And all of it was not good.
In Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras parades are part of the culture. As a child, I watched these larger-than-life moving extravaganzas with awe and amazement. I didn’t know the history or the reasons behind them. My attention was on the pageantry, the roar of the crowd, and most of all, the bags and bags of candy raining down from the towering floats packed with revelers.
My first view of these parades was from my father’s shoulders, a perfect bird’s-eye perch where everything felt magical and infinite. In time, I graduated to the front of the crowd. There we jumped and stretched our arms toward the airborne treasures. During Mardi Gras season, whether in elementary, junior high, or high school, children buzzed all day about which parades were rolling that night, and which would fill the weekend. Anticipation hung in the air like electricity. What excitement!
But there was another emotion the parades awakened in me, one I didn’t understand at first. It was envy.
As the floats passed, I noticed some children riding on them and others marching alongside. In the Floral Parade, all the paraders were children, proudly throwing candy down to us. I wanted to be a thrower, not an onlooker. That never happened.
When ego-related feelings first began to stir in me, envy felt strange and unsettling. Still, I wanted to be one of those children on the floats. Envy arose because I believed they were somehow better than I was, and I wanted to be as good as they seemed. They were chosen. I was not. I didn’t even know how one became chosen. All I knew was this: I felt like a beggar, and they were the golden children.
Today, there are still people riding the floats of life whom I wish I could be like. Golden people, it seems, who have certain attributes I wish were mine. The grace now is that when those familiar twinges of envy arise, I can see where they come from: my ego.
Every ego carries an image of who we should be and what emotional or self-esteem advantages that identity would bring. When we over-identify with that idealized image, reality almost always disappoints us. Then the ego looks for someone to blame, which is often the very people who appear to have what we lack. Resentment can follow.
Why do these uncomfortable, often shame-tinged feelings arise? The bottom line is that they come from a lack of love in that particular aspect. And all of us experience deficits in love in certain areas of our lives.
When love feels lacking, the unconscious ego becomes vulnerable to the passions. One of them takes the wheel and runs our emotions. In my childhood Mardi Gras story, the passion that seized me was envy. The quality that heals envy is equanimity… the calm of emotions which refuses to be churned by outer circumstances or egoic strivings.
Although each ego type is most vulnerable to one of the nine passions, we experience all of them to some degree. The passions by type are:
Anger
Pride
Vanity/Deceit
Envy
Greed
Fear
Over-indulgence
Lust
Laziness
Correspondingly, we also have access to all the virtues, though one is especially potent in healing our primary passion. When embodied, the virtue displaces the passion with a form of love that restores balance. The virtues by type are:
Serenity
Humility
Truthfulness
Equanimity
Non-attachment
Courage
Sobriety
Innocence
Diligence
It is humbling to know that, even in adulthood, the unsettling feelings we experienced in our younger years can invade us yet again. However, in the spiritual life, we acknowledge the cause of these feelings and through prayer, study, and action, we are transformed.
Spiritual practice and self-inquiry: What passion has recently threatened to overtake you? Which virtue heals it?
Prayer:
Dear God, Help me remember—and embody—the truth that we all are golden. Amen.
