January 26, 2020 - January Thaw

In the January thaw, more than just the ice melts.  The people melt, too, and Pandora’s Jar is taken off the shelf, polished again, and peered into when no one is looking.  There is no fear of releasing any evil, since it has all long since been released, and the world is already rife with it.  There is, instead, the timid and secretive search for hope, the very last and only thing remaining in the jar.  But it is always done in secret because sacred things require silence.

What wisdom the ancients must have had to design a “myth” that matches our lives so perfectly.  For which one of us has not hung his or her head in shame or sorrow or utter defeat when the full burden of life falls upon our shoulders?  It is only hope that does not fly away from the jar.  Perhaps your jar has been frozen again this winter?  Open it quickly in this thaw, then, and you will find hope residing within.  But you already knew that.

It is not a trick.  It is real.  The ability to dare to hope for something better, something more solid, something more loving is, I think, what is best in mankind.  It is that ability to stare into the face of the abyss with not even the tiniest of candles to light the way and to say, “I will keep going.  I will keep trying.  There has to be something better out there for me.”  Faith is the substance of things not yet seen.

And woe to him who never opens the jar to search for hope or, even worse, has foolishly left the jar open and unattended and hope has slipped away forever.  There are also some—perhaps you know one?—who cannot access Pandora’s Jar at all or who cannot even fathom its existence.  Their number is legion, and even now, they seethe with jealousy over the alabaster jar.  It is one thing to not know of the jar’s existence, and that is bad enough, but it is quite another thing to know of it, to know it cannot be accessed, and to want to stop anyone who can access the jar from being able to do so.

Yes, their number is legion.  You can hear their howls in the night.

What is hope?  It is that tiny spark that cannot be doused, that tiny ray of sunshine shrouded in the soul.  It is the January thaw, the reminder that things were better and can be better again.  Come, you Angels of Hope.  We know what has been taken from us, but we also know that the Adversary can take as much as he likes and it does not matter.  He can take it all, but he will not hold it for long.  He can only lust after the sacred flame, but he cannot touch it because it will burn him to cinders.  No matter how or where he tries to imprison it or douse it, it will always come back to Pandora’s jar.

Hope springs eternal.

January 22, 2020 - Omega

His hand was reaching toward the door on the passenger side of the car.  Another hand from within the car was grasping his hand.  He stood patiently, erect, stoic, his hand firmly holding her shaking hand.  He did not reach down to help her out of the car because he knew she did not want that.  He offered stability only and let her handle herself in her own way, which she worked so hard at doing.  Her hand was shaking considerably, but his firm grasp did not let go, and his patient face never betrayed or acknowledged her difficulty. 

I continued on my way.  Had I witnessed any further, it would have been rude.  I knew eventually she would get out of the car of her own accord, firmly in his grasp but without any other help from him.  She would slowly walk to the store with him, and they would shop and do what they have always done.  It was a ritual, and rituals must be performed exactly or they lose their meaning.  This particular ritual had been performed for a very long time, and when done properly each time as it always was, it added to the Power.

This is winter.  This is what winter is.  This is what winter does, and it does not matter if a hand shakes from the cold or shakes from age.  The result is the same—a tremulous acknowledgement of an advancing situation that each of us must face.  Sometimes a hand will shake from violent emotion at the ending of a relationship—the winter of the liaison.  Sometimes a hand will shake from disease—the winter of the body.  But the hand always shakes in the winter.

There is a beauty to the ice and snow, a glinting surface of diamonds reflecting the tiniest light.  In any other situation at any other time of year, a tiny wisp of light would be lost and, indeed, never even known, having no surface upon which to reflect.  But winter knows how to find the tiniest of lights.  It knows how to reflect the gentlest and weakest of lights and turn them into brilliant diamonds of exquisite beauty.  Winter knows the glory of the end.

And there is glory in the end—in a job well done, a life well lived, a body braced in pain and determination, a love found and lost forever.  There is glory in moving forward proudly with one’s head held high, hands shaking.  There is a shining brilliance in the gathering of one’s dignity, even if it must be picked up piece by piece from a dirty floor.  There is a tiny, undying light in facing winter head on, a light that would be lost at any other time.  There is immortality in the steadfast courage of the one who faces winter squarely.  There is a hidden reward.

I am the Omega.  I am the last one standing.  I am the final warrior.  After me, the cycle starts all over again at the beginning, only to end once again in me.  I am the termination.  I am the gift at the end.

January 18, 2020 - Winter's Sorrow

Was it you?  Were you the one laying on the floor with your face pressed against the wooden hardness?  Your chin pressing down with more and more force, as if to break through the floor and find yet another level of endness to which you could sink?  Laying on the floor because there was nowhere else to go.  And was it you who said silently in the depths of your soul….I cannot fly, I cannot walk, I cannot even sit.  My legs cannot support me.  I am done for.  I cannot go on.  I cannot be here.  I am no more. 

Was it you who sunk to your knees?  But then that was not good enough.  It was not far enough.  It was not low enough.  There was still an element of the body left.  It gave the idea that maybe you could stand again if you needed to.  So then you pressed yourself to the floor?  And there you lay on the hardness and coldness, tears streaming from your eyes, salty wet warmth falling to the unyielding floor, tiny splashes of you landing on an ungrateful, unfeeling hardness.  I cannot do this.  I cannot.  I am done for this time.  I can go no further.  I can go no lower.  I am nothing.

And there was nothing.  Nothing that could help you.  No words that were spoken.  No gentle tap on your shoulder, no pat on your back.  You laid there—cold, empty, alone.  There was nothing.

And God damn it!  Why was there nothing?  Why was there never any help?  Why was there no hope?  Why was the world so mechanical and empty?  Why??  Why now, when more than ever you needed there to be someone or something out there?  Couldn’t just once—just once!—couldn’t there be an answer?  Why not?

The tears finally ended.  Was it you on the floor who was completely empty?  Your rage had left you icy and weak.  You could swear that if you closed your eyes, this time—this time—you would not open them again.  But instead you arose, sore and tired with swollen eyes and a head that felt as though it might be splitting.  Good, let it split, then!  But it did not.  It was time to get up again.

I am a machine.  I am made of wood with moving parts, oiled and painted and pretty, with strings and wheels and gears….

Outside it is cold, so very cold.  It is January in Maine, second only to the emptiness and coldness of February.  But I can wait for that.  First I must deal with January and her empty wolves who come to the door, boldly baring their teeth and trying to enter my tiny house.  The doors do not seem strong enough to keep them out.  Perhaps this is the year they will finally breach the hull and devour me.

It is a paradox.  I said that I loved the cold, and so it is true.  But can you read love in that?  Is there love in the coldness and the emptiness and the hungry wolves?  Is there love for you who lay on the floor in emptiness with salty tears, waiting for the sound or the touch that never seems to come?

We want the guarantee, the contract, the signature on the dotted line.  “You will give X amount of your soul, and in return you shall receive this purse filled with jewels.”  Let it be signed in blood!  Who cares if it is?  Who would argue with it?  But it is not to be.  There is no contract.  No signature.  Not even any blood.  There is nothing.

So how do we go on in life in the emptiness that is the January of our souls—which can occur at any time?  Shall I tell you the story of the seed?  But I have already done so, and here we find ourselves on the cold floor, surrounded by our salty frozen tears again.  What good did the seed do for us?  Was it all for nothing?

Outside in the breaks between the icy storms, the Sun rises weakly in the morning in an exquisite rosy glow that lasts only a few minutes.  And then the greyness swallows it up again, swallows it whole like a shiny goldfish in a dirty pond, searching for the last bit of oxygen.

But it was there.  I saw it, however briefly.  If you tell the truth, you know that you saw it, too.  And for all I know, that is what hope is, that is what the seed is.  That is the gentle hand under your chin that lifts your face upward ever so slightly and gives you the courage to look into eternity and say, “I am.”  That is the secret voice that whispers in your mind—the one you have longed to hear for all of time—“I am here.  I have come for you.  I told you I would never leave you.  I have come.  You are mine, and you are precious to me.  I have loved you since the beginning of time.  I will never abandon you.  Oh, how I love you.” 

The secret voice.  The secret hope.  No contract.  No signature.  No deal.  No guarantee.  You are on your own.  But you are off the floor now and the tears have abated.  And somewhere under all the ice outside, there are seeds.  And who knows?  Maybe there will be a spring after all and they will grow again and you along with them?  Do you think there is any chance of it?

January 12, 2020 - The Yellow Ribbon

There is an old cemetery not far from where I live.  No one goes there anymore, and it is not accepting new guests.  In fact, it has not accepted new members for a very, very long time with the newest grave being from the late 1800s and the oldest from the very early 1700s.  Here in Maine in the far north of New England, there is a lot of forgotten history.  Most Americans are taught that the first pilgrims came on the Mayflower in 1620, but perhaps their teachers were never told about the Popham Colony that came to New England in 1607 and settled in what is known today as Phippsburg, Maine.  No matter.  People will adopt the stories they choose.

But this is not a story about Phippsburg or colonists or quaint pilgrims—or who settled where first and never lived to see the rising sun.  It is a story about a yellow ribbon on a tree at an old forgotten cemetery in Maine.  You know the old custom?  A woman waits for her lover to return from far away—in place or mind or heart, it does not matter because distance is distance.  She displays a yellow ribbon so he will know that not only has she been faithful but she wants him back as well.  Thus, she begins her vigil.

Je sais que tu m'attends.

I have often wondered who ties the ribbon on the tree at the cemetery.  I have always hoped I might somehow catch her in the act.  Every now and then when the ribbon becomes too ragged, it will be removed and a new one will be set in its place, so I know she is out there with her ribbons.  She is waiting for his return.  Faithfully.  And I am waiting for her, just as faithfully.

What an odd place to carry out this ritual, though, a cemetery that has not been in use for well over 100 years.  Surely the man is now dead?  And the woman who waits for him, surely she is dead as well?  But the ribbon says no.  She has put it in a place where he is sure to see it.  Of course, you know this is how it must be done.  It would not do at all to place it where he cannot see it.  No, not at all, and I am quite certain the ribbon is in the perfect spot.  It is just a matter of time.  We must be patient.

If I could have begun my life at the beginning of my life, I might have saved myself a lot of time.  But this is not how the Universe works.  It took a long time for my eyes to fully open, and I am given to understand that I am quite lucky since the eyes of most people never open at all.  I had many lessons to learn, though, not the least of which is that true love anchors one soul to another soul throughout all of eternity.  In the end, I have been an unwilling but very good student.  But, oh, the time that was wasted . . .  We always have plenty of time to do it all, until we find we have not a moment left to waste.

Now that I am older and have long since passed the halfway mark on the road of life, all the pomp and circumstance seems to have faded away.  It was just faerie glamor anyhow.  The road is as stark as ever it was, only now I can see it for what it is instead of being distracted by the merchant’s shiny baubles and Caesar’s golden counting house.  I used to run from the emptiness and plainness and hard work of it all.  Now I find it gives me great comfort to continue on that seemingly bleak path and to know the truth.

Which does set one free, after all.  Things have ended up being much simpler than I thought they would have.  Above all, patience is the key to unlock almost anything.  Pushing, pulling, ranting, raving, lying, dishonesty, and betrayal—these are all for the once-borns.  Thankfully, that is not my path and never was. 

So when the twilight comes on certain days, I will quietly leave my house in a semi-trance and walk down to the old cemetery.  I will remove the worn old yellow ribbon and put a new one in its place, as I have always done, because I know he will see it.  Even now he sees it, because death has never stopped love before, not in all the history of the world has it been able to do that.  And he is not a once-born either.  As eagerly as I hang the ribbon, so too has he searched for it.  Patience is Power.  The ritual stands.

January 4, 2020 - Crystalline

If you are going into battle, you might as well saddle up and head straight in without waiting and without any excuses.  The fight is going to come to you anyway.  Meet it with intention and fire in your eyes.  That is the way I look at it, but then, I have never been afraid of a fight.  I might not win every battle, but I do not lose them either.

The land is frozen now, and the ice is beginning to grow.  The snow is nothing—that, I can cope with.  It is the ever-advancing, ever-growing ice that makes Maine a difficult place to live in winter.  I find the challenge to be stimulating.  So then, no games, right?  I head straight out into the cold and snow, looking for Him.  I know He is there.  I am not afraid.

But that is the warm fire talking.  It is easy to be unafraid when you are sitting before a warm fire, a hot toddy at hand, with a flickering candle and a steady oil lamp to light your dreams and watch them dance upon the walls.  Then, life is simple and life is good.  Then, we sit back and smile at our foresight at having planned for the cold winter.  Then, we are brave.

It is quite another thing to head right out into the thick of it.  But if you must meet with the Lord of Winter, that is the only way to do it.  And we all have to do it at some point.  So then, as I said, I set out to find Him.  Walking and climbing through the woods can be taxing in summer, but it is downright dangerous in winter.  Good.  The more danger, the better.  This is a New Year, after all, and I told you the mask is now off.

But….I could have sworn I passed that stand of trees before, and that rock overhang with the razor-sharp icicles, surely I passed that, too?  And are those not my own footprints I see ahead of me?  Ah, yes, the uncertainty of it all.  That at least is familiar.  Come for me, Fear.  Sink slowly into my mind and whisper your poison.  Tell me, old adversary, how wrong am I.  Fill my mind with visions of terror.  Dissolve my strength.  Tear down my defenses.  Leave me vulnerable and open.  Presently, Fear obliges me.

And then I know.  I can feel Him.  I know He is there.  Will He show himself this time?  I think He will.

“It is the crystalline perfection of the ice that I so love,” He says behind me.  I do not turn around.  Not yet.  I say nothing, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up because I know He has come closer.

“It is so like to the mineral kingdom I love deep in the Underworld,” He continues.  “There I find perfection and exactness.  There I find structure and regimented beauty.  There I find pristine immobility, perfection carved in stone, in crystal, in the cellular structure of my perfect minerals.”  Still I say nothing.

“There I find darkness,” He says, “Uncorrupted by Light.  There I find perfect mathematical formulas, everything crystalline and exact, everything intact, everything immortal.”

“Immortal?” I say, because I can no longer keep my silence.  I turn around to find Him smiling.  He is as I remembered Him, a hardened warrior, angular, fair, almost ice-like Himself.

“Death cannot touch my world,” He says simply.

“Are you mad??” I blurt out.  “Your world IS death!”

“And yet, when you are gone, I and my world will still be here,” he says.  “But just look at you:  Blood, fluid, waste, constant craving, constant need, constant hunger.”

Now I am angry.  It was the same old story, over and over.  But as I told you, I came ready to fight.  I smile at Him, taking a step backward all the same.

“You have just miscalculated,” I say.

“Oh?  How so?”  His amusement buys me time.

“The plant that grows from the seed,” I begin, “You remember the seed, right?  That tiny bit of God-like magic that you cannot duplicate in your crystal world?  The plant grows and reaches far into the Earth, pulling up the lifeless, immobile minerals and incorporating them into its structure.  I eat the plant or I eat an animal that has eaten the plant, and now that which was dead, immobile, crystalline—now it comes to life in the body of the filthy living.  You know?  The blood, fluid, and waste that you spoke of?  Now the lifeless minerals become animate and breathe and dance within me.  How am I possible?”

That was a direct hit.  His mouth is lined with anger, and He stands up.  He is taller than I remembered.  Imposing.  I back up a few more steps.

“You will someday return to me every single thing you have taken,” He says.  “I can wait.  I have time.  But just look at you.  I think the sands in the hourglass go ‘pit pat, pit pat’ and will come to an end all too soon.”

Does He know He has miscalculated?  Or is He playing a game?  Is it all just a trap?

“Return every bit?” I ask, mockingly.  “It will have my essence in it.  You are within me now.  I have consumed you.”

“And I told you, I will extract every piece from you.”

“You mean you will consume me?  Devour me?  Incorporate me?  Possess me?  Own me? Become me?” I ask, mocking further.  It is a dangerous game I play.  “Do you lust after me?  Your desire sounds a great deal like LIFE to me.”

“And your ultimate decomposition back to crystalline structures,” He counters icily, “Sounds a great deal like DEATH to me.”

I continue to back up, realizing that I may have gone too far, but He does not follow.  He stands tall and sure, smirking at me.  He is right.  Time is on His side, and the sands in my hourglass do continue to fall steadily through, the supply dwindling.

Life reaches into death and pulls it up into the land of the living.  Death reaches into life and retakes its primal substance.  Back and forth they go, swinging like a pendulum.  Now I am alive.  Now I am dead.  High up in the sky, the old crow flies and watches us as we talk, two sides of the same coin.

It is winter, and death is all around us.  The raw material is right before our eyes.  We need not reach deep into the Earth to find it because we are surrounded by it if we know how to see.  Now is the time to tap into the Earth cycle, into the subconscious mind, into the perennial heart.  Life is filthy, dirty, impure.  It grows and swells and bursts and lusts.  Death is orderly and structured and calculable.  Neither can exist without the other.  The old crow knows this.  He flies high above as he watches me retrace my steps back home.

The first thing has to be desire, though.  It has to be lust.  A longing for the other.