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.
