January 9, 2016 - Living Colors

Man makes all sorts of bizarre colors in his laboratories--blaring blues, unnatural purples, painful yellows, harrowing greens, exhausting reds, etc.  All day long our eyes are bombarded with these colors.  We see them on our computer screens, on television, magazine covers, and synthetic clothing.  We get used to them.  They seem normal.  When they’re almost unbearable, we call them “electric” or “florescent.”

Unbearable is right.  I wonder what people might have thought of such colors only a hundred years ago.  Then go back two hundred and three hundred and four hundred years.  What might the people have thought?  I’ll tell you what.  They’d have thought it was strange.  Unnatural.  Uncomfortable.  Weird.  Frightening.  Bizarre.  Untrustworthy.  Bad.  And on and on.

One second of one sunset out of several trillion.

I’m not sure the human eye was meant to be assaulted in such a way as is commonplace today.  Clearly we can “see” the colors, so our eyes are equipped to “digest” them, but that doesn’t mean we should bombard ourselves with them.  Our stomachs can digest some tree bark as well, but that doesn’t mean that we should have it for dinner every night.

But no matter what the manufacturers do, they can’t beat the true colors of nature.  Even when they photograph something and completely analyze the color and create a color in the lab “exactly” like nature’s color, it’s still not the same.  It’s just a dead color.  The secret nature has, that none of the manufacturers have figured out, is that all of her colors are alive.  They are living, breathing colors, and since they are living colors, they move.  They are fluid.  You might not catch the movement with your eyes, but your brain catches it.  Your brain knows if it’s the “real deal” or not.

Subtle, shifting, living colors that change.  They start, they grow, they climax, they decline--sometimes slowly, sometimes all in a few seconds.  We sit back even in this “modern” day and gasp--we gasp!--at the sheer beauty of nature’s colors, at their shifting, shimmering light.  Not a thousand lab-created colors could do what a single sunset does in the blink of eye.  We know it, and so do the manufacturers.  Perhaps that’s why they have gotten so “loud” with their announcements.

I just turn them off.  It’s best that way or you’ll miss the sunset.  Like a snowflake, no two are the same.

January 8, 2016 - Working Heaven

Out in the field, heaven has sprung yet another leak.  They called me immediately to go and take care of it because I’m their go-to person.  When paradise needs something done quickly, I’m always ready to take on the job.  This line of work isn’t easy.  You have to be ready at a moment’s notice.  Day or night, warm weather or dreadfully cold weather, it doesn’t matter.  You have to be ready and raring to go.  You have to be willing to travel quite a bit, and you’ve got to be quick and sure on your feet.

Most of all, you must engage in continuous and ongoing education.  Heaven is always finding new ways to sneak into the world, and it’s my job to find those ways and document them so I can keep up with the pattern.  After doing that, I then have to control the leak so that it has a smooth and slow entrance into the Earth instead a sudden splash that is over too quickly and goes unnoticed.  I’m often successful, although not always.  As I said, heaven is always finding new ways to sneak into the world.

Heaven has sprung yet another leak.

Part of my education is recognizing what comprises heaven.  That can be difficult.  I have yet to see angels with wings playing golden harps or blowing on golden trumpets.  I have yet to see pearly gates or the Elysian fields filled with people feasting and making merry or a diamond-studded Hall of Justice.  It doesn’t mean I won’t ever see these things; I just haven’t seen them yet.

What I usually look for in the beginning are the telltale signs of heaven.  Golden rays of sunshine filtering through all-encompassing darkness are usually a sure-fire sign of heaven.  Spectacular displays of waterfalls or waves frozen in midair are another definite sign.  Other signs include swift and furtive animals playing in the woods when they think no human can see them, fields swollen with ripened grains, buckets filled with fresh cow’s milk, birds of prey flying into the wind, and a vast and comforting silence.  These are only a few signs, of course.  There are countless signs, really, and they are growing daily.

Sometimes I’ll pass a small cabin that has long since seen its better days and I’ll see smoke curling out of the tiny chimney, and I’ll say to myself, “Yep, there’s heaven sneaking in again.”  Sometimes I’ll see a man walking down an empty road with a snow shovel slung over his shoulder, heading to a neighbor’s house to help out, and I’ll know that a bit of heaven has leaked yet again.  Other times I’ll see an animal that is dying from natural causes and an old farmer helps it to exit quickly, and I’ll think to myself that heaven has come to take back one of its children as mercifully as possible.  Sneaking around, yet again.

Because heaven can be anywhere at anytime, I must be ready at a moment’s notice to capture it in a photo, in my journal, or just in my memory.  Witnessing divinity is humbling, to say the least.  Documenting moments of sheer beauty or joy or abundance helps them to multiply.  It’s infectious by nature and incurable.  Finding the carriers sometimes involves real detective work, but it is a very satisfying job.  The pay leaves much to be desired, but the benefits are out of this world.

January 7, 2016 - Sun Love

SUN LOVE

Never let it be said, then

that the Sun does not love the Earth.

Even on her coldest days

when she will not see him

he protects her still

when she will not acknowledge him

he waits upon her still.

Painting the heavens as a gift

leaving rubies at her feet

guiding her through the empty void

shielding her from the nothingness

waiting for her to turn her face again

to the warmth of his embrace

one more time in an eternal dance

her smile worth a thousand lifetimes of effort.

January 6, 2016 - Home

It’s that haven, that feeling of safeness.  It’s the feeling of belonging, of being able to finally stop for a moment and rest.  It’s the unspoken knowledge of protection--protection from animals, protection from people, protection from the elements.  It’s the feeling of familiarity, comfort, and warmth.  It’s the feeling of being your true self.  This is mine.  This is my lair.  Unspoken words for the most part, of course, but vigilantly enforced nevertheless.

Home is where the heart is.

It’s imprinted on our hearts and minds, and it’s hot wired into our instincts.  The need for “home” is something every person can feel from birth onward.  It’s a desperate longing, and once gotten, it is fought for tooth and nail to preserve.  It really is our sovereign territory, the one place where we truly rule.  All other rules and laws in our society are automatically secondary to those we make for our own home.  This is an understanding we come to, and it’s very important to grasp this because this is where the idea of true freedom is born--in the idea of “home.”

When we are out and about in the “King’s Land,” our attitude and feelings are automatically different.  We don’t have to consciously adjust to the King’s rule; we do it automatically.  Here the law of the land prevails.  Here we are only one citizen among countless.  Here we are subjects.  But as soon as we cross the threshold of our own home--the very moment we step one foot across--everything changes.  Again, it’s automatic.  Now we are back in our own territory, and our thoughts, feelings, and actions adjust accordingly.  Now we are free to plan and be creative.  This is what “home” does.

The idea of “home” is much larger than any house could ever be.  It is a monumentally ingrained concept, and this is why every person is born with a deep yearning for a home, a deep yearning that ultimately equates with freedom.  It is an organized anarchy, the natural state of the human being.  It is our true nature, and our highly structured societies make the yearning that much stronger--to an almost unbearable point.  It’s the yearning for our own kingdom, our own line in the sand, our own freedom.  This is “home.”

January 5, 2016 - This is Ice!

Now comes the ice, the real bringer of winter.  The snow always gets so much attention.  Everyone talks about it--how deep it is, how much shoveling there is, which sports are played in it, who built a snowman, etc.  The news reports in winter are always full of photos of snowstorms and snow removal.

Meanwhile, the real culprit continues on virtually unnoticed.  First every stem of every tree or bush gets covered in a fine sheath of ice.  Layers of ice then form over the field--huge sheets that stretch for miles and miles, encasing the dead vegetation beneath it.  Then the streams and ponds quickly grow a layer of ice which solidifies all the way through in a very short time.  Then the rivers succumb and freeze over, and even the salty ocean gives way to giant bubbles or pancakes of ice that float along the shore.  Later, if the cold continues unabated, icebergs form in the coves and travel back and forth.

A world of ice.

But, of course, it snows again, which covers all the ice.  However, that does not mean the ice goes away.  It continues on unnoticed and unhindered.  New layers form of ice, snow, ice, and snow again.  The ice gets very heavy.  If it gets too heavy, branches and bows crack off the trees.  If it gets heavier still, smaller trees will snap right in half at mid trunk.  Roofs and power lines will become heavy with ice, causing breakage and fires.  Fences and locks become encased in ice and impossible to use.

The watering holes get harder and harder for the animals to find, and they have to search further and further in a season where there is not much to eat and, hence, not much energy to be had for searching.  The air grows very, very dry and rakes across the skin and inner nose and lungs.  Ice forms in eyelashes and brows, mustaches and beards.  Suddenly, the world is completely wrapped in a thick sheet of impenetrable ice.

This is winter!  This is ice!

January 4, 2016 - Making the Connection

There are those who say that things happen for a reason, that things fall into place the way they’re supposed to in order to fulfill a greater plan.  Then there are those who say that life is purely random, that things occur haphazardly and there is no plan at all.  Those in the former camp believe in destiny and fate.  Those in the latter camp believe in luck and coincidences.

Those in the former camp say that all of our hardships will one day make sense, that we need to go through them to ultimately arrive at a better place.  Then they launch into an explanation of how they would never have gotten to such-and-such a place if they hadn’t gone through certain (often difficult) circumstances that led them to take the action they took.  Those in the latter camp say that it only seems that way because “hindsight is 20/20,” and of course if we look back on things we can always see a path that wasn’t really there but seems to be there now because we’re looking through the maze backward.

Connecting the dots . . .

I believe that at a certain point, if we’re lucky, we make the connection, and this connection usually comes with age, if it comes at all.  Only age can give us the experience of walking down that same road over and over, which eventually endows us with the power of prediction if we’re paying attention.  Only age can give us that “aha moment” when we realize that the horrible thing that happened was, indeed, a blessing in disguise.  And only age can give us the ability to be grateful for our tragedies, to be patient in our losses because they, too, shall pass and in their wake something new will be born.

Every human being is born with the ability to make the connection, to see the hidden golden web that connects everything to everything else, but not every human being will understand that ability or hone that skill.  Many will complain bitterly at their fate, and many will wipe their brow at their narrow escape.  Only a few will make the bigger connection and see the web and its interrelatedness.

It begins when you realize that there are no coincidences in life.  It begins when you realize that two events that were so dramatically different from one another, that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with one another, were in fact two sides of the same coin and complementary in every way.  The timeline means nothing to the Great Alchemist.  Man’s measurement of events and their duration and intervals is unique to man, who has the need to be quantitative.  Those who make the connection begin to see that time is an illusion, and events on the timeline occur instantaneously and simultaneously.

The older we get the more we make the connection that there is absolutely no way whatsoever we could have gotten from point A to point B without the path having already been laid out.  The web works perfectly.

January 3, 2016 - Old Yggdrasil

OLD YGGDRASIL

Old Yggdrasil sits atop the hill

the eagle perched upon his bough

who sees all and knows all.

If there is new life, Yggdrasil knows it.

If there is death, Yggdrasil knows that, too.

Searching for the oath breakers . . .

The squirrel runs up and down

always busy, always talking

like mankind, he gossips.

He tells his lies to the great eagle

then down he runs to the worm, Níðhöggr

who slithers here and there

ever searching for the oath breakers.

He does not have far to look

and then devours them whole

but still they come, more and more.

Lovers who meet beneath

Yggdrasil in the night,

be sure your hearts are pure

or the eagle will know

and you will beg for Níðhöggr

before he finishes with you.

As Odin’s gallows

proudly still Yggdrasil stands

the horse of the hanged

where Odin gained his knowledge

of the words

where judgment is swift

and mercy is rare.

January 2, 2016 - Cat and Mouse

A truce has been reached--for now--as expected.  It will be broken, of course, as expected.  Rules are made to be broken, after all.  There’d be no point in having them unless we expected the opposite behavior.  In this case, the clouds have backed off, but not entirely.  They loom on the horizon, menacingly.  Soon they will rush back, reinforced and hungry for the fight.

The icy battlefield, drenched in the blood of the clouds, lay like a vast wasteland.  No one could guess the life that sprang forth bounteously on this very spot only a few months ago.  No one would believe it.  War does that to people.  It drives home the reality of the situation and replaces anything that came before it.  If the people remember a different time, they are not saying so.  They remain mute and fearful.

The Lord of Winter has regrouped at his base camp, but even now he sends out scouts to judge the strength of the enemy.  The Sun King is far too weak to engage in battle nonstop, and they both know it.  It has become a game of cat and mouse, and this is a game at which the Lord of Winter excels.  Brace yourself for another impact.  Perhaps this time he will drive the sun from us once and for all.

A game of chess.

January 1, 2016 - The Quest Continues

When it’s all said and done, I think we will find out that water has a great deal more power (magic) than we thought.  I have said this before, but it bears saying again.  Water is the hidden mystery.  If there is one thing that can show us the direct hand of the Great Alchemist, it is water.

Of the four powers--water, earth, air, and fire--water possesses three.  It is, first and foremost of course, water.  It is the element of liquid, and there is no need to expound upon its being of the realm of Water.  But with a temperature change, it becomes solid.  Now this is not just a façade of being “solid,” this is the real deal.  Ice has an ordered crystalline structure and is considered a mineral.  Water increases in volume when frozen due to hydrogen bonding.  These bonds form hexagonal crystals, and that is of the realm of Earth.

Caught in the act!

With yet another temperature change, the ice releases its mineral qualities and becomes gaseous, as you can see in the photo.  The ice was caught in the act of transmutation, and that has the Great Alchemist stamped all over it.  Suddenly the particles have become vastly separated, and now the water enters the realm of Air.  Now as elemental gas, the water is free to take on the qualities (and magic) of air.

The only realm it has no command over is the realm of Fire.  At least, not that we know of, although I am confident that one day we will see water has been entering that realm all along.  Until then, it is important to note that the realm of Fire directly affects water, allowing it to transmute to different realms.  Indeed, without the realm of Fire (temperature change), water would be imprisoned.  It is fire that gives rise to water.

They are really not opposites when you think about it, but complementary friends.  Without the fire, the water is imprisoned.  Without the water, the fire is ultimately destructive and consumes itself.  This is all greatly simplified, of course, and run through the biased lens of an eccentric writer.

What provides the electrical impulse to begin with?  This is one of the ongoing questions of In Pursuit of Maine, although it necessarily takes the background against the beauty of the great outdoors.  The impulse is hidden everywhere and is most likely to be found in nature in its simplest forms.  The simpler, the better.  The quest continues.