February 21, 2020 - The Door

There’s an old woman who lives not too far from me.  She is very old.  I am not young, and even by my standards, she is very old.  I have only seen her once.  It was last spring when she was cleaning up some old leaves from her garden.  I stopped my car suddenly because in all these years, I had never seen her before.  I have seen her presence, but I have never seen her in the flesh.  Instinctively, even though her back was turned, she knew I was watching her.  She turned and looked at me with the strangest look I have ever seen, and then she went back to her work.  That was the first time I ever saw her.  It was the last time, too, I’m quite certain of it.

But her presence is everywhere.  You won’t know it from this winter photo, but she has the most hodge-podge, mismatched, labyrinth of a garden I have ever seen.  Yes, I have sneaked up in the twilight hours and investigated.  In the season of life, it grows over immensely.  There are secret passageways everywhere and odd little ornaments peeking out from the strangest of places.  There are things that don’t belong in gardens at all, but somehow they are right at home in her garden.  There are odd lights, too.  Not of the solar variety that is common, but of the will-o’-the-wisp variety, the kind that twinkles and shimmers here and there, beckoning the unsuspecting traveler, tricking the lonely wanderer, enchanting the solitary lover.

There is this feeling, this strange feeling that if you were to enter her garden, it might be hard to find your way out again.  Yet you feel compelled, called as it were.  To compound it all, a few years ago she added an old wooden door with the number 58 on it.  That is not her house number, just the number of the door leaning against the crooked tree.  As the seasons and holidays come and go, she adds and takes away silly decorations from the door.  It’s as if she thinks the door is inside her house and not propped up against a frozen tree outside.  No, she’s not crazy.  Well, no crazier than me.  And yes, I know how that sounds.

But, you see, there’s a problem, and that would be me.  I have this almost uncontrollable urge to walk up to the door, open it, and go right through.  “But you’ll hit the tree head on!” you say.  No, I don’t think I will.  It all depends on what you expect to find on the other side and what you expect out of the door itself.

Because doors have a meaning!  They are entries and exits.  They keep things in and they keep things out.  They close things off.  They partition and hide things.  They act as transitions from one place to another.  And just because you yank them out of their traditional spots and place them haphazardly elsewhere does not mean that their inherent function changes.  If I took a teacup out of my cupboard and placed it on a ski lift, it would still be a teacup and would function as a delivery device for hot tea, as always.

“For heaven’s sake!  It’s just a decoration!” you say.  The hell it is.  It’s a door, and by its inherent nature that means I am on one side of it only.  You can’t be on both sides of a door at the same time.  It’s one or the other, and I have a sneaking suspicion I’m on the tedious side.

The ancients had special gods for doorways that were called liminal deities.  These gods ruled over boundaries, doors, and thresholds.  Yes, these things were considered so important that they had their own deities.  The ancients knew that when you crossed from one side to another side, something magical occurred.  There is the crossing from life to death (and back again), the crossing from one season to another, and the start of a new path that lies on the other side of the door. 

The door is the dividing factor from one world to another.  This is why traditionally a groom would carry his bride across the threshold.  He took her from one life and brought her into another.  Her feet were not to touch the threshold or the spell would be broken.  He changed her and transformed her by carrying her across, and then she in turn built a new home and transformed him.  Crossing the threshold of an open door represents the beginning of a new choice, a new life, a new idea.

The old woman knows what she’s doing by placing it there.  She’s issuing a challenge.  We country folk are an odd sort, I’ll grant you that, but we know a provocation when we see one.  We know when we’re being tested.  I’m not the only one who stares at the door, either.  I have seen others doing it as well.  Some of them looked quite vexed.  Cowards.  Someday I’m going to walk right up to that old woman’s door, open it up, and walk straight through.  I highly doubt I’ll be back on this side of it again when I do.  It’s a prearranged agreement with the god who sits upon the threshold and bides his time.  That’s the one thing gods have an overabundance of:  Time.  The rest of us have to keep on walking through the endless doorways.

February 15, 2020 - Magic Mirror

Bony white fingers reach out from every direction.  It is a natural thing that the cold should court the warmth and the warmth should secretly desire the cold, although there are times when the pull is balanced and times when it is dangerously askew.  Most people live in times of balance and seek to stay in balance only.  Me?  I seek the raging imbalance.  I seek the storm.  I seek the hidden hardship.  I embrace the coldness of steel.  I am the lover of the Ice King.

Because I can balance it in my mind.  I can take what I see, conjure it in my mind, and then cast a balance upon it from my imagination.  I will add a touch here and take away a touch there.  Like an artist, I will paint my heart’s desire on the canvas of the mind.  When properly done, the result is growth and pure delight.  When not so properly done, I hang dangerously from a tiny branch suspended over a high cliff with razor-sharp, jagged rocks below me.  But it reminds me that I’m still alive.  It encourages me to work harder.

Looking at the results in our life is like looking in a mirror.  All you see is the sum total of what you have done so far.  To be sure, it is an excellent guide to show us what we did right and what we could have done better, but if it is mistaken for reality instead of a reflection of the past only, then it becomes dangerous.  To mistake effect for cause is a crime you commit against your soul.  To worship effect as if it were primary instead of secondary (thereby ignoring cause altogether) is to give away your godliness.  And the merchant is only too happy to greedily snatch it from you.

If you look in the mirror and see its reflection as solid reality, then you are a slave.  If you look in the mirror and see it as a current measurement only, then there is hope for you.  To look in the mirror is one thing, but to continually sneak back and look in the mirror is to be slavish to your past, which the mirror reflects perfectly.  But there is something else more terrible at play here, because if you continually use the mirror as a crutch instead of a tool, you begin to unconsciously conjure the identical results in your mind.  Instead of seeing what you do, you start doing what you see.

You become stuck.  You cannot move.  You see your reflection and then you reflect what you see.  It is a trap because you will continue to live and move and have your being, but you will do it unconsciously instead of purposely, mistaking the mirror for your mind, and God help you when you see the unintended results finally reflected.

Surely you remember the lesson from Snow White?

“Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

“My Queen, you are the fairest of them all.”

“Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

“Famed is thy beauty, Majesty.  But hold, a lovely maid I see.  Rags cannot hide her gentle grace.  Alas, she is more fair than thee.”

The Queen had no future because she was stuck in a perpetual past.  La-la-la-la-la-la-la forever and ever on one note only.  She mistook her reflection for herself and sought to continually keep that delicate balance, to continually be what she had been and not what she was at the moment or could have been.  In order to be successful, she needed to leave the mirror, but as I said of mirrors, she was enslaved.  There would be no conjuring in her mind of what she wanted to be, only acknowledgement of an old, tarnished image.

These bony white fingers reach out all around us as we continue to walk through the Season of Death.  They seek to remind us that all things die, and there is beauty in that.  There is beauty in the end because only the mind can conjure anew, and it knows that the Omega is also the Alpha, that the spinning yin and yang never cease, that what was old is new and what was new is old.  Our eyes can only see the culmination of the past.  They cannot see the fruit of the future.  That is for the heart and mind only.  Leave the mirror.  Give up being a slave to the past and become the master builder of your destiny.

February 9, 2020 - February Storm

Then came a storm, as storms are wont to do.  They wait for you to think they are gone, to think that you are safe, to think that warmer and softer times are here.  They wait for you to let your guard down.  They wait for an opportunity to slip inside.  Behind each corner they peer, sniffing the air, looking for a sign of weakness.  And when you are at your weakest, when your attention is placed elsewhere, the storm unleashes its wrath.  This is Holy Fury!  This is February.  This is the time that tries our souls.

The storm came after the sweetness of the January thaw.  When we had all smiled and raised a glass together, the storm crept in, waiting for its chance.  In the dark of the night, He came riding in on a horse still darker, with all the fury of the Underworld at His command.  With hands as hard as steel and eyes as cold as ice, He laid the countryside to waste.  He destroyed everything in His path.

It is not unlike the storms that steal into our minds, those we endure silently, those we think no one else knows anything about.  For who would admit to it?  Who would admit that as they sit in a silent and darkened room, the storm creeps upon them?  Though you try to protect your mind and your heart, though you try to pull a shawl closer about you for warmth, He creeps inside.  Then the dark cloud descends upon you, and all semblance of happiness and decency and love seem to leave you.  The storm takes hold.  The gut-wrenching sorrow.  The darkness that comes upon us all from time to time.  And he whispers, “You are nothing….you are nothing…..I am your destroyer….I consume you….” 

And you run from the room screaming with your hands tightly covering your ears.  No more!  I will not listen!  Please, God, no more….take this storm….make it go away….  Somehow you find yourself on your knees, and how long have you been there?  How long have you knelt in abject disgrace?  It’s hard to tell.  But this is the storm.  This is what it does.  This is the February of our lives, and no one escapes it.  No one.  Do not purport to tell me that you have slipped through the cracks.  You have not.

Then the morning finally comes, as it somehow always does.  It always does.  The sun shines brilliantly upon the field.  I look fearfully outdoors, wondering if I am really still alive.  And lo!  I am met with stunning brilliance!  The world is covered in ice that shimmers like a million diamonds!  Every tree, every bush, every rock is covered in ice that shines like the sun itself.  How can this be?  I ask myself, how can beauty ever exist again after such darkness?  How is it possible?  I reach out and He places an icy diamond on my finger.  I am the Bride of the Underworld.

Yet I cannot help but feel betrayed.  I ask the storm, why did you push me to the limit and beyond?  Why did you destroy my world?  Why did you annihilate all semblance of goodness and calmness and decency?  Why?  Why do it?  What is the purpose?  What are you gaining?  And he responds, “Foolish girl.  There is nothing under this sun—nothing!—that does not exist without express permission.  There is nothing that is apart from the whole.  There is nothing outside of me.  I am the razor-sharp ice that cuts like a sword.  I am the brilliant sunshine.  I am the murderous darkness.  I am everywhere.  I am everything.”

February 2, 2020 - Oimelc

Out in the fields, there is an old woman with a basin.  The occasional passerby pays her no mind.  If they see her at all, they write her off as just an old drudge out in a half-frozen field.  If they think of her at all, they most likely think she’s a bit odd, to put it kindly.  Off her rocker, they might say.  And in truth, we do have quite a number of odd people here in Maine, and we like it that way.  But I know what she is doing, and I will tell you this:  She knows exactly what she is up to, and it is a good thing, too, because someone must still do it.

She walks among the semi-frozen furrows, looking for the best spots, and when she finds them, she begins to pour the liquid from her basin here and there.  It might be hard to spot because the liquid is milk, and it is the same color as the snow.  It is a rich and deep and warm and heady kind of milk.  It is the kind that feels thick on the tongue, the kind that coats the mouth with a heavy sweetness and a slightly oily thickness.  The kind that leaves its fragrance long after it is swallowed, warming and feeding the human condition.

And on the field it goes.  She pours and pours the milk.  At first it sits on the surface, and then it slowly sinks in here and there.  She smiles when she sees it, and she whispers a little prayer.  What are the words to the prayer, you ask?  Well, it is a prayer of fertility, a prayer of bounty, a prayer of abundance.  It is an offering, a gift, a trade.  Take this hard-won milk, the first of the lambs coming into season, and drink.  From the Earth it came, and to the Earth it goes.  And bless the seeds below the surface, frozen and eagerly waiting for a kiss from the Sun.  Let the milk mingle with their expectation.  All of the world is in a constant embrace of revival and reenactment.

Far beneath the surface, the white drops of sweetness fall, and their drip-drip-dripping plays a melody in the Underworld.  Persephone raises her head from her sweet slumber.  What is that irresistible sound?  What is that hypnotizing fragrance?  What are these deep and satisfied sighs I hear?  I have a memory . . . and I must bring it to fruition again.

The old woman calls it Oimelc.  You call her crazy.  I call her mother.  Persephone calls her sister.  There is a good deal of winter left still, but the milk is on the fields now, and it is just a matter of time.  She cannot be stopped.  Surely you are aware?  Surely you remember?  Fecundity is her handicraft.  This we know.

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.