August 29, 2016 - The Scent of Change

The Sun King is still flying high in the sky and has not noticed that something has changed.  The brilliance of his own ways often blind him, but this is the nature of the sun.  Every day he and his court dance happily across the sky, and the merriment can be heard and felt all around.  His subjects bask in his golden light, and who can blame them?  The energy is nearly irresistible.

But down in the forest under the canopy of leaves, the drumbeat has already begun.  I have been hearing the pulse for a while now.  Sometimes it’s more of a feeling than a hearing, but maybe that’s because it takes place as much within as without.  In walking by a tree, I wondered if it didn’t look just a bit different.  Those leaves didn’t look quite so green.  Or maybe it wasn’t that.  They were green but they were something else, too.  Or maybe it’s because the hermit thrush cannot be heard anymore.  I’ve searched for him in vain.  Or maybe it’s a slightly different scent to the morning air.  Whatever it is, if you have to ask yourself if something has changed, then something has changed.

The signs continue beneath the canopy, unnoticed once again.  But the squirrels know and have spread the news to all the other animals.  The hermit thrush always listens; the deer, not so much.  Yet the drums will grow louder, and soon they will all have to listen.  The old oaks are smart, though, and they don’t need the warnings from the squirrels.  They already have their own knowing, and they have begun to drop their acorns, which can be heard everywhere as they loudly crash to the forest floor.  Woe to anyone directly beneath them.  Sometimes it is like an obstacle course.

Steadily, the drums beat—at first so faintly.  There is a certain rhythm to them, and this rhythm is known by those who cannot gaze directly at the sun.  Every night, the beat grows a bit louder and a bit longer.  Somewhere deep in the Earth, a secret meeting is taking place.  Already, I can hear the hoof beats of the horses as they nervously paw the ground in anticipation.

August 26, 2016 - The Word

What sets us apart from the animals is our thoughts, I think.  I have always believed this, but there is a missing piece.  What good does it do us or any other creature to have thoughts without being able to share them?  A thought that cannot be expressed (if desired) is a closed circuit.  The voltage may circulate perfectly when applied, and that certainly indicates safety, but that’s now how life works.  Life is governed by the Law of Growth, and no man may escape it on any plane.  But something more was needed for the separation of man from the animals.

A catalyst.

And then came the Word.  The thought—ethereal, invisible, weightless—becomes clothed.  Now the power that was once in the closed circuit receives a garment that wraps around it and creates a form, still ethereal but with a measurable existence.  Words are the clothing of thoughts.  They define and explain and express thoughts.  With the word, the closed circuit is broken.  What existed on a spiritual plane only now arrives on the physical plane, although its nature is still transient.

The next layer added is sound.  And now the thought has motion through the word, which sails on the waves of sound.  It can travel on these waves, which we cannot see, but make no mistake that they are there and very real.  The waves carry the now clothed thought.  This new added dimension can garner attention from others, and with sound the thought can travel from one mind to another.  The more minds the thought can reach, the more places on the spiritual plane it can inhabit simultaneously.  Never believe that something cannot be in more than one place at the same time.  The energy I’m talking about is not limited by the physical plane.

Yet another layer is added, that of the word being written.  Now the thought has become concrete.  It has solid form that exists on paper or screen or rock, etc.  The once invisible thing of which only one mind could conceive now has physical form.  Now it can travel over great distances—across the globe electronically or carried in the pocket of a traveler.  We now have the first true solidity—from nothing, something.  Now more minds can be reached, and the spiritual plane of the thought grows exponentially.  The more minds that contain the thought, the more powerful it becomes.

And finally, if it was the original goal of the thought in the first place, the written and spoken word takes a further concrete form.  The idea, the description, the discussion is fashioned and takes on a physical existence of its own, subject completely now to the physical plane.  There is not one thing in the world of man—not one thing—that exists which was not first a thought in the mind of someone.  Whether it is a tool or an article of clothing or a building or a car, it first had its origin in the invisible unmanifest.  Everything first had to be conceived in a realm completely separate from the physical world.

It is in this way that the origin of everything first occurs on a nonphysical (spiritual, if you will) plane.  Without a spiritual beginning, there can be no physical.  This, then, shows the importance of the Word—and this astronomical importance cannot be overstated.  It is the Word and man’s ability to harness it that transforms man from an animal into a Creator with abilities that mimic his own Creator but on a lower level, the difference being one of degree only.

It is how the unmanifest becomes manifest.  That man himself was at one point just a thought in the mind of the Great Alchemist should be evident.  There is nothing in the whole of creation that was not first a thought.  Out of nothing, something--on Earth as it is in heaven.

August 15, 2016 - The Transformers

The transformers are busy now, working nonstop and furiously.  They reach their arms out toward the Sun in a fiery embrace that might burn more delicate characters, such as yours and mine.  We certainly couldn’t fly into that flame, and yet the grasses and the weeds and other plants do it almost offhandedly.  For as mighty as we might imagine ourselves to be, we cannot approach the ultimate source of power in this solar system but must receive its blessings secondarily.

The transformers hard at work.

It is the transformers that have the honor of meeting with the King.  They dance a secret dance we cannot know about, with music we cannot hear and caresses we dare not even think of.  To think of such things would be death to our kind.  Surely, we would burn.  No, we cannot take in the fiery energy of the Sun.  We cannot transform it from active energy back into passive, potential energy.  We cannot store the source of life the way they can.

But we can steal it, and steal it, we do.  We must approach the great fire in the sky through the transformers.  It is through them—through the consumption of them—that we may partake of life’s energy.  Yet we have our own gift.  We know how to open the secret box where the transformers hide the energy.  We know how to release the power and burn it up.  We know how to use the energy of the Sun to sustain our own bodies.  We know how to manifest potentiality into actuality.

The animals know this, too.  They also cannot have an intimate relationship with the Sun God as the transformers do.  Like us, they must steal the energy after it has been transformed and then unlock it, making it into something they can use, something they can be.  But they complicate the cycle.  Through them, we are introduced to yet another stored form of the King, now twice removed.  The passageways are different, but the prize is the same.  We know how to unlock their secret box as well, freeing the energy for ourselves, continuing life.

Can you see the magic?

The Sun is the ultimate source of power in this solar system, and it powers everything.  Absolutely everything.  There is nothing living in this world that has not in one way or another learned how to incorporate this power.  We are stardust, after all, just branches on a golden tree.  The Great Alchemist is unconcerned with the ingredients, as all roads lead to the Sorcerer’s Stone.

August 8, 2016 - Panem Et Circenses

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that there was a certain rhythm to life, one that was reliable and could be counted upon to show up faithfully, to guide us on worthwhile paths.  I’d see the tides come in and go out and come in again, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say that they were following some greater cycle.  I’d say that they were experiencing a pull and a push and a pull again, and I’d wonder what else was feeling that constant pull and push.

If I didn't know better, I'd see patterns everywhere . . .

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the many opposites I see and feel have a meaningful purpose in my life.  I’d compare the heat of the summer to the cold of the winter, feeling that push and pull again, and I’d wonder about the middle ground.  I’d see the brilliance of the day and the intrigue of the night, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say the two might mirror my own states of consciousness—the clarity of the objective and the delicious cloaking of the subjective.  I’d wonder if there were some sort of connection between the patterns of the day and night and the patterns of my knowledge and my intuition.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Mother Nature was farming the Earth during the fall as well as the animals during the rut.  I’d see the lifeless seeds tossed about haphazardly, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a deliberate method to the chaos and mad abandon of the proliferation of life.  I’d marvel at the seeds having landed upon a fertile field, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say the fields of the Earth and of the female animals were ploughed by an unseen hand.  I’d wonder about my own plans, my own ideas as seeds, and if there were some sort of connection in the planting of them.  I’d wonder if I were a farmer, after all.

If I didn’t know better, I’d see the animation of life and the disintegration of death as two sides of the same coin.  I’d watch the deer graze and the eagles dive for fish and the people eat their dinner, and I’d wonder which side of the coin I were witnessing.  I’d toss that shiny penny high into the air, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that it would land heads and tails both up at the same time, depending upon how I wanted to see it.  I’d see the existence and the nonexistence of all things simultaneously, each alive and dead at the same time.  And I’d wonder about the mirage of difference.

Thank goodness there are so many rules and regulations in our society to help us figure it all out.  Otherwise, we might be seeing things we shouldn’t, things that surely aren’t there, things that are the talk of conspiracy theories in dark, smoke-filled rooms.  It would all be so confusing.  Thank heavens for rational thought and a ready-made list of rules to follow.  Otherwise, there’s no telling what kind of mischief we might get up to upon witnessing the familiar patterns of the natural world and feeling their rhythm in our own bones.  Thank goodness we can rejoice in our obvious removal from the messiness of the living world.

Or maybe we do know about it, after all, and that’s why the noise and the distractions around us are so loud and garish and all-consuming.  Whir-whir-whir goes the flying machine in the sky, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with bread and circuses for all.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.

August 1, 2016 - Bethiah Curtis

There’s a rickety old wooden gate in the front of the common burying ground and an ancient old stone wall in the back.  The gate goes “clap clap clap!” in the wind, and the old rope fastener flies this way and that, trying to catch the gate post while it sails back and forth in the relentless wind on the coast.  At night the old boneyard keeper comes out and locks the rope gate quietly.  He slips the old boat rope around the post and looks around furtively to make sure he isn’t being watched.  But he is being watched.  I watch him from behind a tree sometimes.  He doesn’t know I’m there, but then again, he does know.  So he keeps looking around.

Bethiah Curtis, in residence.

Mrs. Bethiah Curtis is there, too, and she also watches the boneyard keeper.  The wife of David Curtis, she was born 314 years ago but doesn’t look a day over 25.  Come to think of it, none of the residents in the village of stones look their age.  Only the old boneyard keeper does.  His back is stiff and bent and looks a bit like one of the forgotten stones in the back, crooked and worn away.  Funny how the living keep aging, but the dead are chiseled perfectly in stone.

She knows I watch him from behind the tree.  She has seen me there before.  Not far from where she rests is the old pastor himself, the man who built the church and commissioned the boneyard.  The old keeper is a direct descendant of him; he told me so himself once when I was wandering around during the day.  He has the eyes of another; they are not his own.  I can see the old pastor in him.  Bethiah sees the old pastor in him, too.  In any event, the keeper certainly belongs here.  I’m the only stranger.

Bethiah rests in a country built long after she died.  There’s a woman from that new country who walks in the village of stones, taking photos as she pleases.  Bethiah doesn’t know what a photo is, but she knows that the woman writes stories about the old residents of the boneyard because sometimes the woman comes and tells them the stories.  Sometimes she chats up the old keeper and has a look at the old historical papers of the town, hidden in a vault in the old meetinghouse.  She’s a bit odd, the woman is, and comes and goes on a whim—for now.  One day she may finally earn her keep, chiseled in stone.

July 28, 2016 - Painted Linen

Walking lonely shores, I wonder how I could have found it so desolate at one time.  With searing sun burning skin and grass and trees, then rain as gray and cold as death, how could I have been so blind?  With salty ocean tears rusting and destroying all in their path, then spiky shells as sharp as razor blades drawing blood in the sand, how could I have been so foolish?  With barren land awash with clay, cracking in the summer’s heat, then strangling vines and broken trees and fetid swamps, how could I have been so frightened?

The Artist's brush . . .

My youth was misspent in pursuing glimpses of brilliant flowers and fairy castles, searching for the sweetest fruits; in vainly commanding my environment, to the detriment of my soul; in wandering in search of beauty, blinded by my own inexperience and lack of knowledge.  My eyes saw nothing but what my pride told them to seek; and shunned the discarded feathers of the free and tired bird.

But the Artist paints me still, and sky and sea and land, with a brush much older, much used, and now much loved, at last.  Stroking brilliant colors or bland and grey and terrible; it matters not.  The beauty is divinely given, equal portions to all (or not), known only to the few.  The patterns in the sky match the many roads my soul has taken, grateful at last for a pittance, tasting as sweet as the most delicate of fruits.  Indeed, much sweeter for the hard and weary earning.

How could I have been so blind?  My eyes were not old enough, but when they finally ripened, my heart and soul leapt on to the canvas of the Artist, still wet and changing, dripping into fairy castles, and blended with the many colors there, home at last, a part of the precious painted linen.

July 24, 2016 - The Blueprint

THE BLUEPRINT

It has always been hiding in plain sight

all around me

the answer has been everywhere

written in the veins of every leaf

carried in the scent of every flower

whispered on the wind

formed in the clouds

beauty, love, and the continuity of life

the blueprint has always been there

the plan has been set before my eyes

placed before I was born

the Great Alchemist as architect

the plans perfect and simple

each piece mirroring the other in harmony

the directions clear and plain

written for a child

the formula exact

but if done otherwise

the foundation crumbles

every time

then construction begins anew

the tower reaching for the heavens

the architect is wise

and patient

the plans are perfect

July 20, 2016 - Dark Conversations

I headed to the cemetery again to experience life.  That’s where I go when I need a full dose of it.  There’s no other thing in this world that will remind us so much of life than death itself.  In the cemetery, there are no lies.  There are no glossy advertisements or sexual distractions.  There is no amusement, no food, and no shopping.  There are only the cold stony reminders of life once lived and now passed.

I was in a section of graves from the 1800s—a newer section for this graveyard—when I came across a remarkable man.  He was dressed in a grey suit with a black hat and black shoes.  He carried a black umbrella.  I was surprised to see anyone in this section because I’ve never seen anyone there before.  Most people don’t visit graves that are 150 years old.  We made eye contact and I quickly looked away, not knowing if eye contact was appropriate among the dead.  Certainly, it’s rarely even appropriate among the living.

Ready to talk.

He headed straight toward me before I could leave, and since he looked harmless enough, I stayed.  He tipped his hat and greeted me.

“So you are back again!” he said.  I felt a bit awkward.  Had he been spying on me?  Had he seen me in this section before?  Did he know that I come here often?

“Well, I . . .” I stuttered.

“Yes, yes, and yes!” he said.  “I have been spying on you.  I have seen you in this section before.  And I do know that you come here often.”

“You might be thinking of someone else.”

“Oh, no.  It was you,” he said, “I never forget a face.”

“Who are you?” I asked, backing up a couple of paces.

“Oh, don’t mind me!  I’m the groundskeeper here.”

Of course, I didn’t believe him for one minute, not with those dapper clothes.  Yet I found myself unwilling to leave.

“Well, you’ve done a fine job,” I said.

“Thank you!  And when I said ‘spying,’ I just meant that it’s my job to know what goes on around here, so please don’t be alarmed.  I love having guests!”

“Not many people visit a graveyard,” I began, but he cut me off with his exuberance.

“And more’s the pity for that!  There’s so much to do and learn here!”

“I guess.”

“Well surely that’s why you come, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Mainly, I just come for the peace.”

“Right you are!” he said.  “Eternal peace!  Now, let me show you a few things here.”

So we began to walk around a bit with him pointing out various graves and grand crypts.

“Now you take this fellow here,” he said.  “He was a Revolutionary War hero!”

“Was he?” I asked, interested in spite of the odd conversation.  “What was he like?”

“Oh, he was brave and strong!  He was a great soldier!”
“Was he a great man?”

“Well,” he hesitated, “He never learned how to listen to the desires of another person’s heart.”

“But you liked him, right?” I asked, quite forgetting where I was.

“It’s easy to like simplicity in a fool, but I liked him well enough.”

“Oh.”

“And this lady here,” he said, stepping on the soldier’s flat grave as he walked.

“You just stepped on a grave.”

“Yes, quite right.  It’s the easiest way to get from point A to point B.”

“But isn’t it a bit rude?” I asked.

“Not at all!  This is my place, and the residents all work for me.  We have a good relationship.”

“Oh.”

“So this woman here,” he continued, “She was his wife, but before that she had been the lover of a soldier of the enemy’s army.  She gave away her lover’s secret to our soldier here, and that information actually helped to turn the tide of the war.  Without her knowledge, you and I might not be standing here today!  Although I’m sure we would have found another excellent place.”

“So she betrayed one man for another?” I asked.  “How could she live with herself?”

“She had a hard time.  So did her husband as he was always suspicious about her fidelity.”

“But how could he wonder since it was her knowledge that gave him victory??”

“Well I told you that he never learned how to listen to the desires of another person’s heart.”

“Oh, yes, you did say that.”

“People waste a lot of time that way,” he said.

“Yes, I suppose they do.”

He looked at me with a sly smile and I wondered if he knew that my own heart was full of suspicions.  I decided that somehow he did.

We found ourselves at another grave.  This was a newer grave placed only two years ago.  I wondered why it was in an older section of the graveyard since I didn’t think they put fresh graves here anymore.  Before the grave was a chair.

As if he knew what I was thinking, he said, “It’s odd finding this new grave here, isn’t it?  She comes to visit him quite regularly, you know.  She places a stone by the grave every time she comes, and she sits and talks.”

“What does she talk about?”

“Oh, everything and anything!” he said.  “Would you like to sit down?”

“No!  I mean, it—it’s not my chair.”

“That it isn’t.  Not your grave either.”

“No,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.  “Does she know you listen in?”

“Of course!  Sometimes she talks directly to me instead of him.”

“Oh.”

We walked on a bit with him stepping on graves here and there, seeming not to notice he was doing so, but certainly not appearing to be deliberately disrespectful.  I suppose it really was the easiest way to get from point A to point B.

“It’s a very direct route, you know,” he said, and I wondered if he really was reading my mind.  “I’ll wager that you’ve already noticed the stark comparison of life and death here.  You must know that there is nothing to distract you here.  Things are quite obvious, and everything is as it appears.  There are no masks here.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” I said.

“Yes, quite a bit,” he smiled.  “As I said, the residents all work for me, and their history is a kind of currency here, which I use to buy parts of reality—a sort of manifestation, if you will.  And even though they work for me, I’m the one who gets paid.  I take their history and I create ‘the past’ with it, and the past is a very potent way to influence the present, you see, and thereby shape the future.”

“Yes.  I guess,” I said, not really sure I understood but not sure I liked the direction the conversation had taken, either.  “Will you ever release them?”

“They’re free to go at any time,” he said, looking a bit slighted.

“Then why don’t they?”

“Well, ultimately it’s the living who keep them here.”

“How so?” I asked.

“It’s the expectation and belief that death is the end.  It’s the putting away of the truth of the nature of life, the hiding of the facts, the refusal to face reality by the living that keeps them here.  They are here because they are expected to be here.  They are here because this is the only place they’re allowed to be.”

We walked on a bit and found ourselves right back at the new grave with the chair in front of it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try it on for size?” he asked.

“Which one?  The grave or the chair?”  This made him laugh uproariously.

“I say!  That’s quite good!  Whichever you please!”

I sat down in the chair and looked at the grave and then at him.

“It doesn’t feel right,” I said.

“Give it time.  You’ve still got some of that.”
“Have I?”

“A bit more, it would seem.  And I would love to stay and chat, but I realize that I am needed most urgently on the other side of the cemetery.  There’s a gal there who has decided to take up residence, so we’ve much to get straightened out.  I’ll say goodbye to you for now.”

He tipped his hat and walked slowly away, stepping on graves as he went.

I called loudly after him, “Will you step on my grave someday?”

“Very likely,” he said, without turning around.

July 18, 2016 - Rain at Last

A long time ago, I knew an old woman who was having a very difficult time in life.  (She seemed old at the time, anyway, although I don’t know that I’d classify her that way today.)  She was at a crossroads.  She had made a decision and her choice had gone badly.  Now she didn’t know what to do.  She kept saying to me, “Oh, Melanie!  What am I going to do??”  Day after day she would say this.  Day after day I would offer what little advice I could.  Day after day my words flew apart like leaves in the wind.

Finally, one day she told me that the problem was not the problem.  The real issue, she said, was that she had not been able to cry about it yet.  Being young, I did not know what she meant, since in those days, the faucet was always running for me.  I hadn’t gotten to the point yet in life where tears become a scarce commodity that must be dearly earned.  She told me that if only she could cry, then she could move on, but not before.

Finally, rain . . .

She went from sad to frustrated to angry because she could not cry.  Every time I saw her, she would say to me, “I still have not cried,” as if it were an announcement of grave importance.  And, indeed, it was, but I was too young to understand.  “I still have not been able to cry,” she would say, and she would walk silently away, lost in her thoughts.

But then it happened.  One day she burst toward me with joy and excitement in her eyes, and she told me that the night before she had finally been able to cry.  She grabbed my hands and squeezed them with elation!  “And I finally got it out!” she said.  She explained that she was finally able to grieve, finally able to let it go, and finally able to think of new options.

Many years later, I still think of her and her beloved tears, of how dear they were to her.  I have had some precious tears myself as time has passed, and I now know how vital they can be, how jealously we must guard them.  I also now know what it’s like to be unable to cry until the time is right, and to not be in any control whatsoever of knowing when that time will be.

I think the Earth is the same way.  We’ve finally had a couple of big rainstorms, rain we so desperately needed, rain that was so longed for and so important.  And it finally rained.  Then came the morning.  The frogs were happy and busily hopping about after the dragonflies.  The day after a rainstorm always feels like a fresh start.  Everything is washed and clean and new again.  There’s an audible sigh of relief, a sound of thanksgiving, a feeling of deep gratitude.

We have been renewed.  It is time to pick up the burden again, tighten our belts, and move on down the trail.  It has finally rained.