“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

16 December 2008



"It was clear to me that this body functioned like a portal through which the energy of who I am can be beamed into a three-dimensional external space."

A good, long day. found my missing mitten frozen to the parking lot behind the firehall on my walk to the post office. the air is beyond cold, ice in a breathable plasma state. i putter and organize, play disc with Z., winter garden, keep hydrated. the boys will come home and decorate the balsam that waited for me in an empty lot, its faith steadfast that i would arrive. that soul-scent and the magickal lights the dogs sleeping on the tablecloth i used for a treeskirt the creeks are flowing, but the neighbors pond is frozen over. i fantasize gliding across the surface under the stars at night, votives in mason jars circling the edge.



The tree and all, the little lights, knitting in a dark auditorium talking about whos married to whom and his sister and her mother. handing out candy and the man behind me scrolls naked women on his phone. shes related to john wayne and her son is in prison. i like to make the connections because in a tiny town theyre so densely woven we can play six degrees all day. and i know the children but not the parents and shes in massage school. im the one knitting at all the school functions, sitting in the front row, laughing too loud and handing out candy, double pointeds in my hair. too cold to snow and home for a glass of cab and the pack and tomorrow with the mad muppet and DONT FORGET TO TAKE YER MEDS.

"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)