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

29 September 2010

Letters from the Outside, #20

 

Coffee – the liquid will to go on. Overcast in Cloud Valley, the volume turned down on the wake-up and were all out the door in five minutes (yay for boys!) harried and unkempt but catching up to the rest of the responsible world that got out of bed on time. Thinking about the hell of dualistic perception. Making the quantum leap from you to One reveals us puppets for conflict and clutching. If even 10% of our consciousness was relegated to eliminating this predatory deception, the world would be a different place. All this cruelty and unhappiness stems from the Illusion of Separation. You and I are the same stuff, as the earth and the stars, the cloud contained in this paper, water that fell onto the tree that was taken to make this paper, rain on the reservoir that feeds the mill, the moonlight in the apple, the migrant worker in the juice. All is in all. And maybe ill dedicate myself to that this year. 38 is a significant number for the Norse, and it adds to two, number of the Priestess. I think theres surely some significant Journey in my future, the Light coming thick and fast, a phase of increased intensity for me on this path im walking. My roads been lonesome, and early early on I lost heart, laid down and let the wind carry me. But it aint over til its over, right? I cant fix the past, live it over with late wisdom. I have to let go of it, turn around, decide where it is I really want to go.


Out in the cool grey morning in the buffalo robe, wheeling another barrow of pumpkins out to the bench, yesterday one of the grandchildren came and chose three to take home. Just those few opening bars of Lifes a Long Song makes everything better. I dont think I can write with the meds. And ill admit to the ether that my words mean more than my ability to make it through the day without stepping on my own dick. When things get thick and the pain craving explodes inside the damp caverns of my heart, the nimble god of my hands hungry for blood, then ill take one or two to get me through christmas. Otherwise a life driving a desk under a fluorescent bulb hothouse paperpusher satellite dish pre-packaged shadow play starts to seem dulce and decorum. Im even editing the joys, the next one was an offhand sighting of otherwise unexposed flesh belonging to a member of the opposite sex and I thought vulnerability, shared humanity but didnt connect with it as a Joy so I thought id only talk about the ones I understand and the next was The Pull-Through Parking Space and I thought, Synchronicity, Serendipity, the awareness of being seamlessly woven into the world. The next, Realizing you have More Time to Sleep I filed under Satisfaction and Sanctuary, happily ensconced in the sensation of safety and the sweetness of rest. So im going through this list, People Watching, Wearing Clothes Straight from the Dryer, and they all hearken back to one or more of the ten original Joys. So therein lies the list, I suppose. Sanctuary, Serendipity, Possibility and Belonging. Effort, Self, Story, Humanity, Synchronicity, Satisfaction. Perhaps this is the Serpent Energy I was told to look for, was it Summer Solstice? Now with winter coming the serpent must shed her skin one last time before the Spring, seek Sanctuary and cook the new world in a cauldron in a cave behind the bones of a face looking out onto a sleeping world. What Happens is work we must do. There is One Forge, but many fires. And the meds let my fire go cold. Ill save them for when ill winds blow bitter burning smoke into my eyes and im clawing at emptiness for breath. Otherwise, give me the heat on my forehead, the sparks in my hair, the elven scroll of embers and a far sky of stars, each one in its own process of shedding and burning, giving off Light.  All these joys I wish for you, soon returned to us, your Light strong on our faces, your energy thrumming in our bones, not an echo or a memory viewed through a series of mirrors, like a telescope, from very far away.

 

Wednesday, all time and no money, a long nap in the morning to keep this cold at bay. They say rain is coming, and the dogs are hungry and most everything is a mess. But its warm when he stands beside me, the boys will have scratch pot pie for supper, and it could be worse. Whats different is that I care. i saw in myself something more than a stinking pit, a terrain pocked with quicksand.  Something, in rough transport, shifted, fell, broke open glowing like a yolk and smelling of hay and the poxy pricking imps fled from Good and left me to my Life, up to now a series of exodus and prodigal returns -- I became worthwhile. To myself. And that has made all the difference.  
"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)