Ghost Heart

They conspired to put me in a cage and let me die. My poor, poor, Tiger, the Ersatzanna.

I always weep when I remember what must have happened to you, how you must have cried for help. And he sat there, no more than 20 feet away, and played video games, feeling himself powerful as his avatar crept around toting a machine gun and you died.
Your dear Archie must have come to you and meowed too, he must have tried to get that man's attention and he ignored him too, that loathsome man, the father of my children.
My grandmother was dying that day, and that’s where I was, at her side saying goodbye. It was expected that she would go, but I lost you too, and that should not have happened.

He couldn’t stop hurting. He had to hurt me and I had only wanted to help him. Helpless me, I wanted to help, but he wanted to hurt.
How he could have sat there and not known that you were dying painfully is unimaginable to me. Some part of him knew. He wanted to hurt me more, so he hurt you.
I am so sorry my poor Tiger, little Ersatzanna. He is dead now too, the father of my children, but if I could choose to have just one of you restored to life, I would choose you and not him. Children need kittens more than drunkard fathers.

I felt sorry for him when he shot himself in the head, I felt sorry because he had been hurting, and that’s why he hurt others, I felt sorry that he had suffered, that I could never help him.
But I was never sorry that he was gone. That is one point upon which I can agree with him; the world is better without him. I am better without him.

The world is worse without you, my heart.

I set the cage out there. I did it. My father convinced me it was the only way to protect you.
The neighbors' black cat had bitten you twice and almost killed you. My father bid me to put out the cage for the black cat.
In the morning my grandmother was dying and I forgot to bring in the cage before going to say goodbye. The father of my children did not come with us to say goodbye to my grandmother. It was an uncommonly hot day for so late in the fall.
You wandered into the cage they said would protect you. It killed you. And he sat 20 feet away letting you die.

After I screamed Tiger, after they grabbed hold of my arms to hold me back while I screamed and the unborn baby in my womb covered her ears and screamed too, after they held me up by my arms and I screamed louder and the other baby, the one you helped me to nurse, stared wide eyed and silent, after I screamed and they tried, as always, to silence me, after that Tiger, I promised that I would never listen to my father again.
And I knew, after he, the father of my children, let you die in the cage my father had bidden me to set, I knew that was what was in store for me. My agony would be prolonged by indifference, my pleas would fall forever on apathetic ears.
I would be caged and killed bit by bit. Just as it had happened to you Tiger, my heart.

I never said goodbye to you. I don’t even remember what they did with your body.
So I dream that you’ve come back, that you’re there playing with your Archie or running alongside the overgrown mint, streaking past a window.
I am overjoyed to see you so, as you were, as you would still be if you had not gone in my place, little Ersatzanna.
My Tiger, ghost of my heart, I see you rushing along the shadowy edges of my dreams, but I cannot touch you, cannot scoop you up, cannot call you back into the house for safe keeping against the night.
I cannot press you to my chest where you belong safe and warm, small brave Tigress.
So I watch you through the window, stalking through the shadows as dusk deepens, as forgetfulness fades and I remember everything.

Invocation Of Spirit

Well, it's time. After so many nights wasted in sleep and so many days wasted in subservience to the almighty clock of the western industrialized world and the voices of those machines who came before and shaped this culture of diamond hungry whores ever watchful for the trespasses of their neighbors.
Like those dogs trapped behind fences that once barked at our beloved Spritzie, Spritzie who ran wild and free through the fields and streets and yards our heart holder. Her name, Spritzie, a spirit, the spirit which roams the open country side, the purple mountains, the yellow fields, the shaded areas behind houses.
She was my first familiar, the first non-human animal that I could touch and speak to and run with. I named her. I called her Spritzie. Spritzie, our protector, my protector, the protector of all those innocents who cross through her sphere. She ferries travelers safely through the dangerous terrain that is part of our kingdom. My Spritzie, my Spritzie, my spirit.
Late at night the air is cool and sweet like invisible undrinkable wine that flows through your very skin. Drinking in all of those negative ions, a long sip of ocean breezes and Moorish mists through quivering nostrils.
At night I am alive. But often I sleep and wait for the messages to come through to me from the woods; dreams, a strange Morse code from another myself whispering to me about what is out there and pointing to the Mounties of my soul.
I do not trust myself, I cannot be fully trusted as long as these Mounties who made me move around unseen. We need little girls with eyes in the walls to track their progress. I do not fully trust myself, but I murmur the litany, almost forgotten, into my pillow:
“In whom do you place your trust?”
“In myself, my teacher, and the Dharma.”
Dharma is a word I have appropriated, commandeered, liberated from the white halls of the symbolic order. I know what I mean by it, but I don’t know what they mean by it. I mean a WAY.
Like that preserved by the professor of dentistry who with a simple invocation of presence today said “Open” and I knew, here was a keeper of the WAY of dentistry. He knew more than how to recognize a possible lesion on 15, that was only what he did, but he did it with WAY. The master of teeth said “Open” and my jaw snapped to attention as though there could be no greater honor or privilege than to open for one such as himself.
Of course, my own teacher is not a dentist. When he says open it is not my Jaw that he commands.  He sings it, “Open, open Spritzie!” and I open.
Whistle, whistle, Spritzie where did you fly to? Where did you go on that cool clean air carried in from the blessed darkness of the night?
I press my finger to my lips and it is understood that something should be clothed, cloaked in silence and darkness, germinating beyond the diamond hungry eyes of the world. After so many nights it is time, it is time.
My Spritzie, I invoke thee! Holy guardian angel, oh sleeping prince of the rose, awake!
What is that stuff that drip drops into the bloodstream from some secretive gland that becomes active only in darkness, delivering its Cathar kiss to all dreamers? Stuff, stuff, do your work, anoint my cells with liquid light, oh secret Morse code tapping out to me:
“We are here, we are alive, we acknowledge your interest in Dog Farm, end transmission.”
 I place my trust in myself , my teacher, and the Dharma.
I have my little girls in the walls with tablets and pens ready to jot down secrets we keep from ourselves, ready to pounce on the photographic evidence that will illustrate beyond doubt the presence of Mounties at Dog Farm.
So many days wasted in subservience to the almighty clock of the western industrialized world and the voices of those machines who came before and shaped this culture of diamond hungry whores ever watchful for the trespasses of their neighbors.
Tonight we toss rocks at bottles and hope for the best. Free Tibet, free Spritzie, open!
There will be many days burned, many nights of waiting for the “short, short, long, short…” but for tonight a close encounter initiated from a vertical position, a simple invocation of presence, CIA tapping- Spritzie, Spritzie, open Spritzie. We acknowledge your acknowledgment of interest in Dog Farm.
End transmission.

Disappear In The Dark

I just wanted to lay down in the dark and disappear, one more phantom in a nest of nothingness. Say goodbye to kisses missed and kisses stolen and kisses desired, to soft cheeks and hands clasped and smiles from the wrong men. No more mothers, no more fathers, no more ancient primate prerogative driving from the depths. I would end the quest for biological immortality, the fear game, the tug and pull to be the one, the only one, the Queen of the Heap, the one to survive. 
What roused me from my usual exhausting efforts to preserve my identity was a chamber of mirrors, an expanded perception of self that allowed me to view the animal in the box through a tiny pinhole. That animal there, covered in hair, endeavoring to conceal its animalness with words and thoughts and fashion and rouge, that would be me.
That would be me there, struggling against my mother, against my sister, against all the king's concubines, rushing to capture the blissful prize of dominion, of the power of being. There are many, many possibilities and I am striving to be the one real self, the one that beats the others back into the abyss, the one who claims validity from the annihilation of all other possibilities, struggling for control of the gene pool, for control of the world, for control of reality.
Once upon a time I wanted to escape the cool dark stillness of nothingness, which is also the white noise of everything at once,  so I was born into this world. But what is here called “life” is in fact death.
I sacrificed the endless multitude for this experience of singularity. I have become separated from the larger body of My Self, the self that exists beyond time and beyond space. I have burrowed deeper and deeper into an angry psychosis, a desperate attempt to escape the Other who is myself.
And yet, even here in the shadow world that I have created the Other is represented. The Other lives inside of me, the Other lives outside of me, the Other is my own reflection, the Other is my mother, my sister, my daughter, all of them animals, all struggling for control over one another because they lack one crucial feature: a knowledge and mastery of self.
We are in denial of self. This denial is what we call “Life.”
And so, for a moment, seeing all of this, glimpsing that pitiful creature through the pinhole of objectivity, I just wanted to lay down in the dark and disappear again, relinquish my stranglehold on reality. Do the brave thing and sacrifice the singularity rather than the multitude, accepting the burden of the Real rather than hiding it under the carpet. For a moment I just wanted to relinquish my position as  The One, and take my place as one of the many. I wanted to accept annihilation and evaporate, become another phantom drifting placidly over a lake of nothingness.

Mama Bunny

I have been so heavy with sleep, drooping as a green leaf might droop under the accumulated moisture of a heavy mist. My body feels tired, my emotions are troubled, my mind muddled. I don’t want to touch a rock, to drag myself into the magic circle. Feeling trapped under the weight of things to do, things to do, things to do, I have an angst filled desire to moan, “Fuck it all.” shed some tars, eat some candy corn and watch The Vampire Diaries.
A tiny voice inside of me urges me against giving in to the weight of sleep. I crawl into the magic circle and touch a rock. I do a number of secret things with no attention whatsoever. It is difficult just to be there, forget doing anything well. My mind is pulling like a dog on the end of a leash, reaching for anything anywhere but refusing to heel, to be right here, right now.
Eventually the tiny white rabbit enters the magic circle. I know her well and think of her as Mamma Bunny.
“Keep trying. You’re doing good just by trying.” she tells me.
I don’t feel like I’m doing good. I feel like I’m going through the motions and I’d like to give up.
“You're in a valley. That’s all. On the mountain it’s clear. You are awake, everything makes sense, but inevitably you come down. That’s part of existence, a natural law. And in the valley you feel that you can’t ever reach the peak again, that maybe you’ve never been there. You can’t understand what you once understood. You can’t understand the mountain from the valley. That’s okay. It’s not worth trying to understand what you knew then. Now is now. All you have to do is understand that where you are now you won’t be able to appreciate where you’ve been or where you will be again. But you can understand that it is temporary, that you won't always be as you are now. You won't always sleep. One day you’ll be awake again. And it is in preparation for that day that you continue your practice. Even if you can’t do much through your practice at this moment, simply maintaining the habit of practice makes it possible for you to do something real later.”
“Look at it another way. The master of the house is away, but you maintain the house so that the master can return. If you let the house fall into decay, if you abandon it, the master can’t come home. Or when he does, he‘ll have to focus on putting the house in order. But if you keep the house in good shape, the master can return and do something productive with it right away. Which is better, because the master comes and goes on, and this house can only stand for a century or less, so time is limited.”
Mama bunny points her little face up at me, golden eyes shinning.
“Just keep it up. You’re doing good by trying. Trying is good  enough. It turns into doing. Nothing is permanent and you don’t have to understand everything in all of your facets. Practice makes it possible to experience another facet from whose perspective you will understand. If you don’t get up and do your chores, you can’t go to the ball, and if you don’t go to the ball, you can’t meet the prince! And you‘ll find that even if your chores seem impossible, by getting up and getting started, by trying, you‘ll attract enough helpers to get the job done.”
I lower my face towards mama bunny’s and gently touch my forehead to hers. Then I open my mouth and swallow her. She jumps down happily, a white rabbit plunging back into wonderland. I feel her glowing inside of me, a kernel of levity, a nightlight against the darkness of slumber, a movement in the underbrush that sends the dew into a sparkling scatter of droplets bouncing from a green leaf.

Touch A Rock

Let us suppose that for the duration of this textual exploration the words "THE CLEAR LIGHT" will be used interchangeably with the words "THE REAL" and "THE ETERNAL". What these words refer to is a thing that I, the author, cannot give to you in words. They are words that I will use to refer to something beyond words, beyond time and all linear constructs.
To begin this exploration I wish to provide you with a terrain.
You will need a rock. You have my leave to gather this necessary material before continuing with me on this journey.
Now that you have the rock, (and if you don't have it, then go away and don't come back until you do) please touch it.
Touch a rock.
Not casually, but with everything you've got, touch a rock.
Were you thinking of anything else as you touched it? Or were you fully present with it, wholly open to the communion with that thing that we are calling "rock"? Was it the word "rock" that you brushed against with your mind, or was there something that you encountered with your hand? Or something that you illuminated with your attention, pure and true?
Touch a rock.
What is "rock"? When your hand was on it, were you there? Were you there or were you wandering through a chain of associations that stem from the word “rock“? Were you lost in thought about everything but a boring old rock?
Touch a rock.
What is beyond the word "rock"?
Eternity is not a very long time. Eternity is a state beyond time, outside of time, separate from it.
The human biological machine exists in time. Being is eternal.
When the Machine is locked in a state of identification with its own conflicts and pleasures it is not possible for the experience of Eternity to take root in it. If the machine can manage a state of high indifference to its situation as a machine, to the endless flow of thoughts and feeling that are the whir and buzz of mechanical operations, an interaction with the real becomes possible. We will call this experience “awakening.”
The human biological machine is not a merely physical entity. It is composed of many subtle parts. The emotions and thoughts are also part of the human biological machine. The part of you that thinks of itself as a “me” is a part of the human biological machine and a manifestation of the unfolding of time.
If we can awaken the biological machine so that it may interface with eternity, we create the possibility for Creation, something that is occasionally called “THE GREAT WORK” or simply “THE WORK”. However, to even get to the point of being able to create the possibility for Creation, one must first endeavor to cultivate and maintain for extended periods that state of high indifference, the awakened state of the human biological machine. Often this is called “WORKING” too, but in actuality it is preparation for the REAL WORK that may be possible as a result of these efforts.
This is it, right now.
Touch a rock.
This is ETERNITY.
If you reach out and touch it.
Not casually, but with everything you've got, by making an effort to focus your attention on something that is not part of the struggles and desires of the human biological machine, something that cannot be defined by that linear construct that we call “language.”
While our attention is squandered on the unfolding of the human biological machine we perceive ourselves as moving through time. But this right now, this is ETERNITY, THE CLEAR LIGHT of objective REALITY.
Eternity cannot be something that happens later. It is something that happens right now or it doesn’t happen at all.
If it is THE REAL it can only be NOW.
This is the moment to endeavor to prepare for creative WORK.
Now you should begin to explore the terrain.
Touch a rock.
Thank you.

Conflict

The machine will always be in conflict with something. It worries. It agonizes. It schemes and plans. The machine may have a problem with the way a colleague looks at them, with the color of a neighbor's dress, with sideburns and taxes and that sibling that borrows money and never pays it back.
These problems are the problems of the machine, not problems of the being. Most importantly, they are not a conflict between the being and the machine. The being simply doesn’t put up a fight. The machine on the other hand is a bloodthirsty pit bull that will bite and its jaw will lock and it will shake and shake and shake the life out of anything. When confronted with conflict with the being, the machine latches on to a machine conflict and goes berserk.
For example your machine might want an ice cream cone when you are trying to do your daily meditation. But your machine wants an ice cream cone, but your teacher has recommended this daily meditation, but your machine wants an ice cream cone and how are you going to reach enlightenment or whatever if you have no freedom to make any choices and everything is all about routine?
Things are getting dogmatic and that asshole prefers his female students and gives them all of his attention and all he is doing is taking advantage of them and you really should tell him that you’re on to him and look for another teacher and there is a new yoga studio on main street, maybe you should stop there and see what kind of workshops they are offering and find out how they view free will and (by the way, while we’re down there we will get an ice cream cone from the place next door, but just because it’s on the way and we really need to show this asshole that we don’t need him, we can find enlightenment with a just teacher who will distribute their attentions evenly over their students regardless of gender, and then, or maybe just before then, get an ice cream cone.)
The moment it feels as if awakening is imminent, the machine lunges for something, anything to hold onto. A moment of awakening cannot occur simultaneously with a moment of identification, so if your machine can get a hold of something and start shaking it to death it can prevent awakening.
You might be painting a picture using careful attention, your mind remarkably still. Something unusual is starting to happen, you feel tingly and then you remember that your roommate will be home soon and she will take a shower and get water all over the floor and leave it there where you will step in the puddles of water, spoiling your socks the next time you want to blow your nose or urinate. Then you’ll be sitting there with no toilet paper, because she never puts a new roll on and her greasy hair sticks to the shower walls and your boyfriend was looking at her tits the other day because she was wearing that smutty shirt and she has to sleep with every man in the universe, and what you should do is stop painting and turn on the shower and let all the hot water run out so that when she gets in there will be none left for her, see how she likes a big fat dose of inconsideration. And you might run the water or you might crawl into bed and cry realizing that your relationship with boyfriend is doomed if he can be tantalized by the tasteless flaunting of bosoms. In fact, if he can like her at all, what does that say about you? Are you also a tawdry slut? Boo, hoo, boo, hoo. The painting lies unfinished, the being is completely silenced, the machine is thrashing.
Identification with the machine is the act of allowing one's attention to flow into the opinions, positions, and problems of the machine. Inversely, awakening is the act of allowing the attention to flow elsewhere, into the being, the most essential self. Any form of identification is counterproductive to work towards awakening. It doesn’t have to feel miserable to qualify as identification. Often times it feels ooooh too good.
If while you are conducting your morning meditation you suddenly realize fully and completely that you have the power to manipulate reality and can fly so you go soaring around the town feeling gleeful and transforming parking tickets into lollipops with the wave of a hand, and with a wink of the eye you get beautiful women to nurse you and you feel so wonderful laying in her lap on the park bench drinking Cristal from her swollen breast, then you are still identified. You’re just an identified psychic super mutant. If, on the other hand, while you are conducting your morning meditation you suddenly realize fully and completely that you have the power to manipulate reality and you remain seated and direct your attention inward upon your being, remembering your eternal self, that would be a moment of awakening.
The machine wants to solve things, it wants to do things, have things, to be things. The being is agenda-less. The machine is an inversion of this agenda-less-ness. It is a reaction to agenda-less-ness. Your existence in this world is a reflex against being. A reflex. An unintentional response.
You as a machine are just doing what you do, which is avoid Being. If you wish to work towards awakening you will have to learn to control this reflexive manifestation. To gain control of it you will have to distance yourself from it, find ways around it.
The best way to stop gagging is not to grab hold of your throat and squeeze or think loudly, “STOP GAGGING!” or wish obsessively that the horrible taste or smell or object lodged in your throat that catalyzed the gagging will cease to be.
The best way to stop gagging is to relax.
RELAX.
Don’t try to create relaxing conditions. Relax where you are, with what you are. Stop rejecting and allow. Don’t spit, swallow.

Some Things Should Be Like That

In the comic book store.
For so long I looked at it, not knowing what it was.
I went away.
I came back.
Again and again. Circling the table like a shark, tasting this mysterious object with my eyes and fingertips. Still I did not know what it was. Suddenly I realized; no one knew what it was, least of all its makers, and it made me feel glad because there should be things like that in the world, things without measurable purposes, and here I had one in my hands.
That time I didn’t put it down. I bought it and slipped out of the lighted store into the urban night. The darkness was thick despite the few fairy lights that glowed over lampposts or sped by in the streets. There are many places in the city where the light does not manage to reach.
It is also dark in the country, I know, but there you can see the stars and the stillness is what can put the terrors in you. In the city there are no stars because city light is a sort of lesser darkness that eats up celestial light, its brown halo holding at bay the fire and ice of the cosmos so that its own breed of glimmer and shadow holds sway. City darkness moves. It pulses. Here, there are things oozing and swirling, killing and eating and dying very near to you, in the murk where you must not look lest you enter into their order of existence.
“Can you help me?”
A face emerged from the blackness, separating itself from the thick communal dark. It was a cocoa colored heart shaped face that seemed to come bleeding out of the inky depths for a moment.
I heard the voice first, sweet and trembling, like the trill of a little bird. It was the voice that stopped me.
“Can you help me?”
It was only after I had stopped that the face surfaced and hovered timidly at my elbow, petite, neither young nor old but weathered into timelessness.
I knew as soon as I heard the voice that I could help. My hand had dipped swiftly into my pocket and retrieved twenty three cents.
“This is all I have.” I said and she was already thanking me in that voice and asking if I had bought a comic.
“I did buy something.” I said, “And now I’m broke.”
Her face was so sweet and her voice so delicate and I was lying only because I could now see another dark shape behind her, leaning against the wall. I wanted to give her more, but I wasn’t sure it was safe. My pay for a day of work was in my wallet in cash, too much money to open it here on the street.
“No, wait,” I said, “but I do have a little more.”
I dug into the coin pouch sewn into the side of the wallet without taking it out of my purse and filled her hand with pennies and dimes.
“That’s it.” I said and started to go, feeling disappointed with my meager offering.
Then I remembered that I was carrying a bag full of various breads from the bakery where I worked.
“Oh. I do have bread.” I said hopefully and began to dig in the satchel. “How about some pretzels.” I said putting them in her renewably emptied hands.
“Oooh. These are good.” She said and looked eagerly to her partner who was smiling now in a gentle compassionate way, as though he were a saint in a black hoodie leaned against the wall.
The longer I stood with them the further the darkness seemed to recede from our vicinity. They became distinct and less shade like. I was grateful that I was helping. One day, I felt, it could be me asking for help.

Now I slid back into the flow of the sidewalk, back into the ranks of the purposeful marching to their independent destinations.
Drugs or alcohol ushered some into the world of shadows, but there were others that were there because something inside of them was different. I was like that. I didn’t know what that something was. Nobody knew what it was, and there should be things like that in the world, things without measurable purposes, and here I was one of them. But there is little market for such things, despite their rarity, and I knew it might be only a matter of time before I became a shadow on the street, with no past and no future, depending on those that had not yet become me for my daily bread.
I knew it, but it was not yet time for me to step into the darkness and join in the pulsing. There might yet be some other way, so clutching the thing that was not a comic book but could only be defined by what it was not, I hurried on into the underground train station to wait.

Zicky Tabby

600 words of witch light. Switch light for the might of height , so bright so bright, the rafters right. They say meow wow hay mamma hay, but no, no we don’t go, no way, no we stay, fixed like star fish on ships bellies suction cups sup, sup, sup. Rainbow bright me, me hearties yo ho. And we don’t go, no, no, no, no, no. They sing it like weeeeeeaowww, meowwwww, like daisies dancing on days of delight, de light, dat shine so bright, so rainbow bright with blue windmill turning, the stars are burning, the child is learning and loosing the way of the zicky tabby ooob da, the secret language of the stars, of the gum stuck beneath table tops, pink and blue and gray whispering of days chewed by, mouths once explored, the secrets of the zicky tabby ooob da, the white haired lady dressed in black downstairs and the bright red and yellow plastic tea set up stairs, and Robin hood and Little Jon and a dress that never gets worn, oooob da. That is the life of mankind, the womankind with him, that’s the life, the life of the dress that never gets worn. We have it here, but we no gonna use it. We knows its special so we gonna let it waste away unused. Afraid. Afraid is the people of the word, And stuck, stuck like the gum under table tops. We got the little box what fits in the big box what fits in the bigger box what fits in the biggest box, Oh my! Oooob da! Sometimes in and sometimes out, then we come back and see that we grown bigger, that we learned more words, we got us a bed spread, shiny and pink and dirt under our finger nails and holes in our trousers, and dogs sniffing at our holes and big mountains rising high like the pie in the sky, we all do die, sometimes, we die. We cry an we cry and in dreams we fly but somehow we can’t get unstuck dubby duck, we can’t get back to the free jazz, just being this little body growing on macaroni and cheese fuel, like little sticks of dynamite going down yum yum, and we are sad but we don’t know why. The peoplez all around us is droopy eyed scraggly haired. The dog has got burs in her furs and frozen rattle snakes for Frisbees. We can’t play in the sand box cause iz full of earwigs… you know de pin c h e r bugzzzzzz. There be some big trees out in the autumnal breeze, swaying, gentle hipped, murmuring songs about the baked land and the poisoned flowers all pink and white. Got them words running over my brain, got my A B C D E F G and my SH and CH and TH and PLEASE, and THANK YOU and AMEN and I APOLOGIZE and I AM SORRY. And glub zub dub I am sorry, sorry I kant make no one here happy on this green earth. Green and brown and yellow gold with sparkles and purple and white butterflies bleached like the bread and we got the TV. The TV got me. IT got me so I can only dream in cartoonzzzz. I don’t remember how I dreamed before. Now I am black and white cartoonz and I am stuck running in place and the big bad wooolfe is coming to eat me and I try with all my might but I iz stuck in place, in black and white cartoon space. More to be afraid of the longer I iz here. Don’t remember when this song got started, don’t remember what we sang before. Oooob da’s gone from this song. Zicky tabby is now 1 2 3 and 1 5 1 9 6 LAGUNA AVE. 909 678-1169. Goody bye Zicky tabby farewell oooob da. The witch light, once so bright now burns dim in the sad gray grim. Might of height won dis fight, so we say goodnight to the light. What iz right, what iz right, is might, iz height. Iz goodnight Oooob da, goodnight and bye byes to de light.

Impermanence

How many days have passed that I have said nothing at all and let the opportunity slip away? Today I had the vision of snow melting on the branch of a conifer tree, the perfect visualization of impermanence, ice transforming slowly to water as it drips away. I thought of it in conjunction with falling, with forgetting, with taking two steps down one trail then loosing consciousness and taking up another and, with it, two steps in a new direction, over and over, so that I, like all my kindred, do nothing more than stomp in a confused circle.
I see it right now. I am a machine, a clockwork doll rotating around and around like one of those darling little wind up chicks that can manage to hop to the end of the table. The voyager is not like a passenger in a car, not like the cream filling inside of the Twinkie. The voyager at first is an observer. A person watching a movie, watching a little puppet show and becoming absorbed in the plot. Upon developing particular sympathy with a particular character, it soon finds that it has fallen into the play. It drips into the story like snow slipping off a branch, little, by little. The voyager forgets itself, becoming the puppet without noticing that a transference has occurred.
Etanna is nothing at all. She is a flea circus. A trap for an unsuspecting cosmic observer to become entangled in. It could be a good show if the observer remembers themselves and suddenly takes hold of the puppets strings and moves her around in accordance with the story line and in sympathy with the character while also remembering its true nature.
I can see a little withered old woman talking to me, the kind that makes me think of apples and gnarled forests and hand sewn dresses and curly hair. She was talking just now in the back of my mind and I could almost hear her voice although I could make out nothing of what she said, and when I noticed her, she evaporated. She was kindly. But that of course is how I remember her now. She was a dream I almost dreamt, except my pillow was missing and I was in the middle of saying something else.
Everything in me is rattling loose. Good things and bad things are welling up from within me within a matter of minutes. Forget what has gone unsaid for a day. There are things arising every minute to be lost again in the next and I am not quick enough yet to make anything of them.
While laying in bed or standing over the kitchen sink I experience Satori. During “enlightening time”, while I sit poised to type away and share whatever great vision makes me visionary, I go schizophrenic more than sage. I see shadows out of the corner of my eyes moving around. They move more than ever and without startling me in the least. They continue to move for a while after I’ve noticed and turned to look at them. That strange something that I saw out of the corner of my eye is still a strange something for a few moments while I regard it. I see it, but it fits into no category at all. I see this thing which is not anything as far as my brain is concerned and so, after regarding it and drawing a blank, it turns back into the shadow of a plant or even the plant itself. It doesn’t really have to be a shadow. It can be an actual object such as a stone or a shoe or a box or a chair which begins to crawl across the floor or otherwise move around and, when I look at it, it keeps going for a minute or two and doesn’t seem to be anything I know any name for, and then it goes back to being a stone or a shoe or a box or a chair or some thing which has a name and could plausibly be occupying the space that has arrested my attention.
I know. If you’re feeling friendly, you’re thinking. “Brain tumor.” And if you aren’t, you’re just thinking, “Cuckoo”. What if I did have a brain tumor though? Could you really say that it was the cause of the anomaly or couldn’t it equally be that the anomaly was the cause of the tumor? But that’s not what I really hoped to say. I think though, that telling you something was better than telling you nothing. How many days have passed that I have said nothing at all and let the opportunity slip away like melting snow? Lost days ripe with lost worlds diminished to fine vapor.
Today I did not have a vision.
Today the visions had me.

Black Feather

This story happened before we had methods of recording stories so, just like many others before us, you must remember, in any way that you can manage to remember, and you must tell the story once again, for all stories are one story and what I tell you now will surely happen again, to you and to others and then to others once again, and if you don’t remember, and if you don’t tell it, then the story will never change.
In those days, the people traveled in a long slow caravan of wooden carriages and black metal carts, and their movement was heavy and full of foreboding, for they traveled through rough dead lands full of mystery and danger. It was a time of endless nights and savage storms and reckless lightning, a time of great fear and great sadness. The people had grown old and ugly and hateful and they had lost all hope for there was no hope to be found in the endless repetition of short gloomy days and long frightful nights drenched in wind and sand and chaos.
One night, Mother, who rested alone within one of the great metal carts, was visited by the White Birds, and they were made of shining glory that sparkled as they flew and, as they gracefully came towards her, they spread their vast wings all over the black sky and made the stars themselves sparkle with color. Mother heard them coming and she sat up and stared at them with big, round eyes, unable to comprehend their nature, but they would never stay long enough for her to ask a question and so she simply stared. They lovingly came down upon her and they gave to her what she most had wanted, a tiny helpless creature who would finally recognize in her what she truly was and what she had always been. In return, she would see in their gift what she had always refused to acknowledge, what she had most feared in her lonely nights inside the metal cart.
As he came, naked and wet, from the great Void, from which everything emerges and to which everything eventually returns, he was gentle and soft and devoid of any concepts or arrangements. In his tiny new eyes there were no conditions or assumptions. He knew nothing and he wanted nothing. He was open to the world, as dark as it could be right then, or as light as it may become in the future. There were no further questions brewing within him, and no further answers were forthcoming, not then and not for the first months of hidden existence within the bosom of Mother’s warm furry darkness, the welcoming living sanctuary that protected the little creature from what waited outside. Mother looked at her brown new little gift and she called him Son, in honor of his blazing creation and of his subtle gleaming promise of new shining light.

* * *

But it came to pass that the people became aware of the little Son and they did recognize something within him that was unlike them. And they couldn’t understand what it was that they saw, and they couldn’t recognize the dance of fire behind his tiny eyes, as it was too small and it was too fleeting and they didn’t have the patience to search. But, unwilling to search, they were still eager to find something, and so they did. It became clear to them what it was that made Son obviously different from them, and in this they found what they needed. Having been brought by The White Birds, Son had sprouted gray wings of his own right away, but they were unlike wings as the people knew them and they were more like giant ears as they knew them, giant ears that flapped all around him and made it difficult for him to walk. Seeing this, the people grabbed onto his giant ears and they pulled on them and they stepped on them and they kicked at them and they laughed at Son for he didn’t know where to go or what to do or how to defend himself. They persisted in their attacks for so long that they brought little Son to tears, and the thick tears dripped down his furry face like oil and they mixed with his sweat and with the dirt at his feet and, seeing this, the people laughed even harder, for nothing was funnier to the people than to watch the pain in another’s eyes. Son, staring with eyes now as wide as Mother’s at the people that laughed all around him, regretted ever having come into this strange place, where people step on your ears and then laugh when they see that it hurts you. Little Son, being so hurt and afraid, even blamed Mother for having arranged his arrival. Maybe if she hadn’t been so eager to stare into the unknown and find confirmations, maybe then he would have remained where he had been originally, even though now he could not remember at all what this place had been and he couldn’t even point in that direction.
Mother was furious at this development, for now her only prize had been taken away from her and her one hope of true happiness was sinking into a pool of sadness, heavy as lead and deep as the deepest well in the southern lands. She turned on the laughing people, and she attacked them in a great blaze of fury, hoping to show them their wrongdoing, hoping to show them how it felt to be hurt. But the people were many, and, all together, they were much stronger than she was, and they grabbed her and chained her and they took her away to a place where she would never be able to hurt any of the people ever again. There she died soon after, drowning in her own tears that would never stop coming. Son was left behind, alone, afraid and sadder than ever, wondering what he would do now that his one and only fountain of love and safety was gone.

* * *

Mouse was a tiny creature that had lived much longer than any of the people that lived around him. Being very small, he managed to live from the scraps that the other people left behind and he managed to remain hidden among the half broken carts that formed the rear of the caravan. One day, it came to pass that Mouse saw Son alone, crying and shivering, hopelessly looking up at the sky and wishing for a sudden end to his great troubles. Mouse took pity on him and came towards him slowly and Mouse smiled at him and ran his little hand over his furry giant ears. Son saw him and loved him immediately with a fury that can only be borne of true hopelessness, when all appearances have fallen and there is only the heart left behind. Mouse recognized this fury and gave his own love back in the same way for, due to his age and his cunning, Mouse had learned to do such things when he really wanted.
Having become Son’s true friend, Mouse then took it upon himself to show Son the ways of the world of the people. He showed him when to avoid the big congregations, for they were dangerous and unpredictable. He showed Son how to be helpful to the people without raising their concern. He showed Son how to step out of the way of the giant powerful guards that roamed up and down the great caravan dressed in shining black metal armor. He showed him then how to return to his little chores without causing a wave of undue suspicion among the few people that even knew that they were there. Most of all, Mouse showed him how to pull his giant ears back and tie them behind his head, so they wouldn’t be in his way when he walked, and so they wouldn’t attract undue attention. Son followed all of Mouse’s instructions, and even though he still missed Mother, he learned to make his way in the world. And the storms continued and the nights were just as frightening and the lightning was still as reckless as it ever was.

* * *

One day it came to pass that a big man came to talk to Son. The man wore a large top hat and he had a long moustache that fell in curls over both sides of his mouth, and the moustache bounced up and down each time he talked. The man sat beside Son and looked at him sternly. Son simply stared back at him, afraid of what this strange man might have to say.
“It is time for you to earn your share of food and your living quarters,” the man said, “you cannot continue to live here and expect us to carry you as dead weight.”
Son nodded and agreed with what seemed like sensible words, even though he couldn’t really understand them, and he couldn’t really know what was reasonable to expect since he knew no other world and he had come into this one without expectations.
“I have discussed this with my councilors and we have decided to offer you a position, and I do encourage you to immediately accept it,” the man said and he smiled at Son with his eyes twinkling and his long curly moustache bouncing up and down.
Again Son could find no fault in what the man was saying, even though he didn’t understand what a position was or what would happen once he did accept it.
“We will make you a Purveyor of Laughter, since that is the one job that you have done well in your short life,” and the man made a quick gesture with his arm and, at once, two little men ran towards him, and they carried with them two big leather bags. They placed them on the ground, close to where Son still was sitting, nodding and staring at the strange man with the large top hat. The two little men opened the leather bags and took out many containers of paint and they took out several large brushes. “I assume that your silence is to be understood as acceptance?” the man asked Son and Son nodded slowly, unable to find within himself any reason to deny the man’s proposal. The two little men then went to work on Son’s face and body and soon he was so covered in paint of many colors that even Mother would have had trouble recognizing him. Son didn’t find this completely unpleasant and he even smiled when they lead him to the head of the caravan, a place where he had never been before.
At the very front of the caravan, as it laid resting like a large old snake draped across the surface of the land, there was a wide circle of torches, and there were many guards in full black metal armor riding on strong black horses and these guards looked over a large restless crowd that was formed around the circle of dancing light. In the middle of the circle, there were little women jumping and dancing, and there were men gyrating and singing, and there were other people jumping over blazing fire and rolling in the ground, wincing with pain as they fell. All of it, but specially the last, scared Son intensely and then he wished to go back to where he had come from, but it was much too late. By the time he thought of turning back, he was suddenly pushed into the middle of the circle and he found himself in right in the center of an ocean of demanding eyes and the eyes stared at him with something akin to hunger. As soon as he looked at them, with his big ears pulled back against his trembling body and the bright paint reflecting the shifting light of the many torches, they started to laugh, and they laughed loud and long and hard, and they kept on laughing for what seemed like forever. Then a man came and pulled Son up and forced him to jump through a ring of fire and then he forced him to jump into several great wooden barrels full of water that broke when he landed inside of them. With every painful stunt, the people laughed and laughed and laughed, and Son knew loneliness once again and, once again, he wished he was back in a place that he couldn’t even remember, a place before Mother and the caravan and the vast hostile land. Whatever this place had been, it must have been better than this.
His suffering seemed endless, but, like all sufferings, it did eventually come to an end and he was brought back to his little corner of the caravan, back among the restless people that laughed but not quite so loudly and the dirty little people that ran under the carts to make sure that the wheels were still held tight. Mouse came towards him when he saw him and Mouse felt a great pity for him, for Son was burned by the fires, and bruised by the many falls, and the paint had fallen in places and it had remained in others, so that Son looked completely broken and lacking in any hope. Mouse ran his hand over the fur of his giant ears and tried to make him feel better, but it only made Son feel worse, and so they simply cried together, knowing that some calamities are simply beyond the reach of any cure.

* * *

After much crying, Mouse finally had an idea and he quickly shared it with his sad and shivering friend.
“I have traveled with this caravan for much longer than I can remember. I know their patterns and I know the places that they visit and I know how long they stay in each place. They will stay here for many months, I know, and I also know that this place is the same as the one that we visited many, many years ago. I believe I know that a place is nearby where we can find something special."
Son stared at his friend in wonder, and his words were full of such mystery and strangeness that he forgot all about his sadness and simply listened, intently trying to understand the deepest meaning that hid within his tale.
“We will travel for a day in that direction,” Mouse said as he pointed to the East, “and then we will turn and travel for another day, and then we will come to the foot of the mountains, to the land of the gray rocks. There we will find the cave that I faintly remember and, within it, we will find what we seek.”
Mouse never said what it was that they would find there but Son felt something strange that seemed somehow familiar, something that told him that he didn’t need to ask for reasons at all, something that told him that all questions that he could come up with would be superfluous. They both started walking right away, without any need for further explanation.
They walked in silence for a day, and then they turned, and then they walked in silence for another day, until they came to a region that was full of large gray rocks and narrow little passageways. Mouse then pointed to the rocks and said, “This is where the mountains begin. Somewhere among all these gray rocks, there is a cave Son. Help me find it.”
Son walked slowly around the many rocks, calling back to Mouse every so often to make sure he wouldn’t lose him. When Mouse would hear him calling, he would call back saying, “I am here Son. Don’t worry. Just keep on looking.” And they moved far away from each other, but still Son called to him in a way that Mouse could hear and then Mouse would call back to him in the same way. And the meaning of their calling was always the same: “I am still here. I am still searching.”
After much searching and much calling, Son came upon a rock that was larger than all the others. In the middle of the large rock, there was a hole big enough for the two of them to walk through. Inside the hole, Son could only see sand and darkness. Son called to Mouse once more and he said, “Mouse, I believe I have found it!” and right away Mouse came running, already sure that Son was right because he could hear it in his voice, and as soon as he saw the cave, he smiled in recognition and he pointed to the darkness.
“This is it! You have indeed found it! Let’s go right in. We have no time to waste!”
As they walked into the darkness, Son was trying to restrain his fear because Mouse showed no fear at all, and he was his friend and he knew what he was doing. After a short walk, Mouse dropped to his knees and started to crawl around and whisper, “Somewhere around here… somewhere… around… here…” and Son grew restless because he didn’t know what Mouse was looking for. But, as restless as he was, he waited quietly out of the simple trust that was borne of his love for Mouse.
After some time of whispering and crawling around on the sand, Mouse suddenly said, “Here! There are many here! More than enough for the two of us!” Son heard some more movement and then Mouse moved towards him in the darkness. “I will give you something,” Mouse said, “and I want you to eat it.” Son this time couldn’t resist his initial impulse and he had to ask, “What is it?”
Mouse answered in his sweetest voice, which seemed even sweeter to Son in the darkness of the cave, “I don’t know what it is. I only know what it does. “
That answer satisfied Son and he extended his hand and Mouse placed something in it and said, one more time, “Eat it.”
Son brought the strange soft thing to his lips and dropped it onto his tongue. It tasted like sand and dirt and he felt an urge to spit it out right away, but Mouse, sensing what Son was about to do, quickly said to him, “Chew it. Eat it.” And Son did as Mouse said.
Soon the darkness of the cave was no longer empty, and soon Mouse was no longer small, and soon there were lights all around them, and there were great circles of fire, much greater than the circle that Son had seen at the head of the caravan, and Son wondered how this could all fit within the cave, but it didn’t matter, because there were stars falling upon them in great spirals, through the roof of the cave which seemed to be moving like water. Son suddenly knew that he was where had always been, and he knew then that he had never left his place of origin and that, in fact, he would never leave it, for he was the one who was the light in the darkness, and the light that now surrounded him in great and intricate webs of flashing colors, it was all within him, it sprouted from the core of his being. He was Son and his friend was Mouse, but they were as if not unlike each other, and in a way that he would never be able to explain but that he knew beyond question, they were one and the same, and it had always been so.
The many colored lights grew ever brighter and they circled all around them in greater and greater speed, and great thick tears poured down Son’s face, but they were no longer tears of sadness but of something else that he couldn’t understand but which he welcomed. Suddenly Son reached behind himself, laughing as he had never laughed before, and he released his big ears from the knots that held them tightly behind his head. Then he said to Mouse, “Jump up onto my back my friend, just as you had a great gift for me, I now have a great gift for you,” and his voice was unlike his voice as Mouse knew it, for it was stronger and thicker and it resonated strangely within the small confines of the cave. Mouse was suddenly afraid of this unexpected development, but he quickly set his fear aside, for his love for Son was greater than any fear that could come upon him, and then Mouse jumped up on Son’s back and Son ran towards the mouth of the cave. It was then that the great ears which were truly wings finally flapped up and down as they had always been meant to do and, together, they emerged from the hole in the big rock and they rose up over the mountains, and they flew with great abandon, and they danced together among the clouds, and they flew so high that they could even see the caravan in the distance, many miles below them and then they flew towards it, still laughing and making playful pirouettes in the night sky. Mouse laughed as he had never laughed, and Son laughed as he had never laughed, and the colored lights were like stars, and the stars were like colored lights and there were great sounds that ran through their bodies like thunder, and the sounds seemed to come from both near and far and it all became so bright that it was too much to contain within their bodies and their laughter grew and grew until it became the great laughter that made the world itself dance and swim in the great dark waves of the vast ocean of stars.

* * *

Son woke up precariously perched on a thick branch of a very tall tree. Mouse was cradled in another branch just a few feet away from him. Son looked at his friend and he wondered how they had gotten up here and Mouse opened his eyes and looked at him, still ablaze with wonder.
“How did we get up here, Mouse?” Son asked in the soft voice that Mouse knew so well.
Mouse looked at him and he realized that his friend couldn’t remember anything that had happened, and he looked down and determined that he would have to remind his friend how they had gotten up here if they had any hope of getting down.
“We flew,” Mouse said, in a voice so soft as to be almost silent, for Mouse himself couldn’t quite believe it and he felt that the words themselves could banish the memory from the place where it rested behind his eyes.
Son shook his big head and noticed for the first time that his big ears were loose and they were once again flapping wildly around him as they used to. He was then afraid that he would lose his balance and he looked down towards the ground below with fear and he reached out quickly to the thick branch on where he lay, holding it very tightly. Sweat formed around his brow, for it was now clear to him that he was in terrible danger.
“What do you mean, Mouse?” he said as he trembled with the fear of falling over.
Mouse realized then that this would be much more difficult than he had originally thought. He looked around him then and he saw three Black Birds perched on some branches above them. Mouse called to them in their secret language and the Black Birds came towards the two of them, cackling in the way that Black Birds do.
“What do you want of us?” the leader of the Black Birds said to Mouse.
“Did you see us arrive here? Did you see how we came to be here?” Mouse asked him and the Black Bird nodded, “yes, we did. You were both quite a sight!”
Mouse then stared at the Black Bird in the way that only a Black Bird would recognize and then he said, “But do you know how we got here? Do you know exactly HOW it happened?”
The great Black Bird smiled in the mocking way that Black Birds have of smiling and he nodded his long black head. Then, without a second thought, he grabbed a black feather that was resting on one of the leaves of the great tree, ready to dance on the wind, and he raised it high above his head.
“It was this feather… the black feather that your friend here held in his mouth.”
Son stared at the Black Bird and shook his head, unbelieving. The Black Bird then flew toward Son and, without shame or hesitation, placed it between his lips.
“See? Now with the black feather in your mouth, you can fly!”
The Black Bird then pushed Son effortlessly off the branch, without any further explanation. Son at first panicked and, full of the weight of fear, he started to fall. But soon his great ears, which were really wings, started to flap, and he floated in midair as effortlessly as the Black Birds did.
“See?” the Black Bird said, “I would not tell you a lie. Not unless I had to!” and at that, all the other Black Birds cackled and the leader cackled as well.
“You can keep that feather, my friend, in case you want to fly again!”
Mouse then jumped on Son’s back and they flew back towards their home in the caravan, the black feather held tightly in Son’s little mouth.

* * *

The next time that the man with the big hat came for him, Son was ready. Right away, he showed the man what he could do, by lifting himself high above the man and then circling around him in midair like a giant moth. The man stared at Son in wonder as his great ears flapped up and down and as he flew all around him and as he flew over the caravan, and as he flew far towards the clouds and then back again. The man immediately recognized his great luck and he made the proper arrangements to put on the greatest show he had ever been able to organize.
Son was still painted up, but he was now painted in different colors and the crowds that came to see him didn’t laugh any more. Instead, they stared at him in wonder and they pointed at him as he flew higher than they had ever seen a bird fly. Son was happy then and he was very thankful that the Black Birds had given him his feather. If it hadn’t been for the Black Birds, he would still be sad and lonely, and the people would not stare at him in wonder and the man with the big hat would not smile when he approached.
His only concern now was ever losing his black feather, so he held onto it tightly, and he never let it out of his sight. Sometimes, at night, he would wake up trembling, afraid that the feather had been taken away, afraid that he would then have to return to being the Purveyor of Laughter, the heart of a circle of mockery, painted in bright colors, sad and bruised and burned. He would then look for his little black feather, and when he found it, he would then calm down and go back to sleep, knowing that his feather was there, and so his place in the world was safe as well.

* * *

In those days, many people wanted to talk to Son, and they came from all around and they would ask him to fly a little for them and he did, and when they saw the wonder of his flight, they applauded with admiration and they asked him many questions about things that Son knew nothing about. Son quickly learned to tell them what they wanted to hear, for what they wanted to hear was easily found within the question itself and it was only a matter of turning the words around and giving them back in a way that seemed pleasing. The visitors would then walk away, happy that they had received what they wanted and Son would be happy that he had been able to give them this gift. The truth was that Son had nothing to say and all he really wanted to do was fly some more, and dance in the great winds among the clouds.
In the midst of all these new people and all this fame and all this growing happiness, he forgot about his old friend who had found him alone and crying one day so long ago. Meanwhile, Mouse went back to his old life of hiding from the people’s sight, in the dirty outer reaches of the ancient caravan. Sometimes he would go to see the big show, only to see his old friend flying over the crowd with a little black feather tightly held between his lips. Mouse would then remember that first day when they flew together, and he would be a little sad because that day had been strange and scary and wild and it seemed to him that such a thing would never happen again. But he was also happy because his old friend was happy and strong and because the crowds were ever growing and that meant more food for him and more places to hide.

* * *

But all things that can happen do eventually happen. So one day, when Son was flying over the crowds of admirers, he opened his mouth to laugh with them, and he did it carelessly because he now felt invincible and he knew that nothing at all could possibly hurt him. As he opened his mouth, a great wind came upon him and the black feather flew away from his lips, much too fast for him to reach for it, and then the treasured black feather was lost in the shadows of the foggy night. Son suddenly knew the taste of fear once again, even as he thought that he had forgotten it. He was very high up above the crowd, in the midst of the empty night sky, and he had nothing to hold onto. He immediately felt himself growing heavy, and his ears didn’t flap as fast anymore, and they moved slower and slower until they didn’t flap at all, and then Son started to fall, like the big gray rocks that sometimes fall from the sky.
It was very lucky for everyone that Mouse happened to be in the middle of the crowd that day, for there would have been no hope at all if he hadn’t been there. Calling forth every bit of strength in his little body, he called to Son, in the same calm but forceful voice that he had used when they were hunting for the cave in the land of the gray rocks, and in the same way that he had done back then, he made his voice travel across a great distance so that Son would be sure to hear it.
“Son, you don’t need the feather, you never needed it at all! It was a lie all along! You flew because you could! You flew because it was your nature! You flew because of your wings that were always a part of you and always will be! You can fly now as much as you ever have! Fly! You don’t need the feather anymore! You never did!”
Son, who was now rapidly falling and could feel the hard ground approaching like a giant train reaching up into the sky, heard the voice of his friend as if in a dream, like a soft whispering next to his giant ears that now refused to flap. He was so afraid right then that it almost seemed to him that it couldn’t be true, but he suddenly found that he still had within him the love that he had once felt, and with that love came a deep trust that overcame all obstacles and all questions and all manner of doubts. He looked up towards the sky and to the stars and he once again saw the lights of many colors all around him, the same ones that he had seen on that fateful day. And then, right then and there, without any further effort, his great gray wings started to flap, as strong as ever and even stronger.

* * *

Very few people noticed what had happened and even fewer noticed any change, but Son was now surrounded by the lights of many colors and they were not going away. He now knew that they wouldn’t ever go away again.
Since that day, the shows at the head of the caravan came to an end, and there were no more crowds, for Son refused to show himself off in that manner. Instead, he simply flew so high as to seem like a tiny star in the horizon and the caravan followed him as they would follow a star. It was in this way that the caravan at last turned from its endless circles through the rough endless land and, by going in a direction that they had never before explored, the people found a land of rivers and forests and great fruits full of color and juice.
When Son saw this, he decided that the people no longer needed him and he left forever, flying towards the great darkness beyond the stars, with Mouse laughing on his back. The people soon forgot about the strange events that had occurred in the past and they simply blessed themselves as great travelers, for they had traveled through the wasteland and they had at last arrived at their true home.

* * *

This story happened before we had methods of recording stories so, just like many others before us, you must remember, in any way that you can manage to remember, and you must tell the story once again, for all stories are one story and what I tell you now will surely happen again, to you and to others and then to others once again, and if you don’t remember, and if you don’t tell it, then the story will never change.

All For One

Our writer may not now how our story ends. He may not care, dabbling thoughtlessly, letting spew forth his every imagining. What contortions we may perform at the command of his pen driven by a fevered and unconcerned mind. Or perhaps he starts a life thinking, Ah this is the hero, there will be adventure and romance! But before the tale is finished, the author suffers some change of heart and all those adventures culminate in misfortune and romance becomes tragedy because some cloud has intruded upon the writer’s spirit. So Mme Bonacieux must die, D’Artagnan must at last become one of the Cardinal’s creatures.
Thus the life of all characters is drawn out by a mysterious author. Are we ourselves that author, that author that has become so identified with one character in his masterpiece that he forgets himself? Are we yet not even the written copy, but only the many fevered dreams of our writer, ideas and personages not yet put to paper?
Now I am with my dearest friends, in a moment, I will be alone and scorned by all. Here I am with my husband, now my husband is dead and I care for our children, now it is my husband that has survived me and does his best for our offspring, now it is a child that has died and we are driven apart by the tragedy. One little skip, like a frog from one pond to another nearby, or like a finger turning a page, or a pen writing first one version, then another.
Am I a story like the one my children watch in the nearby room, etched into a silver disc by some means beyond my comprehension, accessed by a laser scanning it like a beam of attention? Today it is this story. Tomorrow it is another. Like Audrey Hepburn, I can be a nun, or a sweet little chef, or a princess, or a white trash gold digger, depending on which story the laser accesses today. These are stories that have never happened, and never will happen, because they are the wild and incoherent dreams of an unknowable creature locked in a comma.
We say here, in this story that I inhabit, that man was made in God’s image. This may be, it may be that we are dreamed thus because the one who dreams us is trying desperately to remember herself, running through the dark mazes of an intoxicated mind, opening doorways and discovering chambers that range through the spectrums of light, each one presenting some clue, some key to the great puzzle. I am this and I am that. What am I?
Imagine the horror contained in the Being of this God. Imagine the delight. Imagine the wretchedness of being trapped not only in one unconscious and unsuspected dream but in many simultaneously. Imagine also becoming lucid, not in one dream only, but in many different strange scenarios all at once. Imagine finding that key in one, knowing it is a key, knowing you are a dream, and unlocking a doorway into the next related dream, another fantasy that is the difference between blue and violet.
Conceive of it, opening these chambers, holding these chambers at once like a juggler keeping so many balls suspended in the air, knitting together a vast network in which you can recall that you slumber somewhere. Some sweet dreams are stubborn and refuse to yield to that notion. Who wants to leave a pleasant dream behind or discover that it is not a final paradise? Some nightmares are equally unyielding, hugging us tight with their clammy grip of fear and confusion, drawing the spirit of the dreamer to them like shards of metallic dust to a lodestone.
The spirit would need its own strength to pull itself free. This thing might be accomplished with effort. Who knows how difficult it is to move one’s spirit, a usually passive being? Who has tried? Is it possible? Ha! What isn’t possible with dreams?
Once I could not fly, then I could, but only by flapping my arms, then I could lift off with just the will to do it. Why not? But all of these trifles could only be accomplished when I was certain that I dreamed.
Here, now, where I sit, it seems that I cannot fly. I can barely walk. I seldom leave this room. I have no mastery of this dream, only the occasional suspicion that it is a trap into which I have fallen. It is a terrain that I have been unable to connect to the network being weaved because of that fateful condition of being unable to maintain that I am an agent of a dream.
But what would I do to be more convinced? Go through other people’s houses uninvited? Kill someone? Make love to an abhorrent stranger? Attempt flight? It must be something shocking.
And even with the help of some little shock, even on the verge of seeing clearly that I am a dream, I recoil. Is this nightmare, this one lone bearable fantasy worse than running the gauntlet? What could be worse than the promise of Jacob’s ladder?
We begin as a brave D’Artagnan, adventurous and honorable, and become a somber Athos, wizened and drenched in grief, brave not because there is so much to gain, but because there is nothing left to loose.
There are those characters that raise their fists to the sky and cry out that the author is cruel. And then there are those that understand that the characters suffer because the author is suffering, and of these there are those that are unaffected by this revelation, those that are swallowed by a sense of helplessness and apathy, and also those that respond with pluck and a measure of irrational chivalry; "If my God needs rescuing, then however small I may be, I shall be his redeemer!"
After all, where this third class is concerned, if they fail, what have they lost? Absorption in their own role in a comedy or a tragedy that may as well have been decided by a roll of the dice? It is something to loose- the conviction that you are real, that you are important, that all stories have been leading up to your singularly fascinating tale.
On the other hand what is there to be gained? Ah! There is no real method for discerning what the outcome of such a success would be.
But one who is chivalrous and honorable is not so because they hope for a reward for themselves, if they did, they would then not in fact be chivalrous or honorable but something else all together. It would be only a very special agent within a dream that would be moved to search for a key and a door and hope to liberate a mysterious dreamer from the lethargy of a deep and confused sleep. The only motive that could see one such creature through would be a sincere desire to be of service to that other mysterious benefactor and sometimes torturer.
It is an occupation for one willing to embark on a quest for the sake of the journey itself, whatever the outcome. Our writer may not know how our story ends. He may not care. Whether we are beautifully written, or feverishly dreamed, what more can we ask for from one that is a prisoner of their own fabrications? And if that troubled dreamer requires our service to be liberated and we decline the responsibility, what cowards we have let ourselves become? What an apparition of diminished spirit I would be, having heard that the greatest princess I can conceive of is imprisoned in slumber and having declined undertaking the quest to free her because it would certainly mean my undoing?
The book is not called D’Artagnan or Athos and certainly not Monsieur Bonacieux. It is given the name The Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all. A promise of sacrifice that flows from great to small and from small to great equally.
It is the mouse after all, who must save the lion.

Balloons

There you were, a slightly something nothingness to pat the blonde crown of my head. Even in my sleep, I see you, and the characters that were a part of the story that held you suspended like a shiny red balloon set among a bouquet of little white ones. Imagine the heights you might explore entirely on your own if you were to be cut free of the bouquet, tethered as it is to that small lead weight ensconced in a plastic smiley face to make its purpose seem friendlier. As a balloon, bound to the other balloons, your sole purpose is to delight and amuse, and yet I’d wager that you dream of something loftier. I’ll not say that I think one is truly better than the other. The fate of the balloon that rises unhindered towards the golden sun… well it is doomed to POP! While on the other hand, the balloon that remained tethered to it’s bland brethren will eke a few delighted exclamations from one observer or another, and eventually it will begin to shrivel and droop like a withered flower at the end of a flaccid stem until it is just a wrinkly little flap of rubber. Either outcome is somewhat dismal, and still I think I’d like to soar before the end, and well, perhaps that is what I am doing.
That may be the reason that I catch a glimpse of the lot of you in a dream now and then, when a gentle zephyr blows me near the carnival grounds and I see your bulbous heads bobbing up and down in time to the floppy footed step of some horrible clown. What does it mean, soft breeze that you sometimes afford me a glimpse of the bunch I left behind, and especially that red balloon, which surely I admired once as much as any other white balloon might? What does it mean that I sometimes wish for the red balloon to escape a slow demise and soar with the birds of prey above the world and above the clouds? The moment that my own tether was cut, I left the red balloon and its pearly entourage behind, and their fate is their own as mine is my own. How then can I imagine that I know anything of their existence, as I am no longer one of their ilk?
I could not expect them to think of my flight as a worthy way to spend the days until the roller coaster comes shooting out of the final curve and the ride is over, because they choose the tether and the lead weight and I the unclouded sky. I imagine, or perhaps I was once told, that they hope to lift that weight one day as a whole, through an act of magic, via a measure of defiance against the holy laws of nature. One day they will all make an effort which will be unaccountable, given that as time passes they loose strength and buoyancy rather than gain it, and yet, through a special effort made collectively by each individual, they will rise. Or so they hope. It is difficult to get so many air heads aligned to work for a common purpose and then to further make an effort which only they themselves, individually, can hope to invoke.
As long as the bunch is big enough it will always be easier to say, "Well, we would rise if only Bobo would lift his share of the weight." And "The reason we aren’t getting enough lift is because Balin is leaking." And by thus placing attention on all the other balloons in their company, they fail to place the necessary attention on themselves, they fail to apply as individuals the supernatural attention that makes possible the impossible.
Or so I imagine. What can be the reason that my imagination, my dreams, my mind bends back towards you now and again? In my dreams alone all balloons are reconciled and accepting of each other’s fate. Like the animals of the Wind In The Willows, in my dreams we all know that there is no use commenting on the sudden appearance or disappearance of another animal. We are glad when we are together, and remorseless in parting, and ever accepting that otters must swim and moles burrow and sparrows fly. There will be times when we take the path together, and times when our destiny demands that we part, and that is all that there is to it.
Or so I imagine.
So I have dreamed.

Terrible Procedure

The terrible deed of separating the pure Being, (the primary ingredient necessary for eventually forming a soul,) from the biological human machine, (also a necessary ingredient in the recipe) is being committed daily as part of a wide scale campaign. Our souls, and the souls of our children, are being harvested before they have even developed. They are being shorn apart and the Being is left to wither away, a tiny prisoner atrophying in a dark and isolated cell submerged somewhere within the mechanics of the biological organism.
Our attention, from an early age, is misdirected for us. We are a consumer culture, asked to passively accept Hannah Montana and designer sports shoes and fast food franchises. The surgical separation of Being from machine is being executed in our living rooms as we sit before the eerie glow of the television set pushing the peas of our microwave dinners around in their individual compartments, it is happening in our school rooms under ceilings laden with asbestos or in modular units that pound like a war drum as the pupils enter the room in straight lines and proceed to their desks to fold their hands and turn their attention back to the dry erase board and the drone of a fully damaged adult machine who is ultimately eager, like every chained dog, to beat the free spirits under their dominion into submission so that they will not be alone in their dysfunction. It is happening in the den in front of a liquid crystal computer monitor where the television is enforced. It is happening on the highways lined with the mammoth billboards suggesting products that we may use to fill the void left when the Being was starved down into an invalid, it is happening on the play structure where those who are most susceptible to the multilevel procedure in turn indoctrinate their peers, bullying and tormenting.
Soon we are all the same, or at least we are all striving to be the same, and those of us who can’t achiever sameness, by age 9 (sometimes earlier)we are driven to a therapist once or twice a week and drugs are prescribed which will at last break our will to live. Then it will be easier to shuffle us around with the ringing of a bell, and by the time we are adults the routine will be engrained in the muscle memory of our bio machine so that we will be able to shuffle off to work and clock in, take a break at noon and clock out, clock back in 30 minutes later, and shuffle back out at 5 or 6 p.m., so that we can wait in nice neat lines inside of the shiny metal cars we bought with our hard earned money, and wait for the light to change colors deciding for us when we should stop and when we should go.
The very idea of being active, the notion of being a creator and not a consumer is frowned upon. Artist and musicians are bums, actors and actresses are flaky unreliable people incapable of holding regular jobs. There will be a few of them to sing the songs and play the plays that enforce and justify our consumer existence. The act of being creative has been reduced to something which should fit into this handful of categories, anything which is otherwise will not even be given an outlet as it might disturb the digestion of the masses.
We consume and, in turn, we are consumed by the companies behind the products pouring through our households like a flood of metamphetamines giving us a momentary fix, a distraction from the nagging sense of wrongness which develops into stress, nervousness, aggression, and addiction. We are reduced to complicated beasts of burden with little or no chance of forming a true soul. Bound to the worldly mechanics with only half of our self functioning, the dangerous, beautiful, and free element of self, the pure Being, having been disabled, we crawl about waiting to finally not exist, dreaming about heavens where the master will give us more of what we like to eat, but we wont have to pay for it.
This is the terrible harvesting of unformed souls taking place now on this little planet whirling around a yellow star. The culture of death and decay is most prevalent here and infectiously seeks every pocket of resistance so that it may submit and snuff out any possibility for life.

Kiss the Dark Sun

At this point dear reader we can only hope that the formula is so deeply embedded within my neurological system that somehow I will be able to navigate through the horrid jungle of human existence without being devoured by some giant carnivorous plant with a Coca Cola logo genetically engineered into its veins. I do feel like a small ship, perhaps fashioned from an emptied half of a walnut shell with a tiny sail made from a cloth once used for cleaning spectacles, set adrift in a great fetid duck pond with giant blotches of algae on the surface. I know that soon I will find my way into the gutter, which is for a boat my size a vast river the likes of the Nile or the Styx, crashing along at a terrific clip, dragging little vessels made of leaf and moss and discarded bottle caps down to the falls, the great cascading drop off into the darkness of a subterranean network of tunnels.
The caverns lie beneath your feet right now. Your house is built over them, your office, your car zooms over them… as you walk whistling over the smooth concrete side walk (stepping over the lines and cracks so as to spare your mother, the devil’s back) the sun shinning down on your well conditioned hair, just underfoot mysterious things are being carried along on a current of black water. Baby caimans flushed down the toilet, scattered fragments of hashish disposed of during a raid, a yo-yo, a Barbie’s head, used up condoms, they all bob along, propelled by a force like that which delivered the terrified children upon Willy Wonka’s glass sugar boat to unimaginable destinations infested with like measures of horror and delight. I have found that I long to put my face for a moment in the sun, before it is too late and there is no going back and I will never see it again. To say farewell to its loving caress, that is my last desire. Like a naval officer taking a last kiss from his sweetheart before reporting to his post within the belly of a steel whale, I accept its last offering before my voyage into Tartarus.
I yearn to kiss the sun, not be kissed by it, but to return anew and kiss it myself, pouring the essence of my self into it just as it has done for me. I hope it remembers how much I love it. Though we are ever separate, we are ever the same. What a devious order I have become entangled with, a queerly structured disorder, which has become my very own way. "There is no way of knowing, which way that we are going, but the rowers keep on rowing…"
When I was a tiny flower I never imagined the depth and breadth of the underworld sleeping below me, keeping my little roots warm. As I have grown it too has grown to accommodate my far reaching and thirsty tendrils, all of this, my secret hidden parts, expanding to support my extravagant bloom. I thought then that it would be all love. Although even at that time I could perceive the strange shadows lurking just behind the corners of my parents’ reassuring smiles. How not to be born into a world of espionage and sabotage?
That is the part unimagined by small buds, first poking their heads out among the green blades to drink up the sun’s golden radiance, that we will one day have to turn it all upside down to make right the balance of the eternal and the temporary. We will have to exert something of ourselves, not merely stare back at the face that adores us. We must give something back. How better to do this, than to hang ourselves by one toe from the rafters so that all of the delicate elixirs of life begin to trickle from bottom to top? In this way I build a sun within me, my own center of the universe, so that I too can emit a golden radiance to reach out and caress the face of my beloved.
When I was young I needed much sleep and nursed on the nectar of love to sustain myself. Now has come the time for me to rise as a star and care for the tiny sleeping buds growing on a now dark sun. My father, my grandfather, my eternal beloved, has grown dim pouring its radiance into me. The only chance for life to continue, is for me to become the new sun. I shall take the world from atlas’ tired back, and trust and hope that he will come for me in the next epoch.
It is very dark just before I burst into flames. It is very dark inside the womb. We can only hope, dear reader, that the formula is so deeply embedded within my neurological system that somehow I will be able to navigate through the darkness and come out where I intended. There is a moment in which all gravity is lost during the great transference, the shift of poles. Then, as my host hangs upside down to mirror me, I will have a chance to redeem him, bursting out through the top of his head rather than being squeezed down the channel and out of the mother’s dilated vulva. With exertion, with the will to do so, I will rise. I will kiss and sustain the dark sun from where I blaze.

Food for Ammit

The lifetime is the stability, the point at which all lines of force coming from all directions converge simultaneously. In the world things fall down, to the bottom. In the universe, where every direction is both down and up, depending on how one orients ones self in an infinite expanse, the bottom is expressed as the nearest stability, the nearest point at which all lines of force converge. The Being travels through the principle of falling, by which it is moved with great alacrity, like a feather weight, dropped from the leaning tower of Piza, with no exertion of effort or loss of energy on it’s own part, towards the nearest stability.

The Being however, unlike the feather weight, is a traveler, and as such must not be ensnared by stability. As it draws near to the cosmic convergence called the lifetime it will need to counter the law of falling with a special effort, enabling it to pass by, without being drawn completely in. If it hasn’t the fortitude and reason to maneuver around the cosmic convergence called lifetime, it can be compelled by the lifetime’s gravitational field and drawn completely into the stability. In this way the Being may find itself marooned in a lifetime, trapped by its gravitational pull. An extra effort will have to be made to liberate the traveler from exile. Enough fuel will have to be gathered and stored in preparation for a successful launch. It is by no means an easy task to escape from a desert island after you have become shipwrecked. Rebuilding the ship, the voyaging being, and gathering fuel are among the first steps.
Generally a complete fall is so traumatic that the voyager will suffer from ‘being amnesia’ and be unable to remember itself. There are spells and invocations to aide the traveler in recovering its memory of self. The possibility of never recovering from Being amnesia is a serious one. If the voyager fails to recover its memory of self it will be unable to repair the damage done during the fall. It will not have made the effort to gather enough fuel for a successful launch.
If it has not recovered by the point of death of the lifetime it will repeat the life time again, which may further reinforce the amnesia. To be caught in an endless loop of a lifetime is a most unfavorable fate. Eventually, if no effort is made to recover and launch the voyager, it will become too heavy with identification.
The spoils of un-recovered falls are the delight of the demon Ammit, the bone eater. She will devour the ghostly remnants of the voyager endlessly.
How cheerfully she seems to grin, how neatly spread her claw and welcomes forgetful beings in with gently smiling jaw.
A skilled being will learn to slip carefully by the stability. While great speed is possible in the intermediate spaces, as the being draws nearer to a stability it will have to slow down and exercise caution. A sudden move, the tiniest miscalculation can cause the costly fall into full identification with the life time.
With enough skill and being reason the traveler can make the appropriate adjustments when passing near a lifetime to prevent its fall. In this way, it will be able to head speedily onward to the next cosmic convergence, where again caution will have to be exercised lest the voyaging being be pulled in by the gravitational field of yet another of the many islands of stability to be found in the endless sea.