The Birth of Myth

We all laughed yesterday as the barriers that divided us started to crumble just slightly under the weight of smiles and eye contact.  Icy waters began to subside just slightly, and I felt the twinge of family, the strangeness of three people sitting at a round table in the middle of a night filled with fog and gusts of stinging moisture. 
The world seemed to open up and I had a bird’s eye view of three people below the roof of a house, a blue and green sphere in the midst of blackness, amidst a collection of sparkling lights. 
How strange to be sitting here, talking of myths and words, mostly listening, because I don’t know of these things.
I will forget that we live in the midst of myths, like lights being born of gas and dust, we live in the midst of words and associations and archetypes that rise from our consciousness and reveal themselves like a blossoming flower. Their shapes of darkness and pungent earth, their swirling white spheres of grand-moving strangeness. 
Some will paint them as evil, some will call them angels and avengers.  And still others will see them just as tales, like the ones that came before but painted in different colors.
The names change from story to book to legend to movie to speech to show to story. 
We live in the place of the spawning of myth. The same shapes, the same players, the same figures, the same arcs. Dirt creates them, from the soil they arise, and we are the fertile earth that gives them nourishment and the plowed mind and the twisting energy that creates them over and over, reproducing the same villains and heroes, the same turns and twists, remixing them endlessly, giving new outbursts of detail to the receptive arms of eternal skeletons. 
Great journey-makers that come from a land far away on the vast wooden ship Tharnackla. Those anti-heroes have taken a humble nation and turned it into a corrupting evil and death realm where the inhabitants are afraid to love and kiss each other. 
But once we cried together, in the arms of each other, just as the myth was born, as the people rejoiced and fell to the ground in awe. The myth was being born, and it was painful and joyous at once.
Tears ran down your face as we felt the sprouting green root take hold, as we felt the archetype of the redeemer claim victory in one shining night under the moon. 
You got on top of me and we celebrated with love and skin and soft grunts of pleasure. This was the birth of something, the celebration of a golden legend come home, the beginning of a battle to reclaim the land from sea to mountain and back again.
We sat at a table and the story spiraled between us like falling stars.
And yesterday we laughed. And we lived the myth of us as I saw it from high above.
No such thing as old. No such thing as new.

Endless Search

I come into your world.
I bring what I know.
The open door leads to a warm hearth and narrow bed.
I see in you the life I never had.
The hot cup of coffee for breakfast.
The sweet smell behind the ears, mended laundry.
Your face is missing in the red rocks of still giants.
The range and nights of smoky fires by a river.
You cannot be here, just as I could never be there.

I can not join your world.
I am gone.
I’ve stayed away too long,
I let the wind tear apart my cheeks,
let the moon see my secrets.
The open night sky has sewn itself into me,
making me its own,
making me a man of the wild,
unfit for the walls of your house,
the sweet soapy smell of your skin.

I have stayed away too long, but maybe I was never there.
A stranger, a wild child itching to break free of mother’s arms.
A lone drifter.

I wander.
I look for home, for rest, for the end;
but they are not in houses, in open arms.
They are not in anything I seek,
but still I look.
Behind the mountain, across the stream,
under rocks, in the houses of other men.
I can hear voices, a howling wind, screams of women I loved but never knew.
I wander, searching.

I am the ghost without eyes.
The spirit who grabs onto any change of season, yet finds no rest.
There is no home, but my quest remains.
The endless search for those things I believe are real.

There is no home.
No destination, no goal.
I am a drifter. Searching.
Sometimes finding that glowing piece of light,
but it melts as the day turns into a black canvas,
and then I feel it again,
the shrill high call of the wind.
The shadows, the swirling stories of open fires and sunrise over the mesa.
I cannot be of another world,
I am a searcher.

The scene is dark, the home is not mine.
I am of the wind and its journey entwines with mine.
I am of the sun, moving always.
Shadows are all I know.

I search because I know nothing else.
Could it be any other way?
A home and kin and rocking chair by the fire?
A woman smelling of sunshine?
A child with my eyes?

I wander because I know no other way.
I am of the light,
of the places without walls,
of the fire without end.
The search with no conclusion
the seeking without end.

I am the searcher.
I cannot be found.
I cannot find.
I can never rest.

The Climb

The question came in little gasps of breathy exertion:
“How…. much… longer…. is this….. going…. to take?”
He could barely get the words out, his body felt like lead, his breathing was so heavy, it muted the sound of his feet on the worn mountain path. Sweat covered his vaguely wrinkled forehead, the red shirt he wore had long since turned into a damp rag clinging to his shoulders. His heart pulsed, sending huge waves of blood through him, like dams about to burst. His heart was like a drum, pounding, pounding…
With each step, the muscles in his legs seemed just a moment away from ripping. It was pain, more pure than he ever remembered. He kept moving, as though tied to some sort of invisible rope that kept one foot following the other, endless, repetitive movement. He told himself that he couldn’t take it much longer, with each step he repeated the same thought within like a mantram. He imagined himself falling over, pushed too hard and for too long, soon the end would come.
There was a small laugh, it came a few feet ahead of him and traveled lightly on the wind till it found his ears.
“The path is the path. There is no end.”
Another light laugh followed, somehow finding its way to him over the sound of his heart and breathing and heavy footsteps.
His body reacted to the answer. He felt a sudden coldness, though he saw no wind moving the tree tops. Everything ended. There must be some mountain peak somewhere in the distance, there must be a point to the climb, something that they were trying to get to, something he was supposed to see.
Maybe a shrine? An old mountain hermit? A cave with paintings hidden within? Wasn’t there a point to this? There had to be an end, a place where he could rest his back against a tree and fill himself with slow deep breaths for hours and let his heart rest and his shirt dry.
“But I… can’t take…. much more of this,” his voice sounded desperate, “the… climb…. is almost… vertical… from as far…as I can tell… I’m… going to… fall… over… soon!”
Again the small laugh, almost like a bell, so light, filled with such melody. He didn’t feel offended when he heard it, it was not mocking or harsh, it felt like the sound of a child, innocent and open.
“Don’t worry, you’re fine. One step. Then another. Then you will need to take another. Feel the chain that binds us together and keep breathing. Keep moving.”
For a moment he felt nothing, no pain, no heavy breathing that burned his throat, just a calmness that seemed white and smelled of flowers.
“ahhhhh,” he moaned. A ripping pain in his legs consumed everything. He looked at the tall pine trees on either side of the path. He envied them. He wished he could stand still, adding his shape to their ranks. Just a moment of stillness, a moment to let a cool breeze wash over him and wipe away the rivers of sweat. He wanted to scream and turn around. He wanted to walk downhill, anywhere but up. Down to where he could find a car or a ride or a drink of water, perhaps a ham sandwich. He wanted to close his eyes and take a nap, to let his body rest and recover from this incredible strain. He wanted to do anything but this, but he felt the chain, he felt it wrapped around his heart, and he put one foot in front of the other, following the sound of bell-like laughter.
“Keep coming, the path continues this way.”

Eternity

Face the Real, the endless, eternal, timeless Real. Step back and face it.

From the distance, it is clear. Everything is in place and the pieces match. Nothing can possibly be out of place. Every little detail, no matter how subtle or complex, extends out to every other in an infinite network of correspondences and reflections.

Then you fall back into the maelstrom and things become confused, chaotic and unintelligible.

In the clarity, you can see the waves. The rushes of vast energy, reaching up and outwards, trying to find a place of rest, seeking the end and finding eternity. Forever. A timeless dance that will rise and fall to the vast infinitely fractal breath of nothingness.
The end is an illusion. There can be no end because there was no beginning. What didn’t begin cannot end. The flow of time itself is our illusion. What happens now and what happens then. The space between them and the space around them. All an illusion.
And it is only within the illusion, that you will create an end for yourself, a final clear resting place where struggle stops and the waves become a calm, gentle pool that will never move again. You may rest in such a place for what will appear to be a long time (a long time which is not eternity but which you may fool yourself into believing that it is) but sooner or later the resting place, the end that you were seeking, will come to an end.
Because it wasn’t before, it won’t be again.
Because you arrived at it, you will surely leave it.
You can only eternally be in the place that you never left.
The end of things will have an end in itself.

Any process that begins will end.
Any process that ends will begin… again.

Open your eyes for the first time and the world is brand new, rushing at you from all directions, incomprehensibly beautiful sounds and sights penetrating you through all possible gaps in your frail armor… and you are in it… you are part of it, without questions or answers, without the need for either. A complex symphonic orchestra that others will call a "doctor", a "nurse", a "hospital", a "mother"… and an even stronger storm of experience inside of you that others will teach you to call "fear", "pain", "hunger", "love".
For a time you may be allowed to swim in it, to drench in the myriad colors beyond the linguistic horizon, to laugh at jokes that have no punch line and dance to rhythms that have no measure.
But around 4 or 5, you fall… and the fall will bring answers with it. Answers that spell an end to freedom. A luscious apple of human knowledge that brings a new beginning, a limited sentence of incarceration in a world of predetermined limits.
Hold on to those answers too tightly and there may never be any questions again. What is this? Who made it? How was it made? There is a very high probability that some adult will be close to you when you ask out loud, and the adult will be ready to spout a mechanical answer they themselves are only repeating from the adult that first branded them with it.
And this simple mechanical answer becomes a "fact" and the questions are sealed away. There may be moments when the questions come back but these moments become fewer and less frequent as time goes by, until you look back onto your past and laugh at the foolish little kid you once were. "But that was back when I didn’t know the harsh realities of life. Once you are an adult there is no more room for foolish questions."
With the questions sealed away, deep in your subconscious, so deep that even in dreams they will be cloaked in myth and memories of schoolyard games… what will happen when the Real breaks through once again, uninvited, and forces you to come face to face with it.
What if the Real doesn’t match the mechanical answer you were given so long ago. What if it happens that your parents didn’t know everything? What if your preacher was wrong? What if the old men who made every effort to put all their knowledge in one book came short? What if your teacher didn’t know what she didn’t know? What will you do then?
Everything that you know as your reality had a beginning.
And because it had a beginning, it will have an end.
Sooner or later, you will find yourself back in Eternity.

What will you do "then"?
What did you do "then"?
What do you do "now"?

Bringing the Attention Back

Attention moves like an accelerated moon, waxing and waning by the second.
With a lot of time and practice, it can be controlled and held for long periods of time.
This developed controlled attention can be placed on a person, activity, or experiment without the machine slipping into other thoughts, worries, or ideas.
But attention is never a constant- it is a flow that shifts and moves.
Just as all of the cosmos are ever changing, wakefulness and attention are never achieved and maintained continuously- nothing in this infinite grandness is stagnant or final.
States of consciousness move like storms or sweet kisses that come to a close.
This is simply the way of nature, attention and focus will drift, and it is our work to bring it back to the moment.
It’s here… it’s gone, thinking about blueberry pancakes…bring it back to the moment, put attention on each bodily movement, yes, yes….
And it’s off somewhere else…when you realize it, bring it back.
Repeat this process until your last breath.

Invitation

My little cold hands snip the overgrown jasmine branches. Purple-gloved fingers, covered in the fine sediment of earth, pat into place freshly planted succulents.
The sun has not yet lifted itself above the house and thousands of petals hold droplets of moisture like sweet offerings to the gods.
Each morning we leave our gifts as well, a small gesture that sparks the sacred.
Quiet rituals speak to the greater elements, and I remember my place.
We invite them in. This is a space for them, for the unseen, for the small, for the waves and wind.
Come.

We have created this for you.
Subtly colored and resonating.
Magnetic fields and solar blips. Treasured like a ruby secret, the energy of the garden spirals upward, leaving streaks of green and white.
Alien structures sit among mountains and valleys.
Sage perfumes the air while the singsong of small birds provide the acoustics.
This is for you.
We maintain it as a gift for forces that can only be felt with an open heart.
The beautiful space is our invitation- where there may be war and love, rest or play.
This effort is for you.

In The Garden

The garden is beautiful, full of orange nasturtiums, pungent sage and unforgiving cactus. It is a garden of complexity, with pathways and mountains ranges. It is possible to scale Mount Kilimanjaro and the Pyrenees in a day. It is a resting spot for birds and a love den for cats. Soldiers are constantly on guard, magicians line the walls and the four elements are worshipped.
The caretakers work when the weather permits, although the garden is never far from thought even in the rain. It is a sacred space in constant need of tending. Weeds are constantly sprouting, apples from neighboring trees need to be picked, and fallen men need straightening. It is a work in progress. At the height of summer, when all the weeds are plucked and the birdbaths are sparkling, everything seems finished. And then, five days later, the weeds come back. The bird food needed replenishing. What is completed one day must be done once again. It is a working garden, and the work is never finished.
Just as soon as one clover patch is plucked, a dandelion sprouts inches away. It is not something to fight, it simply is. The ways of nature continue to progress, unencumbered by human desires. The human machine moves with the same logic. Despite all hopes of peace or rest, the machine is in constant need of tending. Left on its own, invasive species will flourish, well defined pathways will crumble and flowers will be strangled by persistent weeds.
Human habits are as persistent as weeds. As soon as one appears to be under control, another deeper habit comes to the surface. And when that one is contained, another rises. It is nothing to rage at, it’s simply the nature of the machine. In need of constant attention, from minute to minute, it cannot be left alone. It is the work. Continuous, morphing and ever sprouting.