Caravan of Dreams
As I write this, Barack Obama is an hour away from becoming our next President. Looking out over the ocean of citizens, I am filled with elation at this new chance to heal our nation as well as the planet. The crowd is composed of every race, nationality, and ethnic group, yet we share one thing in common that makes us great. That trait is hope. A word bantered around in the campaign, but only now do we realize what it means.
This nation that has suffered for far too long, has at last gotten a second chance to make things right and have the world look to us as an example. A chance to have all our voices heard in a quest for balance and healing from the last eight years of darkness. After such a prolonged period without hope and light, stepping into that bright light of the future and hopes held high, our eyes hurt and we will feel pain. But the pain passes and we are left stunned by the sheer magnitude of what we’ve done in electing this man and his wife.
We have made history. Forty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr announced to the world, “I have a dream.” Now a part of that dream has been embraced by Americans, who hope and pray that this president will help lead them to a better way of life; one where there are possibilities instead of obstacles, a land of opportunity, not overwhelming greed. It goes without saying that this road is not going to be easy, nor will the mistakes made in the past be overturned in a few years.
The road ahead is filled with stumbling blocks, racial hatred and other things that may hold us back. But only temporarily, my friends. We were taught that as Americans, if we come together as we did in the Second World War, there is nothing we cannot accomplish, no matter the odds. Although that victory cost us many lives, we prevailed and Hitler and his machinations to rule with an iron fist, came to an end. Now we have embarked on a path that if followed will give all of us – not just the rich and powerful – an America we can all be proud of. Once again a place where we can tell the world, “Yes, I’m an American” and not feel shame or embarrassment.
It is time to hold our heads up as well as our ethics and ideals, and say to all: “This is what we can do !” And by the God and Goddess, we will do it and in so doing make all right again. The crowd at this inaguration believe it, and believe it deeply. The cynics out there say that the people that elected Obama are hopeless dreamers and idealists. That is wrong. We are hopeful dreamers. For the sin is not in dreaming, but in surrender to the poisonous thought that things can never change. That change is to be feared. If we believed that, then we’d still be afraid of fire and living in caves. I’ll be the first to admit that change is not easy, but it IS neccessary. The alternative is stagnation and death.
If we try to change this country for the better, if we can maintain our belief in our ability, we can change anything, even ourselves. As a dreamer and Witch, I have seen firsthand the power of thought and it is an awesome spectacle indeed. So believe and share the dream with the rest of us, and keep your hope alive like a spark of life. With all of us breathing on that spark, it will expand and burn brightly, shredding the darkness that has enshrouded us for so long. That flame will burn away the hatred and light our way to the future.
All we have to do is believe in it enough to follow it to it’s end. Yes, it is a difficult path, but the easy path has always been the one lined with subtle traps for the foolisih and unwary. And we are neither; not any more. We are Americans with one vision seen through many eyes, which is what we should have been all along. Above all do not doubt ! Remember that fear is the worst enemy, and for that just remember the following and all will be well:
Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
It is a time of total trust and I, ever hopefull, will trust in my own inner wisdom as you must trust in yours. Together we can do it. We must do it. Blessed Be !
A Day At The Library
Having a hunger for knowledge or at least a change of scene, I drove to the library to spend a few hours hunkered down with a few thousand books filled with reason. At least that was what I expected. What I found out was that there are some things published that don’t deserve the shelf-space, and some things in the non-fiction section should be relegated to the bin of political science, being made up of lies. Let me start with entrance to the holy ground of intellectuals everywhere.
I went to the discard rack where I usually find a few gems selling for a pittance of what they’re worth, and found some strange titles on the carts. A little “book” of 2 by 2 inches entitled, “Baby’s First Meal.” I could only stare at it and wonder why anyone would want this in their home. What seriously demented member of the babyhead brigade would buy this ? No, I didn’t look inside, why would I waste my time with it. Another title was, “Will the Vikings EVER win the superbowl ?” The book looked to be in mint condition, and it would be; who in their right mind really gives a hoot ?
I decided to browse the main library and headed for the psychology section only to have the sound of loud children and their stupid parents assault my ears. The moronic mother for some reason refused to tell the kids to be quiet. It seems as if in this day parents have the mistaken notion that children should be seen and heard, and heard, and heard. That no place should be free of their shrill demanding voices and everpresent incubating virus. I find myself thinking that these are the type of parents that would insist on bringing a screaming baby to a lecture hall and wonder why the entire audience is plotting on killing them in the parking lot afterward.
There is something about walking down the silent aisles of a massive building filled with the knowledge and dreams hundreds if not thousands of years old. It makes the burning of the great library at Alexandria even more tragic than the holocaust. Tragic in that we as a race lost over 100,000 scrolls containing the learning of the entire known world. Like some temponaut travelling back in time, you feel a bit of that knowledge as you pass your hand over the spines of multicolored books. In each bound and sewn package of paper the contents speak of the dreams and visions of so many souls; souls both old and new.
There’s the wisdom of Plato; the theories of Jung and Freud; the nightmares of H.P Lovecraft; and the hope and fear in Anne Franks diary. There are treatises on death and dying; on living; on finding God; and so much more. And then there are the crimes. These are the books and authors that should be here, but are missing. The plays of Sophocles of which there were more than 100, but only 4 survive. Shouldn’t every book by Ray Bradbury be here ? He and Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Philip K. Dick, and countless others should have their own section.
I admit that I am a junkie for libraries and bookstores. They’re as addicting as heroin to me, but provide more nourishment for my mind and soul then any church could. If you must send your children away for the summer, forget about boring bible camp; send them to the library to be whisked away by Captain Nemo on an undersea voyage, or with Alan Quartermain searching for the lost city of gold. Let them taste of eternal youth by visiting Shangra-La in Tibet where nobody grows old. Feel the heat of the plains of Africa and it’s jungles courtesy of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes. You’re Jim Nightshade and Will Holloway, who see posters for Darks Travelling Pandemonium Carnival, and wonder why the parade is so creepy as it plods down the street like a funereal procession in Bradburys, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” And before you know it, you’ll be in danger every day of your life. To start a love affair with books is to know something the average person does not: That to travel you don’t need to be rich, only to own a library card. But be warned that the next step of the addiction is to haunt used book stores the rest of your life collecting pieces of other peoples lives. For that’s what writers do; make you a collector of their tales and lives and in doing so, help you find and define what you want your own life to be.
There is a slumbering calm to be found in a library. It’s so peaceful and quiet with contemplating souls, that you wonder if by mistake you’ve wandered into a Tibetan monastery. Instead of yellow-robed monks, you encounter the yellowed pages of tomes. I don’t know about you, but to heft a book is oddly centering as if I’ve found a pool of serenity. Running my fingers over the pages, settles my nerves and lets me see what is really worth dying for. Knowledge is something we all hunger for and yet too few of us find the time to go to this Shangra-La of the heart. You may say that you “don’t have the time” to read. To those of you that use this feeble excuse let me ask you something. Do you have the time to go to church ? This is not too far an analogy, for libraries are churches of the mind, soul, and heart.
As often as I sit down with a book, I also find that watching other people as they read is a study in humanities. One man reads a newspaper with a regalness, as if he’s king of his own domain. A woman in her 20’s researching a paper for college, perhaps, brushes an errant wisp of hair out of her eyes and cranes her neck deeper towards what she reads, looking much like Madame Curie. In the childrens area the faces are upturned with rapture as someone reads “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and for the briefest of moments I can almost see a giant squid attacking the Nautilus. For a transient instant I become Ned Land and attack the beast, evading it’s tentacles.
So I sit in an overstuffed chair and immerse myself in the sanctity of my own church of the mind, confident that somewhere in these volumes I will find what I seek.
What do I seek, you wonder ? Everything and more; the mysteries of the deep ocean, what Mars may have been in the past, the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle, lamentations of lives squandered and laid waste in pursuit of a dream, and so much more. To enter a library is to be in holy communion with all the minds of our time, a sort of shared conciousness. When you read a particular passage your mind shouts,”Yes, I know exactly how you feel.” And it occurs to you that you are not alone in your travels and travails, for all humans feel the same way about certain things, and it is this commonality that will always bind us together and seek out libraries.
In this time of e-books and the internet (which are tools of evil) I find myself making a weekly pilgrimage to this place or the small temples known as bookstores to refresh and renew myself as a phoenix when the fire of Real Life has burned me to cinders. I read and am renewed and reborn into a better form. Try it for yourself and see if setting foot in that hallowed place doesn’t make you feel smarter, better, and more alive than you’ve felt in years. I assure you that once you open your mind to the world of books and reading, you will never want for ideas. For that matter, you will always have a place to get away from the things that bother you, and that will improve your quality of life.
Now, if you don’t mind, I am away to climb the mountains of Nepal and find my own valley of Shangra-La with my trusted Sherpa guide.
Heartbreak Hotel: Women and unrealized dreams
The times that try men’s souls are the moments of singular boredom or hopelessness that arrive uninvited into our lives at the worst possible moment. Although these periods are frequently unwelcome, they do have the effect of imprinting on our psyche the lessons that one needs to know in order to go through life without completely breaking down and weeping until we die.
It is just such a moment or moments that I intend to introduce to you gentle reader, for the edification of your mind may spare you what I have had to endure far too often. It begins, as always, with a seemingly minor thing. The conversation with a stranger. When you talk with someone for the first time, one is struck with the impression of the person. They are friendly, laughing, almost tender. At least until you find it hard to walk away and so you ask for some means of contact. It is denied with a look of suspicion or a waved hand and perhaps the vocalization that, “Oh, I’m boring, you don’t want to be around me.” Sometimes it is another sentence, but the sentiment is always the same; the true words unspoken: I don’t want you in my life.
No matter how many times this happens to me, the hurt is intense, sharp. A twinge in the mind accompanied by a wilting sensation. It’s as if I’ve sunk a few inches into quicksand. How many times this has happened is uncountable and yet it seems to number in the millions. All of them come back to haunt me when I lie in my bed every night, the glowstars on the ceiling being the only light I can see.
The faces flash by enhanced by time, blurred by memory. Amy, who worked at the “Garden of Eden” store; beautiful in body, face and spirit, who for some reason, enjoyed my visits as long as the counter separated us. I had many fantasies about her, and never held a hope of actually being with her. Maybe that’s what interfered; my positive belief in the negative factor.
Jacqui Treon. She visited me when I worked at Many Voices, the only job that I loved. She picked me up and we went out for coffee. She even kissed me on the way out of her truck ! I only called her once and she and her mom were busy. “Could you call back later ? We’re watching a movie.” Of course, I said, the bitter taste of defeat already on my tongue. I did not call back. To this day I don’t know why. Only now I realize that I blew it, and badly.
Before closing one night at the store, a petite wisp of a girl came in and asked in soft tones what I knew about Tarot. I knew quite a bit, and we started to talk. She moved into me until she was mere inches away. I could feel her body heat, the soft desire in her voice and I wanted to take her home. Taste of her and have my senses filled with her essence. Alas, in my haze I never asked for her phone number and she never came in again. All I remember is she was as warm, orange scented oil in my palms. A balm that poured over my soul, easing any doubts I had.
I think she may have been the One. Maybe. Perhaps.
The one that has marked me the most is a woman named Billi. She was petite, smart and sexy. I found her enchanting as a friend, but she was married. In retrospect I now realize that I was in love with her. I would have taken a bullet for her, that’s how much she meant to me. It ended badly, as it usually does, but this time the scars were massive and deep. It is my own private torment and I wish not to tell more. I still wonder if she is well and living eight blocks away. Another one bites the dust.
The weekend I spent at Minicon (a Science Fiction convention), the most beautiful woman I have ever seen burned herself into my minds eye. I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts and always ran into her. Finally on Saturday, I decided to speak the truth. Carpe Noctum and all that. “Excuse me. I’ve been coming to this convention for ten years, and you are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen here.”
Her face lit with astonishment. “No.”
“Yes, you are,” I replied, with all sincerity.
“You mean, the prettiest woman this year ?”
I bared my soul. “The best in ten years.” She couldn’t believe it and I told her that I just had to tell her. For some reason, “I want you to know that.” I also added, “I’m not telling you this as a pick-up line, take the compliment for what it’s worth.” She thanked me and went on her way. All through that night I kept running into her; and she made it clear she liked me. She was dressed as a pirate and after sitting next to her for a while, she graced me with an impish grin. “You know what this outfit needs ? More leg,” she laughed and gave me a wonderful view up to the hip.
The rest of that night was pure magic. She asked me for my phone and address, and when I asked why an address, she told me she would send me a postcard on her vacation. Thrilled by this woman's beauty and boldness I walked her to the elevator. I have never wanted to go down on a woman so badly in my life. I made a last turn around the con before leaving, filled with hope and elation.
I never heard from her again. I think about her almost every day and its been 10 years. When I go to any convention, I look for her but she is not there. Ten years ago a beautiful bird flew into my life for a few short hours, then took wing into the night. Goddess how I miss her. In truth, I miss all of them. All those wonderful, perfumed Goddesses that I’ve met but could never have. The memories are sweet, precious, tinged with the pang of loss.
Sometimes people wonder what happened to me; happened to my delight, my sense of purpose, my....deep love of life. What they fail to realize is that I suffer from perpetual tactile deprivation. I have not known the fullness of a woman's touch in well over 8 years. Robbed of the comfort most take for granted, I have become less than what I was. I admit I hunger to touch and be touched. Like an infant, I look for opportunities; a lingering of the hand here, a touch of the shoulder there.
I have not tasted the wine-dark rose of lips for millennia it seems. Such things have a strange effect on the psyche, on the soul. Through my entire life, I’ve striven to be the best lover a woman could wish for. I believed I attained that perfection, and for many years I honed the skills to spoil my (eventual) Lady. A cold, knife of ice slices my spine; the knowledge festers that all, all my devotions to the art of love will never be realized. It seems such a waste; almost a crime against me and women.
To melt in a woman embrace, to lose myself completely in their softness and soul that I cease to exist, is something I dream of. I meld, becoming one with the object of my affections. I think to myself that this, this is what linguists had in mind when they invented the word, “rapture.” To be so awestruck that I wouldn’t notice God if He was standing beside my lady. He would only shed more light on the object of my wonderment and I would be humbled.
For there is no such thing as “just a girl.” There are only Goddesses in various guises and stages of development. It is in our nature to worship a higher power than ourselves, so I choose to worship my woman, my own personal deity. In my life I have been blessed with touching that which is so much more than mortal, and I am the better for it. Roused with fire, whether it be love or lust, matters not. To be enflamed is the nature of life itself. Without desire, there is no point in living.
Who can escape what he truly desires ?
Titanic: the allure and the heartbreak
The allure of the Titanic, both in movies and fact, continue to haunt us on a level not commonly found. Why does this most terrible tragedy resonate within us after more than 94 years; what causes even the most hardened souls eyes to well with tears after all this time ? The effect of viewing artifacts brought up from over 2 miles beneath the ocean makes us clutch at our chests as our lungs tighten with sympathy at the more than 2000 souls and lives that ended so terribly and sudden on that long night.
Why we react this way to such an old event is easily explained if you take the time to analyze it. Any of us could have been on that ship.
The commonality of experience is what grabs us by the throat; the fact that what happened in the great ships final hours runs the gamut of human capability. From nobility to cowardice and everything in between is thrust forward into our faces and we don’t always like what we see. It is man’s finest hour and saddest simultaneously. Most of us relate to James Cameron’s vision of Titanic in his brilliantly conceived movie of 1999, in which all of us had a small taste of what could have well befallen us if we had lived in that time. Seated in the dark, the stereo sound of walls creaking made us believe that at any moment the walls would give way and we’d be choked with freezing seawater, our lungs filled with burning as we died. It is terrifying in it’s intensity and vision.
Even hearing someone playing a pennywhistle immediately brings to mind the experience in it’s horrific entirety, and I am forced to relive the episode, tears streaming down my upturned face. The knowledge that this very minute, people calling themselves “treasure hunters” are desecrating a gravesite causes me to clench my fists in indignation. These so-called people are nothing but ghouls looting the tombs of the dead for fame and fortune. They like to justify this by saying they’re only picking up items from the debris field, not the ship itself. This is akin to picking through a plane crash from the scattered remains of bodies and defending it by saying that you’re not going through the plane.
The individual stories are the ones most harrowing as we cannot disassociate our psyches from them as readily and they impact us, making it personal and immediate. The Marconi Wireless operators that kept sending the distress signal as the ship tilted itself into a 30 degree angle and they lost power. The passengers in Steerage that were locked into the bowels of the ship and left to drown. Captain Smith’s mental deterioration after the collision, and unknown fate. The first-class passengers given priority over the other, less wealthy souls, only strike at us deeper as we realize how little we’ve changed as a society; we look to wealth as our criterion for worthiness. All of these things make us aware of how fragile we are, and how tenuous our grasp on life is.
The Titanic is actually a metaphor for everything held in our minds. It is death on a grand scale; heroism for all those that gave up a place on a boat to save someone;
cowardice in men disguising themselves as women to secure a place; arrogance in proclaiming the ship as unsinkable; prejudice and class division in the assigning of areas where one could and could not go. It is a case of humanity at it’s finest and at it’s nadir.
The lessons learned from the tragedy were many, although the fact that it took a maritime disaster of such magnitude to bring them about speaks volumes about our mentality. And even after the horrible mistakes came to light, White Star Lines successfully managed to deny the claims of the dead in court, cheating the survivors out of a measure of closure. Again, this highlights the fact that even now we put money and profit above all else, even morality.
For me the images in the film only magnify the manifold individual tragedies on that fateful night of April 12, 1912. It seems on that night that all our dreams died, plunging into oblivion along with the finest ship we could craft. If there was a lesson in all this it was surely that we should endeavor to rein in our pride in our technology. Perhaps we should instead look to the small comforts we are capable of giving our fellows. Things like compassion, humor, shelter, healthcare and other vital necessities should be seen in a clearer light after that event that is 94 years gone. However we seem not to have taken in those vital lessons, choosing instead to ignore it and “move forward.” To me this seems to be a waste of all the lives that were lost. Isn’t it better to examine the past for our mistakes so we can learn the right things ? Instead we look at the past as nostalgia, dismissing the event as just a movie. This is wrong.
The people that died gave up not just their lives, but their hopes, dreams, future, all for some higher purpose. And we choose to ignore that purpose, focusing instead on the making of lesser things and lessened goals. The chief lesson of the Titanic is one of selflessness. Of giving up things for the greater good. The band that played as the ship sank is a prime example. They could have jumped off the side; tried to find a boat taking men; or any of a hundred other strategies, but instead chose to stay and make a difference in the final hours of their lives. I commend them on their conscientious heroism and bravery. The symbolism of the band is one of giving and seeking grace while all falls to pieces around you, is often seen in various historical examples.
Although on a lesser scale, the Titanic disaster is akin to the Holocaust. It is merely a microcosm of the greater horror of the ovens. Instead of being cooked to death, you froze in the calm freezing water of the harsh North Atlantic. The criminals that went through the Jews’ belongings and gold teeth for valuable, are echoed in the same ghouls that continue to loot the debris field in the name of profit. Only the uniforms are different. The lesson seeming to be, “we honor our dead. Unless there’s money to be had, then it’s different.” If there is money to be made, then all bets are off and we do anything for profit. If someone found gold or other valuables while diving in Pearl Harbor, you can rest assured that some kinky bastard would be trying to dive on the site to bring up “Historical Artifacts.”
It makes me sick.
Labels: Titanic
Barbeque Time
The night is warm with hardly a stirring of a breeze. Windchimes sound the tones that I find soothing after such a day as this. Most of the night is spent in silence, thinking, and sometimes I find that I’ve spent all night pondering things, and not enough time at the keyboard, writing the stories that I love. I think and remember all the memories that are at my beck and call if I so choose. Like the time my parents and I had a barbecue. My dad would arrange the briquets in a careful geometric pattern carefully designed to light and burn efficiently. In retrospect, we would call this a pile. But fathers have this ritual of making a production of the perfect grilling experience, and we’d go along with it, being children and obeying without question. Maybe that’s the problem. We go along with everything that is told to us by anyone older, being of the mind that they have the necessary experience to do it properly. We never question if what they are doing is correct.
So my dad would be geometrically arranging blocks of charcoal as if he was assembling a science project that was to be judged by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA. Every piece of charcoal had to be placed next to it’s neighbor with delicate and precise care, lest the universe dissolve into it’s component parts. Personally, I think they’re sublimating the desire to build models or play with blocks, but that’s just my observation. We were allowed to handle the charcoal and place it in the Master Builders hands, but never were we allowed to actually help build the mystical pyramid lest the barbecuing gods be offended.
In the meantime, mom would be preparing the food. Chopping onions to knead into the hamburger, before being – as with the charcoal – carefully shaped by her hands. No way would any of us kids want to mix meat, and so we were put to work on the exceedingly difficult task of stripping the corn. This is not as easy as it sounds. You had the pleasure of peeling back the green sheaf's, and getting that funny green smell, before you had to work loose all that cornsilk. It took what seemed like hours and you always ended up eating some of it anyway, the texture was as if you were flossing your teeth with thread from your moms sewing basket. They should have just put in the grill and burned it off, it probably would be just as gross, but at least you wouldn’t fell as if you were chowing down on hair.
By this time, your dad, having gotten the briquets in the proper order (which always resembled a pile...or is that just me) commenced to light it, by dousing it with charcoal starter and throwing a match. The funny thing is that it would go out. And yet people continued to use the worthless stuff by the gallon, when it would have been easier to use gasoline and have done with it already. The wind would always shift at that precise moment and send the smoke directly into the kitchen. In fact, it was so reliable, that one could use it as an equation, if one needed an equation to start a grill; knowing your father who had such an obsession with geometrically arraigned briquets, he would have jumped at the chance. Fortunately, no one took the trouble write down this corollary, and so we’re free from one more worthless ritual.
The very act of grilling never made sense when you took the time to examine it.
It is a very hot Summer day and instead of staying inside with the fans and air conditioners, we decided to build a roaring hot fire and stand around it. All this for the love of meat and smoke. We could have just as easily stood at the nearest garage fire and gotten the same smoke in out faces without the meat. But cooking outdoors is like some primitive ritual that me must undergo if we are to pass childhood and become: Geometric charcoal shapers, as our father once were.
Now the reason for this outdoor cooking is that it’s too hot to cook inside. This appears to be sensible unless you look at it from my skewed perspective. Ever notice that whenever you decided to barbecue that things took longer to cook ? Perhaps it has something to do with the mystical smoke/wind formula we overlooked. Ah the foolishness of ignoring that ! While cooking the burgers, there would always come a time when the meat drippings would catch fire and turn the burgers to charcoal. By another strange corollary, this too would happen when the grill was untended. One minute you’d be in the kitchen helping with food or talking and the next thing you knew, there would be a cry along the lines of “Hey !!” followed by a rush out the door to SAVE THE MEAT. Saving the meat was all-important. This was the number one priority, saving your hair and flesh was second. With much hullabaloo and clamor the fire was smothered. Well, this is untrue; the meat was hustled off with a speed that is unmatched by military missiles. Even now, the military is still trying to crack the secret.
After all that, came sitting down and eating. This involved having a peaceful and relaxing meal; for a few minutes, then the bugs would descend in squadrons, undeterred by imminent death by barbecue flames and smoke. The flies were the worst. Lured by the scent of food they would circle like indians around a stranded wagon train, picking off the goods as they sat on the table. Believe me when I say that your desire for a buttered ear of corn goes out the window after the flies have been swimming in the melted butter; dipping their gremlin legs and such appendages in what was once your beloved meal.
Most of the time, we’d retreat to the safety of the kitchen and eat in there, safe from the insects of doom. The bugs would cling to the screen door piteously, as if saying, “Oh Pleeeesse let us in ! We only want a teeny, tiny taste really. Please ? Can’t you hear the voices of our children ?” We would ignore them. This is easy as bugs do not talk except in the minds of disturbed writers like myself. So we would eat inside. This pretty much defeated the purpose of starting this whole foray in the first place, but who would dare to tell this to the King Of The Grill, the Master of the Briquet, the Head Honcho ! Not me. And to this day, we still perform this ancient ritual that was started by Neanderthal man and is frequently heralded by the passed down cry of: “GOD, MY HAIR IS ON FIRE !! AAAAHHHHHH !!
Autumn
The air is crisp, smelling of mold and earth, fallen leaves and dreams. It is October, a fine month for everything whether young or old, human or animal. The wind is stronger than usual, blowing the crimson, gold, and brown leaves into eddies as if some elemental was trying to take form and offer you a wish. The season is one of contrasts and change. Life yields inevitably to decay and death.
For some strange reason most of the people I know say Autumn is their favorite season of the year. If you ask them why they usually say the cold air is invigorating, filling their bones with an energy of a twelve year old with the dreams to match. It does not matter if you’re seventy years old, you still kick the leaves or shuffle through them as a giant monster crushing Tokyo underfoot. In all of us there is a little boy that wishes to lie in a pile of dead leaves, smelling the rich loam and reading books filled with adventure.
The verdant green of Summer has changed his visage to the Golden God of Autumn; resplendent in his cloak of ever-changing colors. By degrees the cloak becomes more threadbare and the trees resemble skeleton hands clawing at a graying sky. The season of the white cold will be upon us and we sometimes cling to the notion that the coming Winter is death. You could not be more wrong. Autumn is the season of magic, of mysteries, of wonders constantly unfolding before your eyes. But its quick; blink and you’ll miss it.
Fear not the winter, for it is not death. It is life. Like a newly pregnant woman, you see nothing but under the surface, life is germinating; waiting patiently for the warmth of Spring when once again life will bloom underfoot and the cycle will start again.
With the days growing shorter, I find myself walking in a world of faeries, the fluttering leaves lady Titania’s gown made of lace and silk, her laughter ripples the air making the air shiver. Overhead the migrating geese sound forth the call to all creatures of feather to take flight and heed the urge to move onward to better destinations. The squirrels scurry amongst the patchwork of dead, brittle leaves, scouring the earth for Falls hidden treasure that they may bury them.
Household cats feel the shift in the balance of the quarters and bother their owners opening one door after another in the never-ending hunt for the door into Summer, the doorway leading into one more day of warm sunbeams to sleep in. Failing that, they spend more time in our laps, doing their best to mimic the earths hibernation that is speeding inexorably forward.
We too feel natures call and wind down, spending our times reading or writing.
Truth be told, we need the winter ourselves to better contemplate what we have done the last nine months; what we’ve accomplished, the friends made, the ones lost. Like misers we tally up what we have stored in the grainhouse of our minds and souls after a solid years work. And we smile as we sip at the cup of hot chocolate or spiced wine, content in what we’ve done the last year. The small things count in that tally.
We hug our cats so fiercely that they purr and we feel for a moment the awe that it’s prey feels the instant before we die. Delight at the memory of that first day of Summer when the ginger ale burns down our throats; the oil on the surface of skin with a feel like something imported from Baghdad by Aladdin himself. Wrapped in the comfort of this years memories, we can wait the long cold winter.
IN PRAISE OF WOMEN
Women. The most beautiful creatures on this marvelous globe. We’re lucky they put up with us men sometimes, what with all the crap we put them through. We tell them they’re fat, too short, too emotional....too beautiful for the likes of us. They deserve all the worship we can bestow on them for one reason alone, and that my friends is that they are absolutely divine !
They walk into our drab, boring lives and inject them with a vitality and grace we can only aspire to. They act silly, laugh at our embarrassments, and push the envelope of what’s socially acceptable. Whether dressed in lace or coveralls, they have a power over us that we can’t explain. It is as if they are on the inside track of secret knowledge and we’re trailing several lengths behind.
A woman doesn’t have to try to look beautiful; they already are. In the early light of dawn they lie under the covers of their bed, hunkered down in sleep, their faces radiant as only a woman can be. Waking, they stretch like cats, long and languid movements a study in elegance...before they stumble into the bathroom.
There is nothing like having a woman lean into you as you watch a movie or embrace. You sink into the powdered and perfumed softness and are reborn into something better than you were mere moments before. Born with eyes that can wither your soul or heal the most hardened heart, they are the perfect life-form sent from the stars to shine their glorious light upon our lives. Give them anything they want, for they deserve only the best we can give and no less.
In the act of making love, the face of our goddess transforms into something so beautiful and magnificent it’s a wonder that gazing upon it does not blind us. We nuzzle the base of her neck, the fragrance rich and heady as if she were composed of flowers.
We men, we mere mortals are blessed to have them in our lives and our beds. They have wild hearts that cannot be tamed, nor would it be wise to try.
More intoxicating than any drug, sweeter than nectar, we flock to them as bees to honey. How like angels they are, but far more challenging and interesting. To converse with a woman, to be her friend, is a privilege beyond price. You can sleep with a woman for a hundred years, but you will never know her until you come to know her as a sister.
How incredibly frail they seem, yet are stronger than you know. Their heart contains as many secrets as the ocean, and is as deep. Radiant creatures, shaped by the Goddess own hands they manifest divinity in our paltry corporeal existence. I am proud to worship at their altar, a humble acolyte asking for a boon.
I love you all.
“All the lovely ladies in their finery tonight. I wish that I could know them one by one.” - Gordon Lightfoot
Dreaded Winter
Winter, the season of discontent. There is a reason that individuals such as myself despise this season of the white cold; it is because it holds no beauty. There are only stark trees, denuded of their lush growth, and an endless ocean of white. It’s monotonous and amounts to sensory deprevation. Lack of sunlight only heightens the sour moods we are in and makes us depressed, or what they used to call, “winter madness” all the more dangerous.
The air is dry and cold, but more than that; it has no odor, no smell. Unlike the other three seasons, winter has no smell of it’s own. The dry, harsh air carries with it no memory, no sensory impact to stir our senses and give us something to hold onto until a better spring comes. There is only the white snow, dead air, and boredom. When I look out my window (for it is too cold to go outside) I see no birds or animals. There isn’t a lick of life to be seen or felt and it makes us feel more alone then we’ve felt and that scares us on a level that is prehistoric. We feared this season many centuries ago, and with good reason; so many of us failed to survive it due to disease, madness, starvation, or lack of heat.
There aren’t even decent sunsets to break the harsh bleakness of the season. There is only overcast skies that herald more snow, hard winds with their odorless blasts, and the stark skeletons of the trees once lush with growth but now dead, wrapped in comatose slumber.
We are urged by counsellors and other professionals to get out of the house more. I’m always tempted to ask them where. Where do we go ? Encased in our cold homes (with lowered thermostat, lest the gas company fleece us) we go outside in frigid air to an icebox of a vehicle that takes forever to warm up. We drive to some destination and are loathe to leave our warm little life pod. We stiffen and throw open the car door and are assaulted by the cold of Noontime, which is, with wind, hovering around the zero mark. The relaxation we had on the warm drive is jerked from our minds as the cold slices through our parka like a riven nail.
As we walk the distance to the store/mall/movie, we freeze and tense. Gaining the safety of our destination, we gradually warm and relax. It is like a battle - advance and withdraw. There is no therapeautic value to going out, as there is no constancy.
One can only escape for a little while and the enjoyment is forced. For in the back of our minds we know that we have to brave the knife-edge of Old Man Winter all too soon as we trek back to our cars.
Personally I believe we should abandon the northern states and just leave them to the animals and other indigent life, and move to less harsh areas. Spring is filled with change for our newly awakened senses. There is the melting snow that brings out the smell of wet from the leaves that weren’t raked from last Fall. Our footsteps have the squish of the softened ground, and the squirrels scamper for food once more. We open like flowers to the sun, stretching our limbs as we tilt our heads back to feel the sun upon our upturned faces, the inside of our eyelids glow a warm orange-red. The breeze is fresh and new, alive with the promise of a better season to come.
Ah, but Summer is the finest of all. The opposite of winter in all respects, we are agape with wonder at the fullness of Mother Earth. The grass is a verdant green, so lush that we walk on it with bare feet, and feel the warmth of fertile ground. The smell of leaves, pungent as rosemary tickle our noses and we laugh. Children laugh and play amidst the lawns freshly mowed and smelling of timelessness, and in our adult minds we are there with them, throwing baseballs or water balloons. We can visit with our neighbors as they water the lawn or ready the barbeque, and we come away from the experience a better and more rounded person then we were moments before.
Then there is the pleasure of walking the neighborhood at night. The stars wink down at you in their cryptic morse, the wind comes up and rustles the leaves of the trees, asleep in the absence of sun, and if you listen closely a secret language insinuates itself into your ear. The whisper of a leaf or sand being blown across the asphalt titilates you. Somewhere lying in his kennel, the dogs claws turn silver in the moonlight as they twitch in dreams. There is magic in Summer.
And that’s why I hate winter.
A Season of Life?s Perfection
I am now in the Autumn of my life, and still some things elude my grasp that I should have long ago mastered. Here I sit writing and it occurs to me that instead of here, I should be in a high building that is stacked with books I've read and books I've had published. Alas, the writing bug did not get me until late in life, after the fire has been carefully banked to keep it from going out entirely.
In a rare epiphany on this December night, I shudder with the realization that maybe I've waited too long; the muse being a thing for the young and active. Youth - being up to 35 - is a gift. The boon is one of constant change, laughter, energy, and the pursuit of the opposite sex. Such are the milk and meat of life, and I, being older have missed out because of chance or luck or fate. Call it what you will, I feel that I've missed the last train pulling out and will be caught standing here, my emotional baggage in hand as the empty tracks slide away in both directions.
An outlook such as this tends to make both melancholy and desire war in my breast, an ongoing battle betwixt life and death. For I want not only to give up and surrender to the inevitable, which is death, but also to wrestle the angel of life and pin him to the ground, forcing him to give me back the fire I once knew. The question is do I have the wherewithal to do so, or am I to be relegated to the dust bin of antiquity ?
For to go gently into that good night is not what I want. Moderation is for monks, not me. For I desire to take large bites of life, sucking the sweet juice out of it's fruit until it cascades down my chin.
How best to accomplish this daunting task; how best to approach it, is a matter for keen thought. Like a plan of battle, the details have to be meticulously worked out, and yet flexible enough to bend on the inevitable enacting of Murphy's Law. Who am I kidding anyway; the real question is am I strong and supple enough to bend when the winds of the World blow ill as they are wont to do ? It?s not exactly a soup question.
But to go to my grave with the knowledge that I lacked the simple courage to try
is a strong impetus. It grates against all my being to bow my head in defeat, to acknowledge that the ubiquitous ?They? have won the game and I must go down into the dugout and await my demise. No. I can't do that. I won't do that ! The World and it's trials and tribulations are not to be given in to. They must be fought constantly and unfailingly, with heart and courage if I am to win; if all of us are to climb out of the long darkness we have put ourselves in.
We think in terms of black and white. Winners, losers; pass or fail. Sometimes good and evil, when in truth we all are our own Demons. The truth will out, friends, and if you look deep enough into your heart you'll find a cruel beast. You?ll know it immediately in that it looks like you. It is the Shadow-Self that many mystics speak of and we of the West fail to recognize. The world we have built and are so proud of is a world made up of all our fears. We have built monuments to our own egos, clothed them in garments of gold and telling all that This is the glorious legacy of mankind.
It is a sham. The monuments are shades, illusions built on lies and cruelty of the basest kind. If we took the time to think, we'd recognize the illusions and deem them Shadows. Not the benevolent dim outlines of living things, mind you, but the inky darkness of the grave and the worms beneath. Yet I must be as Persephone and go down into that pit of despair, that dark foulness and return somehow.
To return is to be changed. One cannot enter the shadow realm and be unchanged by the experience. It is exactly that change which I must court if I, by my own actions, am to rise above the murky depths to which I have sunk. Not all of what has befallen me is entirely my fault alone; the world with it's strange twisted notions must share equally in the blame. Therein lies another lesson for another time. Be that as it may, I know in the tunnels of my fierce heart that I can do this and be the better for it. So, let the battle begin.
I take a deep breath, charge up the hill that is angled so as to assure defeat, and with faltering steps sound my barbaric Yawp over the field and plant my victory flag. My backpack is filled with memories of what I have done in the past, so I may remember past victories and take courage. My head is full of determination and dreams of a better way than what we currently have. In my left hand I carry a handful of rose seeds that is the new growth to be sown after the old growth has been cut away. My right hand holds a dagger, to be used as a last resort when my words fail me.
The combatants face each other. One is fear, a dreadful foe that turns blood to water. The other is despair, a malaise that if one gives in to it for an instant, one is forever defeated. I stand tall, take my stance, and charge headfirst into the fray. May fortune favor the foolish, for I am as trusting as the Fool. This is Saint Crispins Day and I will win out over my foes and gain back my life and my own power. Excelsior !!
WRITERS BLOCK DISEASE
The worst thing about being a writer is that occasionally one encounters the horrible beast known as writers block. Let me tell you that facing a 300 foot tall scaly monster from the mind is not all lightness and fun. Anything but. Your once-proud stories, the ones you crafted lovingly every night through the heat and snow have now been ignored for weeks (or months) and stare at you from the desktop.
Every night you sit down and wonder if tonight the magic will return like some mystical gift from the gods. And when it doesn‚t you spend the time either huddled miserably over the keyboard, the sweat beading your forehead, your hands shaking, or you give up and read a book hoping to be inspired by someone elses magic. You scour Heinlein, Bradbury, Brin, even suck-ass Robert Jordan, looking for an unsprouted seed that you can germinate into a real story. Sometimes it works, sometimes you throw up your hands in despair shouting, "I can‚t take it anymore, and start drinking.
It occurs to you that maybe Hemingway and Stephen King had the right idea when they turned to drugs to write. Sure, they rotted a lot of brain cells, but at least they got stories written...and published. But you haven't turned to drugs yet because you have got it into your little non-working mind that the real reason the stories haven't been dripping from the tips of your fingers is that your brain is dying. You remember that the headaches and lethargy come more frequently than they used to and the poisonous thought comes: "I am dying from a brain tumor."
Relax. There is no tumor growing inside your head, no alien virus infecting you, a stray bacterium from that mummy you viewed at the museum hasn't caused you to wander the streets looking for magical tana leaves. What you have is simply a case of psychological stress. That‚s right, stress. The more you think about writing, the worse the disease becomes until before you know it, you've transformed yourself from a normal (if writers can be normal ) individual, into a hypochondriac par excellance !
The cure can be found several ways. Most writers suffer from being housebound far too much. Take a walk for a few hours; enjoy what real air smells like instead of that recycled stuff you've been breathing for weeks. Visit your friends, who by now think you have died and haven't even been decent enough to invite them to your funeral. Talk with people. Stories come from real life incidents, and if you have a lack of life, well your stories are going to reflect that and be as dull as Jordan's prose.
Take a drive to someplace you've been meaning to go. Take up stargazing and be humbled by the cosmic dance; all you need are your eyes, though a pair of binoculars seem to help focus my attention. In other words, do something with your time that doesn't involve writing at all. Forget about it for awhile, the world is not going to end just because you skip a few days of eyestrain in front of the word processor.
If you can't leave the house for some reason, then listen to music and reflect on the lyrics, perhaps there's a story in them that can be tapped. Most importantly, READ. Perhaps nothing beats back the worry than taking a trip through someone else's world via paperback. You'll find that the more you read, the better you'll feel. And there is nothing quite like escaping the humdrum, wack-a-mole life than to visit some other writers world. But the important thing is to let the ideas come when they will. Don't force it, that's a one-way ticket to insanity's outhouse located in Cthulhu's backyard in sunny San Rafael. No story is worth going nuts over. If you indulge yourself and DO go nuts, who is going to write the story ? Not you certainly. You're locked up in a padded room wearing a backwards coat. Plus the nurse is ugly and about to administer a large dose of brain gravy to you. So relax.
Other things you can do if you are not the indoor type is to simply sit on your porch and watch the parade of humanity walk by. Don't forget to wave, one of them might wave back or walk over, and bing, bang, boom, you've actually got a friend. One you just may be able to put in a story. Watching people is a great hobby that has benefits most folks don't realize. If the kids out front are playing noisily, see what they're doing and pay attention. Is one kid talking to a garden statue ? There's a story ! Some teenager walks by crying. Why is she crying ? Help her by all means, but keep in mind that the question drives us. WHY is she crying ? Has her boyfriend left her; did someone discover her secret; has a small spaceship lodged in her eye ? By asking the question, we find the basis for a story. Maybe the story you write is crap, you're saying. So what ? Nobody has to see it but you. The important thing is that you write something that tickles your fancy. If the subject or story doesn't move you, it certainly won't move the reader. But I‚ve gotten off-topic. Writers do that you know.
My advice is to loosen up and be more observant. The more you see, the more questions come to mind and that my friends is a story-starter. Also the more your mind cranks it's little wheels the more productive you become. Nature abhors a vacuum and if you don't use the grand instrument of that old pink matter, nature will be more than happy to put something inside your head that you DON'T want and have no use for. It happened to Berkowitz, Dahmer, Bundy, and the Unabomber. They obviously spent too much time alone and not enough time taking big bites out of life.
Instead of writing books, they went nuts, and you don't want to end up like they did.
For one thing, it's hard to write in prison when Bubba is slamming his dick up your puckered ass. For another...well we won't get into that right now.
Currently I'm suffering from writers block; that's why I'm writing this. And you know something ? This is a lot of fun. Write about something that is on your mind, if nothing else it provides typing practice and could lead to something worthwhile. Just while writing this it occurs to me how much just sitting on the front porch with my cat means to me. The chirp of crickets and cicadas, the warmth of the cat as I stroke his luxuriant fur in idle patterns, even the flashing of the cop cars lights as they walk up the sidewalk to take me away....okay, the last part is bullshit, but the small things matter.
And in those quiet moments, ideas lay themselves at your feet like offerings from an ancient worshipper. Ideas like: The homeless person that talks to himself...is anyone listening ? Is it aliens or someone else ? Maybe when the crickets chirp it's really a code for something. Is my cat smarter than me ? Probably. Let's face it, he's not thinking about anything but the sensuous feel of being petted.
So the key is to relax and do something else, but be open to the influx of ideas when they arrive. Don't force yourself to sit down and wrack your brain about what you have to write tonight. And if you're absolutely out of ideas, try writing about your childhood or your father. Memories contain oodles of ideas. Just ask Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison about that. If you can pry them away from the keyboard. Ellison will tell you to fuck off and continue writing, whereas Bradbury will merely go, hmmm ?‚ like someone lost in a world of his own.
So get lost...in your own world. As for me, I'm going to imagine sitting on my porch, eating some roasted corn as the cat pesters me for a lick of butter. And I have to mind I don't miss the fourth of July fireworks in an hour, even if the reality is that it's February and there's a foot of snow on the ground. Imagination and memory are your best friends, even if sometimes you can't find them on your own. Rest assured they will find you. Now, get lost, I have stories to write and things to imagine.
