After you get past the surface details, all the stories are pretty much the same

If there is no time, anything is possible.

I should know:  for an eternity I existed outside time.  Then, as a result of many transgressions I became incarnated into the human body you see before you.  In this form, like you, I am subject to the laws of cause and effect, now and then, before and after. 

I pray every moment to return to what I once was. And in so doing, in those moments of deepest absorption, I become a vessel for reality to flow through me.  Then there is the ringing in my ears, and a white noise that fills my head.   And a little voice that tells me, "the past is the past, you have to let it go." 

If there is no time, your thoughts are not your own.  They come from elsewhere.  They are a gift. Even the bad ones. And you become an instrument of reality.  A channel of peace runs through you.   Where there is hatred, you are love, where there is injury, you are forgiveness.

 I never asked for the surprise, so that was the surprise.

One of my neighbors found me laying on the sidewalk. I was taken to the emergency room.   After the medication, the ringing and white noise returned.  After that, I didn't want to face anyone.

If there is no time, you are immense and without boundaries.   But every day in this human body, the world grows smaller and smaller.   In the end, I became glad when at last I saw the four white walls surrounding me and comforting me, just like a womb.  Or a glass of red wine.

Tubac, and no work.  But not for long enough.

Sign of the Times

Tubac, Arizona.  Though Canada has universal health coverage, some Canadians move to Arizona because of the better medical care available in the United States.  There is even a Mayo clinic branch in Phoenix.  However, many Americans eschew dental care in United States and instead go to Nogales, Mexico for their dental work. Evidently, dentists in Mexico are much less expensive and have a very modern equipment.  I wonder where Mexicans get their medical and dental care?  Guatemala? Honduras?

Ross department store, Florissant Missouri.   At the front of the store are two security guards watching everyone enter and exit the store.  Only one cashier is working.   15 people stand in line waiting to check out.  I was going to purchase my father a Notre Dame T-shirt, but upon seeing the long checkout line, I left.  The two security guards asked me to have a nice day.  I wonder if there's a TJ Maxx in Ferguson?

Las Vegas international airport.  Naturally, there are more slot machines than either airline employees or Homeland security personnel.  I noticed passengers in the gate area drinking beer and wine.  Of course all the restaurants allow you to you take out alcoholic beverages. Alcohol and slot machines go together well in a casino.

St. Louis.  Do you remember the PBS series called Civilization?  The narrator, Kenneth Clark, commented that in assessing a civilization you could determine what it's values were by the height of its buildings. For example, in medieval France, the tallest structures in town would always be cathedrals.  In most cities in the United States structures of business and commerce dominate the skyline.  In St. Louis Missouri, one of the tallest buildings is not the Gateway arch, but the federal courthouse.  When constructed, it was massively over budget, but I'm sure the federal contractors were paid for their work.  The federal court in Missouri has a smaller caseload than the courts across the river in Illinois.  

Damn You: A Rosary

Mittpoo wished to know more than he did.  Real stuff.  Not this useless trivia than seems to dominate most of discussion these days.  But first he wanted to take a break from reading.  When Mittpoo could not sleep, he read, or meditated, or did a version of each simultaneously.   So he set down his copy of "Paradise Lost" and began to palpate the links of the chain of his thoughts to determine where they led.

The first link he examined was inscribed "Milton" and read:  "It is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."  Hmmmmm, Mittpoo mused following the oval link around its circumference.  Was it Satan's pride in insisting that he carve out his own territory and rule it that set him apart from Heaven?  And in some ways, isn't that same pride in owning your own home with its well manicured lawn with its well defined property boundaries apart from the rest of humanity generated from the same all too human impulse?  Isn't that the same pride in wanting your own corner office?  The trophy?  The medal around your neck at the end of the race?

Mittpoo followed the next link down.  It was inscribed "Chiang" and read: "Hell is the Absence of Heaven"--the dark reflection spreading to the interstices of space and time not infused with Heaven.  Mittpoo fashioned in his minds eye an immense galaxy of Heaven spreading across the Universe, On its underside, an equally large area of total blackness.  Hell as the mirror image of Heaven.  Mittpoo felt Heaven to be full of light both illuminated, and weightless.  Hell to be heavy, dark, foreboding and tense.

The next link in the chain read:  "Lucifer Morningstar." It was inscribed in small letters with the following quote:  "For an eternity, I have catered to the whims of the damned.  They came to my realm with an insatiable desire to torture themselves.  And so I and my compatriots did.  We are sadists, after all.  This should come as no shock to anyone.  The damned think they have no choice in the matter--but let me tell you a little dirty secret--the damned are free to leave this place anytime they want.  Hell, we wouldn't mind, we could actually use a little more space around here."

The next link in the chain was inscribed simply with "Hell is the lack of understanding."

Mittpoo was quite taken with this last chain in the link as it reflected on the own functioning of his mind.  He recalled how his own life suffered as the result of the lack of understanding of events and how at some level he was aware of it.  He had had a big presentation at work to perform and had struggled with it from many weeks, his mind finding no peace with it.   He knew in the past that a restless mind might not only be infused by demons, but its repetition of thoughts, like lashes from a whip caused his whole body to tense up in pain.  It was not he was able to harmonize his presentation with understanding that his mind was at peace.   If his presentation in any respect was false or lacked understanding, it would come out tense and gnarled, like an ugly false truth.

Then he had met an old friend who he had once been intimate with.  After she had too much to drink, he saw the effect of alcohol was like a bridge between the lack of understanding and a momentary respite from the pain it caused.  Understanding about her life, and what their relationship had really been like.  A dream world to shield themselves from their mutual pain.

Still, Mittpoo did not discount the power to dream.  Dreams can create a new truth and a new understanding in harmony with the rest of the world.  We need dreams and thoughts to interface with the world.  But where do the thoughts come from?  He had struggled for weeks at his presentation at work and still lacked understanding.  How can we achieve understanding?  He then realized that understanding was ultimately beyond his control.   It either was bestowed on him, or he simply lacked it.   All he could do was to develop practices that were conducive to understanding, but whether understanding came or left him in hell, it was ultimately beyond his control.   The spark of creativity, the spark of insight, was a fickle faerie.   He knew not how to summon it.   With that insight, his restless mind which had been stirring unhindered for weeks began to settle down and he fell into a deep sleep.

As his head hit the pillow another link in the chain draped across his chest.  It was inscribed with the word "Heaven,"  and the quote "Heaven is understanding.  Heaven is not separateness.  Heaven is the dissolution of the self into the endless cosmic flow."



(the trial did not go as expected.   for the first time this century, the mission was not accomplished.  I promise to be more contrite next time.   But I should have known that anyway.)

Breaking Glass

Our modern skyscrapers are constructed with glass.  This provides the illusion that the buildings are not actually a cage, but a window to something better.

When the buildings fall, the glass will remain, but broken into millions of colored shards.

The future inhabitants will pick up the glass, and tell stories of the past.  Children will be cautioned to shun the glass, as if history will cut them and draw blood.

But the old wise men and women of the tribe will recount stories of the glass and how it came to be and how it was shattered.

The stories will describe a strange tribe of people that at one time populated the entire globe.  The tribe was ruled by an invisible few called the Watchers.   The Watchers were unknown to the rest of the tribe.  But their tentacles controlled every part of the tribe's existence.  During the daylight hours, the Watchers commanded the tribe to work in gigantic buildings made of glass.   The tribe worked long hours on every labor under the sun.  And through their labors, the Watchers became immensely wealthy.

But, as the stories go, with immense wealth comes greed and jealousy.   Though the Watchers had enough wealth to support themselves and their decedents for thousands of years, it was not enough and paled in comparison to some Watchers who had amassed even more wealth.   A war of sorts broke out between different factions of Watchers and billions were killed.   The fabulous glass cities which at one time spread out as far as the eye could see were decimated and both the Watchers and the rest of the tribe perished.

Listen to me my daughters, if the buildings of glass are ever constructed again, it is best to avoid them.   Toil not inside these constructs lest ye become prey to the endless karma of the Watchers.

The Death of a G...G...G...Ghost

People think that ghosts are not real because they aren't made of atoms and molecules.  It is an age of scientific materialism, even with the advent of quantum physics.

But ghosts are real:   they are made of images and viewpoints, memories and lost hopes.

I am a passenger riding on your dreams.  Through them, one to another.  I am a spirit of your times.  Mr. Zeitgeist.

When I'm mad, I can eat your heart and poison your mind.  I can creep into your fears and amplify them to any extreme..   I can make you want to do horrible things.  I can make you want to ruin your life without even knowing it.  I can turn your little world upside down--so you'd better not fuck with me, dear.

Most of the time, you want to conjure up my distant ineffectual cousins.  Most of the stories they weave are about happy people and happy endings.  An obsession to make everything turn our all right in the end.  Isn't that what faith is all about?   It happened because it was meant to be.

But I am that weariness that won't leave you.  The feeling that inevitably returns after you've had your fun with a long night of drinking and dancing.  I am what is left after the thrill is gone.   I fill your emptiness like a glove.

The only way to master the story is to know when to stop.   If you keep on telling the story long enough, there are no happy endings.   For all stories eventually end in death.

But if you want, I'll tell you your future.   You come from dust, you walk in the dust, and you go back to dust.

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky.