by David Haight, copyright 2009

Old John sat naked in the sand by the very edge of our never silent, chiding sea wondering with a shy, amazed smile that after so many years there were still all those unanswerable, seamless questions lingering amongst his memories.  Encrusted with time’s detritus they appeared to him as banal wisps of thought floating haphazardly upon a mental wind, i.e., “Who am I, really?” and — “Is there any purpose in my being here in this tiny Now Time patch?”

He remembered that for most humankind there is an almost instantaneous rush upstairs to the “head” when circumstantially forced to face these questions.  Questions so laden with brittle, concrete forms, organized religious strangleholds buffered by intellectualized cultural certitudes that simple, intuitive answers coming straight from the heart, encapsulated within a feeling context, had little chance of recognition — much less acceptance.  Within Fear’s orb all those little rigidities seemed to be entirely correct — so very right.

How very, very sad all this is, he dreamily mused – while here it is that I commence lightening up my worldly baggage to bounce fitfully up and down tugging at these self-imposed bindings.  On occasion I celebrate an intermittent, joyous “letting go”, an inflation to ready myself for some as yet unknown adventure, perhaps the ultimate journey whose end is … never.

So it was he dozed off, his back to the magical garden by the sea from whence, in late afternoon sunshine, floated forth a glowing form, a most delicate shell, to reclaim another soul.  Its gossamer wings stilled to catch rainbow sunlight slowly folded ‘round this sleeping being.  From a distance the two were seen as one, smiles flickering over the child’s face — this androgynous creature — as it also fell into memories’ deep sleep.  Behind them a centuries’ old tropical garden sighed with the trade winds, nodded recognition and applauded their intermingling transformations. So dreamt the weary wrinkled old man a universal tale stored in Everyman’s heart:

Twined amongst the very roots of being

Deep, deep within Creation’s first seed,

Down, down in all that rich, black muck

Sprang desire and a secret wish –

From which a searching, wandering stem

Reached upward towards some shimmering surface

Pushing coned pods into sunlight

Soon to unfold a many-faceted mandala,

White lotus flowers caressed, blest,

Nurtured by the little pointing hand

At the end of each sun ray.

Thus, deep in macrocosmic “No Time” a spark was lit,

Our world of opposites came to life.

From their Unity a child was born,

Lifted to a frothy sea surface

Upon a broad carapace

The primeval sea turtle breached

As our sleeping child stirred

Gentled by soft moon glow,

Soon to awaken there –

Upon bone white sand.

Along the edge of Knowing

He meets his radiant welcoming Devil

A shimmering chaos named Reality

To search within Outer Experience

His return to Unity, that double-paneled door –

Discovered through feeding

Upon his ever-trailing, constant shadow.

Deeper, deeper sank Old John towards his center, drifting down into a microcosmic “No Time” to find himself in his own, unique Well of Sadness — immersed in memories’ ashes — up to his waist amongst desiccated yesterdays.

Lifting his eyes to view what he could see of the heavens from this deep twilight land, this holding zone, he turned to face that intense, starry round blue oval sitting on top of the Well.  Upwards he stared into turquoise cold fire and felt an expansive hope stirring, a buoyant lifting ‘round his being.  To honor these complex feelings he ritually lifted up to the heavens, to the blue eye of God, a great pile of ashes — an offering to his distant jumbled past:

Before he knew it

His soul leapt into God’s eye

Expanding beyond earthly memory feelings,

Drifting outward into a night sky

Speeding — lurching towards some unknown womb wall.

Body expanding equally in all directions –

He becomes an exploding star in some distant nebula –

Remnants bathed briefly by interstellar light,

Tendrils connecting unique molecules thinning,

Atoms weakening in their attraction

To produce brilliant firework stars –

His whole body assuming a shining transparency

As any concept of a unique “Him” gives way,

To this omnipresent, transcendent dream.

Thus he is transformed within a magnetic wave

Encountering at the outermost reaches

Of “No Time” that softly resisting,

Webbed spherical wall

Requiring but the briefest concentrated energy

Before bursting through to flow and meld

Into an intense varicolored light stream

Surrounding gently vibrating spheres –

Great orbs in untold numbers –

From one of which –

The now forgotten “You” –

A “Him”… a “Her”

Was just born –

Once again!

–o0o—