The Land

Michael’s wanderings led him from one odd job to another; meeting new people, gaining new experiences. Never bored yet moving within a fabric of lack: lack of money, lack of security, lack of consistency; lack of knowing. This was coupled with a lack of caring beyond his immediate needs, and a lack of worry too. Perhaps it was a lack of gain.

Michael knew well enough that his ways were out of the net of contemporary society. He wasn’t being a member of the social formation; yet he was attempting, and hoping, to be a member of humanity. Things were changing; fixtures were seemingly becoming more fluid. Fixed notions of the self and how to interact with ones environment were breaking away from their moorings and casting adrift those who held dearly to their anchoring. Too many years, and too much reliance, upon an iron anchor of belief and hope was beginning to tear at people’s civilised psyche. Michael was noticing this infraction as he moved across the landscape of a country increasingly alien and unfamiliar. And the cities were burning.

Urban sprawls had slowly been turning into hardened wombs. Just like the Auschwitz experiments of injecting concrete into the veins of victimized death-camp inmates, so too had the degradation of negativity slowly been poisoning the urban veins with concrete viruses and piss-stinking twisted love. The painful cold heat of urbanity finally drove Michael away from the cumbersome cash-in-hand dishwashing jobs into the retreat of rural grasslands. It was the air too that Michael craved for; the open air of expanse and a Nature that did not bite in judgement but welcomed as family. And finally Michael rested upon a small farm in some hills far away from his home town, and took on the hired-hand of a farm labourer.

It was hard, manual work. It rubbed against his skin as much as it rubbed coarsely against his upbringing. Both his finger skin and his conditioning began to fall away from the soft-textured patterning. Back aching and body-battered did Michael often fall into bed at night – exhausted yet satisfied. Michael began to feel himself becoming stronger little by little each day.

The farm employers treated Michael well in the circumstances. He was treated almost as family, and ate at the same table and afforded the same privileges as everyone else who worked on the farm. The sole condition was that Michael pulled his weight and did his job well. For Michael this was demanding, yet fair. And so in this challenge Michael sought a life opportunity to fulfil. It had been a circumstance placed before him, either to confront or turn away.

The strength of will inside Michael’s chest urged him on to face this step like a compassionate hunter of the self.

Although Michael felt neither like a hunter nor a warrior, he still felt as if he was engaged in a constant war. Yet it was not a destructive war, nor a fearful one. It was a constructive war of apprehension and renewal; not knowing the prey until it spoke deep inside with the hunter’s own voice. As if to cure yourself you must first kill that which is most precious to you – your very own conception of self. The belief in you: yet that belief which is not you. To dig up the implanted and sew anew.

After two years on the farm Michael felt a strengthened change had come over him. Still quiet yet not timid, just like the lay of the land.

Waking Sleep

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences,
and though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream,
and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are.

Rumi

Reclaim Me - I Walk Through

Reclaim Me... alkaline fluid in the veins of an unknown...

In the midst of some music there is a burning

that cannot be undone, or done without.

Like it or not I walk through.

Cancerous or not I walk through...

Wondrous Harp, splintered filaments,
coppered Heart burnished to Gold:

nothing is sold but the Spirit Be.

If it could be done, I would.

If it can be done, I will.

I will...

The Eternal Embrace

A human embrace - through life into death and bones...

Archaeologists in Italy have unearthed two skeletons thought to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old, locked in an embrace.

The pair from the Neolithic period were discovered outside Mantua, about 40km (25 miles) south of Verona.

"It's an extraordinary case," said Ms Menotti. "There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging - and they really are hugging,"

Real hugs should not be taken lightly... we carry them with us as we move through our ages...

From Italy mystery of prehistoric hug

Judas

His parents named him Judas so that he would learn the depth of loyalty to that which one holds dear.

Judos never forgot the power of his name for he carried it about with him wherever he wandered, and treasured it as a jewel in his heart. For Judas was the name of the most loyal, of the one who would die for that most precious thing.

Yet one’s journey should not be announced or advertised like branding. The self is not to be commercialised. So he called himself Michael whilst he wandered the world.

Michael believed in doing what was right for the moment. And that in each event, encounter, a person should leave differently from how they came.

For Michael, everything that is needed exists in the present moment, and this moment is all that exists. So each moment he enjoyed in the time he was in, for that very moment may not come again. Nothing was to be ignored for fear of hesitancy within.

In life, moments seek, but do not return. Golden moments must always burn.

Michael had left home when he was sixteen, wanting to find an unknown thing from the world. He sustained himself on his own innocence, fed by faith and fearlessness. And the understanding that the worst to come could only be death. Such a small price to pay for the sense of freedom gained from Michael’s own secret pain.

A pain that told Michael, incontrovertibly and irreversibly, that he had a special one thing to do in his life. One thing to do, and no matter what else he did, whether he courted Kings or ruled corporations, if he did not do this one thing in his life he would have done nothing. Yet if he could achieve this one thing, then anything else he did would not matter, nor would it constrain him. His freedom came with the price of this one thing.

Yet how could he know what it was?

Rather than sit at home wondering, musing through moments as if they were abundant and endless, Michael opened his own front gate onto the world and stepped out from the family familiars and comfort furnishings. Like a sailor on a sinking ship, the only thing to save was himself. Similarly, the only thing to lose was himself. In-between Michael knew a balance could be found, and there was no harm in trying.

Just as the hand of winter reveals the secrets of spring, the fractals of nature conspire towards connecting all seeming coincidences. Even those things thought of as a hindrance have a purpose: shade protects from the sun; cold preserves and protects the buds; and hurt provides the pleasure of knowing joy.

It sounds so simple, so easy, so childlike. The world isn’t always so simple. The world keeps its own secrets for the seeker to discover.

Michael had secrets too; so engrained that they had become a part of his flesh. So he couldn’t give them away lest he lose a portion of his skin.

Instead Michael went looking for someone he could tell his secrets to. He knew there must be someone who can keep secrets.

When the heart longs for fresh water it will no longer dwell near the brackish water of ditches and stagnant ponds. Nor will the salt water of the sea suffice. As the swan glides effortlessly, so does the temptation drag the duckling in its wake.

KLD