Thoughts-a-drift

I sat basking in the sun yesterday afternoon at the lakeside. Watching and observing all the English folks soaking up the sunshine. The smooth breeze whipped up my silky legs and kissed my thighs. I gazed across the lake and everything was clear and fresh.

Watching the kids play and feed the swans was like watching a dance movement full of energy and excitement. The kids had little sun blotched redness across their cheeks and noses. And I wondered why parents allowed their precious, smooth-baby faces to burn like that and have them wondering around without hats on. The sun is harsh this side of the world, especially near such a vast amount of water. And with the news statistics of skin cancer being so high I must wonder where everyone’s mind is at. I sighed because it was pointless wondering this lacking in the human mind. I watched the swans that swam and frolicked all day in the lake waves and wondered if they could burn or get skin cancer.

My mind drifted to the thought of what would happen if there were no more swans in the world and the lakesides were empty and abandoned. I wondered what would happen to this place if it was dark and desolate. What would these children do? With this thought pondering my mind I skipped a million light-years and braced the thoughts which had been pronounced to my mind whilst reading ‘The Road’ by Cormack McCarthy. In this book the world becomes desolate and barren. No animals exist, they have died out or been eaten. And at this point of the story, it is about the reality that people eat people.

I wondered if swans would eat each other? There certainly are animals which eat animals but would all species eat their own kind if there was no more food, no vegetation or fish to eat? Or would only some eat their own, like scavenges, while the rest died of starvation? (On my walk back to the hotel after sitting at the lakeside for a long time, I thought about cows or pigs or sheep. I wondered about their brain capacity. I thought about them in comparison to a lion or wolf- a natural born killer versus a grass eater without much skill in killing another. I tended towards the impression that a cow would lay down and die-or eat itself- rather than know how or try to kill another cow. Whereas a lion or hyena or wolf would possibly kill their own kind. As would a dog or a cat, since these are all naturally designed to kill or hunt and have the mental capacity to understand the ‘kill instinct for survival’.) What does hunger do to the living and starving? With this in mind I pondered the English man sitting beside me. Would he eat me if there was no food on earth? We are after all only just animals- we have the same basic, cardinal needs as animals. I wondered if he would eat the English woman beside me on my left. I wondered how we would segregate who we would and would not eat. Would English people only eat Americans and would South Africans only eat Russian or something, as opposed to one race eating its own race or colour or gender or something. In the road woman were used to breed and have babies so that they could be eaten- would we do that too?

In my mind I was saying to myself that ‘I am certain I would not eat another human being’- it was the same determined feeling I had that ‘I will not have an abortion’. These values seemed impeccable and clear to me, firmly entrenched. But what happens in that situation? Do animals kill their unborn babies too- especially if it was a matter of survival? Would a swan squash one of her eggs? Would a female eat out her womb in a desperate attempt not to have her babies? We know full well that animal mothers and fathers of kill their runts because they are just too weak and won't survive anyway, or these runts are simply neglected and left to die. And we eat chicken eggs, ostrich eggs, and fish eggs (caviar). Is this the same as abortion-killing the unborn life, or the unborn potential for life? Is it natural for us, as animals to kill our own; to delete that which we created simply because we do not want, or cannot ‘want’ IT? The fact that a laid egg may not be fertilised is irrelevant in the essence that it is what it represents-or am I wrong? The point is that the process of life has been started in any respect. The chicken doesn’t recognise that it needs a male to ensure that the egg hatches into a chick. It is still representative of a life starting process.

From this trail of thought my mind pondered onto something slightly less morbid. I sat watching a mother feed her little baby boy his dinner in his pram. His name was Lewis. Lewis’ older brothers were at the lake edge feeding swans. I watched as mum ordered Lewis to pay attention to the fact that she was feeding him his dinner which he had to finish. I realised that there is sternness in nature and this runs in all mothers. That in order for life and parenting to flourish well discipline is necessary. The sternness of a mother is nurturing to the young soul, mind and heart. It offers an understanding of stability and consistency which is embellished in unconditional love. I realised that mother’s have the task of multi-tasking: feeding one child their dinner, commanding the other to put his shoes on and watching the third child at the lakeside edge. Somewhere in all of that I seemed to feel that being a mother is about completing a ‘wanted task’ with love and compassion. In essence it comes down to being practical, consistent and almost boring. It is all in the routine of things, the order of life- much like Mother Nature’s cycle.

Dad arrived to join the family. He brought hotdogs for the older boys and mum. Being the good hunter he managed to provide a hearty meal for the evening and all were thoroughly satisfied. And so was I as I watched the ball of flame fall gracefully behind the enormous fells on the other side of the lake. Good night to all and to all, a wonderful good night.

Teardrop

The hours passed in a glazed pear shaped tear. The tear fell into the green carpet and dried there, as though it had never been. With it, went the pain of something that was once there, but seemed so faded and unadorned in reality. Though, this pain only went temporarily. The deliverance of the pain came through the downpour of teardrops in a perpetually sun-blooming sky. The primrose clouds which hung in the distance revealed the enlightened hope of beauty on the far horizon, of magic lingering in the air. The smell of something so strong left the flesh rippled and raised in ecstasy. Behind it all, in the dragging aftermath, there moved a black thunder cloud. A cloud sure to return as is nature’s cycle. Though, one knows, as that tear dried up, so the thunderstorm’s return shall not hover in remembrance of that pain for eternity. Eternity does not exist.

The seconds it took for one small, wet molecule of liquid to glide down the porcelain skin, is the amount of time it took from the last word to the first word in that crucifixion. In the waking seconds all that came were tears and no comfort. In the months and hours and midnight torture there after there still breathes a living loneliness. The space is unknown by any other. In the blatant face of things once done and past, nothing is beautiful or comforting. It is like a rubbing blister or an enduring ache between the shoulder blades. Constant discomfort in a nagging equilibrium.

In that tear the colours of all worlds floated. In that tear there was a small beginning and a tiny end painted subliminally. In that tear there was the reminiscing image of the circle in which we live and evolve. The tear resembled life itself. But the tear fell due to the death of life. In the tear, woven in intricacies and delicacies unbeknownst to man, was the secret to life and the colours of the paradigms in which life happens. The tear, warm and stinging on the soft, milky rose flesh, carried the essence of the soul from which it left. Within that tear, their lived another soul, forged in a moment when nothing else but the utmost extreme was true. The shared space had given the life which now lay trapped in a tear. A tear only to fall into a green carpet and dry up. A tear to be remembered one day, perhaps in a different emotional magic.

Depictive of the necessary letting go, and colourful like the vibrancy of life worth living, the tears which followed appeared to deliver from the sadness. The tide washed away the trails left behind and marking the skin which it had burnt with regret and shame. The voices of clarity lifted the spirit, followed by the eyes which searched the sky beyond the window. Somewhere in the vague distance there burnt the magic of that energy which was passing through. Somewhere in the moonlit dance-floor lived a soul that was burning like an undying star. And the heart fluttered up and through the curtains to abandon the tear upon the carpet. The pangs of shame and regret began to fade as the infinite galaxy opened its pitch black solitude and surrendered an unconditional love. The reconciliation was nearer now than before that tear had rolled off the cheek and onto the green carpet. The atonement was coming in waves of light and abundance. The sounds of that light filled the heart with hope again. The healing was inevitable.

Drifting now towards the unseen with arms spread wide open, the sanctuary of safe haven was ripped open and all that once seemed to exist in a cherished egoism was destroyed. All that could possibly exist from that which was amalgamated from a fused moment of love, was love itself. There is no brighter burn or entanglement of strands. The colours which exude from this arduous truth are remnant of the explicit energies that are so awing that no man has the ability to recreate. Unless by the inexplicable moment indefinable. In those colours there exists the precious, the innocent and the unearthly beauteous. There exists energy which may in fact be too pure for this life, too powerful, entirely enigmatic in this instance.

The tears which rolled out and purified the skin from the previous destruction now held the essence of forgiveness. The indefinable moment occurred innocuously. The air lost its taut austerity. The static prickle of breaking energy began to fade and the harmonious fluid of life began to connect. In the connection the waves of entangled colours began to fill the heart which lay beating on the floor. Through the beating heart there existed a moment of recognition for that which beats, ultimately for that which lives and evolves. In the recognition the light which was once unbearable, was now a lot softer. The kiss of the love with which the act was conceived and borne, is the ultimate atoning grace. The truth and formation of which, found in a teardrop.

Lightness pure

The sun radiated over the hills that spilled from the scene in front of me and I watched as the lonely tree stood entirely haloed in a black ambience of the afternoon’s rays. The tree was dark and slightly leaning to the left. The afternoon was bright and everything seemed cheerful but at that moment there hung a cloud and as the sun disappeared for a milligram of a second, there appeared a slug-like colouring running right through the dark green tree. It looked like it was a crossed fir tree, but I had not seen one like that before. It was certainly a hybrid of some sort. And there was no shimmer running around the edging of him. He seemed alone there on the hill, but looking at him even more closely, one could see that he seemed to resemble a Siamese twin the way his bulky trunk split at the hip.

I allowed my eyes to wonder to another tree in the area, a lonely oak stood a few meters away and he seemed to glow with a golden tremble. I looked back at the tree on the hill and my heartfelt misery. There was something this tree was trying to say, it was sad, but it was a sadness that awakened one to enlightenment and lightness pure. I wondered from what earth was this tree absorbing its nutrients. I wondered what it was that lived or died in that ground just there. His colour was almost black. One rarely sees a black tree. It was as though he had died, but still had enough in him to appear very much alive. It was eerie, but fulfilling.

The space between the breathes of wind that afternoon left my skin with a strange prickle, as though that wind had something in it which ruffled my energy. My palms tingled and I just knew that something was buzzing in this place in which I stood. That there, on that ground, there lingered something which may in essence of time be long gone, but in the sense of energy and spirit, it lingered. In some places you stand one feels that the spirit and the energy lives and moves wholesomely. On this particular day, on this particular ground I felt that the energy was stale and lingering as opposed to flourishing of good things. My palms by this stage were red hot and itchy with the tingles.

The thing about colour is that it can deceive so easily. Black does not necessarily mean or imply death and danger and morbidity. There are many things and people who hover in and with the colour black and they have more life and vibrancy and purity than those who hold in the colour white. It is more about the energy of the black that details what is really going on. The flow of the energy and the space between the energy strands speaks enough. For most people though, it is about an instinctual feeling that we get with regards to something. For some it is first the feeling in the gut and then the colour follows and for others it is the opposite. There are a few who alternate with this and sometimes see the colour and then the energy and other times they feel the energy and establish the colour later.

I have met people who have had white hanging over them in the strongest of forms, only to recognise that it is so blinding one may easily be fooled into seeing them as the enigmatic pure people they want you to see. Beneath the blinding light there is another picture which their core and energy strands paint. Unfortunately there are so few who see past the blinding light and often have to get burnt first before they realise there is more to this person than they can imagine.

Too many fear the darkness in people, forgetting that beyond the darkness there may be fullness, a complete human being, harbouring true traits of warmth and serenity than the person who seems to be graced with the glorious hues of white. The colour of white and its refraction is enough to burn so harshly that one may be scared. Black is a solid colour, which may offer a sense of solidarity, stability and surety. The point I make: it is not in the colour that we can define a person’s true character. It is in their core that they may be seen.

So I looked back at the dark tree and wondered what I was truly feeling that day. I felt like I was standing in a place, completely stripped of my armour, and staring at something more than just a tree on a hill. There was something about it that kept me clinging to the bars of the gates for almost an hour. I wanted to scream at the tree and run up to it, put my hands just before its face. Instead I had to hope that there was a spiral of energy racing towards me from the tree, down the hill, into my feet and through my pulse. I remember breathing heavily and my heart beat quickened. My jaw locked and it felt like I was about to drool. I was so excited. I love the darkness.

As I walked away from that gated tree and its hill I closed my eyes and felt my way down the path. I stumbled upon a little carved marble block, sentiments of the memories a mum and dad had of their little bud who was “A tiny flower lent not given, To bud on earth and bloom in heaven, Mum & Dad”. My big, black, Siamese twin tree was very much alive. He lived on a hill that overlooked a cemetery. And he held the truths and sadness of many who had passed beneath his hill. He stood like a giant god and he adorned the tombstones and cherished those that had passed from this living life. But the dead do not end, for there is still energy which lives from them, there is still a fragment of their memory alive within someone who lives, or someone who once lived. That space where the marble block stood was full of little shooting spits of golden sunlight, shooting and jumping about like an over energised raisin. And the little shoots of light exploded and looked like whooping flowers.

My palms still tingled and the energy that I was watching move through the winded trees was so fast and electrifying that I felt giddy. I turned to see the Black Tree on his hill and watch his energy. There was no real darkness there that day. It was just something from long past. The trees that were decades old had seen some things that I may never comprehend, or things I may still come to know. Yet they still flowed with the energy of life, as though that is the purpose they were given.

My own darkness loomed very strongly in my strands at that moment and my own light waltzed and weaved its way in and around my limbs as I glided down the pathway into the open sunlight again. I was aware that the energy was bouncing about me, the wind was carrying it at a pace I never knew it could. And I stood, and felt my blackness and my darkness overwhelm me as I thought about the tiny flower that was lent not given and the magic and mystery in the lessons we learn from the black and white that lives within us. It is the only way to the truth, our own lightness in darkness.

Subliminal Moment

It was in that moment when she knew that everything was about to change. The sun was so suddenly faded behind some pink clouds beyond her window on that afternoon in September. Somehow she knew it was supposed to be the magic she had always known to exist. There was nothing more subliminally pure or quintessentially true than the very moment she was in.
Though the warm glow of a spring afternoon was fading into a blue hue of dusk, there was a lingering space between the sunshine and the starlight. At this particular time of day, the smallest atoms and minuscule particles of dust have a radiance about them which cannot be seen in full daylight or pitch darkness. The expanse of time at this time of the day shifts somewhat as the world begins to slow with the winding down of a busy day. Everything softens and quietens and the space between becomes slow and static, filled with the moment.
She felt the tide pulling in and her feet melt at the tips of the ocean’s kiss. The spiral of light that twisted itself in and around her made everything feel light and breathless. She wanted to reach out and touch the tangles of colours, soft and pearly. The glinting sparkles of particles seemed to freeze in mid-air as the silence began to sing. The shivers which riveted her spine in those minutes emanated in a small, pitched release of air from some depths lodged between the heart and lungs- both of which were entirely new to the pull of the ocean.
As the breathe drew in and the eyes closed, the smooth wading of skin against skin seemed to become too much, and yet was just enough. The freshness of the air was painted in a delicate smile across her smooth face. The graceful elegance of the movement of all things patterned beautiful images so surreal and supernatural that when she would dream of this in months to come it would keep the dreams soft and magical. The awakening of her soul became like a floating feather on a soft, summer breeze. The wind of that breeze stealing her breathe and then wrapping itself in colour around her so that she gasps and sucks in the sweet scented air all over again.
Her body melted into the warm liquid of that full embellished moment. Her eyes changed from the pale green to the darkest turquoise of greens. The life had been lifted and sprung. The sensual ripples cascaded deep within her leaving trails of goosebumps and tingling sensations all over her skin and scalp. Her glands felt swollen with life and excitement, her stomach felt alive with the dance of butterflies and her toes were pointed in the delicate pose of a ballerina. The bliss was swimming in a hue of soft, pearl-frozen, warmth and light. Fullness of lips against lips drew her into a world she never knew before. And the universe became apparent in that subliminal moment. The first kiss.

What is your name?

My name is wind. I am transparent but not shallow and I am cool, but extremely volatile. I am that which you feel passing against your skin when you are out beneath the sheen of the sun, I am that which ruffles the hair and pulls up your skirt rudely. I am not living in the sense of heart beats and pumping blood. I am complacent with the job I have to circulate the air and affect the weather. Wherever you go, there I shall be. I am present in every day, in almost every way. I am the most powerful thing in the entire world. I know how to be soft and soothing in the swelter of mid day, I know the role I play in the midsummer’s storms and the wintery gale-force shadows. I am the fingers on the little children’s windows and I am the tapping on their roofs in the night. I am the eerie unseen but clearly felt force.

No, sir, I asked “what is your name?” Well, my name is water. I am damp beneath your collar after a slow drizzle. I am that which soaks you when the skies open with malicious intent and I scream against the tarmac reminding everyone that I come and go as I please. I am the life force, without me the African continent will dry out, without me the world will shrivel to nothing. I am water, also known as rain, or snow, or seas or hail or lake. I am flowing and moving, torrential and damning. I move quickly and I seep into all things, consuming the space I find with a drip-drip or a shy trickle. I come in floods and I come in sprinkles. My vastness is mystifying and my depths are unknown. I hide the majority of the earth and I am as calm and peaceful as I am rage-filled and vengeful. Do not take me for granted, because I have my own temperament. Do not pollute me, for I will pollute you and kill many.

The man at this stage was absolutely exasperated and over-whelmed. All he wanted was a name. “Please sir, I just want to know what your name is so that I can...” Yes, yes, my name is Mr Shoe. I am that black-buckled shiny number at the end of your stumpy looking leg. I keep your little piglets warm and your heels protected. When you thrash me against the stones and mire I still keep your skin and flesh intact. When I start to rip and tear, leak and smell, I maintain the responsibility and duty of keeping you in your place. You kick the stones and cones with the end of me, so that my nose is ripped open and begins to bleed. And when you are lazy and tired you drag my behind on the rough ground until it wears away. I am a shoe, not a slave. Do not abuse me or misjudge my value, because without a shoe you would be cold, you would suffer pain and discomfort. When you take for granted that I am inanimate, be aware of those that should think that of you and your purpose. I am a shoe, wear me proudly.

“Look,” said the man, “I only wanted to know what your birth name is? The name you were given as a human being when you entered into the world?” The gentleman looked upon this man and frowned. He said “Have you always lacked the ability to understand when someone is telling you important things?” The man became sharp and repugnant with this remark, he straightened himself and looked at the gentleman and said sharply, “I do not think you are well Mister, in fact, I think you have some serious sickness...” “You judge too quickly! I am telling you things you fail to think about, fail to feel, fail to inhale as part of your daily takings and sustenance!”

“What is in a name? You are so desperate to know my name. Well, I ask you, what is in a name?” The man looked struck. He seemed to throw sparks from the strands of hair that had begun to stand on end. “It is a simple question, the kind of question one asks regularly and gets a regular type of response out of. What makes you so exempt from the question, or to say the least, the answer?”
“I am not exempt. I have seen you day-in and day-out from across the way, bellowing questions at people and getting your answers, but this is not what gives you the answers at all, because at the end of the day, the regular questions which you ask every person are not the questions which lead you to the clarification you need in this life. I am not exempt at all. It appears you exempt yourself from what you would term ‘irregular’” The gentleman lifted his hat slightly, crossed the sandy path and stood beneath the great beech. Just then the sun shone through the great branches and seemed to halo him in golden light. “Stop asking the questions you think you need, stop barking those questions in succession and repetitiveness and you shall see the answers without needing to ever ask for them.”

I am the earth; I leave you with an entire world to discover piece by piece. I cannot literally speak to you, or tell you about the natural happenings of life, but I give you what you need to create the learning and discovering. But do not abuse it, or mislead it. For there is only one earth and one moment.

And with that, the gentleman lifted his hat to the man again, bowed slowly and smiled on his glance upwards. As he turned around and began to walk away with a slight left lope, the wind gusted up and blew the light autumn leaves about the man. In the wind he could smell the coming autumn rains in the distance.