Lost In Your Geography

You wanna keep traveling straight until you get to a left turn if you you see a big red barn you gone too far. You wanna go back. Then you get yourself turned around and head towards the hills in the distance until you get to a curly cue thing then go right. If you get to a big memorial rock you gone too far. You wanna go back. In fact, let me draw you a map...

I've had some pretty bad maps handed to me in my time. There is nothing wrong with a person admitting to being bad at directions, but there are volumes wrong with handing someone a crappy map. Better to just give an address. Let them use Mapquest. Wasn't that one of the commandments? I can almost hear the words resounding in booms from the burning bush. I'll also have you know that wasn't my fault, I found the bush that way.

The following story illustrates how map skills can prevent a nervous breakdown. I had a last minute call to meet some friends out in Boonie Town for a get-away weekend. Boonie Town here is just a descriptive phrase. My friend helpfully dropped off a hand drawn map on his way out of town and I was to travel later that afternoon with my daughter and Miniature Pinscher in tow. I gave a clever speech about how much she would love the place and convinced my seven year old to get in the car with a haphazardly thrown together backpack and a few CDs. The trip started well, the map was excellent, we listened to the entire soundtrack from Grease twice over and I was feeling fine. As Olivia Newton-John finished assuring Travolta that he was, indeed, the one that she wanted, I noticed a disturbing highway sign. The words on the sign didn't exactly correspond with what my map predicted. A fork appeared and I was starting to feel like toast as we quickly approached. Luck zoomed in and my cell phone rang. My friend threw a lifeline and told me to go straight with about two seconds to spare. I was saved from ending up in some place called Peachland.

Except for driving on a toll road that put the fear of death into anyone afraid of heights, the trip resumed its smooth progression and we put the soundtrack back on for a third round. The dog appeared to be covering her ears but remained tolerant. We passed through a town that appeared on my map and we were getting closer. I was feeling confident and rather relieved when we finally took the exit ramp off the main roads and started our ascent up the mountains to our weekend retreat. The sun was eying the horizon and I was glad we would arrive before dark. I turned off the CD and concentrated on watching out for cows. A note for future map artists; if you can draw cows on a map it's a helpful warning. They have little respect for the fact that moving vehicles will kill them. It was at this point that my map went from reasonably helpful to downright ridiculous. The words made no sense and the lines did not relate to any roads in this dimension. I found a hidden military base, a haunted house, and a black cow that would not let me return in the direction from which I came but I could not find a single road from that map. The sun began to set.

When I finally convinced the cow that I was menacing and managed to get past it, I tried to use my phone. As you can imagine there is no cell phone reception in Boonie Town. There I stood with spiky hair, wearing black cargo pants, a sleeveless shirt with The Clash emblazoned on it, a young child sitting on the hood of my car and a Miniature Pinscher tucked under arm waving my cell phone in the air trying to get a signal. Not only did the locals refuse to stop and help me out, they sped up with a terrified look on their faces. Every ounce of my overly thin frame screamed City Girl. Ready to give up and petrol myself all the way home, I finally managed to receive a call from my friend. I agreed to turn back around because he agreed not to ask which part of his map was wrong.

I consider myself good at following directions. I rarely get lost anymore. What I have learned is that if someone wants to draw me a map from now on they have to demonstrate that they can draw a proper stick person first.

Tracers

Tracers mark their path through the sky as I watch the air and wonder at the magic that is visible all around us, at every moment. I love watching the air. Refocus, away from all distractions and see the force that shapes it all. Like snow on the television, alternating dots of black and white, on and off, a pattern so random that only God can understand it. As hard as I try, the only way to know is to stop trying to know and just be. Be the black, and the white, and trust God to make sense of it all.

Magick. The stuff of fairytales that we are trained to forget but innately know exists. It's strange how the few memories I have seem more like a dream, yet more real than most my waking hours. Without memory we do not exist. Our bodies may continue to survive through instinct but our selves would dissipate with the last of the our sequential recollections. Why is magic so hard to believe in? We breathe it in with every breath.

Some one said that God's blessing to me was to end suffering. I don't believe that is God's plan. It is our suffering that makes us seek to end suffering, gives us compassion and helps us to appreciate when suffering ends. We are but a drop in the vast sea of being. There is no comprehending meaning yet that meaning creates itself with every moment. Sparks in the blue sky that appear and mark their path then fade into loveliness and another appears. Each one, individually, is a point of interest but the beauty is achieved when you see them all and see how alike each is, yet each just a speck on the great mosaic.

The Successful Life

Innate evil. Original sin. Fear of eternal damnation. These are factors in suppressing exploration. A turtle stuck in its shell, spending its life cursing its bad luck at having a shell instead of finding out what shells are good for. A world of questions to which others seek to supply answers, assuming that their word is good enough. Is it possible to be born too late? If everything has been said already then why do we continue to speak? Nothing remains the same. Everything changes. Everything.

Undeniably, society has changed, for better and worse, and will continue to do so. Knowledge is passed down but wisdom is not so easily imparted. Every great discovery came from someone who dared to challenge the status quo. Sometimes at great personal expense. The process of reaching adulthood is a narrowing experience. To do one thing you must choose to not do another. Productivity is valued more highly than introspection and modern society assesses a successful life by bank account numbers. Risks are usually not encouraged and only admired when they result in physical gain.

What would you risk to discover a new truth? How far does your curiosity go? There is no "right" answer, only self-awareness. What does success mean to you? I may never be a hero to the world but the only real challenge is to know and fulfill my own potential, whatever that may be, and try to do more good than harm.

Ripples On Water

A pebble casually tossed upon the surface. Thrown just right, it skims across before sinking into the depths, but even the smallest stone still leaves a momentary imprint. While some have tried to build themselves into small mountains that will remain for all to see, I have been content to see how many times I can bounce towards the horizon before submitting. Just to see how far I can go. Though the ripples will fade, a few will remember my journey.

Reincarnation happens on many levels. Like the skipping of the stone, people reinvent themselves with every jump. Ernest Becker outlined a very convincing argument that the prime motivating factor in a person's life is the fear or denial of death. More precisely, the fear of insignificance at the point of dying. Thus many pebbles spend their energy in the first jump, trying to gain enough height for all to see then hit the water hard and sink into the sea.

Who is to say which pebble was tossed more wisely as they all lay at the bottom of the ocean, enjoying the same fate. I looked at the mountains one day, wondering why they awed me so and why I felt comforted by them. After a moment, it occurred to me. Because they exist, I don't have to be a mountain. I am thankful that not so much is expected of me.

Channeling

“It was okay. I understand.” The voice sounded sweet but felt thick as it passed through my throat. Tears sprung to the eyes of my guest as she heard the words. Feet flat on the floor, I struggled to give up control but it was making me nauseous. I felt like her, soft and gentle, but foreign. The cotton cloud that covered me started to spread. My guest accepted the process but I struggled. She looked at me as if I was the person speaking and I panicked, shaking off the voice and the feeling and rushing back into myself.

Psychic exploration can be scary. The surviving question is whether or not something really happened or whether the person is just crazy. The symptoms are eerily alike. The best way to decided is to have witnesses. Verifiable data. Even then, who's to say it wasn't wishful thinking. There is a compelling need to know what exists beyond our senses and the excitement of gaining proof that there is more sometimes allows people to ignore probabilities.

The experiences I've had that push the boundaries of generally accepted reality are scary enough that I somehow manage to forget they happened until someone else brings it up. Not keen to be known as 'the freak,' though I would like to think of myself as unique, sometimes it is better just to see it as a game than to look for meaning or messages. If it is my job to make other people feel more sane then, so mote it be.

Slave To The Rhythm

The wall pounded behind her as if she was trying to keep an angry mob from barging through a door. Eyes closed, lips slightly parted, arms raised above her head as her legs moved in rhythm with the music. She could feel someone watching her the way you can when they narrow focus and she could feel astral fingers trying to pry into her. Seeking some kind of grasp with which to pull. And her back slid down the surface behind her, her shapely legs controlling every movement and lifting her again as the music shifted to another tune.

It is a bizarre behavior, to dance. Natural, but bizarre. Any repetitive task, if a musical beat exists, starts to synchronize itself to the rhythm. The knees of a child bend then bounce when a song strikes their fancy. We are surrounded by sound and, when it organizes into something discernible, we rejoice. At the clubs I used to go to, with all my friends, some would get up on stage and soak in the spotlight as they manipulated their limbs into seductive dance, while others would find a little corner somewhere, close their eyes and let the beat carry them to an inner world.

I've never seen another species intentionally dance. Not to say they don't do it when I'm not looking.

Each generation seeks to define itself from the last. Clothing, hairstyles, dance and social issues of concern become the defining points. Some think that music and dance corrupts people but, in the end, there is no stopping it. It bursts from us. It won't be contained. I'm all for expression. Let it out so we can look at it and decide what it is. Take the stage, let your limbs move and enjoy the vibrating world around you. Meld with it, shape it, become it and show us what you've found.

Emotional Blackmail

Her: “Why?” Him: “You always ask that. I've already told you.” Her: “You're avoiding.” Him: “Bullshit. Think about it.” Her: “I can tell you aren't in love with me anymore.” Him: “Can you blame me?” Her: “I feel like crying.” Him: “No, if you did you would have just done it.” Her: “Bastard” Him: “One day you'll realize that I was always there for you and you were too busy looking in the mirror to notice.” Her: “I could get a million guys right now if I wanted.” Him: “Good luck.”

Emotional blackmail is just an extension of the human tendency to project their emotions onto someone else. Naming an emotion is one thing; be it good or bad, no emotion should be stifled from existence. Expecting someone else to cater to a person's emotions is quite another thing. We hope that people close to us care about our emotions but that is often expressed as expecting them to value our emotions over their own. Emotions are irrational. They have very little to do with mind as opposed to just a physical reaction to a stimulus. When it does have to do with mind, an emotional reaction to a thought, it must be remembered that our thoughts are loosely connected to the outside world and only real in the context of our perceptions.

I read once that it is our duty to the people we love to be happy. It reads as a strange comment. My understanding is that the author, attempting to help people live happier lives, found a stance that puts the power of one's own happiness back into the individual's realm of responsibility and deters such projection. We can do our best to help the people we love to be happy but we can't do it for them.