Stories On The Wild Side
I gotta warn you. Some of these are pretty weird...
The Stars
Waves
I Am
The Dream
Visual Time
The Need
DreamState
The Stars
Oh, how I wish for the stars. I never realised until
they were gone, just how much I missed them. When I was growing up, we
lived in what was then a sparsely populated area. Now it's the new center
of town, but I was there *before* the malls, and the apartment complexes,
and the gas stations. Way back when, over the field in front of my house,
before they put in the tennis courts with the lights that stay on 'till
11:00, you could see *Stars*! Lots of stars! Especially on the coldest
winter nights. I'll never forget lying on my back in the front yard, wrapped
in a blanket, trying to see the pictures in the constellations that the
Greeks and Romans must have seen. I'll never forget coming home from work
in the very early morning, say 4:00a, so tired I could barely walk, and
being mesmerized by the sight of the Milky Way flowing across the sky.
Half an hour later, I would realise that I had just been standing, or sometimes
I would find myself sitting, staring at the stars, in a trance.
Later, after I was more grown, we would take trips
to the beach as a family. My parents, myself, my siblings and their families.
Each night I waited for the porch, deck, and patio lights to go out, and
I would wander the beach alone, looking for high dunes to lie on, watching
the stars. One day, just after dark, I saw something speeding across the
sky. I got my brother's binoculars, and saw that it was no airplane, as
I first had thought, but a satellite! I spent the rest of that trip watching
the skies.
I'll also never forget my first IMAX (OMNI vision)
movie. I don't remember the name (The Blue Planet ?), but it was all footage
that the shuttle astronauts had taken of the Earth and the skies around
her. I sat for the entire 25 minutes perfectly still, with my mouth open.
I now know that I would give up my entire life for one day in space. To
see the Earth from above. To visit the stars, just once, in their own neighborhood.
To rise, if just for a day, above the petty jealousies and fighting which
so preoccupy our lives. To float freely, unencumbered by terrestrial problems
and weight. To know, during life, the oneness to which we all return at
death.
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Waves
Tonight I spent listening to music. Then as I prepared
for bed, an impulse struck me to step outside...quiet - no people sounds.
The wind, a cool southern wind, danced though my hair and clothes. I closed
my eyes, and saw waves rolling in on the beach, living things, reaching
for the land, only to be pulled back to the embrace of their mother. The
wind was a sure, romantic lover, the one you met at the shore that one
wonderful night, but have never seen again - strong and caressing. My eyes
still closed, I felt the rain gently tickle my eyelids, and the wind, tired
of dancing, began to swirl, softly at first, lifting my hair up, and brushing
it across my face. Then, as I opened my eyes, moving more and more fiercely,
around the trees, swaying them in graceful, syncopated patterns, first
arching, then a seeming pirouette. The chimes began their patterned song,
and the tickling rain became stronger now as the seventh wave crashed in
my mind - the one the dolphin surf, and the shells ride in on. Then - suddenly
- I am drenched, the rain hard and brutal in its search for the ground.
And like a forgiving lover, I seek shelter for the moment, knowing the
storm's fury will abate, and I will again stand, quiet and contemplative,
in it's onrushing path.
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I Am
Tonight I am a tree. I stand in the rain, the cool
gentle rain, a reminder of spring. The summer heat is here, and I am drained.
But, tonight the oppressive heat and moisture of the air is blown away
by a breath of spring. I feel myself rooted in place, branches spreading
, leaves opening, welcoming the cleansing drops. My eyes search the sky,
and find nothing. Everything is grey stillness. I revel in the cool darkness,
for you see, I am a creature of the night. I crave the stinging energy
of the sun, for it brings me power, but the night is when I live. The darkness
itself is a poultice for raw wounds opened during the day. Everything slips
away, and I can be myself. A tree no more, but a wild creature, running
barefoot through the empty streets, wishing I were anywhere but in the
city. Wishing I were running quietly through an even quieter wood, watching
the open sky above me. I run and run until finally, I find a clearing,
a great open area thick with grass and wildflowers. Breathing the rich
clean air, I drop to the waiting earth, digging my fingers into the ground,
as roots, to draw sustenance from the living warmth I find there. There
I find the song I have not heard for much to long. The song sung by the
planet itself, sung by every living system in the cosmos. That song which
each molecule of ourselves requires to be happy in our lifetimes. The song,
which when we sing out of tune can cause such unhappiness. That song, the
melody of which I lost sometime, and did not notice until recently. Tonight,
I almost heard it. Perhaps I will go out to listen again, in the rain,
in the dark, alone.
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The Dream
She stands atop her pedestal, a pagan Priestess before
her people, proud and courageous. They do not know that inside her mind
she screams with terror at the events that will unfold if the Gods do not
smile soon. She has gathered her finest warriors, dedicated to the Gods,
and to her. She asks for their help, their council. Each in turn stands
and gives his or her advice, then sits. Nothing. Empty words only. Men
and women grasping at wind-blown leaves, trying to catch a branch to stop
their fall into the great void. Finally she turns to the last man, a great
warrior and leader of the people, a man she has seen before, but whos name
she does not know. As she looks at him, he steps forward onto the platform,
climbing the steps. On the top step, only scant inches from her, he stops,
and gazes up into her face. She looks into his eyes, and suddenly her mind
is filled with burning blue-white light. Could this be the One? she thinks.
She looks down at him from her platform, seeing his black hair, cut straight
across his brow and hanging straight to his shoulders. Warrior's hair -
thick and black, a protective mass on his head. His face is ruggedly handsome,
his nose slightly too large, his eyes wide set and black as coal. His mouth
is wide too, broad and expressive. His body appears strong and healthy
beneath his well cut leather armor. She wonders what it would be like to
love this man, and as she gazes at him, speechless, he begins to speak.
Good words, full of the yellow aura of strength and the blue of wisdom.
The plan he reveals is a well thought out, workable one. Sure to turn events
to their benefit, but she hears not a word. She only sees the rightness
of the words in their colour, and in the response of the other warriors.
She realizes he has finished speaking and is waiting for her response.
Startled, she smiles at him and nods. He smiles back, closing his eyes
and bowing his head in respect for her position. He turns and raises his
weapon above his head, and a war cry escapes his lips. Her warriors reply
in kind. Soon the glen rings with the excitement of the coming battle.
Before he can leave her, she touches his shoulder. He turns to her, questioning.
She indicates the waiting warriors with a slight nod of her head, and he,
understanding, dismisses them for a night of revellry before the dawn battle.
He turns back to her with a small smile on his lips, a question in his
eye. She reaches for his hair, that black mane surrounding the courage
of the very Gods themselves, and he embraces her. Her heart jumps at his
embrace, and her loins begin to ache. Yes! She thinks. He is indeed the
One! She takes one step down, to put herself no longer above Him, but with
Him, and He lifts her from the ground and carries her toward her waiting
tent...
I awoke, heart pounding, body throbbing, to find
myself not in a tent with a God, but in my own room. Determinedly, I lay
back down to sleep. Perhaps I will dream of Him again...
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Visual Time
I picture the year as light. (I visualize everything
in terms of light - colours, shadows, heat, and intensity. Yes, I even
see and feel auras!)
In my mental picture of the year, there is no
begining or end. It is kind of a circular rainbow. Winter is a swirling
pattern of blues, greys, and white. This gradually shades into a yellowish
green, which in turn becomes a montage of darker greens, mottled like the
leaves on a tree with the sun shining on it. As the circle turns into Summer,
the greens become mixed with some tans and deep greys - almost as if they
had been underpainted beneath the greens. Or more in keeping with the lighting
analogy, as if the greys and tans were backlight, and the greens were shining
from the catwalk. Then gradually yellows, oranges, and reds become mixed
in, with the green fading rapidly and the tans becoming more prominant.
The yellows, oranges, and reds become firey for a time, and then they too,
gradually fade out leaving the grey, which start to take on a tinge of
pale blue. This takes us full circle back to the winter pattern.
Imagine (if you will) this circular rainbow spinning
now. As it spins, the coriolus (hmm. did I spell that right?) effect causes
the colours to spin off wonderful spirals which draw the colours into them,
never muting them, but marbleing the patterns, and creating all possible
colours. Ahh. Wonderful! The never ending cycle of life, as imagined by
one who never had to bother with drugs to get weird...
July 20, 1996
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The Need
As I gazed out at the setting sun this evening, I
gloried in the expanse of colour which blazed across the clear sky. Then
I noticed a small black shape moving across the brilliant colours. A bug
shape, crawling across the face of god, marring the beauty of it. A jet
which had just taken off from the nearby air field. Suddenly, it all came
into focus. The hideous black cables stretching across my back yard, from
house to pole, from pole to yet another pole. Broken glass in the dead
end street, weeds growing in the accumulated dirt by the curb. The fences,
chain link, rail, and wooden privacy, all breaking up the wonderful way
the land gently rolls here. The neighbor's yard, full of debris, rarely
mowed, fence broken. Groups of kids hanging around bored, looking for some
excitement.
Oh, how my soul cries! It is time. The soul creature
within me cries to be released and fed. There - see it? The wolf - running
free into the night, running away from the stink, the dirt, the unnaturalness
of it all. I need a night under the stars, far away from mankind. In the
desert perhaps, or on the sea. Yes! On the sea, in a small craft. With
my love - you know who you are as you read this. Lying on the deck with
only the air between our skin and the stars. There is my soul creature
lying on the deck too. Isn't she beautiful? Her silver fur gleams in the
starlight. She is indeed the Shining Wolf. I need her, and she needs me.
We are one. Come with me, great Silver Bear, and we will away to the sea
to soothe our polluted souls, and cleanse the dirt from our silver fur.
Will you come?
September 23, 1996
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DreamState
Just after my first child was born, I developed the
habit of getting out of bed at whatever god-awful hour of the morning he
decided to eat, putting him back to bed afterward, and then bedding down
on the couch rather than wake my husband with my clumsy attempts to aquire
some covers.
One morning I noticed after putting the baby back
to bed that our paper hadn't arrived yet. So I called the office and requested
that they send us out a paper. No problem. I went back in and lay down
on the couch for a nap. Some unmeasurable time later, I heard a thump out
on the lawn. When I got to the door to see what it was, I saw, much to
my irritation, a Sunday paper scattered across the entire front lawn. The
lawn of course, was wet with dew, and the paper was begining to acquire
a sodden look. In nothing but a long night shirt I dashed out the door
into the Autumn morning, feet chilling in the wet grass, and gathered up
the paper. I stacked it up and put it on the table for my husband to find
later, and went back to sleep on the couch.
Another unmeasurable time later, the doorbell
rang. I hate the doorbell. I leapt off the couch to the door, and yanked
it open. There was the fella from the newspaper office, with my replacement
paper. I musta looked confused, because he said, "You called for a paper?"
I told him that the paper deliverer must have just been running late or
something because I had already had a paper brought to me. He smiled and
said OK, and left.
Yet another unmeasurable time later, - hey, I
didn't have a clock in the living room, and at that point who cared? -
my husband got up. (Are you starting to get the idea that my morning nap
wasn't much of a nap?) He started looking around, and finally asked me
where the morning paper was. "Honey, it's right there, on the kitchen table!"
"No, it's not." I went in all righteous to show it to him, and lo and behold,
no paper. Well, I know I got it, and I'm sure I put it here, but
I was half asleep, so maybe I set it somewhere else. We looked. And looked.
And looked. No paper. Anywhere. By now I was begining to get a horrible
suspicion. Sure enough, I looked outside at the grass which was just begining
to dry, and no footprints. No disturbances of any kind in the dew. Even
the neighbor cats who had decided that our front yard made a good litterbox
hadn't been over yet for their morning visit. I had dreamed the entire
thing. At least the getting the paper in part. Apparently I had
called for a replacement paper, and I had told the fella who brought
it that we had one already, but I never did really go out and get that
scattered paper off the lawn. It never existed. In my mind even now, the
memory of going out into the wet grass and getting that scattered paper,
the feeling of the wet paper in my hands, and putting the paper on the
table is as real to me as the rest of that day. I can only guess that I
dreamed it, since there was no paper there, and no prints in the grass.
My husband (cruel taskmaster that he is ;-) )
made me call and explain to the paper that yes, we did need a paper
after all, that I had dreamed it all. I still blush, thinking about it!
October 24, 1996
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