the cauldron's work

So many things had happened within the space of a week that his head was spinning. He had been wrestling with the devastating realization that at the core of his being he did not ever expect to be chosen by the heart of another. He had seen a remarkable vision of a pale, beautiful woman, framed in coal black feathers and revealed to him in the flight of a great flock of crows. He had met the family of the Moon’s little sister for the first time, and had read to them from his writings. And today, he and his daughter had helped his oldest son and daughter-in-law to move all their worldly possessions to San Luis Obispo, nearly three hours drive south of Gilroy.

James had been married earlier in the Summer, in love with his bride, and in love with Angie, the tiny daughter they had brought into the world a year earlier. It had been a tough year, with James in his freshman year at Cal Poly and Erika finishing high school. They had spent the school year apart, focusing on their studies and the baby, and making the best of a monumentally difficult situation. They were firm in their intention and had worked out their plan before they ever spoke to any of their parents about the untimely pregnancy. They had remained focused and diligent throughout the long hard year apart, and now, after a Summer of working and planning and marrying and honeymooning, they were starting their first home out in the big wide world.

He had driven a rental truck for them, and now its contents were all inside the apartment. Boxes were everywhere, and the bed and couches were all set up. The table legs had been left in Gilroy and would have to come later. Erika had more or less finished setting up her kitchen, and they had found the pilots in the gas stove and lit them all, eliminating a faint but significant odor in the process. Their tiny apartment was not lavish, but decent and reasonably well located. They had done a thorough inspection, documenting all the pre-existing minor imperfections that property managers like to deduct from damage deposits. When there was nothing left to do but unpack and organize the contents of the boxes, Erika and James had urged them to get on the road back to Gilroy while there was still light.

Kate had driven his car to help her brother with the move, and to provide her dad with wheels and companionship for the return trip. As he and Kate left, James and Erika sat in a pile of boxes behind the sliding glass door waving and laughing. His heart turned somersaults to see them so excited and nervous and happy and scared and eager—so ready, and so unprepared. He drove away knowing that they were making their own life now. He knew that this was their calling. He knew that it was his calling to agonize from the depth of his own experience over all their frightening and exciting possibilities, and to stand back and let them live for themselves. They had just completed the primary task of their adolescence—they were stepping, green and new and fresh scrubbed, out into the great wide world. Driving away was one of the most traumatic things he had ever done as a father.

They played Shawn Mullens over and over again on the stereo as they ran up Highway 101 toward home. His music was all about inspiration and enlightenment and love and possibilities and hope. As they bathed in the music, they hardly spoke, each lost in their own reflections. Now and then they checked in on each other, but both knew that this drive was best spent in solitude.

As he pushed on up the road with Kate and Shawn and his solitary thoughts, all the events of the week began to bubble up and simmer together in the cauldron of his heart. The vision of Black Feathers came to him. She was so hauntingly beautiful. So powerful. So gentle. And She had chosen him! As he contemplated Black Feathers, he began to realize that he had misidentified her as the Moon’s little sister. While the two were remarkably similar, they were actually the same person only by projection. Black Feathers resided in his heart. It was there that she lived and breathed and moved. It was there that she spoke to him softly. It was there that he knew who she was and it was there that her image and form lived. Moon’s little sister was so stunning and alluring and radiant because he saw Black Feathers so clearly reflected in her.

Uncovering his core belief that he would not be chosen had allowed him to disengage his infatuation with the little sister of the Moon enough to see that she and Black Feathers were not the same being. Suddenly he could see that he had done a great disservice to the moon’s sister. He had made her an icon of the great hidden goddess within his own heart. Black Feathers had first revealed herself to him in his quiet little Annie. Now he saw her in grace and power and dignity, and though she had not as yet ever uttered a sound, she was by no means quiet or little.

The Moon’s little sister had caught his heart because she so remarkably foreshadowed his vision of Black Feathers. Even as he began to discern the division of the two, he was struck by their similarities. And yet, he knew that The Moon’s little sister could not actually be Black Feathers. Black Feathers was a part of him. No person apart from him could express her being. This new realization was overwhelmingly simple and joyful and reassuring. The little sister of the Moon was now free to be her own remarkable self! He could begin to engage Black Feathers directly to wrestle with the issues of his broken heart. He could let the little sister of the Moon come to rest and be his best friend—the one who had in so may instances, in so many ways, already chosen him. He could let her come to rest and simply be who she was—Lara.

And now, the possibilities were boundless and rich and open and radiant—Black Feathers, the Moon’s little sister, Annie, Lara— none had rejected his heart! None had harmed him. All were free to venture wherever they chose to go with him. He was exhausted by the drive and the strenuous day of moving and the surge of insight that had boiled up for him today. But He was also too tired to write more, and so he stopped.

resting place

I poured out my heart 

into a great stone bowl. 

all froth and turbulence, 

its sweet nectar found no outlet— 

no release from that lithic vessel. 

I poured out my heart 

into a great stone bowl. 

all brooding and restless, 

its dark nectar swirled and simmered 

against smooth unyielding stone. 

I poured out my heart 

into a great stone bowl. 

all sorrow and hunger and weeping, 

its pungent nectar grew rich and heavy 

with honeyed treasures. 

I poured out my heart 

into a great stone bowl. 

all fragrant and intoxicating, 

its hot, searing nectar welled up 

risking joy—or catastrophe. 

I poured out my love 

onto a great stone table, 

all smooth and unyielding. 

it found no resting place, and so, 

ran down bleeding sorrow deep into Earth’s breast. 

For nine months, he had known her, and for as long, he had held her in his heart. Her place there had grown and flourished and become a treasure to him. They had grown close and comfortable, and easy together. Both knew that their friendship carried many of the markings of romance, and they spoke of this often. Both were careful not to rush into shallow intimacy, and each knew that much could be gained by exploring each other in friendship without the press and fervor of hot physical passion.

But in all this, there seemed to be an imbalance between them. She appeared content to pursue their friendship with little thought of romance. For him, their idyllic companionship, profound and exhilarating and sweet as it was, always pointed the way to richer, deeper intimacy. However hard he tried, he could not shake the anticipation that someday, some way, this great sacred friendship would flower in love and intimate passion.

It was not so for her. She found herself frequently analyzing the psychology of their bond. She seemed eager at times to reduce his heated affections to psychological constructs of projection and transference. He knew these concepts, and acknowledged their potential, but of course, did not care. He was disturbed by her casual analysis and detachment, and even though he knew she was genuinely committed to their friendship, he carried a nagging dread in his bones.

For all these months, the specter had lurked unchallenged in his shadow. He had poked at it tentatively from time to time, and had written of the uncertainty and anxiety it fed to his heart. Then one night, he knew he must lift a corner and challenge the dark dread. He spoke to her of his deepest hopes and fears, and left his heart bare and open before her.

She was gentle and tender, and as always, careful with the complexity of their remarkable bond. She knew, as did he, that the time to commit had not yet come. She knew, as did he, that a move in either direction—to reject, or to encourage his anticipation, would damage the magical thing that had grown up between them. She knew, as did he, that the torment of his heart was not yet to end. She knew, as did he, that there was no resting place for him that evening.

They talked long into the moonlit hours of night, until talking gave way to the awkwardness of having no more to say and having no way to end the saying. Then finally he drove the long drive home, settling and sifting their words and all the energy and anxious care beneath them.

A dark and paralyzing realization gradually settled in night time shadows over him as he drove. In spite of his hope; regardless of her warm, careful encouragement, he had always known in a hidden place that she would not choose him for her heart. He had always known, and had never let himself face the knowing. Why this seemed so inevitable and resolute to him now, he did not know. What it was in her that signaled doom to him was not clear. Whether he read her heart truly or not, he could not, and dared not be certain.

But one thing was sure. He had disturbed a great looming shadow that covered all his horizons. His own worthiness in love was dashed on the rocks. His intrinsic value was in doubt. He had never been solid in confidence of these things, and now, this dark shadow had stripped him naked—helpless to find any hiding place in skill and craft and charm. He stood in his own dark void, without defense; without covering; without distraction. He could depend on no rescue. He must grope in this darkness alone.

He did not know what this dark thing meant to their friendship. He did not know how to speak to her of it. He did not know what lay ahead for them, or even for himself. He feared and dreaded any harm that might befall them. Their friendship was so good and sweet that he could not bear to injure it, but his heart was so weak and humbled that he could find no way to stand up in their defense. Finally, and without hope or despair, he must yield to his own great dark shadow and let it take him where it must.

black feather

Her face was white milk in a deep onyx bowl; smooth, still, cool. Her eyes were grey steel; liquid and radiant, powerful and penetrating. She was mystery; opaque with a trace of reflective shadow. He knew her well but still felt that she was a stranger to him. He was an intruder upon a world of secrets he could scarcely hope to comprehend. She respected his eagerness to learn, and loved him for it, but nonetheless, he could not escape the uneasy feeling that he was dancing on the edge of a precipice from which he could fall into ultimate void. Security and safety were shadows of his past now—shackles he could no longer willingly wear.

He was resolute in his commitment to the quest. He would know her. He would learn from her. He would hear her song. He would walk the edge and reach out into the chasm of deep unknowable mysteries.

He had spent his whole life until now with a very self-central point of view. When he had loved a woman it had been with his own performance and accomplishment in mind. It had always been his desire and obligation and assurance to create and sustain and nurture love out of his own base of strength and skill and charm. He had sought to please woman, to love her, to inspire her love, to fulfill her needs, and in it all he had sustained and fed his own identity and self-worth. He was acceptable and good and strong because he could love a woman and give her reason to return his love. There was safety and assurance in this way, and it kept him firmly in control of his own heart, and his capacity and potential for love. But now it was no longer good enough. Now he understood that this form of love is self-serving and shallow. He could no longer bring forth love to prop up his own identity and self-worth.

She wore black feathers in her hair. Black feathers framed and matted the proud strong lines of her clear white face. The black feathers were broad and strong and glistening with blue iridescence and deep shimmering luminescence. He could not distinguish the black feathers from her soft dark curls and flowing hair. They merged and blended and wove spells all around him.

His own identity and self-worth! These had all been so intertwined with his ability to form and sustain loving, committed intimacy. His world had utterly shattered when he could not rescue his own marriage. Shards of razor glass lay irreparable and hopelessly damaged where his heart had once beat strong and confident. No longer could he be the master and controller of his own intimacy. Now, as he began to heal from the crushing blow, he must learn to be the willing and humble servant of intimacy and not its master. Now he would stand with Black Feathers—awakening. Now he would learn from her, and perhaps she would learn in the teaching as well.

_____________

It was the same hill where the red tailed hawk had plummeted from the sky for him months ago. Today he walked again, alone, hungry to hear from her who spoke softly to his heart whenever he walked among the hills. As he rounded the hill, a thousand black wings flapped a syncopated rhythm hovering close to the leeward face of the hill to minimize the force of the wind against their flight. Slowly the great flock of crows danced their waltz around the side of the hill until they turned face into the wind and soared upward awkwardly on their big wings; wings better suited for flapping than soaring. Their blackness in the sunlight was stunning. Their cadence was communal and cyclical. The leaders were soaring over the windy crest of the hill as the stragglers flapped along still far back along the leeward side. The black feathered birds were magical with an asynchronous unity and rhythm and random order that seemed to accentuate their participation in the movement of the flock. He was transfixed in the middle of the path, caught in the beauty and grace of this sacred movement of crows. He had disdained the crows all his life.

He had never seen this beauty and grace before. But now it had passed before him, undeniable and unmistakable.

White milk in a deep onyx bowl—opaque with a trace of reflective shadow. A thousand black wings flapped a syncopated rhythm reflected in the white milk stillness.

And there before him in the path lay a black feather. It lay in the grey-brown dust, perfect and clean. He picked it up and walked with it while it spoke to him of Black Feathers and her mystery. It gave him her name. It spoke to him of his poor simple heart's journey to know itself and to meet Black Feathers with respect and love unhindered by his old desperation to control and own the heart of his beloved. It spoke to him of the grace and ecstasy that already had begun to permeate his new found discovery— that the highest calling of the masculine heart is to release and protect and nurture and honor, and yes, to serve the awakening feminine heart. The black feather spoke to him as he walked, and he listened to every enchanted word.

the premonition

The Gavilan Cafe was in need of a face lift, and there was a sign on the door that read, “Remodeling. Please excuse our mess.” He could not see much evidence of the remodeling beyond the presence of the sign, and new pavement in the parking lot, and fresh paint on the building’s exterior, but assumed that some work would begin soon on the building’s interior, spurred on perhaps by the opening of a large Motel 6 next door.

He had been eating there for nearly a year now, and had discovered that Sandy rarely worked evenings. She was a phenomenon of the morning shift, but the evenings belonged to Mary Ann. Mary Ann was another great waitress in the truckstop tradition. She knew her customers well and frequently anticipated their orders. He brought the kids with him often, and Mary Ann had long since dispensed with menus. She knew their orders down to the refills and condiments, and greeted them warmly as they arrived. She had learned small details of their lives, and engaged them easily in small talk as she went about her work. The pace at the Gavilan Cafe tended to be a little slower in the evenings than the mornings, and Mary Ann usually had time for small talk as she worked her tables and the counter.

Tonight, there were only two tables working. Mary Ann stood behind the counter for a moment looking out the window, apparently lost in thought. Then suddenly she was back, and flipped over a cup on the counter and poured it full of coffee. There were no customers at the counter, and at first he thought she had poured the coffee for herself. She walked off to finish some task, leaving the steaming cup on the counter. A minute or two later, the driver of a Consolidated Freight truck walked in the door. Now she was back at the counter as he walked up to the place where she had poured the coffee. He looked at the coffee. He looked around and saw that no other customers were at the counter. He looked at Mary Ann, who just stood there looking back at him across the counter with a sparkling smile in her eye.

Uncertain, he asked, “Is that for me?” She nodded.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Half an hour ago I had a premonition that you would come in and order coffee,” she answered, “and half an hour later I poured it in the cup.”

The Consolidated driver just looked at her and smiled a knowing smile and sat down with his coffee. The magic was alive tonight at the Gavilan Cafe.

the terror of Bridge Street

Bubba sings opera. 

Bubba loves Kate. 

Bubba drops little stones 

down through the grate. 

Bubba sings opera. 

Bubba cuts bait. 

Bubba watches fishermen 

swagger past the gate. 

Bubba sings opera. 

Bubba’s ribs quake when 

Bubba sees the little ones 

skipping to the lake. 

Bubba sings opera. 

mama’s heartache. 

thirty seven candles drip 

all over Bubba’s cake. 

The year he was in fourth grade, his family had moved again. They seemed to move right on cue every two years, and it always kept him just a little unsettled and insecure among his peers. The new neighborhood was always a challenge—getting acquainted, learning the pecking order, finding a place in it without getting hurt, forming alliances, learning which adults were friend and which were foe to the energy of kids. This neighborhood was a little different though. The houses and most of their occupants were at or beyond retirement age. There were almost no kids around at all—except Brent.

Brent had a pretty severe mental handicap. He spoke in simple chopped syntax with a noticeable slur to his speech when he was in a good mood. When his temper flared, which seemed to be as often as not, he had no syntax at all. At such times he seemed only to be able to push out undifferentiated vowels with his rage.

Usually, Brent was packing his Daisy air rifle whenever he was out and about the neighborhood. He always wanted to play, and that nearly always meant pointing the Daisy at you and either shooting you in the face with it at point blank range or poking you in the ribs with the barrel. Nobody really had any patience for this sort of thing, and play time with Brent nearly always ended up angry and fighting. And fighting with Brent was a particularly bad idea. He was bigger than everyone else, and stronger, and reacted strictly on the basis of his rage, having no rational temperament to balance him. And there was always the problem of the Daisy, which instantly turned into a formidable club at such times. Its barrel was dented and scarred from this kind of hard service, and everyone imagined that the damage to the gun was inflicted against the skulls and ribs and arms and legs of kids who had crossed Brent in his endless career as a child.

All the neighborhood kids had felt the blows of Brent’s Daisy at least once. There seemed to be so few kids in the neighborhood in part because everyone learned quickly to run for cover when Brent showed up, and to peek out the window before answering a knock at the door, just in case he was there seeking a playmate to torment.

Brent was a remarkable slice dissected and extracted from the human psyche. He was pure emotion entirely divorced from reason. In his peaceful moments, he was generous and sweet and gentle. When hurt, he lashed out with a lunging fury that knew no fear, no boundaries, no balance. He seemed to be a distillation of the raw pure animal spirit that lies hidden and regulated and often suppressed in the hearts of all of us.

Thirty-five years later, he wondered what had become of this tragic, haunted soul. Now he understood as he could not have as a child that buried deep within himself were the same primal urges and intensity that were so transparent in Brent. He now knew that Brent had given him a glimpse of a part of himself that he could never have seen in any other way. A part of him that rarely was expressed openly, and always was monitored and censored far below the conscious level of action. A part of him that found more subtle ways to express itself than Brent had, but that was at its core no more sophisticated. The memories of Brent now stirred his recognition of this animal creature deep in his heart with a new awareness. The terror of Bridge Street had actually been a gift that he had not recognized as such until many years later.

rear view

the day had been long; 

the evening all bone weary 

from the very first mile 

of the long drive home. 

but the music carried him 

for a little while; 

sweet sad country songs 

sung full rich and bronze strong 

by a forlorn goddess of sorrow, 

in white lace and red cowgirl boots 

on his radio. 

the day was gone. 

the night sinking and lost 

at a countless mile marker 

in the black drive home. 

the road was his heartbeat now, 

and so he rolled along and along, 

the white line marking time 

beneath his strong high beam 

and fading back and away and away and away, 

into his rear view mirror. 

He was a Californian. He was as much at home in his car as in his house. On an average day he spent an hour and a half or more behind the wheel, and actually looked forward to drive time.

Most of his time on the road was solitary, and the experience was therapeutic. He could drive for miles without any particular need to focus his thoughts, and found that this allowed for free association and unhindered explorations that were unlikely to occur elsewhere. He was a captive of the miles when driving, and could not engage in any focused task. The neural pathways required for driving were so well formed, so entrenched in his experience and habituated in practice that he could focus on the hazards and navigation of the road with very little mental and emotional expenditure. That left him free to feel and think and wonder and wander through the complexities of his life more or less uninhibited and undistracted for as long as the drive lasted.

Music was a profound key to unlocking the therapeutic power of the drive. There had been several stages in the process of his transformation in which different artists and specific songs had energized his healing. Early in his divorce, he had been drawn to songs of love lost and broken. He had passed through a fierce intensity of rage and anger and heavy metal. Then there were songs of sorrow and regret, hope and help, love rekindled, and joy. He could see a clear mapping in the choices he made as his transformation and healing progressed. In later stages he found it unpleasant or even unbearable to listen to some of the songs that at an earlier stage had carried him on their backs when he thought himself unable to go on.

With the help of his 100 watt Kenwood system, he could effectively flood his experience with whatever he chose. Sometimes it was raucous, forceful, driving rock and roll from Jimi Hendrix or Steppenwolf or the Rolling Stones. Sometimes it was the dark, brooding, psychotic thunder of Jim Morrison and the Doors, or the whining sad love songs of Neal Young. Sometimes it was ecstatic angelic choruses from Handel’s Messiah. Often, it was the cool California coast-cruisin’ melancholy of John Mayall or the youthful exuberant romance of Shawn Mullens, or the carefree lyrical rebellion of Tom Petty. But as often as not, it was the sweet rich country ballads of Emmy Lou Harris. He had a soft spot in his heart for the soul of her work. He knew that he had somehow merged her craft into his perception of the character and sweet wonder of the Moon’s little sister. He thought of her whenever Emmy Lou was on the stereo. In fact, she seemed to be present in the music, and he played it often, sometimes day after day, filling recesses and voids in his heart with the intoxicating melodies and rich sweetness of the music.

He loved the drive, and was grateful that he had discovered its healing power. It spoke freely to him and his heart responded readily and openly with insights as powerful as any he had ever received in religion or therapy. The road was his friend and counselor and guide.

Thunderstruck

She was beautiful. Everyone knew it. He knew it too, and never tired of studying her delicate features. They would talk for hours sometimes, and all the while, he marveled at the curve of her cheek, the line of her brow where it merged with her nose, the sparkle of her grey eyes, the delicate softness of her arms...

He was usually surprised when he saw her. He never knew how she would appear when they met. She had an uncanny changeability to her beauty. It depended somewhat on her makeup or lack of it, and her mood; the time of the month; the lighting. But these things were not enough to account for all of it. Sometimes she was a simple little sister, innocent and joyful and ready to play. Sometimes she was dramatic and alluring and full of brooding feminine energy. Sometimes she was all fresh and clear and strong and pure. Sometimes full of shadowy dark animal stirrings and probing subtleties. She was always fully present before him and he knew that he sometimes saw things not visible to others.

It was that way today. They were working together intently on a difficult project, and had been focused and pouring all their collective energy into it for hours. He had been so focused on the project that he had not much noticed her look. She was speaking to him, describing a complex aspect of the problem they were working on and suddenly her beauty overtook him. She had reached back with both hands to pull back her hair, and her face was framed between the backs of her extended arms. She had a look at that moment that he had never seen before in his life. It was a delicate balance and poise and rich gentle womanliness that he could not have imagined possible. He was thunderstruck!

He could hear her speaking still, and knew that he would have to respond in a moment, but he could not interpret her words. His entire being was consumed with this remarkable grace of being that had descended upon her. Several sentences passed, and then he knew from her look that she needed him to respond to what she had said. Somehow, he managed to recapture an echo of her last words and make an appropriate but minimal response. Now he could not look at her without an overpowering sense of awe and affection and sweet, simple delight.

He did not fully understand what had happened. He knew that he had seen something far outside the range normally visible, though in no way supernatural or strange. What he had seen seemed to be an amplification of her natural beauty; or perhaps it was an unveiling. He suspected that the seeing was as much to do with him as with her. His perception seemed to be unfolding and receptive as it had never been before. He suspected that what he saw was a truer representation of her than he normally saw through the lens of his own limitations and experiences and expectations. He also knew that he had lost all sense of objectivity about her. He knew that he saw her through eyes of admiration and delight. He knew that she was still her human self with its blemishes and imperfections, but now he saw her essence embodied. Now he knew a deep secret, and it sang to his heart.

Mirror

It was uncanny. He sat across the table from a man he had known casually for four years, listening to a story that mirrored his own in most of its detail. They sipped margaritas and munched chips and salsa and talked around the bustle and distractions of waiters and diners coming and going and the clatter of dishes and the charged party air of Chevy’s—the liveliest restaurant in the little town.

After more than twenty years of marriage, his friend’s wife had suddenly grown cold and distant, and informed him that the marriage was dead. She had no intention or hope to rehabilitate their relationship and would not try. He was devastated and deeply hurt and angry and bewildered. He had been taken completely off his guard by this catastrophic development, and had floundered in the seething soup of his turmoil for several months.

How could she so calmly throw away 23 years of their lives. It surely hadn’t been that horrible to live with him. He had been faithful to the marriage, and was not abusive. They had shared a lifetime of good times, weathered all the challenges and difficulties that life had thrown at them, and raised three great kids. Now they were just getting close to the place where they would have more leisure time to spend together. He had worked his whole life as a grocery checker looking forward to these coming years, anticipating how their relationship would blossom and grow once the cares and stresses of child-rearing were behind them. And in a fleeting moment, it had all vanished before his eyes. He had been cheated out of the dream he had built his life around. He had nothing to fall back on except the patterns and habits and structure he had formed over a lifetime.

As he sat listening to his friend, he was moved by the similarity of their stories. He was also struck with how far he had come since he had first learned that his own marriage was dying seven years ago. His heart went out to his friend, and he listened and shared freely from his own experience. It seemed to help a little. His friend had felt so utterly devastated and alone—so much a failure by his own standards—and hearing the story of another so similar to his own reassured him and gave him strength. In fact, it fed and strengthened them both to share this horrible thing. It seemed to meet them both at their own point of need.

Their food came, followed by another round of margaritas, and they talked on into the evening. They shared their sense of loss and helplessness in the face of the thing that had happened to them both. They shared their sense of uncertainty about the mystery that drives women in their forties so often to this place where they utterly and irrevocably give up on their men. Both of them had seen it often enough with their friends to suspect that some specific and perhaps predictable mechanism in the dynamics of relationship was at work, but neither felt that he understood what it was. Both suspected that their inability to understand it was part of the problem, and both suspected that their befuddlement had something to do with the differences between the genders. They suspected that very few men really understood this thing.

The lights in the restaurant flickered and went out. The patrons cheered as if some spectacular feat had been performed, and then settled back to their meals in the soft twilight filtering in from the open air patio. The sun had just set, and there was just enough fading light to see. The friends had finished their meal and were nearing the bottom of their second round of margaritas. They sat in the dusky fading light, reflecting on the hard dark things they had shared. The waiters brought out a few candles, and the patrons gradually disappeared into the night. Soon the place was near empty and the two sat in the dim quiet night. They talked more quietly now, turning to the subject of what comes next. He was years ahead of his friend on this subject, and found himself reassuring him and encouraging him with stories of growth and self discovery and help from unexpected places. He found himself urging him earnestly to embrace the horrific emotions that threatened to overwhelm him, and let them run their course, and yet somehow to find a way to resist the temptation to let them poison his divorce with bitterness and fighting. He had managed to do this himself only because the heaviest emotional turmoil had come long before the logistical and tactical tasks of physical disengagement. He suspected that his friend would have a much harder time keeping his divorce civil since he was still in the most tortured, shattered phase as the outward process unfolded. He was so hurt and battered that he found it difficult not to lash out. But he did love his family, and perhaps his love would give him the strength he needed.

As the evening wore long, they eventually found their talk unwinding, and finally the energy of their common burden smoothed out to a wide flat stillness. There was little left to say. They both had looked into their mirror bond and seen a small fragment of their own hearts. Now they could each go home to what lay ahead a little more settled, a little braver, a little clearer, a little closer to wholeness.

King Kong

brooding, fierce, 

strong beyond imagining, 

his eyes flicker with fire 

and flash lightning bolts. 

he is a child. 

so simple. 

so innocent. 

so dangerous! 

one false move, 

crushing fury! 

one firm word, 

gentle submission. 

he is a child. 

so open. 

so closed. 

so troubled! 

brooding, fierce, 

strong beyond imagining, 

light dances in his eyes. 

dark music tugs at his smile. 

It was a Saturday morning and the kids had been at their mom’s house all week, leaving him alone with himself and his house and his dog. He had gotten up later than usual, and now he stood in his sweats in front of a full length mirror on the bathroom door. He stood there, motionless, for a long time, staring into the reverse image of his own grey-green eyes. He had paused there for a moment as he left the bathroom, and was struck with something new that he saw in his own look. At first he was not sure exactly what it was that seemed different, but as he stood there, he began to see it. He was a primate.

He stood as close to the mirror as his eyes would focus, and as he watched himself watching himself, he saw ever more clearly that whatever else he was, he was very much an animal. He had understood this at the academic level since childhood, but he had never stopped to actually see himself physically, emotionally, and philosophically as an animal. Now this profound revelation overtook him as he stood there face to face with his own remarkable mammalian self.

Now suddenly his animalness was powerful and profound. It infused his energy and touched shadowy places in his mind and heart that he had always left uncharted—places he rarely allowed himself to go near at all. As he stood there, he met a new depth within himself for the first time. Here before him was a very simple, very emotional, deeply loyal, and enthusiastic friend who had never succeeded in attracting his attention. A friend who had always given his energy and happiness and sorrow and strength and fear and love without hope of being acknowledged or nurtured.

He realized, as he met his animal self through the glass, that though fully committed to him, it did not trust him. He had spent a lifetime minimizing it and neglecting it, and treating it as a marginal “it” in favor of his “higher” spiritual, intellectual self. He had always irrationally believed that one created in the image of God could not really have a primate at his core. How strange this assumption now seemed. Physically, he was certainly an animal; a mammal; a primate. How could this biological fact not permeate his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual being as well? If God had found this raw animal energy to be the ideal material out of which to form a self image, how could he dare to reject it. Now he was overwhelmed with urgency to befriend and embrace this primitive force, at the same time terrible and delicate, in his own heart—to explore the limits of it, and to walk with its simple power and insight and sensibilities. So he touched the ape in his eyes, and found a raw, fluid energy he had never known.

editorial comment

Today's post, memorial day, is a good example of the interconnectedness of the posts on this blog. If You haven't already read the very first post, a day like any other..., from April 25th, you will need to do so to get the full impact of this one. See how to read this blog for more on this.

memorial day

At the end of last month had been a Memorial Day like any other. Opening day for the great American outdoor party of Summer. Millions of Americans all across the continent were flocking to beaches, firing up barbecues, playing softball or frisbee, boating, swimming, and engaging in countless other outdoor leisure activities for the first time since Fall.

Now all their friends and relatives had begun the process of adjusting to the changes brought about by their divorce. They had finally let go of the trappings and dispensed with Norman Rockwell happiness. Now, especially since Memorial Day, he and his kids were all learning the fundamentals of a powerful honest integrity. Talking openly with his kids about the trials and struggles of his life had brought them to a level of friendship and power that none of them had ever known in their relationship before. He was careful to empower his kids with his disclosures and not to color what he said in ways that would provoke them to feel responsible for him, or guilty, or antagonistic toward those with whom he struggled at times.

His honesty had payed immediate dividends, with each of the kids opening up and reciprocating with disclosures about their own feelings and experiences that would not have been safe to share with dad only months before. With each of them, he found a growing bond of friendship that he had never expected. He found that old resentments and frustrations about the burdens of parenthood began to melt away.

This profound shift in his relationship to his kids had blossomed out of this Memorial Day—one which he did not spend with the kids at all. Rather, he was driving the coast between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay with his best friend. They had stopped for brunch and puttered in shops, but it was a day mostly devoted to talking. He shared with her from the frustrations and struggles he was experiencing as father to a broken family.

They had talked for hours while he drove, and in the talking, he began to grow a vision for the same kind of openness with his kids that he had learned with her. It seemed right and good to let them know something of who their dad really was. He had spent a lifetime fighting the good fight, holding up the standard of ethics and strength and protection around his family, and did so at the expense of his own internal integrity. He had based his fatherhood on preservation of what should be, rather than on honest engagement of what really is. Now he would bring his kids the best gift he had for them—himself. And he would entrust their care to his open dependence on the true virtue of honesty shared in love.

It was as if a great and mighty tree somewhere had crashed suddenly and without warning to the ground, unable to stand any longer on the flawed and failing foundation of hidden damage at its base. And while the crash was spectacular and frightening and dangerous, the result was that all of its hidden dangers were suddenly relieved. The creatures in and around the tree had not known in advance of its flawed and dangerous condition, but now that they understood the significance of its demise, they could get on with living with a truer, more reasoned sense of safety and purpose.

broken goddess

He had always teased her about being a goddess. There was truth in the teasing—she was a most remarkable person. Her spiritual depth, her capacity to share her heart openly without losing it, and to give love without being consumed in the giving, her fierce intensity, her unselfish loyalty, her playful irreverence, all conspired to give her an aura and charm that truly seemed superhuman.

But on Friday, they had had a conversation over lunch that left him distressed and limp, wondering again at what brutal force of will is required for the human soul to survive whole and well. Three days before, she had heard first hand from a young neighbor of the domestic abuse she was being subjected to at the hand of her mother's partner. She could not simply turn away and “mind her own business”—she was too intensely alive and true to her own integrity for that. She had agonized over what to do. He had encouraged her in her conviction, and had been present when she made her first phone calls to report the situation to the authorities.

The system had failed from the beginning, with the girl and her family utterly traumatized, but not protected or healed. Tensions in the neighborhood were running high. The perpetrator of the abuse, and his wife, who had blinded herself to it all along, seemed to suspect that their neighbor was in some way involved in the whistle-blowing. They appeared not to know the extent of her involvement though, and uncertainty and veiled suspicions and the uneasy feeling that the abuser could at any moment turn his violent temper in her direction hung thick in the air. She had spent two days in turmoil over the girl and her plight, and the potential danger to which she had subjected herself.

Their lunch-time talk came fresh in the midst of this ordeal, which had left her feeling vulnerable and exposed and unable to protect herself from the consequences of following her conscience.

Over many months, they had discussed the physical, emotional, and economic hazards and biases and prejudices and vulnerability that stalk a single woman, but now, against the backdrop of this present circumstance, it was all magnified and intense and raw. He saw in her a weariness and distress that he had not understood before. It bordered on despair, and it tore at his heart to see it. She talked of the dangers of being a woman alone. She talked of the pressure to have a man, just to gain safety and security and status. And he smelled the horrible specter of impotence and deprecation and even prostitution that wafted up in putrid fumes from this pressure. He wondered how many women had lost their souls to it. And he realized again why she meant so much to him. It was her strength and faith and will to persevere, to be true to herself even in the face of this dark thing that draped itself over her experience that moved him most.

never always

windless world 

so dead and silent. 

sunless sky 

so grey and cold. 

dead men walk 

with perfect steps, 

always never looking up. 

songless tune 

so hollow and buzzing. 

painless sorrow 

so sweet and cloying. 

dead men dance 

to comic rhythm, 

always never rising up. 

pointless striving 

so desperately urgent. 

hopeless struggle 

so sure in form. 

dead men sleep 

with soft white pillows, 

always never waking up. 

Yesterday he had heard that a friend was in the hospital, having suffered some sort of psychotic break over the weekend. He didn’t know any details beyond that. This was a good friend. Not simply an acquaintance, but a gentle soul whose friendship had become a cherished prize. They lived some 80 miles apart, and had maintained contact only within the structure of shared activities. They had never become the sort of friends who hang out and spend their leisure time together, but they were kindred spirits. He was disturbed at this dark piece of news, but because of the limited boundaries of the friendship, he found himself at a loss to know what to do.

Then later, well into the evening, he had gotten word that an old friend whom he had not seen in 15 years was up for sentencing in a murder trial in Idaho. It would be death at the hands of the state or life in prison without possibility of parole. This old friend had always had a hard time, and things apparently had not changed for him. He had a long history of mental illness, and had shot and killed a female police officer in a drug-induced attempt to force the police to kill him in a hail of gunfire. But the police had been restrained in their response and overpowered and subdued him instead. Suicide at the hands of the police had failed him. Now he had been convicted of first degree aggravated murder of a police officer in a state that makes no legal provision for insanity as a defense. Idaho might ultimately oblige his death wish after all.

These two pieces of dark news had hit him close and hard. It seemed that sensitive hearts of deep gentle souls were more at risk than most. Both of his broken friends fit that pattern. Both were spiritually alive men who had more than their share of compassion and gentleness and tender sensibilities. Both were creative. Both were troubled and quiet and well loved by their peers. Both were at the edge.

It seemed to him as he pondered all this, that all the creative hearts he knew were on the edge. It seemed that being true to your heart, honestly facing the frightening and disturbing complexities of our world, being faithful to the compassion in your core, all made it essential to remain dangerously close to the edge. He doubted that creativity and spiritual integrity could survive anywhere other than at the precipice of emotional disaster. There were simply too many intricate, complex mysteries, too much baffling enigma, too many impossible moral dilemmas, too much complex biology and emotional chemistry.

And so, creative living soul is drawn to the edge as a moth to the light. There is no life for such people in the safety of the flatland; no peace in stability; no comfort in security. The hearts and minds of such people are always in danger of loving, and hurting, and caring, and committing, and striving too much; going too far; slipping and stumbling in the unsure footing of the edge. As he wrestled with the plight of each of his two broken friends, he realized just how precarious was the journey that he had embarked upon.

what art is

He had taken a day off to hang out in San Francisco exploring art galleries. It was the first time he had done this in a very long time. He had carpooled with a friend who was attending a work-related class near a major concentration of galleries and they had parked and left his Honda in a garage for the day. He was on foot and armed only with a list of addresses and a pair of sensible shoes.

The day had gone well, and he had seen more than a dozen galleries crossing the spectrum from 19th century landscapes to avant guard installations and videotaped performance art. Some of what he had seen had moved him deeply, some had not.

He was intrigued by the ways he was and was not moved by the works he saw in the galleries that day. What exactly was it that empowered a work of art? Why did some pieces work better than others? He knew the answers to these questions were fraught with hazards, both for the art and for the viewer, and certainly for the one who dared venture an answer. But answer, he must, since these were among the most significant questions involved in his creative emergence.

He knew enough of the structure and politics and sophistication of art criticism to know that the historical value of a work of art is a different thing from the intrinsic quality and worthiness of the same work. The historical value of a piece has to do with its place or lack of place in the evolution of art. Did it break new ground? Did it influence the work of the artist’s peers and those that followed? How persistent or powerful was that influence? These questions are questions of history. The answers are significant to artists and students of art, but they are very different from the questions that guide the evaluation of intrinsic quality and worthiness.

The intrinsic quality of a piece of art involves technical competence and sophistication, and emotive force and complexity. These attributes are somewhat independent of the questions regarding the place of the piece in history. Artists tend to fall into two camps: those who concern themselves primarily with the intrinsic integrity of their work, and those who are as much or more concerned with their potential place in history.

He had always held the intrinsic integrity of his work as his primary ideal, but in his earlier years, he had been quite concerned with the historical questions as well. Time had gradually tempered his interest in his place in history. He had seen too many artists compromise the intrinsic integrity of their work, throwing themselves and their work into a creative blind alley in hopes of breaking new ground. Much of what left him uninspired in the galleries that day seemed to be just such striving after a footnote in the history books.

As the years had passed, he had forged a greater urgency to make his work count; to ensure that what he did was true to his own calling. He had lost patience with the historical debate. He knew it was important, and he respected it, and would keep abreast of it, but could not allow it to distract him or drain energy away from his mission. He must leave the debate to others. He would focus entirely on the integrity of his own work. He would draw upon the work of those who moved him, and avoid the rapidly diminishing temptation to deviate from his calling to break new ground. He suspected that if ground were to be broken, this would be the most natural, powerful, effective way to do so. And if new ground proved not to be broken, so be it.

The driving urgency of his work—his calling—was to capture the essence of the human heart; to call up depths of emotive force and energy that usually lie dormant and under-expressed; to invite the viewer to explore his or her own soul. He would sacrifice any hope of a place in art history to pursue this calling if need be. It was far more important than any recognition his ego could receive. And he found himself drawn to just such works as he roamed the galleries. Some of what inspired and moved him was harsh and dissonant; some was beautiful; some simple and elegant; some abstract; some complex; some confusing. Various artists had drawn on diverse emotive tools to work their magic. To varying degrees, some had failed to move him, but he would not lay responsibility for that entirely at their feet. After all, he as viewer was also responsible for the art he experienced.

The frog prince makes a discovery

brain-dead poet 

slept through his lines 

until the muse bestirred him! 

fire rushed hot, 

wind whispered her sweet song, 

as Earth danced beneath him, 

and the great crystal sea 

cast up her ninth wave. 

Once upon a time, there was a frog prince. He had met his princess, but had not been kissed. This was a matter of much consternation and soul searching on the part of the frog prince. He knew the story. He knew the ending. Yet somehow, things appeared to be going all wrong. He sometimes wondered if being a frog would prevent him from ever receiving the coveted kiss. Who in her right mind would kiss a frog anyway!

But the frog prince had found much comfort and happiness in his encounters with the princess in spite of his uncertainty and his longing to be transformed. He knew that she was a loyal friend, and that she cared about him deeply. He also new that he cared every bit as much for her. Apart from the nagging problem of the kiss, he was content spending his days with her at the water’s edge.

One day, when the princess was off on a journey, the frog prince lay sprawled on the rock by the pond sunning himself and contemplating his dilemma. How would he ever become a prince without the magic kiss? And would the kiss be worth it if she liked him less as a prince than as a frog? This seemed to be a very real possibility, and disturbed him greatly, since he treasured her companionship as much as he wished for the kiss. He had made a comment one day about the kiss, and the princess had laughed softly in the way only princesses can, and said, “You silly frog, you don’t need a kiss to be a prince.” He had felt at the time that she was diverting him from the subject, but as the days had passed, her words found a place in his heart and imagination. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps there was another way. He had certainly learned many things in the days since the princess had first appeared by the pond, and he had noticed that his froggy disposition had begun to change. He even noticed that bugs were less appealing than they had been before. Maybe the kiss was not the key after all. Maybe there was something else.

He rolled over onto his belly to look at his froggy reflection in the edge of the pond. And then he saw it; a shimmering sparkle of gold in his reflection on the murky water. A thin circle of heavy gold fit perfectly on the crown of his head. Suddenly he was aware of its weight against his skull. He was so taken with it that he did not at first realize that it was not the head of a frog that wore the crown, but rather the head of a man. As the realization of what he saw began to sink in, the prince was overwhelmed. He lay flat on the rock, weeping joyfully into the pond until it nearly overflowed its banks with salty tears.

The princess had given him a wonderful gift, though not the one everyone expected. She new the story as well as you and I do, but she also knew that the frog had always and only been a prince. She knew that his frogginess was merely an enchantment cast upon him by a witch in a dark, foul humor. She knew that the power of enchantments lies in the heart of the enchanted, and that enchantments are truly broken only by the power of a far greater magic that works also in the heart. She knew that a kiss would not teach this lesson to the prince, and so she had given him the gift of honesty and loyal friendship instead. And with this sacred gift, he had released the secret hidden in his own heart.

The frog prince

pierced through by her sweet words, 

bludgeoned with that sparkling smile, 

he came again and again for more, 

flogged and driven by the enchanting joy 

of hope and anticipation 

yet unfulfilled. 

how could it be 

that such fair tortures 

could burn his heart to ash, 

yet drive him onward 

full and rich and agonizing? 

Once upon a time, there was a prince. Somehow or other, he had turned into a frog. He wasn’t really sure how it had happened, or when, but he had been a frog for so long that he had become more a frog than he was a prince. But he still was a prince. He had found a princess walking beside his pond, and his response to her was certainly not that of a frog. Being a real princess, she had instantly recognized him for more than a simple frog, and had taken an interest in him at once.

But alas, the beautiful princess had a problem of her own. When she was younger and less experienced, she had kissed a toad or two. She had been brutally injured by their toxic bitter secretions. The bitterness of toad-kissing had left her cautious and wary of kissing amphibians at all.

She liked the frog prince very much, and was eager to spend time with him and affirm his princely qualities, and remind him of the courtly ways of his station in life which he had begun to forget during all the long years of mucking around in the pond. But she could not bring herself to kiss him. The experiences with the toads were too intense and painful, and still fresh in her mind and memory.

The frog prince had not been aware of the plight of the princess at first. He was content to spend time with her and learn from her and contemplate that with her help he was in the midst of a profound transformation. She shared many things with him, but he was always conscious that some dark thing lurked in her heart that she was unable or unwilling or fearful to reveal. This disturbed the frog, but being a prince, he was sensitive enough not to press. He simply waited and listened and opened his heart to her.

Slowly, the ingrained knowledge of the ways of royalty returned to him as he spent his hours and days with the princess. Slowly, carefully, she opened her heart to him as well. It was more difficult for her in some ways to do so because of the dark thing she hid. Day by day, they lingered together at the edge of the pond. Day by day, they grew closer and safer together. They learned secrets from each other, and made more secrets together. Their days at the water’s edge were wonderful. She would sit on a large flat rock on the bank, and he would hop up onto a lily pad, or onto the edge of her rock. They spent many hours there, exploring and playing and learning together, warmed by the sun.

But as time passed, the frog prince began to be restless and uneasy. He had become far more sensitive to the moods and nuances of the heart of the princess as the prince within him began to awaken and grow. He knew the time had not yet come for his transformation, and he was willing and able to wait for the proper time since, after all, he was a prince. But his heightened sensitivity made him increasingly aware of the dilemma the princess wrestled with.

She wanted to set the prince free from his frog prison, and understood that she, as a princess, was uniquely capable of doing so. But at the same time, she was not interested in kissing amphibians. She might not be able to do so at all. She had revealed many things to the emerging prince; some about herself, some about him, and some about their world. But she had not revealed the dark thing. He wondered if the dark thing was related to her experiences with the toads. He had learned enough about the practices of toads to be concerned and distressed about how they could behave in the presence of a princess. His perceptive powers were not yet well enough developed to discern the nature or origins of the dark thing, but whatever it might be, he saw that it had a subduing effect on the joy and radiance in the heart of the princess. And he suspected that she could not kiss frogs with this thing weighing upon her heart.

The prince was deeply torn and anguished by their plight. He wanted more than anything, to be a whole prince, and to be able to leave the water’s edge with the princess at will. He longed for the magic kiss. And yet he also understood the deep seated reluctance of the princess. He could not ask her for the kiss. He feared that she would not give it, or that in doing so, she would withhold herself from it in some way. He feared that in becoming a prince he could lose the princess. When he thought about this for long, he wanted to swim off and sulk and be miserable and tragic.

It seemed horrible and wrong that it could come to this. Yet he also knew that the time for frog kissing had not yet come. In the mean time, neither he nor the princess were ready to leave the water’s edge, and the boundary that it provided gave them security and stability for the work they must first do in their hearts.

—To be continued