You Will Jump Through A Window

Dionce, a healer friend in Phoenix rising from 9/11 psychic ashes, talked about shifts, frequencies and vibrations.

History said they manifested themselves one year well before a month in the Fall from supremacy on a myopic vision emergency frequency. Before emergency calls on hot lines melted through tribal retributions.

“A little premonition can be a dangerous thing,” he said. She sighed over long distance. He prepared to fly into exile come autumn when leaves departed their structure. Does the tree feel sadness when it loses leaves?

She well understood his intentions and motivations. His nomadic instincts called.
“You will jump through the window,” she said during a summer’s conversation.

“My work here is going well. I’ll complete the first draft by August 2001, then it will be time to go and renew the spirit. To pay attention, get back on the road. To go back in time. I leave September 1.”

“How is it going?”

“I’m blessed to be working on it. It’s coming together. It’s edgy, daring and insightful. It’s a weapon of mass destruction. It may not appeal to mainstream agents, publishers and a general readership due to its fragmentary nonlinear nature. I feel I’m working on some intricate puzzle and jumping through windows without leaving the ground. Some belief windows are desperate for a good cleaning.” They laughed.

“Puzzles are revealing,” she said.

“It’s like the Navajo or Tibetans creating their sand mandala. Through their daily practice they achieve a vision, their clarity allows them to manifest their intuition. When they are finished creating their work manifesting their internal vision of peace and nonviolence, they sweep up the colored grains of sand and release material in water or air. It’s a healing process of non-attachment. Impermanence. A gift.”

He read some to her.

“It’s all about the mysteries,” she said. “Will you send me some?”
“Sure. I’ll get some chapters printed up and off to you.”

She shared a story about three men in the desert who discovered the secret of the mysteries in the Cabbala.

“They had three choices. One walked away in peace, one died and one went mad.”

“Maybe that’s my fate.”

They discussed various moral ambiguities through their characters.

“To travel is better than to arrive because you are always here,” he said.

“Who is it that is dragging this corpse around?” she asked him.

“All time is now and all space is here.”

“Yes. Time is history and space is geography.”
“Be well.”
They rang off.

They’d exchanged the laughter and wisdom of a child’s voice inside living history. This was only part of the experience and he hadn’t written much about it because he had been living it day in and day out. One character lived it, another character felt fortunate to just get it down and try to make sense of it later.

He decided that everyone he’d met, known and loved would be fair game in this tale. If they didn’t like it, fair enough, it wasn’t nothing but the blues. The blues are life’s way of talking.

Crow Forest

Returning to the United States of Advertising (USA) after centuries on the ground he sat down in a Crow cabin on 8,000 year old Kalapuya Indian ceremonial ground. He had a maul, a hatchet, and a double bladed axe named Laughter.

He lived inside shifting forest tides, buried beneath stoic 150 foot tall Douglas firs waving in wind, with a Fischer stove and the chopping. He worked in a room bathed in light.

The blade, edge, swinging weight, slicing through old growth, tree time rings; ferns, moss, rain, falling ladders, outhouse and the Afghan girl’s piercing green eyed image from 1984 on his wall.

Her eyes followed him everywhere.

Where he sat down spinning out his tales of control and approval ratings weaving spider webs on a loom of time. Where he rearranged mirrors to reflect everything.

He carried Omar’s palimpsest through the forest. It was a bird song, thrill immediate spring music, owls, ravens, crows, vultures circling on thermals, wild deer, ancient wisdom, shamanic visions of clarity insight and wisdom. The book gathered and collected bark leaves. A fabric of moss singing to him.

He established his refuge from the storm with simplicity, serenity and sanctuary. He lived on the edge finding shelter inside a bird’s song. He trimmed cuticles into air seeing them spiral into spring. It snowed flowers.

He looked deep into the forest of the mysterious manuscript. It was true and filled with sensory details.

He connected his narrative with Omar’s animal skins; tales, adventures, trials, tribulations, dreams, nightmares, conversations, explorations, discoveries and boredom mixed with excitement, wonder, suffering and healing energies.

People wondered and wandered, chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of their eyes. They saw through their eyes not with their eyes.

“I am an old dialect of Kalapuya tribes. I respect the spirit energies. I hear with my eyes and see with my ears. I understand your love for the spirit power guardian. I am an ancestor speaking 300 languages from our history. Now only 150 dialects remain.

“A hunting gathering people, speaking Pentian, we numbered 3,000 in 1780. We believed in nature spirits, vision quests and guardian spirits. Our shamans, called, amp a lak ya taught us how seeking, finding and following one’s spirit or dream power and singing our song was essential in community.

“I speak in tongues, in ancient dialects about love. Dialects of ancestors who lived here for 8,000 years before where you are now. In the forest near the river all animal spirits welcome you with their love. They are manifestations of your being.

“I am blessed to welcome you here. You have walked along many paths of love to reach me.

“My dirt path is narrow and smooth in places, rocky in others. I am the soil under your feet. I feel your weight, your balance - your weakness and your strength. I hear your heart beating as my ancestors pounded their ceremonial drums. I feel the tremendous surging force of your breath extend into my forest. Wind accepts your breath.

“I am everything you see, smell, taste, touch and hear. I am the oak, the fir and pine trees spread like dreams upon your outer landscape. I am your inner landscape. I see you stand silent in the forest hearing trees nudge each other. “Look,” they say, “Someone has returned.”

“I love the way you absorb the song of brown body thrush collecting moss for a nest. I am the small brown bird saying hello. I am the sweet throated song you hear without listening. At night two owls sing their distant song and their music fills your ears with mystery and love.

“I am warm spring sun on your face filtered through leaves of time. I am the spider’s web dancing with diamond points of light. I am the rough fragile texture of bark you gently remove before connecting the edge of an ax with wood. You carry me through my forest, your flame creates heat of love. I am the taste of pitch on your lips, the odor of forest in your nostrils, filling your lungs. It is sweet.

“I am the cold rain and wet snow and hot sun and four seasons. I am yellow, purple, red, blue, orange flowers from brown earth.

Language cannot be separated from who you are and where you live.

“I say this so you will remember everything in this forest. I took care of this place and now your love has the responsibility.

“Respect and dignity with mindfulness.”

I am not from here

Rumi, the Sufi poet said, “The work is to open the heart, to seek the truth and the difficulty is being human.”

What is the heart? How do we know the depth of silence in another person? How do we find the balance between sacrifices and suffering? The way of friendship is outside doctrines. As Rumi said, “We have ecstatic grief for the human condition.”

We are not from here, we are transcendent. A human being is a kind of conversation.

Lhasa Meditation

This is an auspicious time to be here. Still, one needs to be aware of the energies and practice discernment especially when dealing with and recognizing sensitivities and realities on the ground. This is vital.

Be wise and prudent in your actions and behaviors. You are a guest here with responsibilities for your remaining open, vulnerable, receptive and authentic.

It is essential for you to refresh, reinforce and renew your calm warrior nature. Keep a diamond in your mind. Foster and allow the creative instincts to guide your journey with clarity, insight and wisdom. Remain open and receptive to all the spiritual forces around you now. Cultivate, nourish and manifest your inner strength and focus to accept and acknowledge lessons and their deeper meaning.

Practice dignity and restraint. Conduct yourself with the mindfulness of realizing your divine essence. Meditate on the process of death.

Tangiers to Cadiz

After eight weeks in Morocco immediately after 9/11 he leaped onto a ferry across the Mediterranean from Tangiers to Algeciras.

He met a strawberry blond American widow from a lonely hearts club tour group.

“I have many questions for you,” Jean said as seagulls played in blue wind.

“Yes. That’s the answer to the first one. The one where you ask me if I am happy?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s obvious isn’t it. It’s the first question an American away from home for the first time in her life, and returning from a day trip to Tangiers to her four star Costa del Sol hotel after being assulted by poor unemployed people begging her to buy something - anything - would ask a traveler. You’re either sitting in deep meditation or you’re moving.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“What’s question number two?”

“Where are you going?”

“Cadiz. The oldest city in Europe. Going to sit down and write. We’ve been hunting and gathering material. Doing my work.”

“Wow, that’s exciting. I’m lucky to get a letter written. Takes me forever and then I just lose my train of thought.”

“Instead of the train maybe you should consider walking. Take bus #11. It’s a magic bus.”

“Really? What’s bus #11 mean?”

“It means use your legs, it means walk, slow down, engage your senses. It’s how poor people get around in Morocco. How poor people anywhere get somewhere.”

“How romantic.”

“Depends on your perspective and interpretation. Poverty is not romantic. It’s a daily struggle. Yes, by slowing down you observe everything in minute detail, befriend strangers, be anonymous. Like a wandering ghost or a memory. It’s the perfect way to explore your nature, test your spirit, contemplate your imaginary reflection in windows and live with pure intention.”

“Just by walking? What happens if I get attacked?”

“You worry too much. Worry is interest on a bill that will never come due. Your ego loves the circus of sensory entertainment. People suffer chronic health problems because they think to much about past failures and future fears. Try just sitting. Maybe you need to slow down, unless you love the fast lane? Most people don’t intend to harm you. Learn how to yell ‘FIRE’ in multiple languages if you need help.”

“Funny. Fire eh, never thought of that before.”

“Sure, people scatter and you escape.”

Passing Gibraltar they entered a harbor as Jean poured her endless book of questions into his ears about life as a nomad, how it worked, how one survives on the road.

They said goodbye and he didn’t have the heart to tell her about the pain, suffering and joy she’d experience on her journey. He knew she’d find out for herself because they were all in transit.

One door opens and one door closes but the hallways can be a bitch.