Impassible-5

OVER THE CREST

I walk down into the valley
with the Abbey grounds distinct,
and ripples of welcome
from Cher-Lynne
reaching out.

but downhill needs special attention,
and most accidents occur
close to home ...

but I can muse --
........................................................

The Cloak

There is a mantle in the hall,
next to the sword I must foreswear –
but they are perceived the same
by those who live by obfuscation,
or instill confusion for delight,
or submit to fear.

It is noticeably of no worth,
of simple weave and colors sparse –
but hung loose and without guile
it will stop any arrow or blade
with naught but faith in silent breeze,
and integrity.

It is heavy though and itches,
and not meant to be worn forever –
yet its presence and shadow
is of and betwixt my being,
and it ripples with Currents strong,
and eternity.

Beginning the Journey at Last

I've left behind the skins of my old self
Because how else will I grow?

I step through the doorway to a world far removed from the stage I'd just performed on
I look back at the past selves I have shed, am trying to shed, am trying to leave behind in the surrender box
No doubt some fear, procrastination, dissatisfaction, inferiority complex and depression will follow me wherever I travel
But luckily I can shed as many times as I need to

I'm armed and ready for my journey
As the others are too
We all have our maps and special bags packed with things to help us along the way
Bless the woman who is le Enchanteur, our guide, our motivator and the ignition to our creative fires

I adjust the straps on my bags and smooth my skirt
I check the soles of my boots and estimate that they should last until I reach the House of the Serpent
I spy a strange looking animal watching me from the bushes
And my old self would have been afraid
But I'd been told that this might happen and so I strode confidently up to the beast

She looked at me with wary eyes
As I examined her I couldn't figure out whether I was supposed to climb onto her back or take her reigns
I didn't even know what creature she might be
Something between a horse, a hippopotamus and a bird (wings only)

I started walking along the Serpentine Road
Realising that I was alone with this creature because I'd dawdled (again)
I turned to look at her and she seemed to know what I wanted
She soon caught up and walked beside me, snorting softly and clip clopping at a leisurely pace
I sensed we'd be good travelling companions

Impassible -4

I have reached the crest,
and am decending into the valley,
no less dangerous ..

heel set, weight back ...

...................................................................

Walk in the rain – slowly;
cadence set by spirit balance
and the song you are now singing,
or listening to,
or crafting.

Savor each drop – slowly;
trace rivulets from uncapped brow
to cheek and chin and yearning breast,
or trembling heart,
or chakras.

Join with the flow – slowly;
as some measure of your presence
sloughs away to dribble unseen
but remembered –
cherished.

A flower will grow – slowly;
nourished by your chance passing
that diverted life to one seed alone,
a soft imprint
forever.

Impassible-3

Brother Tree

I am far from confluence of roads,
those well trod and those less traveled,
and am one with the forest draw and close.
I cannot get lost nor circle about
for home calls to me – and the space at your side;
and the trees understand and will protect me.

The rains came – a squall at sea – but here?
In the meadow I would have fallen
to prayerless knees and muddied despair;
but I stand instead against a brother tree,
embraced and enfolded as if in your arms
to listen to the songs and breath on now.

And of now, there is a debt to pay
as basic as my sense of self and one.
I dance naked beneath the giggling branches
as they release the gift rain in kindness,
giving me in simple measure by right
the fine blessings I could not bear alone.

and so it is with your love, little one –
that which I cannot embrace though folly
you will then shower on me in baby kisses
and thoughts of deep roots and shadow boughs,
that I might have it all – and live again –
but it’s just a tree, and you so far away.

Impassible-2

THE SEAT

If I had stayed on the road I would never have found it; but the rutted byway was more mud than friendly, so I followed game trails over the ridge. A side path, useless for animal wiles let to a rocky wind-promontory only a slight drift from my inclination. Someone had fixed iron staples into the granite to form a ladder of sorts – curious, as this spot held no grand view nor watch of the road below. I chose to climb.

The top held a cleft protected from the gusting winds that could roll stones uphill. Therein had been constructed a stone bench from which one could see only a single mountain peak to the East – nothing spectacular save a curious saddle like depression at the summit. I closed my eyes and reached out – and in and asked the chiseled stone for answers as there were no trees about. I learned that I must return at dawn. This cut my day short, but gave time for fishing below and a fine watching of owls after sunset, and a soft bed of fir tips and a most persistent frog.

The cold and unforgiving seat was meant for someone of less girth than I, and shorter too methinks, but strangely comforting – like sitting in the palm of a giant hand. The silence was absorbing and the morning mist content in the valley below. And the sun rose! It ascended majestically behind the saddle peak, nestled there and seemed to pause a bit -- but then time was suspended, or moved backwards a knock. I did not breathe at any rate! Down the mountain face were veins of quartz or other crystals – unseen in any lesser view. Each now captured a single ray of GodShine and bent it to its will. Rainbow flashes like trout in a brook – lightning dazzles of searing brilliance – twinkling fireflies like sequins on a Goddess veil. Some flashes seemed to join and form globes of iridescent dance in the air – pulsing ebbs of wonder – bubbles from a spring of EverLight. I sensed sparks scattering from a gigantic hammer striking an anvil, and yearned for the sound – the ringing chimes and jeweled notes. Then gone!

Oh, why am I here and now? Who built this perch – who else knows? Why is there but a single thought in my mind as I walk the lonely trails? –

“As this is made, so then are thee!”

protection against the perils of forgetfulness

Here is a necklace of gingko leaves strung on a cord. Gingko possesses powers to aid those suffering from forgetfulness.


In certain circumstances it may even be necessary to drink a couple of drops of Essence of Lethe when foes try to wipe your memory

creative handprint

Descansos and journey of the heart

My body is marked by the scars of descansos: a simple childhood fall resulting in an awkward break requiring pinning. The scar on my keloid skin as livid now as it was 40 years ago, more like the weal from a burn. A fall from a moving bus and 6 stitches in my head. Two scars track across my belly: removal of a poisoned appendix and subsequent abcesses. The second and most painful in all senses: an emergency operation to remove both fallopian tubes. “I’m sorry you won’t be able to have children, except by IVF” said the gynaecologist the next day. All potential for creating new life gone with the cut of the knife. Attempts at IVF resulted in nothing but misery followed by acceptance and finally by the finding of new paths of creativity – a burgeoning interest in amateur dramatics and theatrical workshops. Voice workshops with Barb on whose body are tattooed a number of runes – a permanent record of events that have marked her. Watching over the building of our new house and being able to start a garden from scratch; learning to play the piano again, albeit badly, after a gap of 35 years; singing in a choir; reacting to creative stimuli and trying my hand at writing and artworks; traveling and travel journals, digital photography; learning a new language; explorations of new worlds.

Journey of the heart

Updated and revised version of a letter I wrote to the woman I was 10 years ago (now 20 years ago).

My dear,

20 years have passed and you have experienced much in that time.

You have become a self-assured woman who has overcome the disappointment of not being able to have children and has, instead, enjoyed the company of a number of cats. You have discovered that, with the increased amount of free time available through not having had children, you have been able to enrich your personal and cultural life. You have met people of different nationalities and have learned to love their countries, languages, music, food and wine.

After moving abroad, you settled in so quickly that you decided to sell your old house and build a new one, near the city but in the countryside, something that you would never have been able to do if you had stayed put and you had all the fun and hard work of creating a garden from scratch. Blood, sweat and tears and all that.

In your professional life you weighed up the pros and cons of making a career and decided that there were more important things. You have been in the same job now for 15 years – together with your colleague you have worked out a good modus operandi and the work is autonomous. It can be difficult and, at times, unpleasant but you work well and enjoy it.

On the negative side there is not too much to say. Circumstances have taken you away from your family and a number of close friends whom you still miss. Your sister lives in the U.S. but you usually manage to meet up with her and her family every couple of years. Your brother has settled down and married and lives close to your parents – a weight off your mind as your parents are now in their mid eighties.

People say you have changed a lot since coming here. Perhaps you didn’t notice at first but now, with hindsight and the wisdom that has come from experience, you know that it is true. You are more self-assured and confident in what you do. You have gained a certain serenity from having come close to death on two occasions and you know that life is too short to play with.

If you have any regrets it is because you have not always had the courage to say certain things to certain people and have not taken those decisions that would have turned your life upside down. Was it because of cowardice or because, deep down, you knew it would be better to stay as you were. Perhaps you will never know and, in the meantime, much water has flowed under the bridge.

I hope that your life will continue to be as peaceful as you would wish and know that I am happy for you.

Impassible-1

BRIDGE

I was curious to discover why the pass is described as ‘impassible’, as I have encountered no obstacle not easily circumvented or leaped, and a donkey would have no problems. A cart might not pass to be sure, as I discovered at a bridge called “The Span.” The name was apt in intent, for the seething stream cut deep in the granite, though never too wide. The bridge was nothing now but a pile of broken timbers, mostly swept away in the Spring thaw. A pleasant spot, actually, except that the opposing lip was twenty feet away with anchoring boulders half that below. There were handhold enough for a man to pass, but a cart was something else.

Two carts there were – grinning at each other from sides close yet so far. Two draft horses were likewise hobbled amiably on each side; and a lone merchant sat in the shade, with a strung bow close at hand. We shared a bit of cheese and fruit and I learned of his predicament. Twice each year he and another merchant met at The Span with a cart of goods. The one from the Bay swelled with goods expected at the Abbey, while the upland one returned crafts and specials of the forest. The merchants would trade carts at this point, to return home with their own horses and half the journey, to settle later any difference in value. Alas, nature directed this trade was not to be, and neither merchant was disposed to portage the goods across the defile by hand.

Thus it was that Tom stayed here to guard the goods while Samile returned to the village to hire laborers to rebuild the bridge. However, both had agreed that if a group of willing persons came along, they could be put to work immediately, with a bag of silver ready for payment for those who would trade the carts as planned. “This I will do for you,” offered my portly, crippled self. Laughter was the only reply, but I set myself to the task.

There were two logs of length about fifteen feet that I lashed to the wheels of the cart backed up to the nearside edge, secured of course with sturdy ropes of which there was plenty. The other ends extended into the center of the stream. Next, I climbed up two winsome firs and affixed ropes to the tops. These I bent slightly and secured to the back of the cart on either side. More ropes now led across the gap to the other side, where I borrowed the use of a single horse. Slowly we took up the slack.

The cart would have fallen into the stream save for the lever branches. Instead, the cart rose into the air on stilts – held in brake by the bending trees soon doubled like bows on the draw. The cart quivered at midpoint – then descended slowing to my side to settle without a sound. With the tree ropes bound fast, I freed the cart, towing it to safety with the second horse. Then I moved the other cart into place and again affixed the log supports to its wheels as before. With tethers all in place, my brilliant steed backed up ever slowly, allowing the cocked trees to pull back with steady hand. This cart too rose in the air, hesitated – and dropped slowly to the first side. The amazed merchant would have helped gather up the ropes, but I wished full compensation, knowing full well some poorish folk who could use the silver coins. All of this was quickly done, but a couple of hours delay from my wanderings.

“But what will I tell my friend?” asked he who now had to await the other merchant’s return before he could venture home.

“Always tell the truth,” said I. “Tell then that an old man caused the carts to fly across the stream by magick, for while the use of wits instead of brawn is not magickal at all, the willingness to greet any challenge as done, surely is!”

“They will not believe me!” murmured the merchant.

“Such is often the fate of truth. And you then will be safe to hold this knowledge until another time where it might serve you well. Consider it a gift – and an obligation to use it well.”

It was my gift to sleep well that night.

for Fran on her Birthday

As I walk Along

I muse about the responses I received,
on and off blog,
about my plight and quest ...
enough though to give me confidence
to make up a story ...

Me and Will

I didn’t drive yet, but knew a lot about cars, which is why Will let me wash his 1938 Buick that didn’t need it. He wouldn’t let me wash his 1953 Roadster, which did need it – said he had to do that himself. So I learned a bit about people. Truth is, I seemed to be the only kid around who liked to listen to the stories old folk tell – and didn’t care much if I could tell which were true and which were funnin’. He was 93 at the time and still driving. He had the first drivers license in the State of Nevada in 1906 and had never had an accident up till 1958 – can’t tell about tomorrow.

His wife ‘Misses’ was a tad younger and didn’t tell many stories – just made things; scarves, doilies, mittens. These told stories in a different way, I guess, but it took me years to realize it. Instead, she paid me to do simple chores and tell her stories. Her’s were real tasks, though – washing low windows and high shelves beyond her reach. And sweeping the basement. That I would have done for free just for the company of wonderful things stored there. I could write a book about ‘em – maybe I will. Anyway, it surprised me a bit when she asked if I would come to the sewing room after Will had left for the store. She made special request – best in my life maybe, leastwise at fourteen. I just touched her hand and left.

I told my parents what I was going to do – didn’t ask. I arranged for my brother to handle my paper route and paid in advance. Then, Tuesday morning at 5:30AM, Will got into his Roadster preparing to leave on a trip. I got in beside him. He stared a bit, but didn’t say anything, then glanced at the kitchen window. She was there. We drove off, alone on the street. “I was wondering why she finally trusted me to go,” he stated firmly. Afraid I’d fall in a hole and lie helpless, I guess. Never had a broken bone I couldn’t splint. We’ll stop for pancakes in ‘bout an hour.” And that’s how I came to be with Will, and to be the one with the secret.

I’ll skip over all the stories about ‘what used to be in that building’, and ‘the trouble with this pass before they paved it’ sort of thing, and whittle down to those that relate to the ‘Lens’. Maybe I’m leaving the best part out, but this is a short story, after all. Back in the 1890’s, Will was a prospector and got involved in a couple of important digs. In ’98 outside of Goldfield, he and a friend ‘pick and shoveled’ sixteen hours a day for three months with nothing but beans, jackrabbit, and water cress. They pulled in three wagons of fine ore and shared more than a million dollars – back when a dollar bought a suit of cloths. Two years later he had little left, mostly from grub-staking friends. Said he had no need for hard money except to help folks. Then he got married and decided to take a regular job. Everyone respected him, and at six two by 230 he was an ideal foreman. There was a new gold vein being opened up – a promising mother load. Overnight about 6,000 men were camping under juniper brush ready to work continuous twelve on twelve off shifts in the tunnels. No machinery, no safety equipment, no excuses. They worked on solid rock with carbide lamps of their heads. Old Will chanted the rhythm of the mine, “whang, twist, step, set.” Inch by inch, groan by groan they’d drive the drills six feet in for blasting – except when they hit the green! The drill would vanish with the ‘whang’, while ‘hammer’ and ‘set’ collided in warning shout. The green was soft, and sticky and rankled in the lunges when you breathed. No one liked the green.

It was an amazement how Will could drive and play three different characters at once – take me back to a time fifty years gone – to a place drawing closer every minute. He was returning to the mines and the green. Turns out, most of Will’s job was supervising construction of special scaffolding around the soft layers of gray-green deposits. Will knew it was copper ore and had it assayed for poisonous impurities – low grade, worthless and dangerous. Thousand year old water sometimes leached out onto the floor to cause slips and falls. Everyone cursed the green – all twenty six shafts had them – bad luck to find them weaving through the rich quartz ore. Two and a half years and it was done. Hundreds of millions of dollars of gold taken, tunnels boarded up – a ghost town over night. Richer than most, quickly forgotten. Except by Will.

Will had to wait fifty years because old claims were set by time, some 50, some 75 years. New laws required yearly working of a claim or forfeit. Not these – ‘grandfathered’ in. It didn’t matter that Will didn’t want the gold still hidden there. During the years he researched the claims and knew when each would expire. He placed the sample bottles from the twenty-six shafts like chess pieces on a gigantic board, and drew an imagined map of the vein of copper resting there. He described it as a lens, thicker in some places than others, but always present, “A little longer than round,” he said. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He chatted about it as something he could hold in his hand and stroke – like a clam shell maybe. “’Course, I don’t know how big she really is,” he laughed. Maybe you can tell me.

That afternoon he scrapped away piled sand from hidden boards. No one watched – no footsteps had passed by for years, telling from the rain drop pocked sand. “Six should be enough,” he said, and we went into fearsome maws of lonely memories. I wasn’t afraid, exactly, but felt a chill at the thought of being buried alive and no one knowing – you understand. Sometimes we went down thirty feet – sometime a hundred. Each time we found the green, a ribbon winding through every level and angle – sometimes only a few feet high, sometimes fifty feet or more on several levels. Will had a map with little ‘X’s on it. We went down in eight holes in all, confirming and adding to his sketch. In the four mines around the edge the vein was high – extending into imagination alone. We covered the holes back up and drove back to a small town and single room hotel. Food was good though. He didn’t talk much that night.

Next morning we walked forever – pacing from one rock pile to another, picking up old tobacco cans along the way. On six points he stuffed some papers into the cans and we buried them with boulders. After lunch we drove to some distant points and he placed four more. In town, he had some papers witnessed and left at the BLM office. We started back towards home, but he stopped and got out to look at the mountain range where the ‘Lens’ was resting. “Just once,” he whispered, “I wanted to be the richest man on earth.” On the way home he told me the rest.

“There is no way to get to that ore right now,” he chuckled. “Too expensive to remove the overbear and it’s too low grade from tunnel mining. It’s going to have to be an open pit like over at Ruth, except that the part I staked is 20% bigger and 4% richer. I could only stake 600 feet beyond what I could see – that’s ‘vein’ law. Copper is ‘bout eighty cents a pound right now – just doesn’t balance out, especially since there is no water here. Someday that price is going to climb – someday there’s going to be a need for that copper lens. I won’t see it – maybe you will. Hope you see these riches do some good.”

I didn’t think much of it, really – just glad to be along. Will died the next year and I am now three thousand miles away. But I’ve done some checking. The Ruth pit produced 4.5 billion pounds of refined copper, plus as much in other ores. If Will’s estimates are right, the Lens holds more than six billion pounds – maybe a lot more. I reach out in mind and spirit and see Will holding that Copper Lens in his hands – a lot bigger – just a giant shield to ward against pain and hunger. Copper is approaching $4.00 per pound. Recon Will might have been the world’s first trillionaire. At least his heart was that big.

I’ve started putting some ‘X’s on a napkin. “Yes, Will,” I remember where it is.