A real short one for ya this week, but this story just didn’t want to be any longer. It wasn’t for lack of time or desire; when something is complete unto itself, ya leave it alone and enjoy it for what it is. I wrote it a while ago, and coming back to it, thought it would be perfect for Daylight Savings time.
To Fall
She ran beside him through the field. Their long hair waved in the breeze, at times mingling with each other. Finally, when fatigue caught up with them, together they fell to the soft grass below, giggling upward towards the sun. She smiled to see him next to her; he was so happy holding her hand.
A customer suggested I try a flash-fiction writing contest. I’d have written another besides, but it’s no lie that five hundred words, some weeks, is harder than others. Anyway, this was what came to mind. Wish me luck!
Eating Crow
“Drumstick please.”
“Sure, sure, let me just saw the elbow in half so’s you don’t get the thigh too.”
“I doubt if ‘elbow’ is the right way to speak of the joint where leg meets thigh on a bird. However, I think I’ve always just assumed the thigh comes with the drumstick, at least, that’s the way it always used to be at my house.”
“Wow, that’s a lotta bird for one person. Assuming you’re talkin’ about Turkey of course, Professor . . .”
“I told you, call me Steve. Anyway, yes, we were a traditional household when it came to Thanksgiving. I’m not complaining mind you.”
“Your wife leaves ya because you lose your job, she takes the kids half way across the country, and everything else you own. She doesn’t think twice about leaving you to starve in a gutter. What have ya not to complain about? Hell, the only reason you’re spendin’ Thanksgiving with some bum like me is that your car’s broke down and you got tired half-way through a twenty-mile walk to the gas station. I mean, seriously, what goes right in your life?”
“Before losing my job, philosophy was my subject. First off, I’m lucky to know what so many great minds would think about a situation like mine. But secondly, if after life falls apart because, quite frankly, I’ve made some rather stupid blunders in choosing a wife who couldn’t be in it for the long haul, and not filling my tank when I had the chance, it’s rather spectacularly beautiful, if not downright gracious of life, to offer up some good company and a hot meal to take the edge off the pain that, quite frankly, I’ve been causing myself lately.
“I mean, where I am , this really is luck. Not only is being here the first boon I’ve had in a while, but it’s also allowing me the opportunity to see what kind of bliss-filled blindness I’ve kept myself in for far longer than I should have if I’d cared properly for myself to begin with. Mr. Schmidt, this moment marks a new beginning for me!”
“You’ll pardon my skepticism professor, but this certainly seems like a far cry from lucky to me. Of course, I kinda live this way professionally.”
“Well, Mr. Schmidt, you certainly demonstrate a penchant for survival. And you are certainly gracious and hospitable to say the least. Again, my gratitude to you. When this night is through I’ll be on my way to starting over. I’ll be happy to extend a new beginning to you as well, if you’re open to changing profession.”
“Well, that’s mighty kind of you Professor, but we’d better see what it looks like once you’ve got yourself back on track first . . .”
“You’re right at that Mr. Schmidt. In the meantime, gratitude is all I can know this night of thanks giving. If you would pass that crow’s leg over now, I’ll be ever grateful just for sharing this meal with you tonight.
Alone in a small sail boat bobbing upon the waves. They rolled under the boat causing it to sway as the wind blew in the sail. All alone he sat and wondered if his legs would ever find rest upon the land, but there was no land in sight. Suddenly the waves began to part all around him, in every direction. This was no whirl pool as in tales of old; he was not spinning, the boat was lowering as a solid wall of water surrounded him; a cylinder made apparently by its own will, no physical structure holding the water in place as the walls rose, and the boat lowered further.
Finally, the boat had no further it could go, the ocean’s floor apparently exposed and dry as a bone. Straight up, light came through this tunnel as though from a great distance. He decided that between his two choices he’d allow the notion of terror that several tons of sea could fall upon him at any moment, crushing him if not drowning him, to be pushed aside by the wonder that the water was not falling, he had the most amazing view he could not fathom having, and what he did next with a situation hitherto incomprehensible was in the palm of his hand. He felt peace to be at the bottom of the enormity of unexpected splendor. The fish on the other side of the wall of water seemed almost to blink at him; he considered this might be what it felt like to be on the other side of the aquarium’s wall.
Since up was not at present an option, and he did not know how long time would hold the entirety of the ocean at bay before the notion he dare not consider, but from the periphery of his mind, come to fruition and he find himself crushed or drowned, he decided before fate choose the ending of his story, he might as well have a look around. And so he stepped off the boat, and onto the very dry ocean bed. His legs found themselves more stable upon the land, at rest from the bobbing and rolling. Unused to not having the feeling, the ghost of the feeling lingering, but at rest and getting used to something firmer, no matter how temporary. He took a step toward the wall of water surrounding him.
As he took a step forward, it seemed that the water maintained the exact same distance before him. And so he stepped again and again, and no change. Looking back, the water behind him also maintained its distance from him, but now seemed closer to the boat than it had been before. As he took two steps toward the boat, so too did the water move from it the same length as his stride. For a moment he considered what fate may befall his craft once he walk a radius away from where it sat, useless upon dry ground. He began again walking forward, from the boat, without looking back; until the water reached his craft. And his gaze touched the ship just in time to see the life-vest rise quickly from where it sat on the boat as the water overcame the vessel. Whether it would be worthy of continuing a voyage once he walked back and it found itself again dry, he did not know; he doubted it, and doubted that his craft might find any safe way again to the water’s surface that a journey might be made. He continued to walk forward, the ship was now no concern of his.
He felt to keep walking forward. There was no thought in his head as to where he was going, in what direction he was heading; he just walked. The fish swam around the cylinder as he made his way forward on dry ground. He felt it was right, he didn’t think about it. He enjoyed the beauty surrounding him. And he walked until he came to a space in which coral formed a path. The coral was only two feet above the ground, and he hadn’t noticed the shape that was formed between the coral expanse until it was at his feet; between the coral a path three-and-a-half feet or so wide. He followed between the coral field as though he was arriving somewhere, and the path he found was to bring him where he ought to be. His thought turned to anticipation of the uncertainty of further miracle. He walked further.
As he walked he saw a shimmer in the water ahead, a golden shimmer. And now he perceived more light through the water ahead and upward, as though the color of the water lightened directly ahead unlike the darkness traveling beside him. As the water met with the place where the shimmer was coming, as the water receded from where the shimmer met his radius, a door of solid gold was revealed; the knob as though filled with all colors dancing amongst themselves within the knob. Above him he saw that beyond the door, apparently his cylinder connected now with another cylinder standing stationary beyond this door. Something in him hesitated to take the living colors into his hand that he might enter, for all existence now was new to him and he knew not what anything meant, but he could not consider any direction but that which was directly in front of him.
As his hand reached toward the knob he found himself dissolving into it as the door filled with light. Bright light opened and departed to reveal no barrier between his circle of water from ocean floor to sky, and another circle just as his, joined at the radius. As he walked forward, so did the circles combine.
She smiled warmly upon him, and assured him first and foremost that she hadn’t been waiting long. He stopped midway to her and stared, feeling awkward to gaze without flinching upon her beauty, though not wanting to look away, and so allowing himself to as the peculiarity of the entirety of his situation seemed to permit him allowance in the moment of the time. And she spoke more as she began to stand from the object upon which she sat.
“I did not wish to return quickly with my fish to my village, and daydreaming, I think my boat went further than I had thought. But I had longed for time to myself that my mind might rest. And then my boat descended, and as the water was not crashing down upon me, I was grateful. I took some basic gear with me that I might fish. Seeing the fish swimming around me, I knew I’d never be hungry, fishing here would be easier than shooting them in a barrel. And I realized it was not that I wished to be alone, merely that I could be quiet in the company of another, something I never experienced, but felt with all my being would bring me peace of existence. And so I enjoyed fishing here for several hours until I felt light, peace, and harmony wash over me. I felt warmth throughout me as though I was not alone.”
She stepped toward him with her pole in hand. “Until I arrived here, I did not know I had been waiting for you. Once you arrived here, I knew there was no other reason for my existence but to find myself where I am. I’d apologize, but there is no fault to be had.” She walked close to him and took his hand into hers. Into his eyes she melted her own gaze. “Merely thank you for existing, I am so glad to meet you now.”
These last words spoken, there, where they found themself, so was the circle surrounding them perfect.
If you read my post last week you know that my blog is switching format a little. I’d originally set up my blog hoping to gain interest in my novel (a link for which is located conveniently to the right of the screen). After a year of rambling on about a version of God hopefully a bit more palatable for those disinclined to read Mother Goose as though an exact history of the reality of all existence, I have decided, for the sake of having time to do my real art, to begin writing short stories and posting them here, since, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that either I have time to blather about the divine, or write stories, but not both. Not to the exclusion of observation about the whole of the universe, if anyone wants my two cents on something pertaining to theology, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer in this medium.
In the meantime, my inaugural work in this format will be substantially shorter than what I’ve already written. I have much more in the works, but the first thing to come to mind was short, so that is what I’ll be sharing this week. That, and, it is some coincidence that my new software cannot be set up fully at this time anyway, so, I actually have to write the whole story out again, blessedly short though it is, rather than having the convenience of “cut and paste.”
Bear with me these first few weeks as lately my writing seems to be more expressive of my own mind than something pondering a universal question as I have been accustomed previously.
Without further adieu:
Porch
Loudin sat down by his father’s side and asked him a question. “Dad, what’s the point to living?”
His father thought but briefly as a smile arose to his lips, “My son, not so much you, or your brothers and sisters, but your Mother.”
That said, they sipped sweet-tea on the porch as the sun set, the crickets chirped, and the lightning bugs began to dance to the sweet music of the cicadas.
Okay, before I start I preface thus: this is going to be short. My internet’s been finicky the last two days, and I’ve been roaming about besides. So, even if I had wanted to up a longer post, the means were hardly at my disposal. That, and, due to these circumstance, this is going up a bit late, for which I apologize to anyone wanting to begin their Sunday morning with my fresh writings for the week. That being said . . .
Lately I’ve noticed how frustrated people seem to be quick to get with others from time to time. And so what occurred to me was this:
If something irritates you about another, and the reason for this is that you are capable in a way in which they are not, as their brother or sister, somebody who did not arrive on this planet capable of that thing which you now are, it behooves you to assist that person so far as your own mastery in that which you perceive yourself capable where they are not. Which is to say, if you know something about living they don’t, and you know it well enough you yourself are living it, it is your responsibility to shed some light and help others to share in said same preferred mode of living. Because, quite frankly, it will help you learn more about living too.
And that being said, the other flavor goes something like this: if the cause of your irritation with others is that you feel insecure because they seem to understand a certain something that you do not, the answer is to not be ashamed to learn. We all are learning, and practicing, and getting better at life. And we can all use all the help we can get when it approaches us accordingly. It’s a good thing!
So that’s it. With people either you share, or you respect someone for who they are and don’t take it personal. Or you get frustrated because patience can be hard sometimes, and sometimes it takes patience to love people, and that’s OK too.
The other week, as an acquaintance of mine was babbling something interspersed with the term “holy trinity,” (and I wish here to make perfectly clear for the sake of not offending anyone that this acquaintance of mine is absolutely NOT catholic) my mind glommed onto the notion that briefly going over the basic common-cosmic law of three would not make for a bad topic. Everything = God, therefore, even more so that most basic universal law upon which all of existence without exception is derived. God’s engine, if you will . . .
G.I. Gurdjieff wrote it out this way:
” . . . three holy forces of the sacred Triamazikamno the said science calls as follows:
the first, the Affirming-force’ or the ‘Pushing-force’ or simply the ‘Force-plus’;
the second, the ‘Denying-force’ or the ‘Resisting-force’ or simply the ‘Force-minus’; and the third, the ‘Reconciling-force’ or the ‘Equilibrating-
force’ or the ‘Neutralizing-force.’”
The Tao Te Ching’s says: From the Tao is one; one begets two, two begets three, and three begets the myriad things. – A paraphrase of different translations of chapter 42.
Jewish mysticism speaks of three, the Hindus have the Trimurti, even the catholics have their famous trinity. And so, all this talk of three in just about every deep teaching on creationism naturally gives rise to the question: is there truth to these teachings of three, and if so, what does the teaching mean? And it is quite simple, and the foundation, three-dimensional as it may be, upon which the universe as we can conceive it as three-dimensional beings, exists.
Let’s start with the conceptual, the squeeze your brain stuff, and work our way back to the basics, shall we? I hear no dissent, here we go!
The Tao says first is the Tao. I like that term better than the term God, personally, it seems more dispassionate, and thus somehow more objective. Of course, the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. But it is all encompassing and omni-present and eternal through all of everything, and thus, from the limited concept of numbers, since it is perfectly all-inclusive in every way, it is pretty safe to call it One. Which immediately, of course gives rise to Two. Why? Because the second you start calling something One, that means there must be something other than One; a Two if you will. And Two doesn’t necessarily mean an existence; it could mean a non-existence, like “On” “Off.” But the idea is that if you can call something “One” there must be a “Two” to compare it to, otherwise, instead of “One” there’s just Tao, or, if you like, God. And if there is a Two, then there must be Three, and here’s why . . .
Two implies the complement of each other. Being and not being. On and Off. Back and Front. In and Out. Plus and Minus. In between, the whole of their disparate existences, their net sum, the Tao itself, becomes three. One means Two, thus One plus Two is Three. Which is two say that two forces perfectly opposite do not destroy each other, they go exist as themselves, but when they try to interact, something not quite either emerges. A harmonizing effect based on what happens between the two, that is one and two, and thus is created from these sacred basic existences all the many many different things we can be aware of, or in other words, three begets the myriad things.
So first is all of existence indivisible. Then, when one perceives the reality of that whole, two is distinguished because in indivisible there is no perspective but omni-perspective. And thus, to be able to know that, one must be able to consider the illusion of differentiation, which sets oneself from the whole of All, and thus is born two. And the interaction between All and part is the third force, the holy spirit of creating existence, which is how the different things of existence comes to be.
Ready for the easy part? Force Plus, Force Minus, and Force Equalizing. So it goes like this: you put together two opposing forces and they find their balance based on whichever of the forces is stronger.
You push down on a soft piece of bread, there now exists bread with a dent. You apply heat to dough, bread rises and won’t get moldy for a lot longer than if that same substance were instead left in a cool dark place. You keep water and flour separate, there is water, and flour, and no new creation.
Proton, Electron, Neutron.
Male, Female, Child. From this most sacred of impulses amongst polarized sexuality within them, for the most part, comes a chromosome-equal entity that will exist based upon the sum of its parts internally, and its experiences externally; which if you think about it gets into the number 6 as 1.
And so, what the trinity means is one plus two equals three in all creations without exception. For an existence may lean more one way or the other, but where both directions intersect, no matter which direction one leans toward, that is where the harmonization of their existence reconciles the two disparities, and that is where the culmination of all existence exists within it.
Unless it is dead, in which case it is about to become a tree, which, personally, I believe is only a plus!
Well I wanted to open with the video from the movie “True Stories” for the song Love For Sale, but was only able to find the video with someone else’s music over-dubbed. So, instead of artsy to cultivate a point, I’ll instead settle for “I dare you to find a nicer song for the holiday” and I do expect comments with links . . . And here’s where I’ll begin:
Happy Valentines Day Everybody!
So, in honor of the holiday, a little about it’s Catholic origins because, contrary to popular belief, Hallmark did not invent it . . . they just perfected it . . .
So, for starters, most of this info, if not all, is gleaned from this site and this article: http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day and I’m giving the short version that I think is particularly interesting and pertinent to my ongoing theme, etc . . .
So apparently, before being commandeered by Christendom for the sake of converting more and slaughtering less, February 15th was a major Roman fertility ritual. The Roman’s would sacrifice a goat, a symbol for fertility, at the cave where Romulus and Remus, the alleged founders of Rome, were supposedly raised by wolves. Boys would then take slices of the hide of the sacrificed goat and dip it in the sacrificial blood and run through the streets of Rome lightly slapping the crops and the faces of young ladies, who were happy to have the blessing of fertility. Then a lottery would commence in which the boys and girls of the town would be paired up according to lot, which often led to marriage.
Given peoples misconceptions about relationships, and confusion of what love means after watching one too many Julia Roberts movies, I totally think we should bring back the skinned goat. Compared to today, just seems more civilized, but, I digress.
So, once the Christians took over, that went away, but they needed to convert the happy Heathens somehow, and enter the legend of Saint Valentine, or Saint Valentinus as he is sometimes known.
Now, the legends are apparently murky at best, but, according to this article, at least two stories about Saint V seem pertinent to me. Supposedly, around the third century, one of the emperors, Claudius the 2nd, decreed that young men couldn’t marry because he believed that unmarried men made better soldiers. A priest named Valentine was said to have then performed clandestine marriages between secret lovers, thus securing him a place as the patron of love. Claudius finding him out and having him killed, secured him the sainthood.
The other legend is that Valentine, while in prison for performing marriages, fell in love with the daughter of his jailer. And remember, it wasn’t until well after the third century that priests were no longer allowed to marry in Catholicism. In fact, it was at least a good thousand years or so after Christ had kicked it that the church began writing in its new policy of child molestation. Anyway, again pardon the digression, the point is, Valentine, while in jail, was said to have fallen in love. And before he was killed he was said to have written his love a letter signed “from your Valentine,” and hence the valentine giving on Valentine’s day was born.
So, that’s the interesting bits, more or less, of how we have arrived today with the yearly ritual of stimulating the production of oxytocin in the minds of the women we love, as well as bringing them flowers that cost way too much to compensate for the fact of any who should probably be bringing them flowers a lot more often when the price is reasonable.
In a modern world, where we are blessed to love as we please, may anyone reading this have a blessed day to celebrate happiness. And if one’s initial impulse is lacking in happy, may you find a big box of chocolate to take the pain away!
Hi! I'm Tygarjas Twyrls Bigstyck. Currently the home of the long work in-progress "The Chronicles of the Angels of Eden." Prior to this, I wrote about a conception of divinity that might be helpful for those willing to think outside of organized religion, and subsequently a place for me to flex my creative muscles as I devoted a year of blogging to short fiction. Enjoy!
Tygarjas Twyrls Blog 