On the sea, the mirage of the horizon shimmers only three miles away.
From the ship, it appears we might just tip over the cliff of the world if we head yonder.
From a boat, it appears that if you see a wave swallowing the horizon, that you best move away from the water and transfer your passengers quickly to dry, safe land.
From a kayak, it appears that if find yourself pushed against a rock by the current, that you'd struggle free by pushing away from the crystallized river ogre.
Mirages deceive. Miracles reveal truths. Do we know the difference?
Not everything is at it appears to Fear.
"If we can remember that we're the art as well as the artist, then perhaps we can also remember that we're the seed of the miracle as well as the miracle itself." - Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief (highly recommended)
Fear comes from the defended heart of the projected past and congeals the dancing ruby jewelled wavelets of blood into the viscuous stew of paralysis.
"We see light streaming like a river from the sun. Like a river it is always the same form, but the energy is always different. If we shift our point of view slightly, this river of light will look solid. It will fill the whole space between the stars just like the nerve system." - Miguel Ruiz, Beyond Fear: A Toltec Guide to Freedom and Joy (highly recommend; re-reading, though for what appears the first time)
Christopher Colombus wrote in his own words that he did not rely on maps.
Oh, of what use were those maps anyhow? Sea monsters etched in the four directions weren't exactly alluring omens that sung out joyously, Yes, yes, go, west young man!
"Others don't give you strength, you create it by dissolving your resistance to the Divine Source of all power. Your significant others are here to help you, but ultimately they do this by mirroring your own power and beliefs to you." - D.K. Brainard's snippet from Gemini horoscope, Week of May 28, 2007
Rather Columbus heeded words embroidered in the flame of his heart which fluttered with the inklings of visionary Isaiah. Which words of Isiah I have supposed myself to have been these: "There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell."
When we lay out all the maps before us in this day and age, we shall witness sea monsters galore gallavanting and gourging on lost souls in every single one of the four directions. (Psssst, I don't call them dragons as dragons are actually gentle creatures whom lived in 3D in a time of great glaciers and crevasses.)
"Look here," she points to the emerald-amber monster tangled in seaweed and kelp to the North. "Ugh, perhaps the conditions aren't just quite right. Too ferocious." Furiously nodding in agreement to herself after the obsidian-ruby scaled mangle of the East writhes and roars: "Yes, yes, it is best to stay home. Have another cup of tea. Darjeeling tea! That's East essence and presence enough."
Whew!
"Raven is crazy, anyhow," she murmurs slinking back into the fullness of the moon. She lies back, relaxing, putting away all those silly maps and
caution-to-the-Winds callings of light explorers and warrioresses. "I need to stop heeding His absurd messages, initiations and invitations. Maybe my mom is right: maybe, I'm not, egads, normal. Maybe my worst fears are materializing -- no, not that I'm becoming my mother, but that I'm becoming a... a ...a New Ager."
"Be still and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10
when the clock strikes me
the powers of being
will prevail
over the powers that be - hip hop spoken word artist Saul Williams
Then and only then when only a cup of only Darjeeling tea existed -exists -existing -existence, El Morya (or was it Kuan Yin) whispers within the aroma of cut leaves boiled in summer moon,
"Consider this. Who drew those maps of the Known?"
"Consider this: The anagram, the opposite, of Evil is Live."
Thank you, thank you, she speaks in the unspoken language, recalling: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." - Psalms 119:105
And she begins to pack her Light bags.
Bonus: Twenty-one monks from the forest sangha in northeast Thailand spoke on Christmas Day, 2005. I heard one say:
"In Thai, the word understanding means coming from the heart. One of our teachers says to understand suffering means to stand under suffering. It's the journey from the head to the heart. After suffering and impermanence you start to look for the 'owner' of the suffering.
And you begin to travel with really light luggage. Instead of a dam, we become a river."
Bonus Deux: Some mirages are truer, O, Fata Morgana, Morgan Le Fay, She of the Raven and Sword of the Word:
"When the residents of Grand Haven, Michigan looked westward that night across the relatively cold waters of Lake Michigan, they distinctly saw city lights and a flashing red beacon. But the nearest urban area westward from them was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 120 km (75 miles) away, well below the geometric horizon and thus normally not visible. Their sightings were later confirmed to have been Milwaukee when a Grand Haven resident timed the blink rate of the flashing red light and linked it to the Milwaukee Harbor entrance beacon. (US Weather Service records also confirm that strong inversion conditions were indeed present that night.) The unseeable had indeed briefly become visible." - "The Superior Mirage: Seeing Beyond", The Weather Doctor
p.s. As for the swallowing wave, the oral history of the sea gypsies of Thailand, the Moken, know it as laboon, or 'the wave that eats people.' You are compounding a disaster to be anywhere near boundaries when a tsunami comes. Steer clear of boundaries, of limits, and ride the vast gracious Ocean. Even the freight train of a tsunami wave is a gentle arising and falling bounce in the absorbing Space of sea. Yet same wave crashes with a fury known to few on shore. (This, I know, from literal and metaphorical experience.) After the tsunami, we did eventually get back to our sightseeing boat briefly to head onto a ship taking injured parties to a hospital. The tsunami wasn't even a speedbump to the crew that stayed onboard.
And in kayaking, you lean towards the obstacle, be it rock or other object. Same with all resistance, you lean into them, and the current will lift your boat and spiral you away gently back into the main Tao-stream. Pushing away has destroyed novice boaters.
p.p.s. "Here, Isaiah uses the Hebrew word hhug for circle, and this word means circle in plane geometry (2-d) and sphere in solid geometry (3-d)." Wonder what it looks like in 4-d, 5-d, 11-d?
images met Vladimir Kush "by accident" the other day (another story, and I shall share); At The End of the Earth by Vladimir Kush, Metamorphical Journey by Vladimir Kush; Sunrise by the Ocean, by Vladimir Kush. (Scrumptiousness. He has the richest, most fantastical art book just released. Amazing. Prescient ("Prescience is the ability to predict the future through vision.") Evocative of Golden Age culture arts & sciences. Called (quite appropriately), Journey to the Edge of Time.)
Yummy! Here is to needlessness, grace, and parody - especially self-parody. Thank you.
Posted by: Molly Gordon, MCC | Jun 05, 2007 at 08:39 PM
Thank you Molly. Sometimes you have to mock yourself! Hardly in jest when I said my greatest fear was becoming a New Ager... I used to roll my eyes when I had friends that would talk of crystals, auras, star Councils, astrology, etc. Not I, I was on the quite "serious" nondualist spiritual path. Such is the power of resistance. (Sometimes, being mocked is worse than being burned at the stake. At least they take you seriously!)
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Jun 06, 2007 at 06:58 PM