masking

 Sun 2.7.2021

      Mid-winter with a world on pause as the gods open their skirts and sprinkle flakes of crystal stars, microscopic planets each one of them, to benumb us.  We sit at windows and allow this hypnotism to pull us in.  The tableau is of a pearl grey sky against which millions of crystal planets descend hushing the frenzied doings of the human species.

      The wisdom of this cosmos is all of a whole, interconnected, acting under rules we know next to nothing about.  All of it has a life pattern; everything lives, then it dies.  The planet Earth itself will die.  We, that is our bodies, are not given permanent residency in this . . . what? 

      One is turned loose on this planet at birth to make what we can of our surroundings, given imprinted navigational tools that help us become glorious trees, ferocious and sensual tigers, stolid rock, master plumber or scarlet woman.  We humans who are so fragile seek solidity, but in truth all of it is just focused energy.  I had a vision that I was on an eagle, grasping its wings as we flew  . . . I looked around and there was no sky, no ground below us, emptiness on all sides.  This is life, the beating heart, the throbbing genitals  . . . To wish for solidity, assuredness is like the snowflake seeking ground.

At the supermarket I get depressed seeing the masked people.  I want smiles and also words as they slide out of mouths, the face’s energy as it contorts in all manner of expression.  Why have we been imprisoned?  From what god’s skirt did that fate befall us?  Solidity is a mass that engulfs, surrounds, impedes, protects, and stabilizes.  Life is beautiful, also terrifying, omniscient, destructive, and we are all playing our part, perfectly.  There are no missteps.  It is, and we are.

 The favorite essay this past month has been It All Started