Through the Veil

At the top of the hierarchy of organic existence, where many a man has thought he belongs, just like the oils and fats at the top of the modern food pyramid, which perhaps should have been discredited long ago as a “beneficial back rub” for the agricultural lobby; at the top where man, with his large brain and malevolent ego believes he belongs, there is a "something" that man does not achieve. For the majority it is not achieved, though that achievement is indeed possible, however difficult it may be.

And that something, which eludes the majority of mankind, we can allude to it with beautiful words, a thesaurus of verse and synonym which could fill the ears of wondrous, flowery Maria. We could delight her with visions and the smells of every rose and describe the sky and all its wonders, but that something would still remain intangible, unknowable, because it is not of words, not made or created or coaxed into being by the statements of finality that language attempts to keep locked in the metal boxes of the attic.

Jacques, that character of a man with white notebook and fountain pen, perhaps we could twist tales and seduce him with wise plants of the desert and old pipes exhaling smoke. We could try, many have certainly attempted to describe that ‘something,’ but it can never be fully held, either by Jaques or the others that stand beside him at the top of the pyramid drenched in oil and salt.

I myself, the writer of these words, supposedly at the top of this mountain made from As and Bs, I struggle with their placement, dance around the loops made for my capture. Words! You bastards! I purge you with these metaphors, I run though the gaps in your iron walls, looking, finessing, rubbing against that ‘something’ that stays hidden, beyond the grasp of your control. Maria, where are you hidden?

There is a veil, a division, between us and the next form of existence. Like the widow’s black curtain that obscures the ocean and sun, we live out earthly existence mired by our eventual demise. This fear is masked by a thousand other names, different configurations of the same basic structure. Sex, marriage, adventure and orgasm, children, vacation; the division is thick, winds like a serpents tail around the ankle of my infant, infected through mother’s milk and generations of spoken sound.

Words! This veil, the division, is called death. Death. Death, that takes our Maria, transforming that milky body into ashes. Take of her, but do not make her blind. Push though the veil Maria! Push through the widow’s gauze which I refuse to wear and search for that ‘something’ I could not explain to you in life. Jacques, pick up the stone, move further to the right. Yes. Now to the left around the open hell-mouth of finality. For this moment, let the gates of your chest open. The ego, the malevolent beast, sacrifice it to the veil, the black division which obscured death and the other forms which lay beyond its promise. Jacques, sacrifice the body and leave it for the scavengers of pride and word.

Listen to my voice. These words, which failed us in life, they may bring us to the bolts of energy that wait transfixed in space, climbing, climbing. Walk up and open your arms, for the world is one and now you can understand. Language, you words! They are ours, shapes of mushrooms in the darkened clouds, plants colored as the ocean’s smell.

Words! You bastards! Climb the steps, Jacques, open you arms, and for this moment, open the gates of your chest. There is no more you, but the ego, slay it so that we may enter. Slay it and leave it for the others to feast, the ghosts are hungry. Maria, you are there, flowers at your feet. Open your mouth, let the blue light of that something, let it drip in.

We are here. The divine dance of orbital light and chance, that something is here.

City Soundscape

The sounds of a city rise and fall. The low rumbling of a Number 19 bus, the spurting of steam from stacks of silver pipes, the screeching of a wheel in desperate need of oil. Then silence…for a fraction of a second every noise vanishes in unison…then the jackhammer begins again. Then the Harley roars to life when the light turns green, it cuts through the city like a metallic knife, slicing it in two. And in the darkness, as the sun slips below the skyline of cement pillars, the volume is turned low by an unseen hand. Just the occasional bursting glass bottle, the sporadic deep throaty shout into the night. A lone car cruising on an empty city street. Just the drug addicts and work obsessed and graveyard-duty custodians move in the blackness of a near-silent night. The signal of light is the early morning grinding of the first train. Its riders, the sleepy-eyed occupiers of a fluorescent capsule travel through permanent darkness below ground. An airplane coasts along high above, giving off a rumble so deep it seems inaudible.
The city is the grind and noise of eccentric youth in a dimly lit garage. The music of metal meeting stick. The sound of rocks on asphalt, screeching vocals, un-tuned chords.
It is not composed. Not practiced. Each sound exists as an individual, bursting forth and dying without a thought of the overall piece, without any purposeful connection to the entire city soundscape. These sounds can never learn another way, they will never be a conscious symphony. The bus will always be guided, the plane on its own course. The birds move on their own time, with the wind and the sun. The shouting comes sporadically, from anger, from alcohol, from confrontation. Each sound bursts forth like the wind, unplanned and spontaneous. Let the young conductor walk away in frustration, some things cannot be guided.
The sounds simply Are. Rising and falling with the moon and subsequent sun. They can not be tuned or made into something pleasing. You cannot blow life and consciousness into the subway, you cannot regulate the sounds of construction work to peak in the last measure. And once it is understood that the behemoth of gears and steam and metal cannot be molded, your mind might then be free to hear it as it is. Their sources might be as dead as metal, but their noises, moving through you as they will, can induce moods and emotion. As the vibrations travel through muscle and fiber, through you symbolic constructs and your private inner language, you might be changed.
Approach it softly. You can find life in the grinding of machines, just listen. That is all that can be done. It cannot be constructed. Its sounds cannot be reformed. Just listen. Listen as the birds squeak hidden in a tree, listen as the sound of a motorcycle peaks perfectly with the clicking of high heels on a sidewalk. It cannot be tuned, but you can tune yourself. The city cannot be molded, the orchestra moves in its own random order, without thought and planning and careful practice. The sounds cannot be changed, but you can learn to hear the perfect beauty in its clashes, clanks and booms. Your perception is the one thing that can be consciously altered. Listen to what is here before you. Listen for what is and not for what isn’t. Maybe in that small change lies the secret of its roaring music.

The Magic of Completion

To complete a task is an act of magic. Glowing and beautiful in parallel lines of simplicity and complexity. Completion is the final draft of a text ready to print, the last drop of paint on a canvas, the washed dishes after a satisfying meal. To follow the circular path of intricate detail until what was conceived and planned is completed, that is an act of magic.
Think back to childhood, when we wanted to be astronauts and ballerinas and firemen. When they told us we could be anything. The story books read before bed spoke of immense, great dreams. I remember it clearly. I wanted to touch the moon and walk among the stars. I wanted to be a famous artist, I wanted to own an island. They told me I could do anything. But then I went to the first ballet class, that evening, we did not wear sequined tutus and we were not gliding through the air, it was not how I pictured, not what I wanted it to be. I remember doing stretches on the floor. I was an open hearted child with no discipline, with no concept that this was the first in a series of necessary steps before I could dance on my toes and move like a winged fairy. I never went back. This was the first of many beginnings with no end.
It is true, we can do anything, yet, we don’t know how to do it. Dreams are nothing without discipline. Without devotion and practice, they will forever remain in the outer realms of hope. Like clouds, we may see them drifting overhead, beautiful, pink and purple and blue, they float like marshmallow angels, always out of reach. My parents didn’t lie when they said I could do anything, but how could I achieve without learning to finish even the smallest of tasks?
A goal is a series of steps. It might be a product, a career, an astronaut, a printed book, a degree, a type of knowledge…they are end points that require real work, a set of completed smaller goals that mount and build like rows of bricks are lined up until a house is built. Each step must be taken with care, with glorious attention and devotion. But what if you cannot walk?
My parents didn’t make me go back to class. No one explained that the path to become a tutu wearing ballerina is to stretch the body and make it limber and lean and as pliable as a piece of cooked pasta. They let me quit after the first class, they let the dream die with my laziness, with my complete lack of purposeful attention. I spent my youth in a virtual comma, a little girl in front of a TV set, the tube my mom always threatened to throw into the pool, but never did.
Dreams can crumble in a moment, or they can dissolve in layered years that people describe as “reality.” With this outlook, reality is needy children, reality is bills and the necessity of a paycheck. Reality is bleak and gray and as ordinary as asphalt and crumpled paper. “Reality” is here the absence of magic, the absence of hope and dreams, creative bursts of enthusiasm. It is the acceptance that life is a series of failed attempts, a thousand uncompleted tasks.
I used to envy writers, I looked at painters in awe, “how do they do it?” I wondered in wide-eyed disbelief. How do you make a book? How do you conceive and produce a play? It all seemed like a mirage, they were the “do-ers,” and I? I was the lost soul in a desert of hopelessness, on the razor’s edge of “reality” and abandon. I wanted to make, to do…
“She wants to be a paleontologist,” I heard the little girl say. They are great dreams, dreams of conquest, achievement and beauty. They are open and honest and the hope of a young, un-jaded heart that still believes everything is possible, that ability knows no limit. But the girl hates doing her homework. The little girl has no discipline. How will she break through the obstacle of laziness? How will she learn that the enormous goal is a collection of minute steps? Steps that she must walk, one by one.
Anything is possible, but we need to learn how to “do.” Each small, completed step is an act of magic. With completion, it’s possible to regain the essence knowledge, the conscious habit, that tasks can be completed, that goals can be achieved. At the beginning, you should set yourself goals so small that it is inconceivable that you wouldn't achieve them. As you gain the deep knowledge that you are in fact capable of completion, you can add to the difficulty of the tasks, but always in a very gradual manner. Slowly, the essence will rediscover what it knew during your childhood:
Everything is possible. There are no real limits. But the illusory limits that reside in your persistent habits, those can be as real as a brick wall, as real as the coming of the darkness after a day full of sunlight and blue sky.