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Tuesday, 24 November 2009

From whence, ye scientists?

That a few can exchange the blinders of dogma and superstition
for reason and altruism
is the clearest example
of miracles
the world has seen.

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Dryad's Passion

I thought this dedication might cheer up a friend. It's a little tune I was playing with yesterday. I don't really get seriously into it until the second half, so be patient. Sorry if it's a bit rough. I usually don't do multiple takes on these demos and that's the case here.

Saturday, 21 November 2009

Perversion

The body is stiff and cumbersome. Decaying fabric tears, causing his fingers to slide. Fearing he will drop his wife, Thomas halts and leans backward, shifting the burden onto his back. His hat slips from his head and somersaults to the floor, but he ignores this. He adjusts his grip and rights his posture. The body of Annabeth is once again secure, cradled in his determined arms. As he takes a step forward, his right knee shakes under the extra weight. Thomas is not an overly strong man, his youth now a distant echo. but his days spent in the farm fields and an enduring love for his wife ensure his strength will be up to the task of putting her back in her resting place.

He kicks over a pile of old newspapers and empty metal cans, passing under an archway that leads to the foyer. The front door is now only a few steps away. A gently rasping voice, straining to escape the dusty, constricted chambers of a shriveled throat, causes him to halt there. Trying to control the deafening roar of his own fevered breathing, he leans in close over Annabeth and listens. Her cracked lips move, but there is no sound. Not enough to make out what she might be saying. He wants to collapse right there, to let his own body rot and tangle with hers. Instead, he sobs.

Putting an index finger to her lips, he tries to quiet her. "It's just no good, baby," he cries. "It doesn't work for you to keep coming back like this. The boys don't come up to see me no more. This house is more grave to me now than home. I don't mind so much for all that, but you can't even speak my name." He knows his words are in vain. Her ears can no longer hear him, can no longer hear any voice or sound of this world. The lips continue to move against his pressing finger. He tries moving his whole hand, as if to smother her, but jerks back when the coldness of tooth and bony gum touches his skin.

In a few moments, his sobs die down. He is calm again. His right boot reaches out to the wood of the screen door and pushes it open. He is surprised to find that the night has already gathered around the old farmhouse. An orange fog pours in front of the rising moon to the east, swallowing it up and spitting it out over and over again. He hates the crypt in the dark. He figures this will probably be the last time he ever goes there. A strange mixture of grief and elation wells in his body, enlivening his efforts towards the mausoleum.

He lays her body into the sarcophagus, not bothering to fumble with the displaced lid. It is too heavy, and her muscles will be dust soon anyway. After leaving to fetch a bud from the now-feral rose bushes that roam the family plot, he approaches her tenderly. Her eyes are closed and the stillness has come. She will sleep until the next alignment. Possibly beyond.

He smiles. Eternity. Such a blissful thought.

Placing a kiss on the paper-like skin of her forehead, he folds her hands over the rose.

Friday, 20 November 2009

You don't have to be dead...

*I don't usually time stamp, but I'll occasionally make an exception for a post made late at night or on the weekends.

    I just finished reading The Scalpel And The Soul by Allan J. Hamilton, MD. Dr. Hamilton graduated from Harvard Medical School and went on to become chief of neurosurgery and chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. Having retired as an active surgeon due to a back injury, he now serves as a professor of neurosurgery and a clinical professor in the departments of Radiation Oncology and Psychology at AHSC. The book contains anecdotal episodes of his life and career, particularly, those moments when the treatment of critically ill patients left him with the feeling that he had witnessed things that were outside of the realm of accepted science. Though there are many fascinating stories within its pages, today one strikes me as especially apropos.

    In 1991, a thirteen-year-old boy named Alfred came into Dr. Hamilton's care. A malignant tumor was discovered in his brain after a failed attempt to qualify for an American Archer Award. The young man had developed into an elite archer and was trying to accomplish one of archery's greatest feats. When his arrows went dramatically and inexplicably off course because of a sudden weakening in his dominant right arm, testing showed that Alfred had a malignant glioma in his brain stem.

After undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, Alfred's body and spirit eventually weakened and finally failed. Having become very attached to the case (Alfred was the same age as one of his sons), Dr. Hamilton canceled a scheduled family vacation so that he could be around as Alfred passed from a coma into his final rest. As expected, Alfred died a few days into what would have been the surgeon's skiing vacation.

That's the first half of the story.

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches that there are many possible directions for a human soul to travel in the afterlife. Heaven-like paradise and hellish dimensions of punishment are included, as is reincarnation Or one may simply cease to exist as an individual and merge with the infinite mind of the universe. Reincarnation as a human being is seen as the greatest reward, because coming back gives us the opportunity to love others, to show compassion and alleviate suffering.

Another possibility given is that a human being may cling so passionately to the things of this world, in anger, desire, greed, or even guilt, that they are unable to let go and take the next step forward. It is warned that these souls become ghosts on this Earth, depicted as having giant empty stomachs and throats so small that they are never able to swallow. Since they are never able to swallow, they always hunger. This unending hunger makes them malevolent.

Part II

    Dr. Hamilton attended Alfred's funeral. The following day, he stayed home from work. As he sat lost in thought, his eyes trained on the mountaintop view out the window, he reached for a cup of coffee and suddenly collapsed with intense back pain. Having suffered a severe back injury from a previous "terrible fall," it would seem like familiar territory. To the contrary, he writes, "It was nothing like my prior injury. I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning...Whereas before I had experienced a throbbing ache...now it felt like something was tearing my nerves out by the roots."

Dr. Hamilton's wife, Janey, came running to his aid. "She wanted to call 911 but I wouldn't let her," he writes. To be moved by the paramedics while in that kind of pain was unthinkable. Janey administered pain pills and awhile later he was able to prop up on two pillows, with a blanket thrown over the top of him. All he could do was lay helplessly on the floor.

"I had no plan," he writes. "I just lay on the floor praying the pain wouldn't come back, asking God for an answer--any answer."

A moment later, a knock came to the door. Not expecting anyone, the good doctor figured it was probably the postman or UPS and, being unable to move, yelled for them to come in. Through the door popped one of his old students, Charlie Begay, a graduate student of Navajo descent. The two had worked together on a syllabus on Native American medicine. It had been at least a year since the doctor had heard from his former student, so it was a seemingly random event for Charlie to come by and find him like this. Charlie sat down beside his fallen mentor as Dr. Hamilton tried to explain what he thought might be causing the pain. "I was embarrassed for him to see me on the living room floor, but he embraced me with great tenderness. He sat cross-legged, periodically holding my hand, as I explained what I thought was going on in my spine. I told him that I had undoubtedly herniated a disk. Gosh, I had a thousand crazy ideas at that moment. Cancer. Multiple sclerosis. I was swimming in panic."

Charlie told the the prostrate man that he had to go, but would return. With help.

In the interim, Dr. Hamilton (with the aid of his wife) was able to move himself to a nearby couch, where he remained for the rest of that day. Later in the evening, when the doorbell rang, Charlie reentered. But not alone. This time he had brought with him a medicine man.

The old man went quickly to work. He called the doctor's entire family into the room and asked them to sit on the couch. He built a fire in the fireplace and began to burn sage and incense. In front of the fire he placed a chair, and to this Dr. Hamilton was instructed to move. Fearing a herniated lumbar, the doctor protested that he really should not be moved. At Charlie's insistence, though, he hobbled (with considerable help) to the chair and sat down.

In a short time, the great surgeon, himself now a patient, was stripped to the waist. The old medicine man began fanning the flames with an eagle feather, alternating between singing and blowing the flames, so that the smell of sage filled the air.

He laid hands on the doctor's back. "I could feel love and kindness, pouring out from his being into mine. I had the sense he was somehow merging his hands inside my own body."

The old man spoke to the young Navajo. Turning to his old friend, Charlie related what had been said. "He says you must let go of someone. He has seen a boy in you, in his vision within you. A boy you love. He has already passed over to be with the Ancestors. But there is a tie, a string that holds him by his leg."

"I had not said a thing to Charlie or the shaman about Alfred's death," Dr. Hamilton writes. "No one had. It was the farthest thing from my mind at that moment."

Charlie spoke again. "My grandfather" (grandfather is a term of respect for elders within the Native American community) "says that you have done this deed. You have tied this boy up, like a pony. ...you are holding his spirit back. You are clinging to him, yes? ...you are holding him against his will. His ancestors call out to him but you stand in the way!"

"This boy's spirit is very angry with you. (It) is kicking you hard, to get loose...he's yelling at you to let him go."

"I don't know what he's talking about," he told them all. "But I did," he says. "I began to just sob. My shoulders started shaking uncontrollably. My children stared at me in astonishment."

"Grandfather says that the boy is kicking so hard to get loose of your tight hold that he has kicked you in the back. That is why your spine hurts so much. He has kicked you, like a mule would kick to get free of a coyote that holds on to his leg."

Dr. Hamilton realized that the old wise man was right. He had been holding on to the boy. Looking inside, he felt great guilt. He decided then and there to release the boy, to release his sense of failure and his grief. As he did so, his still excruciating back pain began to fade. In a short time, it shrank to a dull ache. Once again able to move, he cooked a late dinner for the medicine man, spaghetti and meatballs, as a sign of thanks. After dinner, they bid the old man goodbye. They never saw or heard from him again. His patient never had a recurrence of that particular back problem either, though, as mentioned before, weakness stemming from the earlier injury did eventually force him onto the surgery table and into retirement.

As I think Dr. Hamilton would probably agree, you don't have to be dead to become a hungry ghost. The living can hold onto things just as fiercely, as tragically, as the dead. We are but temporary beings on this planet. Though this life be glorious, nothing in it has permanence. Certainly not status, nor money, nor any kind of personal achievement. Not even our greatest joys or our most beloved family members. Perhaps, when the tale of our lives sets on the Western horizon and our memories seek deep into the gloam, we may yet rise again and begin the day anew. The Book of the Dead tries to tell us, I think, that if we can't learn to see this life for what it is, to experience its pleasures while happily accepting their transient nature, that whatever we experience becomes a part of us, that whatever we lose is only to be found again...if we do not learn to let go...we may not be able to continue our adventure in this mystery. Not because we are sinners or because we are being punished, but because we ourselves are too stubborn to allow it. Dr. Hamilton was lucky. He learned his lesson, Alfred's lesson, before it was too late. Perhaps that was one of Alfred's departing gifts to this world, a repayment of sorts for the investment in love and care that his doctor had put into him.

Some may say it was all a coincidence. Others may feel that they have experience enough of coincidences, and grasp enough of mathematics, to recognize when that label can no longer be legitimately applied.

Me? heh. I think I'll have a beer.

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Those who uncover universal secrets frequently die untimely deaths

And so it's time to move on
We were really close
But it wasn't meant to be
When there's magic in the making
And something there worth taking
The curtain always lowers over the stage
That might seem sad
It might be discouraging
But we really wouldn't want it any other way

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

I am antisocial enough for you and me and maybe skeet

And the rutabagas prove it!

*Those are not zombie breasts, but I imagine they would do in a pinch.

**If you think that is an entendre, you are a sick, sick human being.

Saturday, 07 November 2009

Loop Theory, According to Pinot Noir

You'll think I'm speaking in metaphors
But you're a goddam metaphor
And I'm not supposed to say goddam anymore

Look at your hands, your reflection
You've told yourself
You're not that important
You tell yourself
And you believe it
Because it helps you to bury your light
Way down deep
It makes it seem okay

That might be true sometimes
There are the dead moments
The downtimes
The disconnection
The Sleep
But what a miracle you are
There are times when your hands ring
Full of every stretch of the infinite mind
There are moments when you are all that is
And you're being is perfect in its oneness
You are eternity

We can live forever
I am convinced.
Space and time
stitched together in loops
Where there are loops
There are loopholes
Together
We can slip through
Together
Because who wants to face eternity alone?

Take the exit door
I'll follow you out
and I'll dive back in
Again and again
To catch you
To find you
Wherever you fall

Love your fear and be bold
You cannot fall
Eternity stretches out
Forever
Trace the folds
And go where you want to

Friday, 06 November 2009

Happy birthday, MooncatBlue!

Today is the birthday of arguably the best writer and all around swellest xangan, MooncatBlue. Ya'll make sure and go say howdy and read up on some of the fantastic material she's working on for the Nano Wrimo (National Novel Writing Month) contest.

Happy Birthday, Leah! Thanks for sharing your lovely talent and soul with us. We <3 you!

Thursday, 05 November 2009

Preemptive strike: warning, xanga drama

A popular xangan has let it be known that she will be writing negative posts about members of her friends list that don't visit often enough. As I think this is quite ridiculous, I'm choosing to note it here and now and move on. Drama of this nature is simply ridiculous and I don't care to wallow in it.

The original post was by restlessbutterfly and this was my response:

"1. I've enjoyed being a sporadic visitor here, but the simple reality of it is, I don't know you as well as I know some others and so it works out I'm not around as much. It's nothing intentional, it's just the nature of the beast. I am never offended when anyone wants to delete me, as I sometimes delete others if there has been no activity going either way.

2. Was it really necessary to threaten people for not visiting you often enough? I'm offended by the way you've put this and feel that this is an attempt to blackmail comments,eprops, recs, what have you. I'm disappointed and I won't be coming around anymore."

It's sad that I have to return from a period of inactivity with a post like this. I apologize for the drama and won't bring it up again.