Deployment Day

“Sorry Dad, I’ve got to go.  The alarms are going off again.”

All of our few chat sessions had ended the same way.  Since we were instant messaging, she couldn’t see my tears.  Have to stay strong.

“Love you, Kiddo.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

***

Time was passing slowly since that day back in January.  When hopes and dreams seemed to fade into darkness.  Way too slowly.

My daughter was seventeen when she joined the army.  I gave my consent.  That seemed to be the best decision at the time.  She was headstrong like me and had made up her mind.  I could sign the papers now or she could just wait a few more months and my approval wouldn’t have been necessary.

This would represent the fourth generation of the family to have served.*

At the time, it seemed there were few worries.  She sailed through boot camp at Fort Jackson and was off for advanced infantry training at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

My little girl was becoming a diesel mechanic.  Working on the big stuff.  Heavy wheeled vehicles – HMMWVs, MRAPs, RTCHs, HETs, HEMTTs, LMTVs, fork lifts and cranes too – basically anything that would be transporting troops or supplies or be used in construction.*  Drive shafts and transmissions were her specialty.

Her duty assignment came later than some of her fellow soldiers and she was wondering what was up.  But when it turned out to be Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, we thought WOW!  Hawaii!  I remember telling her that maybe they rewarded the best with the best places.  The azure blue waters of the Pacific.  Endless sand beaches.  Palm trees and tropical fruit.  Sunsets over the water.

25^th Infantry Division, “Tropic Lightning”; 84^th Engineer Battalion, “Never Daunted”; 45^th Corps Support; Alpha Company.

It didn’t sink in that Hawaii was where the major Asian-Pacific theater operations were staged.  And it should have.  My Dad was stationed at Hickam Field and was set for deployment to fight in Japan in WWII, but the A-Bomb interceded and bought that war to an earlier end.

So when her orders came for her to deploy to Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was stunned silent.  All I could see was my little girl.  Playing.  Flying kites with her.  Taking her to the water park.  She used to hook her hands together behind my neck and I would stand up and let her hang there – called her my little necklace.

And now she was going to a war zone.

The date was set and I flew in for a two-week stay so I could spend some time with her.  But the day I arrived, they advanced her ship-out date and we were only going to have two days.  And time would be limited as she had duties to perform.

That time evaporated and for being in such a sunny place, it sure felt dark and heavy.  Before I knew it, I found myself at her deployment ceremony.

The ceremony wasn’t held on an elaborate parade ground.  There were no podiums for speakers.  No gaggle of offices.  No dress uniforms.  This was much less formal and only for her company.  I image similar ceremonies were happening all over the base.

The sun set early, around 6:30 pm, after the various family members had gathered on a basketball court.

I remember seeing children.  A lot of children.  Running, playing, and laughing, for the moment, and being picked up and held by their parents.  Parents who were mere children themselves.  Children dressed in desert camo.  Gear assembled. M-16s and SAW Rifles issued.  Serial numbers recorded.  Three MREs passed out to each soldier.

My daughter, all 100 pounds of her, had a 110-pound rucksack on her back, a second pack around her shoulders, backwards, so it rested on her chest balancing out the weight.  A separate carry-on, and the MREs stuffed in the pockets of her camo pants.  I couldn’t have carried so much weight.  Not even close.  Plus, a rifle that looked bigger than she was.

The Captain gave a brief speech and buses began arriving to take her company to the airfield.  I held my daughter tight.  Other children clung on to their fathers or mothers crying don’t go, don’t go . . .

At the last moment possible all of us visitors released our grips and watched them board the buses.  Once they were out of sight, and as we turned to walk away, it began to rain.  The heavens opened and the sky was crying with us.

Rain drops mixing with our tears.  Disappearing into porous volcanic soil . . .

***

My daughter completed her year’s tour over there on an airbase located near the center of the country.  A base that received some 20 rocket attacks daily.  One was even launched from inside the base.  The locals had planned for their insurgency and had buried weapons before the invasion.

Their food was poisoned by Iraqi civilian workers in the mess hall.  Bombs were set inside living quarters for the many foreign workers that were imported.  An outdoor movie theater was rarely attended.  It was too easy a target.  The Base Exchange hit, as soldiers were exiting – having bought packaged food to avoid the mess hall.

While my daughter was on-base most of the time, they all had to “volunteer” for at least two convoys.  Two of her platoon members died on one of those.

News was sketchy, but I found the BBC to have more honest and timely coverage.  The generals didn’t want the public to know that they couldn’t secure their own base perimeters.

She sent me pictures of the graveyard for vehicles destroyed by IEDs.  The remains of which they stripped to place armor on the vehicles that were lacking it.

Probably the most disturbing image came from her staging area in Kuwait.  There she was in her desert camos with a bright swath of olive-green around her chest.  They had run out of desert camo flak jackets and given them woodland green.  And if that wasn’t making them stand out as a target enough, they had also run out of the protective plates that slide into and reinforce those jackets, so she had limited body armor covering her back.

Yes, I’m grateful she made it back without any physical injuries.  But I don’t know what she still has to experience in her mind from those days.

I hold her tight whenever I see her.

***

*Sorry for all of the abbreviations, but that was better than slowing the readers down with this list 🙂

Mine Resistance Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle series; High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) series; Rough Terrain Container Handler (RTCH); 6K Variable Reach Fork Lift; Heavy Equipment Transporter (HET) series with semi-trailers; Heavy Expandable Mobile Tactical Truck (HEMTT) series; Truck Cargo 5Ton series; Light Medium Tactical Vehicle (LMTV);  and 10 Ton Cranes.

Thanks: I wish to extend my sincere thanks to all of those who serve, and have served, and to their parents, spouses and other family members for having known what they endure with their loved ones are deployed.

*And I must add a footnote: For clarity, in my generation, it was not I who served in the military.  One of my brothers was in the Marines – Vietnam era vet.  I tried to join but was unable due to having asthma.  We do have an interesting family history.  My Great, Great, Great Paternal Grandfather, and his two brothers, fled Germany in 1852 to escape being drafted into the German military.  They were farmers.  They immigrated to America, and the generations that followed began the tradition of serving in the US military.  Ironically, we may have had family members shooting at each other in both World Wars.

Photo: My daughter, with her fellow company members, listen to the send-off speech from their Captain.

Frog Pond Magic

A while back, while hiking, I stumbled upon a small frog pond.  It was early afternoon and the angle of the sun, lighting, and nature itself came together in a very magical way.

There was an electric green moss growing in that crystal clear pond and the surface of the water reflected the surrounding trees.  The sky was a magnificent deep hue of blue.  As you can see, I captured several shots with my cell phone camera.

I visited this pond several times thereafter and the conditions for these images never repeated themselves.  Amazing, even the same places, events, and times can never be experienced twice the same 🙂

 

 

***

Fishing

This is sort of an iconic image.  A sole person testing his skills fly fishing in a mountain stream.  I’ve never done fly fishing per se, at least not the way it is supposed to be done.  But I do love fishing because I find it to be meditative.

Repetitious motion.  Casting.  Reeling.  Casting.  Reeling.  Letting your thoughts drift.

Then there is the thrill of catching one, and in most cases for me, releasing it again.  Although there have been times when I’ve eaten a few.

Many moons ago, I was in a remote part of southern Utah living off the land, and was catching trout by hand.  Amazing.  And nourishing on different levels.

It is said that to dream of fishing is to really be dreaming about spiritual pursuits.  I like that image.  And just looking at this one, I find it to be meditative.  Relaxing.  Letting inner thoughts fade into quietness . . .

***

Luminous

Long, white, flowing dress.

Auburn hair,

hazel eyes.

Delicately stepping into the formless haze.

Breath quickening.

Anticipating.

Each gentle, awakening nudge.

A dizzying array of silver particles streak across the gray sky.

They dance across her cheeks,

lightly brush her lips,

soak deeply into her neck,

massage the small of her back,

caress her thighs,

stroke the length of her legs.

Cleansing, freeing.

Releasing her from her thoughts.

Her dress now clinging tightly,

taking her form.

Smooth and streaming.

A walking sculpture.

Luminous and divine.

***

 

Photo:  I found this photo on the Internet in the public domain.  I could find no further attribution for it.

Published !  Thrilled and honored that my poem was published by The Urban Howl on August 16, 2018, under the title “Release Yourself From Your Thoughts – Be Luminous & Devine.“

When Spirits Call

We live in a spiritual world.  Every part and parcel of it is imbued with particles of awareness from the spiritual source.  So why not tune in and receive unfiltered spiritual guidance . . .

You may have noticed in some of my other posts, especially in the spirituality section of my blog, that I talk about communing with nature.  About being in the natural world and learning to perceive the messages that come to us through native signs and symbols.  And I refer to the natural world as being the “real world.”  Not an artificial or illusory construct by humans.  Not temporary physical structures that will revert to dust.  Mother Earth remains eternal.

People have changed the ways that they experience their worlds.  They have a tendency to think that they have “tamed” the natural world, when in fact, they have simply walled themselves off from it.  I think it’s better to open up and see what’s really out there.  Experience it firsthand.

I realize that many people do not believe in such things.  How can a coyote deliver a message about how to live, or awaken you to an inner calling?  I get it, and no one has to agree with the things I’ve come to believe.  That’s ok.

It may even seem counterintuitive that I would entertain such beliefs given that my educational background has largely been in either the sciences or in analytical reasoning.  But I also believe there are many things beyond what science can explain, at least for the moment.  And why write off such things and discount them simply because there is no logical explanation for them?

You can define your own reality in any terms you wish, but I encourage you not to deny what your senses perceive, especially your sense of intuition.

If it helps, a scientific way to look at this is that we are electro-chemical machines and we emit energy fields.  So does everything else.  And if our fields encounter one another there will be a communication of some type.  A relaying of signals that may not require a spoken language or physical touch.  Now you have to figure out what the signals you are receiving mean.

So, since this is becoming a recurring theme in my posts, I thought I would take a moment to elaborate a little more on just what animal “totems” or “familiars” are.  They have also been referred to as “Spirit” or “Power” animals.

Spirit beings have been a part of every major religion and culture.  Whether it be the serpent, said to be the devil, in the story of Adam and Eve, or the Greeks speaking to their gods through oracles, or aboriginal tribes taking on the forms of animals through symbolic dress and engaging in ritual dance to connect with the spirit realm.  The symbolism of ties between the natural world and spirit world are universal, and many of the “messengers” of “God” are depicted as being surrounded by various animals.  Why so, except for the symbolism they convey?

A totem can be defined as any natural object or animal or being where you connect with its associated energy or life force.  A totem has also been described as a spirit being, or a sacred or power object, or a symbol associated with a clan or an individual.  Once such a connection is recognized and accepted, the spirit within it can serve as a guide throughout one’s life.  More commonly than not, the spiritual totem takes the form of an animal.

One definition I found on the Net equates animal totems with “archetypes that work with the subconscious mind, tapping into the energy that is present in all things” . . . that “can be seen as channels or frequencies on a radio with many levels of understanding.”

And just what is an “archetype?”  An archetype is said to be a typical example of a certain person or thing.  Although I never look at things as being “typical,” nor do I like that word.  I find things living and inanimate, to be magical and unique, not typical.  In Jungian psychology, an archetype is a primitive mental image inherited from our human ancestors that is supposed to reside in the collective unconscious.

However you wish to parse the words, I think we can derive that a totem, or symbolic representation of a spiritual entity or guide, can be said to have certain characteristics.  A Bear strength.  An Owl Wisdom.  A Deer gentleness.  A Fox invisibility.  I’m using one-word descriptions for this example, but the symbolism for each is far more intricate.

As a guide, an animal totem can convey many different messages.  An affirmation or a warning.  Or you may be able to tap into that spirit’s energy at a time of need.  A totem is said to be a life-long spiritual partner and it will appear in both your physical world and your spiritual world.

Another term you may have heard is that of an “animal familiar.”  In its basic origins, this referred to a non-physical being, a thought-form or spiritual entity.  But over time, the term has been applied to living animals.  Familiars can be physical or non-physical, you can have more than one at any given time, and they can change over time.

How do we learn if we have a Spirit Animal?

Well, you don’t learn it from a “How Stuff Works” Internet quiz.  One commonality across cultures that applies to totems and familiars is that they choose you.  Not the other way around.  And the way such a totem enters your life can vary.  You might be visited in a dream.  Or have a vision while you are awake.  Or it may continually appear to you in the physical form, over and over again.  If you do have such a totem, once you’ve identified it, you can start being observant for any messages it may send you.

In my case, it appeared to me in a vision when I was 15, announced its presence, and told me it would be with me.  I then discovered its presence everywhere in various forms and I learned to interpret what its presence in certain situations meant.

Encountering an animal doesn’t necessarily mean it is one of your guides.  Or if it is you guide, its presence doesn’t always mean something metaphysical is in the works.  As Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  There are no meanings to unravel.  No symbolism being communicated.

So how do you tune into to your spiritual allies?  See connections and messages beyond the ordinary?

Well, I recently read an article by Lissa Rankin titled: “How Can You Tell If You’re Being Spiritually Guided?” where Rankin lays out what she terms as being “15 Discernment Tools.”  She provides a list of 15 questions you can ask yourself to attempt to answer this question honestly.

1–Does it feel like shackles on or shackles off?
2–Is it kind?
3–Is there Aliveness here?
4–Does it exhaust me or fill me with dread?
5–Does it nourish or deplete me?
6–Does it feel natural, efficient, easeful, peaceful and graceful?
7–Does it make sense?
8–Will it hurt anyone?
9–Would love do this?
10–How does this feel in my body?
11–Am I rushing?
12–Is it coercive or controlling?
13–Is it ethical and aligned with my core values?
14–Will this cultivate the stillness in me?
15–What’s true and not true about this situation?

I don’t think these questions are all required for every given instance in which you feel pulled or directed to take some course of action.  I also think you need to begin with the symbolism of the totem.  If you do feel you are being given some guidance, you have to know what that guidance is in relation to.  And I don’t believe you can accurately assess what the guidance is unless you know what the totem represents.

You’ll also have to learn to trust your inner voice because you’ll have to interpret the message and how it applies to you at that given moment in time.

I know I’ll have future posts on this topic that may help illustrate specific nuances.  I’m working a piece right now where I encountered a bear in the wild.  Close up for the first time.  It certainly got my attention, but did it carry any specific meanings other than “HOLY SHIT!?”  We’ll see 😊

***

Photo:  A Western Screech Owl, a father on guard.  It is intensely watching a rattle snake that is too close to his chicks.  Nothing could break this Owl’s gaze.  This could have turned into an epic physical battle, but this father won a spiritual fight.  Energy fields collided.  And while this snake may have been too large for this small predator, its intense energy sent the snake on its way.

Have You Ever Known Someone?

To be able to complete someone’s thoughts,

dance together in their mind,

caress their heart,

and see their soul through their eyes.

This is truly knowing someone.

Have you ever known someone?

 

***

Feature Photo: I found this photo on the Internet in the public domain. I could find no proper attribution for it.

Butterfly Photo: A couple of Painted Lady butterflies nectaring-up in the Midwest.  I added the butterfly image for a couple of reasons.  One is that is shows a “couple” like the feature image and duality is the theme.  But intertwined duality – two becoming one.

With duality, we’ve moved beyond a singularity.  It is the quality of having two parts to the whole.  Metaphysically speaking, it is the contrasts – negative versus positive; good versus evil; light versus dark; material versus spiritual; consciousness versus unconsciousness; Ying versus Yang; male versus female.

Numerologically speaking, the number 2 represents feminine, dreams and cooperation.

The butterflies, symbolically, represent transition, shapeshifting, and the dance of joy.

When two hearts come together as one the polarities merge.  A beautiful transition occurs as each half brings out the beauty in the whole.  Making that true connection is a rare thing and it results in a dance of joy.  Bonds that cannot be broken.  Not over space, time, or even lifetimes.

Dreaming of You

There is a place

where I have gone

when I am dreaming.

And it has been very rare.

Where I know I am dreaming

and there is no difference

between me the dreamer

and me the dreamed.

Who is to say which is more real.

And I can choose where I wake up

in my bed

where this body is sleeping

or in the dreamscape

where I am experiencing

On that plane of existence.

And tonight

if I have that choice,

I choose to be where ever you may be

because I know

you will be in that dream

Where ever it may be . . .

***

Photo: A landscape takes on more color and becomes a dream, but the image is just as real.  It was all a matter of perception and expanding our senses.

Philosophy Doesn’t Feed Me

But it does nourish me 🙂

So, I was nominated by my friend, Raynotbradbury, for the quote challenge, but she added a spin to it for us to pick an ancient philosopher for the quotes and to fill in any explanations we wanted.

The Rules:

• Choose the author or philosopher (it should be one from the Ancient Time).  Don’t know anyone?  Google it lol.  It shouldn’t be so hard.
• Choose 3 quotes of this author/philosopher.  The country of origin – doesn’t matter (Egypt, Greece…Italy).  Add any info or explanation if you like.
• Share those quotes and nominate 3 to 6 people.
• Oops, that’s not obligatory.
• The title for the post?  Choose something cool.  I know you are smart enough.

I really struggled with a title for this piece, I mean being “cool” is tough 🙂  I had put together an entire list I had to choose from.  But I like how the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence does nourish us, but not literally “feed” us.   And I explain the feature image and how I think it relates to the title below.

I chose the Greek Philosopher Socrates (470-399 BCE) for a number of reasons.

For one, he is credited with being one of the founders of Western Philosophy and with being the first moral philosopher.  For another, a quote of his from his trial for impiety and corrupting youth has stuck with me ever since I first read about him, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”  And for another, I was subject to the “Socratic Method” of teaching when I went through law school.

Because Socrates didn’t put any of his thoughts in writing, what we know of him is from the accounts of others, like Plato.  I suppose, if you live by the axiom of “I write, therefor I am” Socrates may not have existed and was but a mere metaphor of analytic thought, a tale of others 😊

Regardless, his teachings have endured for centuries.

The Quotes:

I threw in an extra one.  Actually, two counting the one above.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
“Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.”
“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”

I picked these quotes because I think they represent true wisdom.  We should live our lives humbly with open minds, recognizing that material and superficial pursuits have no real lasting value, acting honorably, and having immense gratitude for all we have and all that surrounds us.

Socrates is a powerful representation because he was put on trial and sentenced to death for his thoughts.  Did the Greek democracy have the thought police?  Apparently so.  Socrates called out and questioned prominent Athenians, logically defeating their views and policies and publicly humiliating them.  The powers-that-be charged him impiety (not believing in the Gods of the State) and with corrupting the youth.  Yes, that ancient democracy felt so threatened they decided they must put free-thinkers to death and not let that cancer of thought spread.

The concept of “impiety” (religious persecution) was one of the reasons the Framers of the U.S. Constitution built in freedom of religion.  Thus, no State-sponsored favorite gods.

The Socratic Method of teaching used in law school works like this.  We were given our assignments in advance of class and then grilled by the professors in the class room.  The idea was to teach us the adversarial process and how to think on our feet – skills we would need in the courtroom.  There are many a good tale of personal humiliation inflicted by the professors, but you learned to be prepared.

My Nominees:

Little Joy Affair

Writer’s Choice

In The Middle of Somewhere

***

Photos:

Feature Image – DeGrazia – From the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun.  I’m not sure what the title of this painting is, but it depicts an Eagle and Indian, although the Eagle is somewhat vulturesque.  Is the great bird going to devour the Indian and feed on him or nourish him with knowledge.  This could be an image from a vision quest, after all.  The Eagle represents the illumination of the spirit, healing and creation.

I don’t think the full image shows with the format of the blog, so here it is.

Socrates – There are so many pics of sculptures of Socrates on the Internet in the public domain out there that I have no clue that there is anyway to provide an accurate attribution for this photo.

An Oil Painting for the One I Love

Sitting in the quiet,
contemplating the nothingness that surrounds me.
Imaging a different world,
one with color, with fragrance, tasting, touching.

An oil painting for the one I love.

I see the greens, yellows, oranges, and reds of autumn.
An old farm road, slightly overgrown, bending gently with the breeze, contouring an old barn, faded wood, peeling paint.

The character of a grandfather with aged wisdom.

A Great Horned Owl sings in the distance,
a soulful melody that echoes across the nearby lake.
It repeats at a slightly higher pitch.

A pause, an answer – this one lower and softer.

The synchrony begins as they call, urgency growing.
Powerful yellow eyes take flight and the couple unites,
the tone softens, is warm, in harmony, complete . . .

***

 

Photos:  A Midwestern sunset on the fly – one-handed, while driving with the cell phone.  And a Great Horned Owl sits majestically, the master of this territory, calling to its mate.

Published !  So grateful to have had this poem picked up in the Fall Issue of Halcyon Days.  If you have haven’t seen this online magazine, you should really check it out.  It is beautifully done!  

Dreams and Kites

I’m hoping for love 🙂

Photo: How about that.  Never know what a cell phone camera can do when looking through a 20 inch telescope 🙂

Solitude

In keeping with the theme of my last post about loneliness, here’s a thought about solitude 🙂

Photo:  Love those open roads in the southwest where you can see for miles.

The Dream by Don Miguel Ruiz

I have read two books by Don Miguel Ruiz.  The first was “Beyond Fear: A Toltec Guide to Freedom and Joy” and the second was “The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book.”  In both books he included the passage below.

In Beyond Fear, he presented it as an exercise for us to dream.  In The Four Agreements, he included it as a passage titled: “Prayer for Love.”  The version in Beyond Fear was slightly different, I think better written, so I’m posting that one.

The author uses the word “Christ” near the end of the passage.  But as I have said before, I believe you could substitute whatever entity or title you wished, your own belief in what constitutes the “Source,” and the message still rings true.  Enjoy.

***

In this dream I find myself in the most beautiful forest at mid-day.  I am completely comfortable surrounded by beauty.  I see the sunbeams lighting the trees and the flowers.  I see butterflies, and I hear the sound of a river.  I walk to that river where an old man sits beneath a big tree. With his white beard and his strong, kind eyes, the man emits a radiant aura of beautiful colors.  I sit in front of him and wait until he feels my presence and looks at me.

I ask, “How can you send out these beautiful colors and can you teach me how to do it?”

He smiles at me.  “Your request brings back memories for me because one day I saw my own teacher doing the same thing and I asked him the same question.  As an answer, he opened his chest and he reached in and pulled out his own heart.  From within it he took a radiant flame.  He opened my chest and put that flame inside my heart.  From that moment on, everything changed inside me because that flame was unconditional love.  I felt the flame of that love and it became a consuming fire.”

“I shared that love with, and gave unconditional love to, every cell in my body.  That day I became one with my own body.”

“I decided to love my mind.  I loved every emotion, every thought, every feeling and every dream.  That fire transformed my mind completely and my mind loved me back so much that the fire grew even more and I had the need to share my love even more.”

“I decided to put my love in every tree, in every flower, in every blade of grass and all the plants in the whole forest.  They reacted to my love and they loved me also and we became one.”

“But still my love grew more and more so I had an even greater need to share my love.  I decided to put a little piece of love in every rock, in the dirt, in every metal on the earth, and they loved me back.  We became one.”

“My love still grew.  I decided to put a little love in every animal that exists, in the birds, the cats and the dogs.  They loved me back and they protected me.  We became one.”

“My love still grew and I decided to love the water.  I loved the rain, the snow, the rivers, the lakes, the oceans, and I became one with the water.”

“When my love continued to grow, I decide to love the atmosphere, the breeze, the hurricane, the tornado, and we became one and they loved me back.”

“My love did not end there.  It grew even more and I turned my face to the sky where I saw the sun, the moon and the stars.  I decided to put a piece of my love in them and they loved me back and we became one.”

“Again, my love expanded and I decided to share it with every human, with the elders, with every man, woman and child, and we became one.”

“Now wherever I go, I am there waiting for myself.”

Then the old man opened his chest with his hands and took his heart out before my eyes.  He took a flame from his heart and he opened my chest and my heart, and he put that flame in my heart.  When I awoke and opened my eyes, I felt that flame become a fire.  Now I share my love with you.

At this moment, I open my chest and in front of your eyes I open my heart.  I take a small flame and I open your chest and your heart.  I put that flame in your heart.  That flame of my love is the flame of Christ.

And that is the dream.

***

Photo: This is a great shot of my woodstove with a particularly expressive fire.  I can see a swan in the flames to the left.  Others have seen the devil in the middle and a woman in the flames to the right.  What do you see?  The flame of unconditional love?

 

 

Paint Me a Masterpiece by Gordon MacKenzie

This is an excerpt (the last chapter) from the book called: “Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace” that was written by Gordon MacKenzie.  While MacKenzie uses the word “God,” I believe you could substitute whatever entity or title you wished, your own belief in what constitutes the “Source,” and the message still rings true.  Enjoy.

Paint Me a Masterpiece

In your mind, conjure an image of the Mona Lisa.  Visualize that masterpiece’s subtleties of hue and tone as clearly as you can.

Next, shift to the image of a paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa.  Envision the flat, raw, colors meeting hard-edged, one against the other.

Now let me relate a fantasy about masterpieces, paint-by-numbers and you. It goes like this:

Before you were born, God came to you and said:

“Hi there!  I just dropped by to wish you luck. And to assure you that you and I will be meeting again.  Soon.  Before you know it.

You’re heading out on an adventure that will be filled with fascinating experiences.  You’ll start out as a tiny speck floating in an infinite dark ocean, quite saturated with nutrients.  So you won’t have to go looking for food or a job or anything like that. All you’ll have to do is float in the darkness.  And grow incredibly.

And change miraculously.

You’ll sprout arms and legs.  And hands and feet.  And fingers and toes.

As if from nothing, your head will take form.  Your nose.  Your mouth.  Your eyes and ears will emerge.

As you continue to grow bigger and bigger, You will become aware that this dark, oceanic environment of yours – which, when you were tiny, seemed so vast is now actually cramped and confining.  That will lead you to the unavoidable conclusion that you’re going to have to move to a bigger place.

After much groping about in the dark, you will find an exit.  The mouth of a tunnel.

“Too small,” you’ll decide.  “Couldn’t possibly squeeze through there.”

But there will be no other apparent way out.  So, with primal spunk, you will take on your first “impossible” challenge and enter the tunnel.

In doing so, you will be embarking on a brutal no-turning-back, physically exhausting, claustrophobic passage that will introduce you to pain and fear and hard physical labor.  It will seem to take forever.  But mysterious undulations of the tunnel itself will help squirm you through. A nd finally, after what will seem like interminable striving, you will break through to a blinding light.

Giant hands will pull you gently, but firmly, into an enormous room.  There will be several huge people, called adults, huddling around you, as if to greet you. If it is an old-fashioned place, one of these humongous people may hold you upside down by the legs and give you a swat on the backside to get you going.

All this will be what the big people on the other side call being born.  For you, it will be only the first of your new life’s many exploits.”

God continues:

“I was wondering.  While you’re over there on the other side, would you do me a favor?”

“Sure!” you chirp.

“Would you take this artist’s canvas with you and paint a masterpiece for me? I’d really appreciate that.”

Beaming, God hands you a pristine canvas.  You roll it up, tuck it under your arm and head off on your journey.

Your birth is just as God had predicted, and when you come out of the tunnel into the bright room, some doctor or nurse looks down at you in amazement and gasps:

“Look!  The little kid’s carrying a rolled-up artist’s canvas!”

Knowing that you do not yet have the skills to do anything meaningful with your canvas, the big people take it away from you and give it to society for safekeeping until you have acquired the prescribed skills requisite to the canvas’s return.  While society is holding this property of yours, it cannot resist the temptation to unroll the canvas and draw pale blue lines and little blue numbers all over its virgin surface.  Eventually, the canvas is returned to you, its rightful owner.  However, it now carries the implied message that if you will paint inside the blue lines and follow the instructions of the little blue numbers your life will be a masterpiece.

And that is a lie.

For more than fifty years I worked on my paint-by-numbers creation.  With uneven but persistent diligence, I dipped an emaciated paint-by-numbers brush into color No. 1 and painstakingly painted inside each little blue-bordered area marked 1.  Then on to 2 and 3 and 4 and so on.  Sometimes, during restive periods of my life, I would paint, say, the 12 spaces before the 10 spaces (a token rebellion against overdoses of linearity).  More than once, I painted beyond a line and, feeling embarrassed, would either try to wipe off the errant color or cover it over with another before anyone might notice my lack of perfection.  From time to time, although not often, someone would compliment me, unconvincingly, on the progress of my “masterpiece.”  I would gaze at the richness of others’ canvases.  Doubt about my own talent for painting gnawed at me.  Still, I continued to fill in the little numbered spaces, unaware of, or afraid to look at, any real alternative.

Then there came a time, after half a century of daubing more or less inside the lines, that my days were visited by traumatic events.  The dividends of my noxious past came home to roost, and the myth of my life began horrifically to come unglued.  I pulled back from my masterpiece-in-the-works and saw it with an emerging clarity.

It looked awful.

The stifled strokes of paint had nothing to do with me.  They did not illustrate who I am or speak of whom I could become. I felt duped, cheated, ashamed – anguished that I had wasted so much canvas, so much paint.  I was angry that I had been conned into doing so.

But that is the past.  Passed.

Today I wield a wider brush – pure ox-bristle.  And I’m swooping it through the sensuous goo of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson or Ultramarine Blue (not Nos. 4, 13 or 8) to create the biggest, brightest, funniest, fiercest damn dragon that I can.  Because that has more to do with what’s inside of me than some prescribed plagirism of somebody else’s tour de force.

You have a masterpiece inside you, too, you know.  One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be.

And remember:

If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece,

it will not get painted.

No one else can paint it.

Only you.

***

Photo: This masterpiece was painted by Claude Monet and is called “The Japanese Footbridge.”  Oil on canvass – 1899.  I took this pic when the portrait was on display in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.