the pelican

once more with feeling

spooky. oh so spooky.

got my big paper skeleton outside on the front door. he's waving. beckoning. dancing a little maybe.

got my little battery operated blinking glowing orange eyes in the upstairs window. they blink off and on. glowing eyes. no eyes. eyes. no eyes. oh yes. very spooky.

got my magnificent pumpkin, but haven't cut him up yet. might not. might just put him out by the front door whole and unmaimed. not sure though. when i pulled out of the grocery store parking lot he took a bit of a tumble and broke off his perfect long curved stem. drove him around in the backseat with a seatbelt for a couple days and just forgot he was back there. he didn't seem to mind. then someone said psssst. did you know we had a passenger? found the broken stem floating around on the floor of the car. a little superglue, and voila he's back in business and ready to face the day today.

and the long dark night tonight.

getting colder. leaves turning and falling. about fifty perfect down, i'd say. already had the early wet snow that broke off a bunch of branches. lost two small trees this year. branches down in the streets for the city to pick up.

something about the smell of the leaves and the rustling as you walk through them. the snappy cold air. bit of woodsmoke. the glow of candles in the dark.

i love halloween.

ghosts are everywhere. the memory of a hot summer is passing gently through the cool autumn, stopping by to vist the few hardy flowers that celebrate the last of the fading sun. the spirits of the trees are drowsy and dreaming, practicing for the long sleep ahead. the leaves give up their color into the air. there is a smell of apples turning to sweet mush as they grow soft on the ground. a golden mum struggles against its snow-broken stems to reach the last bright yellow streaks of light. the squirrels are asking for nuts at the back door. the raccoons are back. a masked family of eight scurry out of the drain pipe in the creek and run across the yard to eat the neighbors' dry cat food.

everyone and everything knows that the bright gold sun and long shadows of october will be giving way to the short cold gray days of november.

most of the tourists are gone and the ski season has yet to begin.

the cards have won the world series and baseball is gone until spring.

set the clocks back. dark on the drive home now.

this is the dying time. the sleeping time.

now the veil is thin between the worlds. the world of light and the world of darkness. the world of the warm bright sun and the world of a bright moon in the long cold nights. the world of life and the world of death. between waking and sleeping. there is a blurring, a mixing, a great slow gentle shifting.

it is as if the whole world seems gripped in a sense of nostalgia. fond memories of summer fun. everything is passing. everything turns. everything dies. all is in movement. all returns to the earth.

there is a gentle comfort to autumn. a melancholy fading. a passing farewell. a rememberance.

a harvest complete. a slow compost.

and so in the movement this is also the preparation time. the fixing of the screendoor time. the patch the roof time. the storm window time. the chopping and stacking of wood time.

and this is the time a little samhain blessing, my all black Jack O'Lantern kitty came to live with me three years ago. little black kitten full of earmites, he was. just walked in the back door, had some dry food, looked around, took a nap, hasn't left.

makes sense to me that this should be the celtic new year. and diwali around this time now too. seems wise to begin again at the ending of all things. to celebrate the light in the darkness.

and down at the end of the deadend street where i live, i will await the small bands of ghosts and vampires and princesses and tigers and spacemen and pirates and witches and clowns and mummies and firemen and ballerinas and monsters that will make it down to the end of the street for the best treat bags in the neighborhood.

that's right, the best.

just loves to give those kiddies their sugar, you see. yes i do. oh i do.

this year, they will receive a gummy bat or worm, a few miscellaneous chocolate body parts (bloody fingers, eyeballs, cracked lips, severed ears, that sort of thing) mini kisses, a candy watch and a smiley orange pumpkin marshmallow on top.

yeah, got a dancing skeleton. glowing eyes in the darkness. and lots and lots of sugar.

spooky. oh so spooky.

posted by: limine at 13:42 | link | comments (7) |

i read the news today oh boy

and it’s so much too much too much so sick so sad so much too much and i came home from a busy day at work drafting an endless pile of discovery responses and requests for document production and i sliced up a honey crisp apple from the farmer’s market and spread a little soft goat cheese on a bit of olive bread with fresh tomatoes and slipped in a dvd.

yep i am so into star trek. was in love with spock when i was a kid. my first real crush before john lennon. completely addicted to TNG right now because they are out on dvd and since i don’t have cable, i really haven’t seen any of them since they went off the air.
 
and i’m consuming them at about a 3-episode per night rate. spinning through my fifth season now -- which is actually the third. ok so i’m a bit out of whack chronologically, but there’s a method to my madness and i will end up with season six and seven in the end.
 
i know i’ve got to slow down because they will all be gone soon. too soon. and yet, i must have three. good little consumer that i am. one is not enough. each night i have the time to watch them, i must have three. three is the magic number. three times three may all your deeds come back to thee. three episodes. yep, have to see three at a time and no less will do.

see the thing about them is they are perfect. well written. great characters. wonderful corny little morality plays. in about 45 minutes, a life-threatening situation ethical dilemma traumatic puzzle plays out to bring about a sweet resolution wherein the universe is saved worlds are made safe for democracy peace is restored and humanity is redeemed.

order to chaos to order again in the nick of time. clockwork precision.

recently saw the one when the enterprise has this sort of swarm of galactic creatures like a little school of space fishies attached to it and in the process Deanna loses her empathic psychic abilities because she’s overwrought with just one too many little voices in her head and she turns into quite a right little snot. she gets so frustrated and upset that she wants to quit and even resigns as the ship counselor. she becomes so consumed with her own difficulties that she believes she is powerless to help anyone else.

and so maybe she’s right. can’t help others. not because she’s lost her psychic edge, but because she can’t get past her own little tantrum.

it’s like being so depressed that you’re positive the whole world is conspiring to get you. powerless and afraid of all that is out of control. violence and war and the endless suffering. the greed, the lust for power. the choatic scrambling and clashing of wills and desires that can never be satisfied and the inevitable pain that is created in its wake. and it’s all too much so much so very much it’s all so big and dark and frightening.

fear drags it all down into a little hidey hole. covers up over the head. fingers in ears. la la la la la.

a sense of isolation. alienation. utterly alone. separate. adrift. disconnected.

so alone, that depression is all there. everything can only be seen through a smudgy grimy lens of tears and rage and pain and sorrow.

heart, so vulnerable, must be shut away.

identifying only with emotional pain, it’s as if identity itself is a prison. inescapable.  no hope of release, save death.

dark stuff.

and it can almost seem real. so real in fact, that you can believe this is what life is. just this. this narrow tunnel of blind pain.

of course nobody can ever really prove that all this isn’t just some bad personal nightmare. and in some sense, it actually is.

because if my perspective remains focused only on my own pain, i will remain completely disconnected from the world.

but if i acknowledge that there are others, it very quickly becomes apparent that they must suffer as well. they feel isolated. alienated. alone. afraid.

and misery loves company.

see that’s the thing. misery takes comfort in knowing others are suffering.

and if you stop right there, well, there you are. suffering.

but there’s more.

there is an intuitive awareness of the suffering of others. so . . then . . this alone business is not. that is, we’re all in the same boat. we all feel a sense of alienation. we all feel powerless and afraid. we aren’t alone. we’re in this mess together.

and suddenly, my narrow little tunnel of pain, isn’t so narrow and isolated. heck, it’s universal. it’s . . . shared. we are comrades. we feel others’ suffering. and an amazing thing happens. we care about the others because we empathize. and we have compassion. we are not alone. we can not only see beyond our own pain, we actually care about something other than our own sense of hopelessness.

and so star trek in enlightening and a great distraction but still i have to return to the news. but it's ok.

because now it’s these amish folks in the news, they just really have an effect on the heart. no matter how dismal you thought it all was, they just snap you right out of that crap into the beautiful truth of what it is. what it really is to be human. they radiate a genuine spirituality. they break through the suffering shell and offer hope and compassion.

they say hey family of the man who has killed our beautiful innocent young girls, we are here for you. we have forgiven him. he was very sick. you have a friend in us in your time of grief. do not take this upon yourselves. we will be here for you.

what strength. what courage. what faith.

the news the news oh the media. the news is politics and struggles and man kills wife and then self and hurricane and flood and the powerball winners and the lives of the stars and the celebrity lifestyle and the war the war the war and torture and greed and if it bleeds it leads and it’s materialism and sex and violence and destruction and pain. because that’s what the news is. it’s the extreme stuff.
 
not the everyday stuff. news is not about how the neighbors sat and talked on the porch for an hour or how everyone showed up at work today and did their best to get their projects completed or how many people had lunch together how many people meditated and who stopped to smile and who looked at the sunrise and who saw the leaves turning color and who shared the last donut.

nope it’s just not about that stuff. because that’s not news. it’s no less real, mind you. but it’s not news.

and that’s not the news’ fault. heck no. got to see reality. everybody has to see the car wreck. and it is information. without it, we are blind and ignorant. refusing to see it does not make it go away. it is suffering. it is what there is. it is our responsibility to see what we are a part of. and what part we play in it.

but it’s what we do with it. the choices we make. how we vote. where we volunteer. what we do with our lives. it’s how we use the information available. it’s what we focus on that counts.

and these beautiful amish people, they just pick up the mess and they support each other and they present us with the truth of what really is. they redeem humanity so swiftly. so effortlessly. so automatically. so naturally.

just as naturally to them as breathing.

they take the violence and the pain and the fear and they say we’re here for you. we forgive you. do not take this upon yourselves. we are grieving. we know you are too. you have a friend in us. we will get through this together.

and yeah so they live a different way. but they are still of the same world we are in.  they do not attempt to escape the chaos the rest of us believe we cannot. they just choose to not contribute to it. to not add to the suffering, they have chosen a different path. they strive to do no harm.

and they forgive those who do.

the media feeds us the accident reports and the bloodshed and we stare at it in disbelief and pain. we say oh my god the world is going to hell in a handbasket and nobody is safe nobody is safe and we must stop this from happening we must make things safer we must stop this we want justice we want revenge we are angry we are sad we are hurt we are frightened frightened oh so very frightened of all that we can not control.

but these guys. these guys know what to do. they forgive. they offer support. they clean it up and take care of each other. and they offer help to the family of the man who has done this to them.

they know all about it. yep it’s a fallen world. life is suffering.

they do not have the narrow tunnel vision of individual suffering. they do not demand answers and retribution and revenge and protection and lockdown their school and eavesdrop and wiretap illegally and put up video cameras and live in fear and arm themselves with weapons or make plans to bomb iraq or hate other religions or races or strengthen borders or despise mentally ill people.

they understand about lost souls because they have found themselves.

and this amish stuff, you know it's like quaker oatmeal. good for the heart. it’s as good as the best star trek episode. maybe better.

it’s a morality play. it’s what humanity can do. it’s what faith is really all about. it’s not only what reality can be, but what it is. and it exists right now for all to see.

and it's not science fiction.

and it’s even in the news.

posted by: limine at 23:33 | link | comments (17) |

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