Slow Heal

Sometimes the healing takes awhile. A wound that seems so vivid in the psyche at its inception gives way over time to layers of experience, changed perspective, & revisioning of moments through each succeeding moment--- in other words we change. How to know when the reverb of a psychical explosion has died down enough that the radioactive material will allow invisible ecosystems to flourish. The brain, is after all, our greatest recycler. Memory is persistent as the moon but is new each time, as Heraclitus' river. How many kisses real or imagined will it take to get the taste of Rachael saying, "Your kisses don't turn me on," & the subsequent billion times she didn't kiss me thereafter to illustrate her point? How many times will some associative thought arise with Amy for me to realize what I already mostly know that we don't belong together? The ache of wanting happiness for those you love & yourself has a miraculous gravitational pull.

A couple of days ago I went on a vision quest. The time had come to shed some barriers & feel the rain on the hides of white horses. I fasted, ate a healthy meal, offered up some requests to the Great Spirit, & waited with intense intention & the ease of someone who has the idea that this is right action, that this is the golden path. When the lights started to come on, & the shapes defined themselves it was as frightening as it ever is. Why is it that what we want most haunts us with the specter of what we could be? All those demon-fears descended on me. How can I keep such purity? The prayers I had murmured in celebration of Daniel's wedding, the well-wishing I had sent Ahniwa's way for his happy relationship & impending travels, the idea of City Repair building a natural sanctuary in the woods with Aaron healed from poison oak & Carisa's weird breaking of his heart, Rachael's whatever path (I figure she's doing something with medicine) that she might find what it is she is looking for & with that a better means of communicating, Amy's continued growth that she might find someone who can offer her what she desires in a healthier modicum than what I was able to offer for a time. The idea of a world in positive relationship to a burgeoning climax of nature teeming with life, the rot giving way to layers of understory in a complex weave of life bursting at the seams thick with giant trees & all manner of ecostructure at elevations & windcurrent. Man in harmony with the hard rule of nature as much as she can be. The vision hunted me & grabbed me.

My first vision that I can recall is a dream I had as a little boy. In the dream there was a little girl my age in a field. We were together, romantically entangled in all the sweet optimism my worldview could encompass at that tender age. The eternal field was tall grass combed by a sea-scented wind. All around a towering forest of majesty enclosed this haven of a sunlit field. I held my blanky & enjoyed time with this wondrous girl. Then, a dragon stormed through the trees & usurped the girl trundling towards the sea through the massive tangle of trees. A moment of fear & doubt overtook me, then I charged after, clarity of purpose having won. Despite whatever odds I had to try & live the dream. I caught up with dragon on the seashore where the infinited waves kissed in choppiness the smooth sand. As his claws sunk into the shallows entering the greater sea I confronted him with such a resounding voice & presence & attacked with my blanky. His enormous face had ancient angry eyes when he turned on me but I was all steel will & determination. He gave way. His massive talon of a claw all dark green sleek with patches of red released the exhausted, relieved girl.

In some way, I am still living out this dream. Not so much that I need to save a particular girl. I am still chasing after my fears & making them release this vision of a fuller life. Courage is needed in every harrowing step. The healing sword is still burnished in my hand as a blanky, as a green blade, or as an old man's weathered staff. I am still a 'seeker' as a lady once called me after seeing my eyes in a cafe. "You must be another seeker?" I'm living into this life, petting the cats in my neighborhood, making faces at people I know, dancing silly, ordering the familiar drink, honing my home life, improving in incremental ways ever-insistent on creating less & less waste. How can we give more than we take? Especially hard when the world gives us so much, even if what it gives largely seems immaterial.

Yesterday I had another nighttime dream. In this one I was an older man with a staff leading a troupe of people through the wilderness we crossed a seatown, a hybrid of Seaside & Port Townsend. There, we stopped in to an arcade joint where a man voiciferously demanded that we come back & accept as a gift a bull pinball game. He explained that the game needed parts from three other machines but the relic was so worth upkeeping. The animal logo on the side had all the bustling life of the image in the caves of Lascaux or the snorting noses of Snohomish's buffalo fields. Wild, misforgotten nature was bristling in this relic of the past that needed reviving. My Grandma was especially meant to be a passer on. We left with this message, scuttling along the fingers of land jutting out into the waters. As we entered the heartland away from the sea, switching back on wild land I informed my clan of natural lore teaching them the ways of life feeding on life & the ecosystems particularities & the metaphorical lessons were teeming all around. A slick dark hole appeared to swallow us in, all mud & quicksand trap as if our fears could materialize & devour us. Then a dark unreal cloud appeared on the horizon where white clouds puffed & seagulls swung in circles. We ran, I lagged behind to take the brunt. Such is my insistence on sacrifice in dreams. We dashed around a switchback lapping unawares path-walkers. A clearcut appeared on our left, highlights of tiny treetops illuminated in the dawnlight. The richness of a fuller forest on our right where the hills inclined upwards. I stopped running & turned around spinning my staff suddenly finding I had the strength to create change, something happened & then the dream ended.

What to make of these turns & upturns, these downslides & evening keels in the spiral? Change is possible. In fact, change is the one constant. Many artists may cease to create, children stop dreaming, idealists degrade into land-rapers. I will not count myself among them in that way. The world must achieve a golden age or perish. With all my heart & adversity-hardened will I choose a greater way of living with harmony & hard lessons.