The rock; bare and bold, legs spread and feet deep within the earth. Shoulders above the sea of grass and trees. Grimacing and tightfisted; resolute, silent and alone.
The lichen is stone come to life. A mineral flower. Patient and humble. Unassuming pioneer. Forever fasting and frugal. Tightfisted.
The Rock and Lichen begin to battle. The meek and the proud. Time? Time means nothing. The ages are short breaths; blinks, really. Even rocks have to exhale. It is enough for the lichen. A little bit of breath, a drop of sweat. Stale bread and water, a feast for the penitent. It chews slowly and thoughtfully. One bite a season; a hundred bites brings a fracture. Another hundred and it becomes a hairline crack. One crack lends to another and the lichen, steadfast and sure, worries loose the little scraps, tugging and cajoling; endless chipping and nagging.
Thought the rock calls in it's allies, the pelting rain and the scouring wind, the lichen's talon grip, anchored in the raging storm, holds fast and It plans. It plans a massive undertaking; a grand voyage; a marvelous cathedral.
After a thousand bites it has enough and the lichen morphs to moss. A little here and a little over there; holds the wet and traps itinerant dust. Stirs the acid brew that adds more wrinkles to the once-smooth brow of the rock. Moss spreads and draws birds and grazing animals; soon grass appears. Tough grass with staying inclination and wire roots that store water for the lean times. It endures.
Thrown by a heaving gust, the lightest, topmost cone of a near pine, caught by a tuft of grass, leaves a few seeds behind. A seedling emerges and carefully grows. Stunted and starved it clings to that massive rock; short, dense trunk; roots like crowbars, swelling in the heat and uncrushable. Gaining purchase, tapping hammer on chisel, slow ripping of the mineral fabric.
More trees grow and die and those that live and thrive, carve gashes into the defeated stone. Covered with trees and underbrush, it hulks above the valley, a magnificent grove, squeezing drops of metallic blood from the stone, riding regal on that well-saddled back. Tamed the impossible, a massive undertaking; lichen come to fruition, majestic firs towering into the sky and tunneling deep into the center of that hill.
I live there; a block away.
About Me
- roberto kiam borderlineartist@gmail.com
- I live in a quaint, little town, plagued with the specter of speculation and commerce. I am trailer trash,with wishes for good dishes. I shoulda died long ago, but like a rescue dog, didn't. I am indescribably scattered. I speak three languages. I walk a tenuously, true path. I am lucky. For myself, for others. God, it is said, protects orphans, widows and the innocent.
2 comments:
Missing Chip
I feel like I have a computer chip directing many of my thoughts and inevitably my actions.
When I am like this, I feel like my life lacks a spiritual dimension. When I watch most of what happens before my eyes, I feel like it lacks a spiritual dimension: the news, with black and gray people that look like penguins; the rush to some where else in faster and faster machines, most of all our own body; the sound bytes that now pass as speech between so many of us and I could go on and on and on, but what for?
In the Lord’s Prayer, Rudolf Steiner translates:
Let our mercy for others balance the sins done to our being.
How simple these lines read. But how difficult is the practice in terms of how we are surrounded with so little understanding and mercy for ourselves. The absence of gentleness toward self, toward other human beings is in my mind, our greatest peril. This understanding and mercy and gentleness is what I call the spiritual dimension. And in its place, control and power and self inflated ego.
So many times, a gun pointed at me. So many times, me pointing a gun at others. I cannot force others to care about me the way I want to be cared about. I cannot force others to care about themselves, let alone the planet and all of God’s creation. I cannot force others to go in search of their soul, only they can determine it’s presence or lack thereof. I cannot force others to look for what is or is not missing in their life. I can barely discern what is missing in my own life.
But how, can we exist in today’s world, without daily losing little pieces of our Soul? Surely not in a race for arms. Nor in an attempt to disarm, because who of us will allow another to remove our defenses, without feeling once again, defenseless. What are defenses anyway, but a blanket we wrap ourselves in to hide our vulnerability.
For me, soul is retrieved as I painstakingly replace the computer chip, with the God chip. God as Love. Beyond gender, Beyond species, God is Love. God and all of God’s honeybees are the spiritual dimension I speak of. It is through caring about myself, the planet and all of God’s creation. It is in daily searching for my own soul beneath the rocks of ages, imperceptibly squeezed between the crevices of time and gasping for breath under the suffocating weight of daily living.
It is by putting down the invisible gun that drives me. It is by dissolving all thoughts of weaponry and war and force. I cannot accomplish this when I feed from the war image that is broadcast 24/7 across our global airwaves.
It is by dissolving the computer chip in my brain that was and is formed from conditioned and fear based responses. I cannot accomplish this dissolution when I feed off of fear like a great white going for a seal.
It is by hanging out in that in between zone, where someone else may be holding a gun on me, but I no longer perceive the gun, I only perceive the missing dimension, that is unconditional love. It is by holding this creative tension; my creator, that I have with each breath, an opportunity to dissolve fear.
It is through prayer. It is through sitting with my stillness. It is through daily psychic self examination. It is not easy, but who cares?
and also gratitude rrrr,
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