So where has it gone? The newness? Where are first kisses, and promises, the first taste of the ocean, majesty as waves crash to shore,the new moon full upon the dark grass as night falls, its glow bathing young skin, young love, first pant, first touch?

Where is the fear as the coaster climbs high; anticipation of the twist in the gut turning to glee, to exhilaration as the train plummets toward earth and gravity lifts the heart, the stomach, the soul and a scream forms throttling forward unrepentant?

Where has it gone? Joy at love's blush, first night married, dreams of a house full of laughter, children home coming to holidays, dinners, friends, career, discovery, and money to travel to see wonders of the world, new places, life giving waters, wading knee deep in the waters of strangers who are only human and here to share this time, this time.

Time, not linear, but what of it as my time, my segment on the circle, the spiral, is to me as linear and as limited as a segment on a page, a plane, a plane in space, my space, unending space, incomprehensible space. What of it? It matters not that the sun rises for the sun has become as common place as a sneeze, as an itch and the turning of a page, as I know it will rise for me until one day, it just does not. One day it does not rise. It did not rise for my father the day she, my mother, once young full of dreams with auburn hair and blues eyes, once running through fields finding meaning in the shapes of the clouds, found him dead upon the floor. Old now, with dreams run out, as life ran out, his body abandoned and no longer his, abandoned and naked, left to be cared for by those who knew it. Left, left humbled, the faithful body, true to its purpose, now without purpose, as all things will one day be. It did not rise for my mother, the night she held on to life, until she could hold no more, saddened by its heaviness and unkempt promises, she let it go, preferring to sleep and to not wake. Not to wake one more time.

How did it come to be that life would begin to turn my face toward the sunset and not the sunrise and I would watch children, their lives once entwined with mine, warm breath upon my face and gentle kisses, soft skin, held to my breast, to my heart, I would watch them, knowing I can do nothing but watch them, slip on the clothes of men and women and smile waving back at me, waving me off, as they press their foot to the floorboard, racing off to their own day, their own dawn, racing off as they should?

How do I breathe knowing that each dawn brings me closer to dust, knowing that all that is left to do is to accept that there is nothing left to do, but endure the letting go of all that I know, of the right to be?

All I know is that I have never met a ghost.

If you've not yet read Vonnegut, please wedge his obituary between the pages of your most fav books, tape it to your bathroom mirror, or sticky post it to your web page, lest you continue, somehow, to permit your overworked brain to overlook this iconic author.

Although he is probably known best for his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse Five, my favorite piece is Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday, reportedly one of his least favorites. In this story, Vonnegut artfully satirizes a tale of personal transformational crises using classic dark wit, his familiar antihero, Kilgore Trout, and a cast of memorable characters, many in literary cameos.

Although much of Vonnegut's work is hailed for its imbued social commentary, I never perceived social reform to be Kurt's primary goal. His stories, some bizarre, most clever, most replete in imagination and irony, all seem born of personal demons, creatively exorcised through the richness of his dark humor. 

 

If I was able to sit across from All there Is, All there ever Will Be (the Great I AM - Iam) and have a conversation, what would I ask? What would I be told?

I think we would meet as children playing on a beach, gleefully forming microcosmic oceans in the sand, using tools of sea worn shells and concave beach stones. Iam’s replicas would be much better than mine, of course, given all the practice he had messing around with the originals. At dusk, we would sit with at the edge of the ocean, tired but at peace. The waves would wash gently over our hot feet. Although He would appear a child, and we would appear to any on-looker as companions, I would be acutely aware of His awesome nature, of His omnipotence.

“Iam. Why do You love me?”

“How could I not love you. You, who are beautiful to Me because you are you. Because I know that by your presence you make my symphony complete.”

“But, Iam. I am just a single note, how could I matter?”

“That is too simple for you. You know that every symphony is created as such, one note and then another. Without each, the harmony degrades to discord”.

“But, I am imperfect. Does not my imperfection create discord?”

“The note is made perfect by its place, its purpose in the symphony.”

“Iam, sometimes the song seems fraught with dissonance. Where is the perfection?”

“I am the composer. You occupy at this time of your consciousness only partial awareness of the gamut of the scheme. I hear the entire sonata and therefore know its perfection.”

“Iam, why is it so hard sometimes?”

“It is hard when you begin to believe that you are finite, and therefore forfeit your awareness of your eternal nature to the demon of fear. It is hard when your humanity shadows your connection to the divine, rather than illuminates it. It is hard when you forget that I love you. Know that even when you forget, I remember.”

“One time, Iam, when I was a child walking home from school, I eagerly asked You to help me find a quarter. Just as I was about to cross the street to the corner where my house was, I found a shiny quarter against the curbside. I knew it was from You. Why did You give it to me?”

“I wanted you to know that I was there. I wanted you to become aware that I would answer if you knocked, that I would give if you asked, and that you would find, if you sought. I wanted you to know that, just as you created here on the beach what you could see with your eye, you could create in your life, what you envision in your soul. I have taught you this many times in your existence. The quarter was not the first, nor the last. But, you are stubborn and prone to melancholy. You hide when you are afraid and you accept what you should not. You sacrifice what you know for what you fear. As such, you will have to be shown many times over until you remember.”

“You must also be aware that you, as most do, find it easier to envision an ill wind rather than a cool breeze. I have instructed you to live without anxiety, and yet you persist. What you call to yourself will be. Yet also remember, that all is as it should be.”

“Iam, what do you want for me?”

“I want you to know that you are loved. I want you to drink fully, love deeply, laugh hardily, give graciously, accept the humanity of your neighbor, and respect the life force I have written into all things.. It is not to be taken for granted. Your place is your own. Understand it cannot be fulfilled by another. Understand too, that I hunger for you. When you come into understanding, you will know that the desire you hold, deep within, is not for this world truly, it is for Me. Therefore, come to Me, play with Me, commune with Me. I want you to know that I have given this all for you so that you may fulfill your purpose and so that one day, along with Me, you may hear the sonata in its entirety and understand.”


(With appreciation to Palmer :"there is only destiny.".. for the style of this wonderful exercise)

It came to teach me, haunt me, taunt me from the corners of the places of sleeplessness.  It wandered through narrow passages, dark, violent, unknown but known, not to see but be seen, to teach.  I hid from it a long time, first unknowing that it had come for me, was made for me, then knowingly because it promised pain.  Awareness and pain, pain and awareness, both at once beckoning, both at once revolting, promising both, promising that there is not one without the other, not one to welcome and one from which to refrain, but both at once, the sugar with the medicine.  The sugar is the medicine.

It needed me.  It needed me to loose the torrent of darkness that was its substance.  It needed me to see, so that it could be freed from its hollow, to see that without it, the light has no meaning, the winter has no spring, and the monsters run freely, untethered from the shroud of superficiality. 

 It is old, no ancient…primitive, made of the stuff which makes the soil.  Elements of the universe are scattered within it and it moves me to howl at the moon as I transform into its creature.  Without consciousness it holds sway over me, as Hades commands.  But I, when standing between darkness and light, can see at once its form and its function.  I learn not to fear, because it will guide me to enlightenment. 

You are not my love
I have no love
I was left here,
Abandoned by a wayward spirit
An eternity ago

He promised his return
Yet his eyes I have not seen for a millennium
I sought his spirit
in the trees, the wind, the air.
But, found only traces of
What was no more
Like old photographs
Illusions
And not him at all.

You are not my love
I have no love
Within me is a dream
Of love gone by, unattainable
For souls abandoned.

(c) Deborah (2006)

There is a belief among those who study the nature of being human, that true intimacy is achieved when individuals can look in the eyes (soul) of the other, and what is reflected back to them is not only the other, but also themselves. In this mirroring of the self by the other, there is the ecstasy of discovering an infinite source of enlightenment, all through the simple exchange of the true, unpretentious self. If one can visualize what occurs when two mirrors face each other, one can see that the road to infinity is created.

There is a story in mythology, and old and rich story, of a boy named Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection. Because the intimacy he naturally desired could not be returned through his self-love, he withered away in his desperation. His plight is rich in consequence and has fed artistic, philosophical, spiritual, and psychological thought for centuries. His human mission of self-discovery is clearly thwarted by his inability to go beyond the one-way mirror. He is narke or made emotionally numb to the invitations of others to love truly. Because all that he can love is the image of himself, he cannot tolerate the eyes of another, as they may reflect to him aspects of himself that are not as he sees, and he risks learning that the image created in his own eyes, is not what others see, and is therefore, false.