short story

Naked Trees

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It’s mid October and I’ve missed that brief one or two-day period when the Aspen leaves are at the brink of losing their last flash of Autumn’s dying beauty—-even death has its  display of pastel-ed glory, and then the wind sweeps all vanity away.  I am left with only stark branches like the bones of summer to carry me through the skeleton of another season passed.  At my feet the fallen leaves stir as I make my annual hike around Spooner lake.  This is the month of quiet contemplation and a time to face ones marauding ghosts that emerge from the shadows and are carried on falls chilly winds—-

Every season seems to have its emotional and psychological landscape.  I find myself missing spring in autumn and the freshness of winter in the heat of summer, I’m a discontented soul, always wanting what’s just out of my reach.  Here, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, each of the four seasons have dominion over their portion of the calendar. The seeds have been planted and the harvest is in, the metaphor of reaping what we sow is played out—–the nonbelievers burn off their barren fields.  A big orange moon reigns in the sky reminding me that the masks of Halloween will soon be donned.   I think of all my old friends and how time has changed our appearance, yet I know that their souls are the deep well from which I draw my sustenance.  A good song will always be a good song and the steps of a shared dance will never grow old, nor be forgotten.

I keep my hands warm, carrying them deep in my pockets.  I’m not sure where I am on this leaf strewn path, I’ve always been more lost then found.  A map and compass possess no value when my destination is between each footstep.  A low lying fog fingers its way through the tall pines, the branches sway and I listen to their whispering voices.   I think of my family and friends and mumble a prayer for the goodness of all.  A chicory squirrel stares at me and then giggles as he scurries across my trail—-he knows God’s plan better than I.

I take a seat on a log and plug my earphones into my iPod.  J. D. Souther comes on singing, “Silver Blue”.  The melody is a perfect sound track to this mystical vista of lake, aspens, pines and fog—what a sublime speck in time.

In all the chaos and madness of life, it can feel at times that people and events have no rhyme or reason, but in retrospect (when looking back after the fact) things come into focus and have a purpose and a reason for happening, maybe that’s faith—believing that the future will workout the way it is intended and that the things in the past have occurred for a greater purpose—-this is how I remember my Mom looking at life.  She always saw the positive in all things, even when things were not going as planned—-

I pull a smashed sandwich from my backpack and have a bite.  I take a sip of peach tea and have a  laugh at myself—

Tomorrow I’ll head south to Hope Valley and wander through those stands of Aspens—-all things change at their own pace.

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”  Albert Camus

Pocketful of Soul

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Sitting on the hard Christian pew in the front row of Saint Joseph’s Church, I idly listen as the pipe organ fills the stained glass chamber with the sound of Ave Maria.  The beauty of the melody is occasionally punctuated by the echoes of a cough or a child’s desperate whine.  The organ stops and the room is consumed by a ponderous silence; the silence of a funeral is louder than that of any other decibel—it is the deafening sound of stillness.

It’s hard to say how many times any of us may have lived or died, but today, eternity surges through this space like static electricity during a thunderstorm, death teaches us about the impermanence of all things—-a million days or a million years, mortality will never empty my pocketful of soul.

The priest droned on in a thick accent, perhaps Indian or some foreign place from the far east—-his fouled up mispronunciations make the ancient stories from the bible even more esoteric.  The messages within these texts I’ve heard hundreds of times.  At different stages of my life I’ve interpreted them differently, isn’t that the way of any true art.  For me, faith is an art, something that grows and changes as it finds new ways to connect with me in a place beyond my limited five senses. I‘m not a biblical purest or fundamentalist, I am a spiritual personalist—I believe God speaks to us all in his own personal language of love.   I hear him in the wilderness, others may feel his presence on a commuter bus, God finds a way to adapt to our idiosyncrasies.

Ironically, things become so twisted when we force God to conform to our personal needs and demands—-oh the horrors perpetrated in his many names.  I prefer the belief that we are created in the image of God, rather than God created in our self serving image.  Such a subtle yet profound change of outcomes when choosing  between these two conflicting points of view.  My puny prayers are composed out of a humble desire for there to be less of me and more of God in this broken world.

I’ve never had much of a grasp on God, religion or spirituality, but in the peacefulness of this moment I’m absorbed by a sweet serenity.  In the presence of the sacred statues, symbols and the mumblings of holy prayers I’m filled with a sense of communion to all things.  I suppose this sublime feeling may also be evoked from Gregorian Chants, Hindu Mantras or Zen Koans, we are all reduced to the simplicity of oneness in the presence of God.

“If Jesus were alive today, the last thing he’d be is a Christian.”

by Mark Twain

Disclaimer: 

The sentiment communicated in the above quote may be applied to all prophets and spiritual leaders who have been merchandized, propaganda-sized, materialized, cauterized, convicted and tried, dehumanized, demoralized, rectified, deep-fried, electrified, televised, commercialized and apostatized—–

Gravity-Supposed To Grow Old

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Sometimes being alive is good enough.  Breathing, walking, thinking, feeling—–waking to color, to sound, an awareness that I’m unexplainably here, a pulse circulating blood, air filling these lungs—-one more glorious morning—-(I mumble to myself) “how accommodating—-another day tailored to fit”—–I know such a statement must sound arrogant and self centered, but I take this life very personally.  Maybe that’s being a success, just knowing that out of thin air we all walk this earth.  This thing called gravity stubbornly holding all this shit together, only God could think up something so unimaginable as this.  Gravity—like the grace of God holding us together. Planets circling suns, a black-hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy swallowing entire solar-systems whole, in one bite—– and then they too, are once again gone, into thin air—-hurled beyond this limited version of time and space—-everything spinning, tumbling, upside-down and caterwauling into eternity—-I feel your smile, and for that moment we’re eternal, twin evanescent souls dipped in heavens ebony well.

Come with me down to that old cemetery where on September nights we use to walk your dog, as this was the closest thing we had to a park beneath those tired Denver skies.  After all, cemeteries are nothing more than parks for the un-living being re-remembered—no street lamps burning here, just the spine of the Milky Way bending over us.   I’d watch your dog as he stared intensely into the blackness. I swear that he could see them frolicking and dancing about—free from the gravity of these earthly woes.  The neighborhood is windy and dark—-the tree limbs moan and creek—- a damp fog crawls its way across the pointlessness of this American suburb—- there must be a God, cause even the stanchest atheist needs something to fill this landscape of loneliness.   The bland rows of stucco track homes suck the life out of everyone and everything.  There is no staving off Autumn now, even the hell-hounds in the distance howl in defiance of September’s grievous demands. The moon tags along, watching over my shoulder, reminding me that he too is a child of gravity.

I wish I were back home in California where the sound of waves pounding against the rocky Pacific coastline would put my jangly nerves at ease.

Life is a living thing that moves through us, from us and back into us, it’s everywhere yet inappreciable—-imperceptible.  Hold on to it with all your might as it will roll over you, past you—– and then leave you in the park with the rest of the un-living, dancing to a choir whose voices only they can hear.  No drug or drink can compare to being awake and walking out into the thin air.  It is sustained by wonder, blind-faith and the gravity of grace.  Everything collapses and then folds in on itself, where it leads from here, no-one knows for sure.  So for now, we’re supposed to grow old.

One last time let’s hold hands and walk together under those big ole cemetery tress.  We’ll kick a path through the dead dry leaves as the branches maliciously sway against the change of seasons.

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