from our backyard, facing west
I’ve solved the problem that has baffled mankind through the ages. It’s taken me many years and I thought it might take as many years again to explain it to the world, to help others come to the same realization that I have reached single-handed about the true nature of God when seen face to face.
Except that now that I have reached my final conclusion I feel like blurting it out simply, for the sheer relief of moving on. So here it is, take it or leave it: God is the voice inside. Now, that feels better, I’m no prophet, no philosopher, no poet, just a “nobody”, that is, a human being, which is good enough. I will carry no “white man’s burden”. I can tell little stories, in no particular order, stories of no particular significance.
When in doubt, go walking, that’s what puts me in the right frame of mind. Or I would say do something physical. Everyone alive can do that, if it’s only breathing. But don’t talk to me about “only breathing”. I’ve done enough of that meditation to last a lifetime. Literally.
Today I passed a tree which twenty years ago inspired a certain thought. It was in the position I remember but didn’t look the same, for now it’s all overgrown with ivy so that it looks like an ivy tree, if there is such a thing. Then its leaves were delicate, all a-quiver in the breeze, so that I could look right through the tree and see each one moving independently, and I thought how much was going on all at once, and my consciousness merged with the tree trying to take in all the leaves, as if I had a thousand limbs and possessed proprioception for all of them. I’m sure that is more or less what I thought at the time. I wrote it down in a notebook, but all those notebooks have been thrown away, and in any case it would take hours to go through my illegible handwriting. And why would you care, dear reader?
Perhaps when I looked at the tree twenty years ago I was recalling my trips on LSD, either reflecting on them or having some kind of a flashback. Those trips all took place in ’71 and ’72. Since then, no psychedelics, but some aspect of those experiences hits me almost every time I go walking, as if the very outside air, or some invisible rays from the open sky, are soaked in mescalin. Can I describe the feelings? I’ll try. It’s as if my essence is entranced by the ambience, I mean the complete sensual array of my immediate surroundings. Each place has its own special quality, recognizable on every visit; perhaps as a dog recognizes the scent of a person or animal when chasing a trail.
I’m not much of a moralist but I feel like saying it’s not necessary to consume psychedelic drugs. I actually am a moralist when I think of my children’s welfare, not wanting them to get trapped in bad scenes like addiction, debt, criminality and bad company. My children have in any case all grown up. The last one left home yesterday, to live independently. It was a momentous day, that would have felt even more momentous if it were not the second time in four months that she has left home finally.
There’s a neighborhood cat, all black with pleading eyes, who sits on the fence and looks in the window. Sometimes when it’s been cold I’ve let it in for a while to get warm and it has been grateful but I didn’t want it sharpening its claws on anything or treating this place as home. My daughter liked it when she was here; but last night it managed to leap into the house through an upstairs window by climbing a low roof. I chucked it out but it kept coming back in. It was like a burglar: the house was under siege, we couldn’t open any windows now. So I chased it with a water spray, which it didn’t like; it looked at me reproachfully, as if it were prepared to wait until the human’s apoplexy passed and normal kindness resumed. How long before it realizes it can never come in uninvited? You can’t teach morality to cats, so I’ll make it simple by never inviting it again.
People expect me to solve their problems. My sister-in-law phoned me from her car the other day. She was on her way to Birmingham but her sat-nav system was showing an error message. Could I give her directions? I could see where this was going, even if I couldn’t see where she was going. I did have some advice for her: go to the next petrol station and buy a map. Half an hour later she rang again. She was on her way to the bus station in Slough, having decided to drop her passengers there so they could get to Birmingham by bus. Could I look up the internet to tell her the bus times? I had more advice for her: go to the bus-station and ask.
Then I was woken at 3am by my mobile phone, having forgotten to switch it off. A dear friend works as a barmaid, and seemed to be saying the pub was wrecked. I imagined it on fire, and leapt out of bed instantly awake. Her manager had asked her to ring anyone she knew who was a computer expert, because the bar till was showing an error message. She started to read out extracts from the instruction manual, as if at 3am or any other time it would make sense to me. I was able to advise her: write down the amount of each bar purchase using pen and paper. She received the advice as if from an oracle. She was excitedly intoxicated. By way of thanks, she offered a titillating party invitation whose proposed sleeping arrangements were unsuitable to my married status, which through the haze of cocaine (? I’m guessing) she then remembered, inviting K along too. For a few moments her 3-in-a-bed fantasy fired my imagination. I hope she remembers nothing.
5 comments :
Sophia said…
Hi Vincent,
You are not a nobody!
I agree with you about the voice being God. I think Jim said it best, once, but everything, even the birds chirping and us talking, that’s all God’s expression. Of course I wonder about the quality of God’s expression when words come out of my mouth sometimes (or keyboard). 🙂
I envy your LSD trips. The only “real” hallucinations I’ve had were on Salvia, and those trips only last a few minutes. But now after a few people have died using it, I won’t be touching it anymore! Well, there were other times I’ve hallucinated, like on Demerol as an anesthetic they used in surgery, and of course Ambien (a sleeping pill) sometimes makes me hallucinate.
You know what I’d say about the cat! But then again, if you listened to me, you’d have four cats like I do now.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, Vincent!
Listen to the voice inside. :o) January 01, 2008 8:54 am
My realization about the nature of God owes a lot to conversations with Jim; but to many other conversations too and mostly to a lot of brooding under the blessed sky. Yes, that God-nature is indeed in everything and yet we have to have the eyes to see it.
Hallucinations are too crude for my taste these days, but what I relish most is “the crack between the worlds” that can be reached between wake and sleep, or by melting into the present moment, which I find easier outdoors.
I felt guilty about the cat but it is an astute psychologist who knows it can make me feel guilty through its eyes alone, so I was shocked when it started seizing the felicitous moment (felix=cat) to slink in.
Happy New Year Beth to you! Your eyes remind me of that cat’s. They command.
Yes, the voice inside! I’m already seeing that the sparkle of that realization is not contained in the phrase, which is only a pointer. A seed is a better description. The acorn contains all the instructions for an oak tree, but only nature and time can actually build it. January 01, 2008 10:47 am
i am finally doing a bit of catching up on reading some blogs, wanted to wish you a happy new year and thank you for the insights and thoughts you have shared with such generosity and care, and felt compelled to stop in on this post…the voice inside, yes, and walking, yes. pretty much that’s it i think.
Stumbled across this previous post, and many thoughts bubble up to consider using as a response (and am still planning to respond to our already begun conversations :D) , but one note regarding walking. You mention walking, or doing _something_ physical at least, puts one in the right frame of mind. Research and links brought me across this concept, regarding the evolution of the human body: The “modern body” developed before the “modern (high energy, high energy consuming) brain”. This means our brain developed to exist in a healthy, moving body. Subtracting movement (walking, etc.) from life directly effects the performance of the brain, and by extension, the mind’s state. Good instinct on your part. August 11, 2009 3:25 am
Sophia said…
Hi Vincent,
You are not a nobody!
I agree with you about the voice being God. I think Jim said it best, once, but everything, even the birds chirping and us talking, that’s all God’s expression. Of course I wonder about the quality of God’s expression when words come out of my mouth sometimes (or keyboard). 🙂
I envy your LSD trips. The only “real” hallucinations I’ve had were on Salvia, and those trips only last a few minutes. But now after a few people have died using it, I won’t be touching it anymore! Well, there were other times I’ve hallucinated, like on Demerol as an anesthetic they used in surgery, and of course Ambien (a sleeping pill) sometimes makes me hallucinate.
You know what I’d say about the cat! But then again, if you listened to me, you’d have four cats like I do now.
Happy New Year! January 01, 2008 7:44 am
Happy New Year, Vincent!
Listen to the voice inside. :o) January 01, 2008 8:54 am
My realization about the nature of God owes a lot to conversations with Jim; but to many other conversations too and mostly to a lot of brooding under the blessed sky. Yes, that God-nature is indeed in everything and yet we have to have the eyes to see it.
Hallucinations are too crude for my taste these days, but what I relish most is “the crack between the worlds” that can be reached between wake and sleep, or by melting into the present moment, which I find easier outdoors.
I felt guilty about the cat but it is an astute psychologist who knows it can make me feel guilty through its eyes alone, so I was shocked when it started seizing the felicitous moment (felix=cat) to slink in.
Happy New Year Beth to you! Your eyes remind me of that cat’s. They command.
Yes, the voice inside! I’m already seeing that the sparkle of that realization is not contained in the phrase, which is only a pointer. A seed is a better description. The acorn contains all the instructions for an oak tree, but only nature and time can actually build it. January 01, 2008 10:47 am
i am finally doing a bit of catching up on reading some blogs, wanted to wish you a happy new year and thank you for the insights and thoughts you have shared with such generosity and care, and felt compellted to stop in on this post…the voice inside, yes, and walking, yes. pretty much that’s it i think. January 04, 2008 7:17 am
Stumbled across this previous post, and many thoughts bubble up to consider using as a response (and am still planning to respond to our already begun conversations :D) , but one note regarding walking. You mention walking, or doing _something_ physical at least, puts one in the right frame of mind. Research and links brought me across this concept, regarding the evolution of the human body: The “modern body” developed before the “modern (high energy, high energy consuming) brain”. This means our brain developed to exist in a healthy, moving body. Subtracting movement (walking, etc.) from life directly effects the performance of the brain, and by extension, the mind’s state. Good instinct on your part. August 11, 2009 3:25 am
a wayfarer’s notes 