The Rock

I first found it in my back yard – the lawn mower ran over it and the blade took a sizable chunk out of it.  How it got there, I don’t know, as I’d mowed that section of the lawn many times.  But there it was, sort of grey with flecks of quartz scintillating in the sunlight.  And of course with a chunk missing.  Good thing rocks can’t bleed.  Still, looking at it, I felt a kind of sadness that this rock had somehow found its way into my yard only to be partially decapitated by the spinning blade of the mower.

I brought it into the house.  No point leaving it in the yard for further potential mutilation.  It wasn’t that big – maybe the size of a big melon, and seemed rather light for a rock.  I put it on the coffee table, the bloodless gash turned out to make good “foot” for it to rest on, its grey face and many faceted pinprick eyes staring up at me as if to ask some unspoken but important question.   I had no answer; even the cats sniffed it just once and promptly got bored.  Still, there it was, a stranger that had been invited into the house but that leaves an awkward silence between guest and resident, each wondering where this was going.  Each wondering, maybe this was a mistake.  But then again, the rock didn’t have much choice in the matter, did it?

As I did the various chores of the day, I’d occasionally walk by the coffee table that was somewhat reluctantly, but without complaint, holding this new burden.  I kept noticing how the living room felt different – yesterday, there was no rock on the coffee table, today there was.  It felt strange having this new addition in the house, and yet at the same time growing familiar.  Every time I walked by it I experienced surprise, a flash of “what is that?” that was replaced immediately with “oh, it’s the rock.”  This happened several times throughout the day until at one point I realized I had passed the rock without even noticing it.  Even the coffee table seemed more at ease, as if it were growing more comfortable with this new addition.

After feeding the cats their late night snack and turning off the kitchen light, I headed upstairs to bed, and on a whim stopped in front of the coffee table and gave the rock a gentle pat, whispering “Good night.”  With no light to reflect off the tiny quartz shards, it seemed asleep, eyes closed.  Yet it also seemed to feel a kind of foreboding, the way someone pretends to be asleep because they don’t know what’s going to happen next but hope whatever it is will just go away.  I decided not to disturb it further.

Blame it on the glass of Shiraz I had with dinner, or the full moon, but I awoke at 2 AM with the call of nature.  Heading downstairs, the rock was awake now, moonlight glimmering in its eyes.  Feeling a bit self-conscious in my nakedness, I stepped quickly past it.

The next morning I noticed something odd.  There were flakes of what can only be described as debris in a circle around the rock.  Sort of like dandruff or flakes of dead skin.  Maybe the cats had after all taken an interest in the rock and had brushed off some loose material when they rubbed their noses on it.  It glared up at me in the morning sunlight, its eyes dulled a bit by whatever had transpired in the night.  I decided to leave it, as I wasn’t sure if wiping it with a rag or washing it would do more harm than good.  That night I decided not to give it a goodnight pat.

Every morning, there was a new pile of this rock dandruff in a ring around it.  Every morning, I brushed it off the coffee table, being careful not to touch the rock.  The coffee table was annoyed – these flakes were sharp and left tiny, almost microscopic scratches in its surface, something that wounded its antique pride.

A week later, the rock died.  I came downstairs to find a pile of rubble instead of a rock.  It had shattered into a hundred fragments, its bones and cartilage and sinews all crumbled apart.  Perhaps the original blow by the lawn mower had created tiny internal fractures and it had finally succumbed to its wound, which must have been more grievous than had first appeared.  Its eyes were gone, only dull, empty grey ruin remained.  I grabbed the dustpan from the kitchen shelf and swept up its corpse, and was about to toss the remains into the trashcan when something in me stirred – this was an ignominious burial for my house guest.  Instead, I took the dustpan outside and scattered the remains on the lawn.

That night, in the waning full moon, the lawn gleamed like diamonds.

The Question

Ask the question you really want to ask,
The question that leaves you completely vulnerable,
The question whose answer might be too terrifying to hear.
Ask the question that is truly in your heart
Rather than seeking answers that the mind thinks it needs to find,
And in that asking, you will discover your true self
And you will find the person who will answer you.

Creative Writing Workshop

This was fun – a short creative writing workshop led by Eric Muller this weekend, consisting of two adults and 3 8th graders.  Everyone started with one sentence, then passed the paper over to the next person, where they added another sentence, and so forth, until the paper came back to the person who wrote the first sentence:

I woke up to the beaming of the warm sun into my spacious loft caressing the leaves on the tropical plants,
It was a beautiful morning to wake up and look at nature around me,
It was a beautiful  morning to be alive,
Jarring me out if this reveries, the sky darkened, distant thunder was heard.
The sky turned dark and it began to rain,
Reminding me of why you left me.
Introspective of this moment in which I swim into the depths of my heart, search for an answer from within.

 

Within and Without

Tell me who you really are,
And I will listen without judgement,
See me for who I really am,
And hold me within a safe place.

Why do I recognize you yet I do not know you?
Why do I love you without any past
To draw familiarity and comfort from,
Yet your soul touches within me the recognition…

Of having found that which I do not recall losing–
I had forgotten that without this love
The connections were missing an anchor
that grounds me from within in the trust now found…

I saw you, and in that seeing, you recognized me–connected souls,
without whom the waters of the lemniscate would not flow within.

To Touch

Flickering threads of red brightening and dimming in whisps of cool air,
Warm to the touch, astir with the possibility of flame and quickening flare,
To touch the kindling, patiently awaiting the spark to alight
the splintered grain, grasping at shards of heat and springing into yellowing light.

Leaping across the frosty air trembling below the sky cracking blue,
Pierced by the touch of your gaze, shivering for the warmth that can but renew,
To touch each other in the spaces forgotten by time’s sadness and loss,
The places darkened are now quietly lighting as warmth moves slowly across:

Caressing fingers upon cheek and brow reaching deeper into your heart’s deep care,
Soft in the touch are your hands moving between meridians in need of repair,
To touch the trembling surfaces and reach deeper into the etheric realm intangible,
The soul and the body entwine, enmeshed in weaving light becoming intimately inseperable,

To touch the embers of our spirits and kindle the hearth into warming light,
To warm the rooms of our souls and dance as cheering flames in awakening delight.