Bloom where you're planted.

Our yard is full of perennials.  We had a beautiful stand of red lilies this year.  I brought in a single sprig filled with blooms and buds and put it in a bathroom vase before vacation.  Upon return from vacation, I saw that some areas had bloomed out and fallen, but that other buds opened to take their place.  The sprig bloomed profusely.  After weeks there was only a single bloom, so I pitched the sprig into the garbage.  For every morning since, and there have been 3 of them, I walk into the bathroom and the first thing to greet my eyes is the happy bloom on the now-yellowing sprig, poking itself up out of the garbage can.  

The lily patch outside in the warm sun and cool rain has bloomed out and is going dormant for another year.  But the unfortunate lily sprig that was cut down and brought in, during the prime of its life , blooms on...in my garbage can...for 3 days now.

What a lesson for all of us.  It ain't what life gives you that matters;  it's how you accept it.  Like this doomed lily which has outlived all its brethren and joyously lives on in the face of certain doom.  I can envision it sticking merrily out of the back of the garbage truck on Tuesday.    Bloom on, everyone! 

Ever since my Christianity failed me, I've been searching for a new spiritual idiom.  Here's a recent one I thought up that I really like. 

They say that there are four states of matter;  solid, liquid, gas and plasma.  Are there really just 4, or do we only know about 4?

What if a new state of matter is composed of what we know as the spiritual?  Maybe it's what's left when the conjectured Higgs particle is removed.  Maybe it's all the dark matter in the universe, as opined by Philip Pullman in his "His Dark Materials" series.  

Imagine a universe suffused with a spiritual sea.  Every individual who has ever existed came from the spiritual sea.  The part of the spiritual plasma residing in an individual is almost completely cut off from the spiritual sea by the incessant noise of sensual experience.  This allows for new experiences and growth of the spiritual sea.

 

When the noise of the senses ceases in death the spiritual plasma, enhanced by a lifetime of sensual experience, returns to the spiritual sea.  There, there is no individual but perfect sharing in a unified consciousness.  This is a concept which I see as similar to the extreme joy of the traditional concept of heaven.

Individuals constantly precipitate out of the spiritual sea into the temporal and evaporate back into it, like the rain.  Chaotically, bits of our spirit join bits of others' spirits and this raindrop of reincarnation falls into the temporal world as a new individual.  The cycle repeats and the spiritual sea grows. 

Yeah, I made this all up.  But I really find it believable because of all those times that thoughts and inspirations have come to me, and I can't think of any of my own experiences that would have given me such insight.  I think those times mark occasions when the raindrop of spirituality, that is me, somehow extricates itself from my senses and communes with the spiritual sea.

A Story About my Old Boyfriend

The old guy looks into his wife's eyes and takes her hand.

 " I remember what was and try not to think of what might have been.  I was nervous.  It was a potluck supper.  The group was called  'Dignity'.  I was reserved.  I was scared.  I was a little doe in the headlights.  People greeted me.  The ladies quite affably,  but the guys with a quick head to toe sweep of their eyes.  I couldn't talk to these people.  I thought that they might try to get me to do things I didn't want to do just yet.  How do I go about being gay?    The conversations were odd.  They were studded with artificialities and half truths. 'This is not coming out', I thought; 'It's just a different closet.'  Then I hear this goofy voice with a Jimmy Stewart stutter.  It draws me in.  It is male, affable, friendly and joyous.  There he is!  I can hear his thoughts.  'Hello, I'm Max.'  'John'  he says, dipping his eyes to the floor.  Yet a smile lingered on his lips.  Not one of laughter, but of pleasure.  I had never seen such a beautiful face on a guy decades my senior.  Such a kind face.  Such caring eyes.  Such plainness.  Such authenticity.  Such emotional control, yet, goofy in tone and awkward in gait.  He was tall, thin, bearded and a sumptuous mound of neatly coiffed hair crowned this oddity.  Was he an Andrew Jackson style backwoods squirrel hunter?  I said  'Have you tried the chocolate cake.  It's great.'   'I made it,' he replied  There were smiles all around.  I thought 'Not exactly a backwoodsman;  this one.'  We talked the whole evening about nothing.  Then it was 'Goodbye' and 'Till next time'.

One night I was drinking at the local gay establishment.  I was leaning backward with  my elbows on the bar,  watching the boys dance.  I could reach for my beer bottle without looking because I knew  it was right there on my left.  The hours passed.  Then  I reached  leftward for my beer and felt a hand on my bottle.  It's him!  'You're drinking my beer.'  'No you're drinking my beer.'  We mock argue and laugh a lots as, together,  we watch the boys dance.

I woke up.  A cool wind was caressing my nude body.  The breeze was stirring the curtains.  Muffled voices filtered up from the street below.  An arm was draped over my shoulder.  I felt a pleasant warmth on my back.  I was being spooned from neck to foot.  I turned and saw the face of my lover.  He didn't snore.  There was just sweet pleasant breathing.  I turned and kissed him awake.  We made love.  Years passed and he told me many things.  

'I know that priest', he said, 'we went to seminary together.'

'I quit seminary because I couldn't live a lie.'

'Yes, I graduated from Harvard.'

'It's not that much, the company has lots of VPs.'

'I'm quite wealthy.'

'He was younger.  We travelled a lot.  He stole from me.  He broke my heart.'

And after 10 years of friendship I suggested that we stop seeing other guys and move in together.  He said 'I can not trust.'  I needed more and I left.  Goodbye John. I found a new love, you love.  I found marriage, family, success, comfort and joy in you.  But I still have sweet memories of him.  I remember what was and do not consider what might have been."

The old lady nods her head knowingly.

What Happens When We Die?

We all try to understand as best we can. Sometimes we use historical accounts or allegories or tales of devine inspiration to anchor our beliefs. But still, much of the time we find ourselves adrift. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?


Even though we don't know, way down deep, we all want to believe something. Currently, I look for God in science. Science tells me that we have about 5 senses and that everything that we are comes to us through those 5 senses. Hmmm...wonder which sense makes us feel love.

Anyway, I have a postulate. I just got it yesterday when I watched the movie Hangover. From out of nowhere, I could almost see and hear my dead father's laughter at the plot. Not hearing voices or anything, but just a feeling that he was there. Not scientific at all. Except it sponned a thought.

What if our life of the 5 senses drowns out a whole other facit of our existence? What if it drowns out someting very subtle; the part of me that imagines my dad laughing at "Hangover". Could it be that when we die, and the 5 senses drop away, that we will return to a communal consciousness? But, in reality, we will not return. We will be part of the shared consciousness that we always were part of. It was just the momentary interlude of the senses that kept us apart from everyone else. Thence the longing for oneness with others. Thence the reality of my dead father laughing at a movie made after his death. We know so little.

I really love these strange little thoughts, when I get them. I show them to you like a little child would show a new discovery to his parents.

The Muse Was Upon Me

                                  Guy watching

He swayed like a tall ship, making his way through the pedestrian crowd.  

The world disappeared over the horizon as he effortlessly tacked through the throng.   

His immaculate white t-shirt luffed in the breeze. 

His hair, caught up in the wind, flying like a pennant.

A spectral Flying Dutchman, drifting, floating, gliding towards me.  

His gaze shot past me, like a ball over the bow. 

There would be no boarding this handsome frigate. 

A buxom wench festooned his yardarm.