ToeQuest

The Triumph of Life, Love, and Being

by

Austin P. Torney

(Part 1/2)

——— THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE, LOVE, AND BEING ———

— 0 —

—— INTRODUCTION ——
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The significance of the golden braid of life, love, and being is unveiled through the consummate enjoyment of existence by Peter and Angelina. It spanned centuries of spiritual rebirths, for it was a love so strong that it could never die, for, it was/is the ultimate relationship.

Escaping from a monastery-abbey that engulfed itself in the flames of ignorance, such as the one in in the book ‘The Name of the Rose’, they, our ever returning couple, salvage a mysterious book of quatrains that guides them through the joys and follies of the human condition as they live out its words, for the proof of all writing is to live it. So close in thought that they need not even be named at first, our couple takes a picaresque journey through the first part of the book to solve the difficulties of life as they are encountered in their travels through the forested countryside. Subsequently, they evolve from their spirits to meet again a hundred years later, close to our time, to meet the challenges of the modern world, yet, as always, remain ever immersed in the lushness of life and love. They appear again, futuristically, in an enlightening glimpse, to tell us where the human race may be headed.

Next, the mysterious book of quatrains is laid open for all to read. See:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/philos...ains-text.html

Furthermore, the secrets of the mind and the universe are revealed, as well as the lore and legends of nature. See:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=230

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=210

http://www.toequest.com/forum/neuros...aves-text.html

A journal details the real life meeting of the two lovers. See:

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=283

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=284

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=285

http://www.toequest.com/forum/blogs/...1851&entry=286

Every vein in this book is loaded with ore, as Keats recommended to Shelley, and that’s how life should be—a constant celebration of all that is good and worthwhile. I leave it to others to instruct via tales of failure and tragedy. Seeing life as lived well is, I think, a more inspiring and memorable learning experience, for I always favor the positive approach. I write of universals—of those things that endure—of the magic of everyday experience, for the afterlife happens right now!

I am indebted to Percy Shelley, for his romantic appreciations and his investigation of all living things, to John Updike, for his intricate observations of daily life, to Umberto Ecco and Giovanni Baccaccio, for their monastical inspiration, to Hal Foster, for tales of knighthood, and especially to Omar Khayyàm, for his nowness of existence, and to the muses, for the inspiration to write my own quatrains, not to mention my own dreams of what life could be. You will sense my tributes to them all. Writings are the summation of all we read, know, live, and dream.

When I was young and unlearned, I ran breathless through meadows and forests, fast pursued by the stings of wind and rain. On and on I wandered, wild without rest, searching for a haven from life’s dull pain. The storms chased me till I could go no more; I stood helpless, backed up against a door, but, fell through it before any harm could reach me, cushioned by all of the dreams supporting me. I had found the library. It was a garden, half as old as time, in which poets and writers could live and write their words and rhyme—while the nightingale created the rose by moonlight magic from their thoughts sublime. The literary scenes unfolded before me, such as music often approaches and surrounds, and builds on the vibrance which in one is—to fill all that lives with beautiful sounds and visions. I brushed aside the webs of gossamer—life’s rites and rituals, as came to life all that mankind should remember: my quick thoughts fell, condensing into dew, while living dreams unveiled more than I knew. I wandered down memory’s path, aglow in the soft beauty that it hath. I saw Johnny Keats kissing Fanny Brawne, as he spoke more than words but less than song, and Byron, endowing form with fancy, and Wordsworth, penning his thoughts to Lucy, and Shelley, my favorite poet, plumbing the depths of mystery; I read them all—now they’re a part of me. Deeper still I probed, looking in on it, and heard Mrs. Browning reading a sonnet. Poetically, I took them all in, even the shadowy Emily Dickenson. So there I rested, near Vassar Library, up against a tree, savoring the feeling of their poetry, in the garden where all the flowers used in Shakespeare’s plays grew together in a living bouquet. And there before me, beneath the rose tree, Old Khayyàm, yet alive through his quatrains, wrote his verse, looking younger than I am, and lived the proof of his philosophy of life, the writing of which was but secondary. All this I remember, and much more, but I shall not write as I have before, for living and feeling must come first, and now I’ve a garden I won’t ignore.

What of the actual writing process? It is much like nature: The sun fills the waking and breathing world with the fire of imagination. In poetry and romantic prose, the sun is the power behind the mind; the moon, planets, and stars are symbols, too—even the weather and the seasons. Sometimes, the intellectual beauty is bright, and the ideas gush from the eternal flame, or from the living of life—the only way to fully answer the question of “what is life”. Sometimes, inspiration fails when the shadows of clouds dim the clarity of thought; then we wait or regroup. Eventually, however, quenchless, boundless, ever bright and burning, the mind’s light searches every dark cavern, probing and imagining, its beam alighting upon the earth or high atop cloud mist, and melts, with heat, energy, and desire, the fog of lone reason and pure passion—burning it away and so dissolving it with the love of life, earth, mankind, and star—from which comes adventure, friendship, delight, joy, success, triumph, and lasting gladness throughout the sun’s journey into the night, when stars shine on mind, for suns they also are! I so much felt that I was actually there in the book when I was writing it that I forgot it was just a story.

The moon fills the sleeping and breathing world with the icy coolness of chaste reason unaffected by deep burning passions, although sunlit to glow in a wan light. However, reason, unsteady as the variant moon, often does not rise in the night to guide us, but deserts us in our darkest times; we are alone on a black cloud-bound night! Darkness drains our lives away, sometimes, and sickness consumes the spirit; the mantle is heavy lead and life’s last glow seems upon us; our eyes are as craters gone dim. Death’s ebon form seeks us out and covers us with his cloak. “Come away with me,” we hear, as he cools our burning brow; “I offer you quiet peace.” But then a sudden strength comes upon us, in our waning crescent wisp. In night’s cold shadow we say, “Un-hold the soul, Moon Reaper, we shall fully shine once more!” Such are the cycles of human emotions.

Else the moon hides in the bright light of day, or is lost behind an overcast sky, but, moonless nights take us beyond reason when the stars excite us with their lights. Yes, inspiration returns with the stars—a thousand ideas beckon from afar—thoughts wink like lightning bugs on the pastures of consciousness; as starlight, they stab the darkness of naught, until star-like Venus rises near dawn. The goddess of romantic love and passion, she captures us within emotion’s swell, while comets flash and confuse the wild sky. Do we make decisions intellectually or emotionally? Venus will talk to the moon about that in our story.

Yet, soft and warm, the night caresses us in its own way, with its gentle darkness and quiet stillness. We beg her to yield her dearest secrets, to reveal the full truth of what lies behind, as Shelley inquired. Much we already know from twilight dreams, and from universal poems unveiling truth and beauty, but, we ask, within our deepest soul, to know the mysteries of the universe, to find the causes, the significance, and the ways to live and love, think and feel. Above us, fires burn the stars away; below us, the Earth turns under our feet; within us, unworded dreams haunt the soul; around us, night pours blackness on the ground. So, we ask from the rulers of the night, not immortality, nor youth, nor birth, as Shelley says, but only that we retain some cosmic presence within us, joining in its rhythm and resonance, to live knowingly. Now we sense the sweep across our heartstrings, for we’re undistracted by day’s bright noise. NOW, in a moment of awe, we appreciate the love and goodness that can be. Such is the intent of this book, the awakening of a wonder that grants the urge to enjoy life. After reading this book of life, I would hope that the reader would run right out and live it.

Rising slowly from the cold dark hollows where the night airs fell and soundly slept, the restless wind left her secret bower, and, gaining strength, lovingly surrounded and caressed the willow trees, which wavered and swooned in her wake, as she, that ever curious spirit, flew by in a cool breeze from the west on her undulating wings, and spread the incense of the morning to nature’s world of growing and living things: She woke the flowers from their slumber by drinking from them their blanket of dew, then told the tales of the joyous forest to the birds, who soon carried them aloft, thence into my ears—the songs of streams flowing freely, and stories of a glowing sky that promised many sunny hours to come in the dreams of those who felt her passing, and, so, sleep was washed from languid eyes as they sensed that new dawn arriving—as if some transparent veil had lifted—when she gently stirred the embers of the last watch-fire and whispered softly to them that the stars had gone and day had begun. We sense anew the adventure of life. We enjoy it since we know it and love it. We do not merely live life, mind you—we are life!

Such, intellectual beauty returns, borne on birds’ wings as song into the dawn. Imagination now soars past a day, and into the season of spring’s fast growth; the shade is deep and cool, like the ghost of winter passing—gone but still remembered in the cool nights of spring. To be alive is the pinnacle of billions of years of evolution. We are the Cosmos. Our view of life is changed forever more. Where we are after our death is the same place we don’t exist before our birth.

The summer returns now, from spring’s only kiss, causing the rose to bloom and mark its start, and its rising tides fill up the free spaces in our winter spirits, as we roam at ease, drink the sweets in every flower, and feel the balm in every breeze; for, we must thread the lovely web of life about us, drinking up deep droughts of life’s delight. Life through consciousness is all there is.

— 1 —

—— FUMES FROM ANCIENT TIMES ——

A man and a woman, feeling young again, were walking through a fertile valley in the year 1870, traveling toward the misty mountains and beyond. He carried an ancient book that he’d salvaged as the monastical village had burned to the ground, and she carried but a single red rose. Together they softly hummed the melody of the Pachelbel Canon, each of them singing one of the canon’s fugal voices, for they lived in two-part harmony—as equal partners in life and love: They were, at once, free yet attached, playful but serious, stable yet changing, thinkers yet doers, adventurous though not foolish, poetic as well as prosaic, and reasonable but passionate.

“We’re free now!” she said, playfully nudging him.

“Yes, we’re free at last,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

A smile of love passed between them, for even though they were now quite homeless, their life together had become a celebration, and thus they happily walked on through the valley in the dark by the light of the setting moon. False dawn came and went, and soon morning twilight glowed in the east. A familiar nightingale sang in the branches, but just as quickly flew away. Whither and whence it flew, they did not know.

Although the day’s tide had not yet broken, he, nevertheless, opened their precious book—a mysterious book of poetry that had been sealed for over ten centuries in the secret chamber of the library of the old monastery. The tome was written in some foreign language, in verses of thirteen syllables in four-line stanzas. A small bottle was encased inside the front cover; some of its spirit had apparently escaped when the book had been opened, for they had been captivated by the fumes—it was the perfume of ageless rhymes from ancient times.

“It’s written in Persian,” she noted, having handled many foreign books in her role as editor for the abbey.

“It’s the library’s most valuable book,” he said, having illuminated many of the monastery’s great books. “It was the only one I could save.”

They watched, amazed, as the book came to life. The words of the Persian poems began to move around the page, sometimes briefly changing into English—even whole verse-sentences jumped about—then, soon after settling down, the words would again juggle, changing back and forth, darting around through the verses of each stanza to form new lines, but lines which merely stated different aspects of the original concept. It was as if this magical language transmogrification was attempting to preserve the entire original poetic scheme throughout the whole translation process, including literal meaning, rhyme, rhythm, melody, and meter; however, this didn’t seem to be working, and it followed that something had to give, and that ‘something’ was that which is usually lost in the translation.

Finally, out of apparent desperation, the Persian verses jumped right off the page and splashed into the bottle of perfume, wherein they redistilled themselves, leaping back out and on to the page, where they recondensed and recomposed themselves into Victorian style verse—into quatrains in which only the essence of the original concept of meaning was preserved. The lines were now ten syllables, rather than thirteen, but the verses were still in groups of four per stanza, and the correct lines still rhymed, although the rhyme words didn’t always have quite the same meaning as before. Yes, something had been lost, but something new had been added, too—something somehow better, although still within the spirit of the old.

“What are you?” she asked of the book. “Are you alive?”

The book replied, “I am the book of life, a conscious dream, a living philosophy—I live forever through my words. On my pages you will find all of man’s joys, follies, sorrows, and wisdom. Read me and my ideas will come to life! It is by experiencing my words that you shall know them. Yes, the arts may enrich human experience, but they’re certainly no substitutes for the living of it.”

“What is your name?” he asked of the book.

“My name is a question—a mystery that you have to solve, namely, ‘What is the name of the Rose?’”

They looked at the book for a minute, deeply inhaling its perfume. The aroma cast a charm upon them, granting them an indescribable joy that was quite beyond all sense and thought.

( It was Persia-fume )

The stars began to take flight. Night’s cup had seemed empty, bottomless, and cold, but daylight was about to refill it with gold, and as they walked they began to see the light, for the sun was rising. They felt the touch of that dawn as its freshness washed over them—it was a sweetness and a serenity that crept all through them, like the mist that drifts into a valley and fills it fresh with moisture. Day had begun, and therefore some refreshment was anticipated. Reaching up to a rose bush, they bent down a branch and drank the dew from the roses, beating the sun to the treat, then stooped to pick some breakfast strawberries from the trail side.

What is the name of the rose?, they had wondered silently until they each had spoken it aloud to the other, although without answer from either one.

They strolled into a forest of floral colors that were lush and soft: lavender, crimson, and ever-during green. It was spring, and the leaves of the previous autumn had made a multicolored carpet on the trail. As they walked, so many ideas cascaded over their minds—thoughts suddenly loosened by the inspiration from the exertion of their outdoor experience. A light rain was falling and it seemed to excite their senses and jog their thoughts even more.

“Walking is good exercise,” she said. “I am feeling energized.”

“Yes, it seems to give back much more than it takes.”

“Walking is as easy as falling forward makes!”

“Oh, yes; breath deeply. Relax, let your thoughts flow up and out.”

“OK. I am doing it. My thoughts are becoming clear. Alertness tingles in my senses. Oh, I am becoming so wide awake. Now I know that I love this world and everything in it.”

“Breath in all that’s good, then breath out all that’s bad. What do you feel?”

“I feel peace flowing into me—it’s warm and wet and glad.”

“And it’s spreading throughout your body and into your spirit?”

“Oh yes, oh yes, dear yes. I’d say that this is the best life I’ve ever had!”

“I feel it too. It’s like an eager sap rising in the veins, for I’m inspired by the warmth of spring.”

“Because you’ve lived through winter’s chills,” she remarked, in the voice that they usually used to start a rhyme with.

“To see another spring of daffodils!” he continued, adding “Now I remember it all, and I am basking in the sunshine.”

“Like sparks from the smoldering embers, we rekindle our fires from the eternal flame, from that light divine.”

“I wonder,” he said, thinking back to the book’s questionable name, “could it be that a rose is a rose is a rose?”, like Shakespeare said.

“No, for that answer would be much too easy.”

With that they moved on, noting a movement in the bushes, for a man was trapped therein. Upon investigating, they saw that he was snared in a web of promises that weighed him down, for he was a person who had always put things off, one who had always waited for tomorrow. They showed him a page from the ‘Book of Quatrains’ that they now carried as their ‘bible’. The web then collapsed, freeing the man. He looked down at the writing on the ground under his feet: it read ‘NOW!’ in big letters. The revelation hit him like an hourglass, one made of the heaviest welded brass, and a great relief of realization washed over him. They could hear him muttering to himself, “There is only today! Why fret about other days if today be sweet? Stretching my present row to distant calendar columns by all my tenuously made vows is what created the complicated web of promises in the first place—a trap that took away all my ‘nows’. ‘Now’ is the time! I must seize the moment or lose its momentum forevermore!” The man went running off, seemingly weightless.

He and she, the harmonic subjects of our story, wandered ever onward along the path. Love was in the air and filled the space around them. She turned to her partner, reached for his hand, and spoke softly amid the splendor and grandeur of the forest, “It’s a fine season. What a time for us to be outdoors in this wondrous world.”

“Never wait!” he said. “The only real time we have under our feet is NOW! That we have just seen a demonstration of.”

“These lovely moments,” she added, “are giving me the time of my life! I savor each one, and then comes another just as sweet.”

( NOW! )

Holding hands, they walked through the dense woods filled with shadows and mist. An old witch suddenly sprung up behind them, she being the specter of fear and all that was worrisome. “What is your deepest fear?” the witch asked of the man. “Hell, death? Which shall it be? How about Heaven? Is that it? Chose one.”

“I banish you,” said the man, “for death is merely the natural end of all living things. What has no death has therefore no life principle! My turn to live would never have come if it were not for the deaths of those who came before me. As for Heaven and Hell, those are only conditions that we create within ourselves: We turn our souls inside out to create a Heaven from the terrible image within. Hell arrives when we make our own difficulties in life by not using common sense. However, I do have one fear, although just one alone.”

“What is that fear?” asked the witch, her hopes suddenly rising, although her form was already beginning to fade away for the lack of his anxiety.

The man’s partner answered for him, for she was his opposite twin and could think his thoughts, “His one and only fear is that of not living well!” And with that answer the specter of fear vanished like mist unrolled on the morning wind.

(NO FEAR )

They moved on bravely now, continuing to hum the two-part Pachelbel canon, its soulful music sweeping them ever onward, upward, inward, and outward as their voices blended and parted, weaving in and out.

“When does the rose bloom?” she asked, seeking some general botanical clues to the book’s mysterious and questionable name.

“The rose blossoms on the summer solstice, arising from the only kiss ever given to the arriving summer from the vanishing spring, a kiss of which spring dies in giving, by the way.”

Before she could ponder this, they came upon a cemetery and therein stopped cold and abrupt, for there was an empty grave in front of them. They jumped right into it so that they could better read the gravestone’s inscription. It read:

The Last Remembrance

En-graved is “THE END” of your earthly sigh:

Six sides ’round you: five are dirt, one is sky.

Shov’ling, Death talks to you at last and says:

“What were you doing during all of nigh?”

A little girl soon arrived with a withered rose and said, “Those who live must learn of death so that all the better they may live. Run along now, you two, before Death himself arrives with his shovel, for you are standing in a grave site. Which of you is ready for him? Behold my rose as you go and note my eternal youth—for that which never can die must be forever young!”

They hurriedly continued on, a bit shaken, but feeling much more alive. “One must be aware of death in order to live life more fully,” he surmised.

“How then shall we live?” she asked.

“Let us live each day as if it were our last.”

“I can improve on that,” said she.

“How so?”

“Let us also live each day as if our life had just begun!”

“It shall be so.”

“May I look again at that living book of philosophy,” she requested.

He handed it over to her.

“It has words with matching pictures in it!”

“Or perhaps it has pictures in it with matching words,” he countered.

“I am neither,” the living book said, “yet both, for the pictures and the words offer mutual support, reflecting each off of the other, thus building and spiraling in the mind’s eye into a more complete perception of the poems’ ideas. The words appeal, at first, to the logical, intellectual part of the mind. The pictures appeal, at first, to the passionate, artistic, and sensual portion of the mind. The two mind ‘images’ then merge into the wholeness of truth combined with beauty. The intellect can ‘sense’ without the senses, while the senses can ‘intellectualize’ without the intellect.”

“It’s a rather thorough experience,” she commented.

Enlightened, they gave each other a warm hug and continued on.

A nightingale was flying by.

“Look, it’s the bird!” he exclaimed.

“And someone is chasing it.”

The wingéd creature was carrying an hourglass. The bird was evidently one of eternity’s livelier moments, one that had resisted or es-caped capture. A man was running after it, but the bird never landed—-it just flew higher and higher and then, finally, disappeared altogether.

“That was my momentary bird of time,” said the running man. “One of eternity’s moments was within my grasp. I had seized it, however, I had then decided to wait until some later time to view it, but, in the meanwhile, it flew away! That bird stole my time; now I am running after the moment and trying to recapture it. But the bird never lands!”

“Time flies!” she said to the bird chaser. “It’s gone to never-never land! The moment is lost! The bird is flown.”

( TIME FLIES )

They stopped at a rosebush to inhale the fragrance, noting that the rose was certainly the most beautiful and famous of all the flowers.

“Perhaps a rose does smell just as sweet by any other name, just as Shakespeare also said,” she wondered aloud.

“Could be, could be; perhaps the rose’s name doesn’t really matter.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

From a mountain top, they looked back to take one last glimpse at the monastical village off in the distance, where it could hardly be seen. They stared at it fondly for a few moments as he put his arm around her. He spoke to her as they sat near a little stream where the water ran over and tinkled around the rocks. “I spent many long days in that monastery trying to unravel eternity’s deepest mysteries, but, alas, the only thing that I learned was that the secret of the universe was far beyond the sensibility of my existence. It was way beyond mere physics—it was metaphysics! Yes, all was just a mere shadow, dim and faint, of some ultimate and unknown perfection. And, for some time, I chased those flitting shadows—as just as quickly they fled away before me at my slightest touch.”

She smiled and held him close, “The realization that it was a lost cause, my dear, was the knowledge which freed you from that vain philosophical struggle! Now, for you, life will no longer be senseless, for you are free to enjoy the only reality that impinges on your six common senses—the mind being the sixth sense since it makes sense of the other five. No more chasing of faith’s phantasms for you!”

“Yes, I’m free at last,” he cheered, “free to directly touch all that is real. No more will my thoughts attempt to reach beyond the limits of my own mind; no more will I speculate on mere faith alone, no more reaching for faint shadows of dim phantoms of reflections that are so many levels removed from reality. Now, and only now, can I fully sense the one and only reality that penetrates my rationality.”

“Yes; see the clear water!” she exclaimed. “Hear it rush along. Taste its purity. Feel its coolness. Smell the freshness. That’s real! The greatest taste is of reality! Life’s sensation is the main attraction! Ah, we’re back in touch with the world now. Too long have we given up our time to excessive worry, hurry, and scurry. The senses are the only means by which life enters into us. Follow to where your senses lead you. Deny them not. We are the receivers of all that is.”

“Yes, I’m drinking-in the pleasures of creation now! In the stream I see a face I know; it’s that of yesterday’s summer wanderer—it’s my own—free again to shine on the world we own.”

“I am with you, always. Together we’ll enjoy the continual feast presented to the senses and to the soul by life, art, love, being, mind, and nature.”

So it was that they roamed at ease, savoring the balm in every breeze, drinking the sweets from all the flowers, kissing under every tree, and enjoying all of earth’s favors. They walked on, following the water’s flow to where it led them—going with it by not struggling against it—becoming it.

( Real-ize )

A spectral vision appeared before them, a brightness that shone like the sun. “I am Dame Fortune—Lady Luck shining upon you. In turn, I visit everyone who lives in a state opportune. You two have turned your chance meeting into good fortune. You are lucky—others don’t see me when I come, or they ignore me; some refuse to take a chance on me, for they are busy going nowhere; and many are just plain unaware. Of course, then it is awhile before I come to visit them again. Farewell. Good luck.”

They bid her fond farewell and sweet return, and he and she walked on through the strange land, the place where all things were possible, but where all ideas had to be lived before they could be written.

She looked at the red rose that she still carried, and said to him,

“It’s for you. I give this rose to you.”

“I will surround the blossom of your flower with unselfish love,” he answered.

“My blossom unfolds over you, as does your own around me.”

“We’ll refold and enfold each other.”

“I’ll enrapt you, like the words of a poem,” she answered. They again opened the mysterious book of poems, which soon came to life.

“What is the name of the rose?” he asked of the magic book. “Can you not tell us now after all we’ve been through?”

The book replied, “There is much more to come. I shall answer you as time wears on. It all has to do with the life of the rose, though. So you shall see.”

They walked on, eager for the quest, entering into the innermost bowers of their flowered spirits, savoring there all the flora within. They could now understand much that their speechless memory had devoured, all that life’s drudgery had stolen and overpowered.

They hiked up a slight hill whereupon they saw a woman sleeping in the middle of the path. There they stopped and looked, and he turned to she, his rosy partner, saying, “In my mind I see a flame that’s growing dim, it’s the depressed spirit of the sleeping woman.”

“Tell her,” she said, “tell her! Bring her alive.”

He whispered in the woman’s ear, “I am Life. Long ago I found you sleeping in your mother’s womb, and one day I shall have to leave you all too soon when you sleep in earth’s silent tomb. Now I find you newly abloom, but sleeping away the time in between those longer and deeper sleeps. I am whispering a lovely dream in your ear. Wake! Live! Life is a dream come true. The rose abloom withers all too soon.”

She laid the rose on the woman’s chest as they continued on. Looking back they saw that the sleeping woman was now sitting up and clutching the rose.

“Her flame is growing,” he noted, “for she’s now looking on the bright side.”

“The woman probably thinks that she had a vivid dream, a phantasmic reality, so to speak” she said.

“I always listen to my daydreams,” he noted.

“Yes, me too. Daydreams pierce the noise of consciousness to tell us of that which is best for us.”

“Daydreams are full of thoughts promenading on parade before our eyes.”

“Wishes and fantasies cascade freely over the mind, directly pre- senting themselves to us as our very own suggested ways to live.”

“Well, by merely aspiring to a goal, one is already halfway to the realizing of it.”

“Yes, and all that we now have together was once a dream, no less, that was loved into being.”

“Because life grows from the visions that we contemplate, those that we orchestrate.”

“Yes, but one must act quickly on those ready-made plans that daydreams present.”

“True—because by dusk the phantom shapes may fade.”

“Well, if beliefs are halfhearted, then so’s life.”

“Let our dreams, wishes, and life become one and the same!”

“Pay close attention to your innermost desires, wishes, and dreams. Deny not the desires welling up from your soul—for it is your duty to fulfill them.”

“It guarantees happiness, for then you know exactly what you require to be happy.”

“Come along, sweet-dream!” They moved on, musing in a dream world of their own making.

( DREAMS )

The Bird of Time flew by once again. The bird chaser could never catch it, for the bird lived in a perpetual ‘now’—a constant sunrise in which it flew forward into the future. One wing of the bird was black and the other was white. As the bird flew overhead, a checkerboard pattern formed on the ground all around. “What can it mean?” she wondered aloud.

“I think I’m starting to catch on,” said her partner. “The wings of Time are black and white, for one is the day and one is the night—for fluttering ‘round the night flies the day.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know too! We are all players on the checkerboard of days and nights, as on a calendar, until...”

“...until the game ends and we’re put back in the box of nonexistence” he finished.

“But in the meanwhile I thank Destiny for at least letting me play the game!” she shouted happily toward the sky.

“Of course, my dear. We’ll make a game of that which makes as much of us!”

“Let’s play!”

“I’m game.” And so they traveled on, ready to make their moves.

In the midst of a scenic meadow they were surprised to see what looked like a very large pen walking by. “What are you?” she asked of the large pen.

“I’m the artist’s pen,” replied the pen. “I am finally free!”

“From what?” he asked.

“I will no longer illustrate the written word. From now on I will draw whatever I see or whatever I feel. Then writers and poets can describe my sketches with their wondrous words! I say write what is real!”

“I get it,” she said. “The proof of writing is in the living of it, especially philosophical advice. Live it, feel it, and then write it.”

Next they ran into a living poem, a companion of the artist’s pen. “What are you?” he asked of the living poem.

“I deal with ever enduring themes, those which are universal to everyone. As you can see, I am structured, intense, rhythmic, and melodic. I am a unified body of sensation, thoughts, and passions. I translate all that is felt, though often only very roughly.”

“Are you essence or existence?” she asked of the living poem.

“I am both—I am the form and the idea. I am an object that is born from one’s profoundest visions. I am the image in diction of feeling. I am, at once, both the container and the contained.”

“You’re an expression of all that is difficult to express,” he added.

“I am truth fleshed in living words. I express thoughts that would otherwise go unapprehended. I lift the veil that separates mind from soul—and thereby show the proof of the hidden beauty. I am life’s image drawn in eternal truth.”

“You are immortal then” she said.

“Poetry makes immortal what is best in life by freeing images in our spirits that are deeply impressed. I arrest the vanishing notions, clothe them in words, then send them forth, fully dressed.”

“How do I know if I’ve written a poem?” he asked.

“Well,” said the living poem, “use the highest powers of language and wit to translate your soul’s nature into the poem’s words. The reader will translate the words back into spirit; and then, if the reader’s soul responds, you’ve written a poem!”

He and she tried to write a poem about love, for that was the greatest thing, but they couldn’t get it to rhyme. Finally, in desperation, they came up with the following:

The Trouble with “Love”

Only a few words rhyme with the above,

Like the overflown “dove”, the heartless “shove”,

And the ill-fitting “glove”. Alas, “love’s” rhymes

Remain unheard of, or aren’t well thought of.

They walked on, feeling but a little bit more poetic.

( WORDS’ WORTH )

Suddenly, someone came running down the trail, at a withering pace, then tripped and fell.

“Where are you going so fast!” they asked him together, their words in unison.

The quick-walker picked himself up, gazing afar. “I want to see what’s down the road!”

“Down where?” they asked together, like the two voices of the famous musical canon.

“Way, way down there, where the next trail blazes!” They all looked, but the misty trails in the distance all seemed to blend into a hazy maze.

“There’s a new road out there somewhere,” said the harried hiker. “I’ve got to hurry up and get there so I can follow it. I’m in a dither and I must go hither, thither, and whither.”

“And when you get there, what then will you do?” they asked, again in tune.

“Why, I guess I’ll hurry up so I can get down the road even further.”

They looked him in the eye and said what was begging to be asked, “Why don’t you stop and smell the roses? This pace is withering you!”

The inspiring revelation hit the quick-walking man like a thunderbolt from the sky, so he sat down, no longer in a rushing mood. “I am a fool,” he said. “All around me is the beauty that this moment calls her own, and I’ve been looking right past it. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. What sense does it make to live a life that has no time to live? Serenity will never find me unless I slow down to smell, hear, feel, see, and thus savor life’s loving caress.”

They left him, he having said in his long slowed down sentence all that they would have said, and so they walked the morning away, marveling at its beauty.

( S l o w d o w n )

The winds of May were making love to the flowers, moving them this way and that, to and fro, nurturing them. Spring seedlings reached for the light of day, drinking deep droughts of sunny delight. The woods were bursting with the joy of life’s bouquet.

“Perhaps Beauty is the name of the rose,” she wondered aloud.

“Perhaps.” He pointed to some flowers along the trail side and said, “Many fine flowers are beginning to grow from the ground that we share. There’s the tulip, the lily, and the rose—all growing together!”

“What does it mean when they all grow together?”

“Well, the tulip is a very dependable sign of spring; one can always count on it. So, tulips have always stood for truth. The lily is often white, so it represents purity and goodness. As for the rose, it is the symbol of beauty. These three combined together—truth, goodness, beauty—are extremely meaningful when braided—for they make up what we call love, giving it its strength.”

“We’ve grown our flowers with care.”

“Yes, and so the storms can never scatter them.”

“Love is not an easy thing to grow. It takes effort.”

“That’s good, because if love were easy then it wouldn’t be worth as much.”

They raised a cheer, slapped their hands together, and soon moved on, again refreshed by the ancient book’s insight and knowledge.

( Love = Truth + Beauty + Goodness )

She winked at him, putting on the perfume that they’d found encased in the book cover of what they now called the Book of Quatrains. The name of the scent was printed on the bottle and was called ‘Omar’s Enchantment’.

“It’s delightful,” he said. “I must savor it. It smells like a mix of incense, wine, and roses. Oh, my, it’s stimulating my inner spirit.”

“It’s sublime,” she answered.

“It also has hints of sandalwood, jasmine, lotus, and saffron.”

“It’s some sort of an elixir.”

“It says on the bottle that the ‘fume’ therein has escaped from an interment, and that it shall forever take the passerby unaware. Oh, I’m already affected by it! Let’s stop here.”

“Yes. Let’s have lunch,” she said. “There are ripe apples on the trees.”

“And there’s clear water in the stream,” he said thankfully.

“Oftentimes, back in the monastery, when the wine in my glass was as red as the blood of Christ, I longed for the water from the wayside stream instead.”

They paused at a cliff high along the riverside, pushing some leaves around to make a cushion on which they could lay. Here they ate lunch and held each other close. They sun was warm on their skin but not hot, for the land and the water were trading light breezes. They pulled out a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and of course the book of verse.

“What page are we on,” she asked as they embraced sweetly and truly.

He opened the book. “It says, This is Heaven on Earth in every way!”

“That’s our page!” she said, as they became intimately close, resting in each other’s arms afterwards. She fell asleep and had a dream that she was toiling away back in the old working world of the abstract. There she floated aimlessly, for there was nothing of any substance to grasp onto. She was lost, for her roots no longer reached nature’s soil. She was a flower in the dream; she was the rose! She was dying; she was floating aimlessly. She then awoke suddenly with a start.

“What is it?” he said, alarmed.

“I was dreaming of a world I once knew, a world in which abstractions and generalizations were king and thus ruled all else. It was a world in which people no longer cared for their fellow man. I was a rose that was lost somewhere between heaven and earth. Your rose was about to spoil for lack of nourishing soil.”

“You’re here now. You’re safe. It was just a nightmare. It’s over now.”

“Yes, I see that it is. Here, we’ve reconstructed the world that our dreams require.”

“We’ve remolded it much closer to the heart’s desire—a world body—”

“—full of currents, scents, textures, and subtle delights.”

“I, too, dreamt a lot during the winter, when I was wrapped, thought bound, in a cocoon.”

“Me too. My imagination and memory were king!”

“Now the mind can rest while the senses reign, for spring has returned and all of our winter dreams have taking wing!”

They walked on, feeling rather sensational.

“This is so wonderfully simple. We have all that we need—the simple things in life are truly the best; they are of the most value.”

“We have health, friendship, love, happiness, nature, and adventure. Mix them all together and life’s recipe is complete.”

“Yes, out here we’re unspied by Care’s eagle eye!”

“We’ve left Misery far behind.”

“And Stress was left somewhere.”

“It’s back in the lair with the serpent Despair.”

“Here we have peace. We can hear the sounds of our inner selves.”

“Those are the voices of our inner choir. One can hear them well when one is not bombarded by clamor and noise.”

Such, they continued on, singing the Pachelbel Canon.

Off in the distance they could see a wisp of smoke on the horizon. “That’s all that’s left of the monastical village—of my monastery and your nunnery,” he said.

“All things arise, and then all things pass away, for life is transitory, volatile, and impermanent.”

“Flow and change are basic features of life; in fact, they are life.”

“Pain begins when one resists the flow that is inherent in the pattern of change.”

“Yes. Empires come and go; Sultan after Sultan rises to the throne, but, after they’re gone, the summer still blooms with the rose, and still the water in the river flows.”

“I had a dream last night, too,” he said. “I dreamed that I was living on another planet. I was out walking at night with a child, examining the night sky and explaining the names of the stars. Suddenly the Earth blew up, possibly obliterated by some great calamity; it thoroughly exploded in blazes solar. The child then said to me, ‘Look! Oh, look! Look at the pretty shooting star!’”

“Such is the relative importance of the Earth in the scheme of things.”

“How insightful we are becoming since reading this Book of Quatrains!”

They flowed thoughtfully onward along the trail, coming out into yet another arid region, ever hoping to find another village someday that they might call home. They soon came upon a Sphinx that was weathered and worn; it was crouching next to an oasis.

“My name is Aquavita,” said the Sphinx. I am all that remains of a once great empire. Look around and see that nothing is left. Read what is engraved on my nameplate.”

It said:

Aquavita

Time on its stream brings all sweet things to us;

Time is the drink that quenches human thirst.

Water of life—we drink time, it drinks us!

Time on its stream bears all sweet things from us.

“Look at the imprints in the rocks,” she said.

“These are fossils,” he said, having studied the natural sciences by secretly reading the forbidden library books while illustrating them; “they’re hundreds of millions of years old.”

“That’s sounds like a long time.”

“Long enough for death to have chosen the life path of many a species.”

“And here we stand” she said proudly, “on the shoulders of all who have come before: we are the smile of eternity, wrought from many eons of hardship! We’re so lucky!”

“We’re alive; it’s all ours! Nature has made it so! It’s quite a treat!”

“I won’t waste it—for how I could never live by any other style but to smile!”

They walked on, happy and reveling in the present moment atop the miraculous pile of those who came before, thankful for all their wiles.

“We’re here! It is now! There is no time like the present!”

“And there’s no present like the time,” said the magic book, joining their conversation. “Revise your calendars! Invest in today, for the future contains a severe interest penalty if the certainty of the moment is held mortgage for the Deed of Futurity. The calendar contains only today. The days are no longer numbered! Strike off dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow. Now is the time of your present comprehension. Now is when you have reality’s attention. All else is not here. The past exists only in your memory, the future only in your imagination. All creation takes place in the present.”

The book then went silent and they knew it had finished. “What then is tomorrow?” she asked her partner.

“Look to the eastern horizon; see, it’s but a dim glow” he said; “tomorrow is just a faint gleam from afar. But, what is yesterday?”

She looked at the smoke and haze in the west and said, “See, yesterday is but a cold ash.”

They found a wide log and sat on it to rest awhile. Again they began to hum Pachelbel’s Canon, adding words to it from a poem that they both knew, thereby creating a song! It went something like, Where and when will we touch again…

“Why do people love songs so much?” she wondered.

“Because songs can touch one’s spirit deeply and thoroughly.”

“But how?”

“There are wordless rhythms in what we call the soul. Poetry, in a rather approximate way, attempts to translate the soul’s rhythms into words. Melody, on the other hand, being already wordless, plays directly on the heart’s strings. A song, being a poem set to music, causes heart and soul to blend into one grand and glorious experience.”

“Yes, and it all seems to flow so smoothly.”

“Music, like life, consists of what I would call a ‘smoothly rolling now’.”

“I feel that I know your meaning, but, please explain further.”

“Well, the total effect of music comes from the smooth transition through past, present, and future—thanks to a correspondence in memory, sensation, and imagination.”

“Go on.”

“Memory recalls the past few musical tones that have come just before the ‘now’. Sensation lives ever in the ‘now’ and therefore savors the present tones. Imagination looks to the future, anticipating the coming sounds.”

“Ah, I get it. The delight is such that none of the three could produce alone!”

“Yes, and similarly, each one of life’s moments contains eternal reward, for both the past and the future are smoothly rolled up into it.”

“We live in the paradisal ‘now’, wherein each moment is eternally vast.”

Moving on, they came to a sign giving directions to nowhere:

NEVER LAND

Take the road of “Eventually” toward “Someday”,

Turn back at the fork of “Maybe” and “Perhaps”,

Pass the winding path where “It could have been”—

Then you’ve arrived in the land of “Never”!

Next to the sign they saw a disembodied frown staring at them. “What are you?” she asked of the frown. “Substance or vision?”

“I am Regret. Once I was a being full of life. The child in me was warm, playful, and bold—then vanished, ere I knew, leaving me cold. Only the regret remains.”

“What happened?”

“Well, in my youth, when I heard the sounds of life so clearly, my hopes were alive and my dreams readily became real, and then, imperceptibly, I seemed to get sidetracked, having been swept up into the mainstream of the mindless masses. Soon I gave up the good things in life and began working on all sorts of useless endeavors and got involved in disputes, not even having time to learn or read books anymore. Before I was even aware of it, the echoes of the sounds of my earlier life that I’d once heard as life’s call clear and plain had disappeared completely, and, ultimately, as in the modified story of the Cheshire Cat, all that was left was the frown of regret.”

They looked at each other in all seriousness.

She said, “Let us never wait, for death disposes of joys put off too late!”

“Life’s familiarity often prevents us from marveling at it and enjoying it. To live, one must realize life’s meaning, and then some.”

( RE GET / REGRET )

They walked on, more aware now, soon encountering a young man walking toward them. “He looks just like you,” she remarked, “though he’s much younger.”

“He sure does! Ho, it is me! It is my younger self.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because, once, when I was his age, I met my older self, although I didn’t believe anything that he told me at the time. I was stubborn, I just wouldn’t listen, even though he knew my name, my history, and my future.”

“Look, here comes your younger self walking up to us right now.”

As they passed on the trail, the older self said to his younger self, “Hello, my younger-self-same! Do you know my name?”

Said the younger self, “I know you not!”

“I told you,” he said to her, “he doesn’t know me.”

“Well,” she said, “at least you’re older and wiser now.”

Soon they encountered a very old man walking toward them. “He looks just like you,” she remarked, “although he’s much older than you.”

“It is me, of course. He is my older self!”

“How do you know this?”

“I just have a feeling. Remember, I am wiser now.”

As they passed on the trail, the older self said to the younger self, “Hello, my younger-self-same! Do you know my name?”

Said the younger self, “I know you, yes, I know you very well; you’re my older selfsame!”

The old man passed them and walked on, rejoicing. “He knows me!” They could hear him saying this over and over to himself.

( SELF-HELP )

Just then the now famous Bird of Time again flew overhead. They saw again the same man who had been chasing it before, but now he was just sitting inactively by the wayside.

“I’ve been thinking,” said the former bird chaser, “should I live today? Or should I wait until tomorrow’s well is full. Perhaps I’ll sit here and ponder it awhile, although, perhaps, I will live today.”

She leaned over and whispered to him, “Even today is too late, even to sit and think, for the wise just lived yesterday to the brink!”

Leaving the desert, they stopped at a stream to catch some fish, and, after eating them, relaxed and laid down on the riverbank. He kissed her on the cheek and said, “I have such peace with you.”

“I am safe and warm with you, and completely at home,” she added.

“I am in Heaven,” he said.

“I wonder what the mythical Heaven is really like?”

“Well, as a metaphysical question, I can’t really answer it, but, I can describe what some legends say it is and then I can talk about some things that we do know. From the myths I’ve heard, Heaven is a place where you can have anything that you want, where your every wish and dream comes true, where you’re always surrounded by love, and where you can live forever in a state of perpetual ecstasy. I realize that I’m not describing it very well—I’ve almost made it sound rather decadent, have I not?”

“It’s a fair description, and it is perhaps decadent,” she said; “it may or not be so; there’s no way we can know; however, while we’re here on Earth, if we live in life’s glory, we can have the same! No need to wait for that dim promise of beyond, for that distant drum cannot even be heard. Well, enough of that for now, but let’s talk it through later tonight. How about another subject, meanwhile.”

“Here’s a romantic puzzle for you,” said he, “Tell me, how much is one plus one?”

“Well,” she surmised, “I know it could not be two—because if the question was that easy you wouldn’t be asking it of me!”

“True. What do we two add up to?” he hinted.

“Now I know,” she said. “Before we met, we were each as one, isolated each in our vocation and studies, but now we’re worth much more together than we could ever be alone—we add up to even more than two because we are each an input to the other, sharing our minds, hearts, souls, and senses; that synergy accounts for the extra quantity of living! And it doesn’t stop there, since, as we each improve, we can give that much more in return to the other and to the world! Then we’ll add up to even more!”

“It is proved, my dear. QED. Two is greater than one plus one!”

( 1 + 1 > 2 )

“Well, it never would have happened had I continued on the way I was going. I never had time for life’s beauty; I couldn’t even read a verse, or so I thought. Also, I was too busy for friends. You might say that my life was lost in the living. Now I’ve simplified it—I’ve started anew—I’ve re-versed it!”

“And now, my partner,” said he, “what more could we ask for? We have it all!”

She looked around and nodded, “Yes, we have sunshine, breezes, love, adventure, water, the good earth, friendship, food—all of the elements are there. Our worldly life is a mixture of earth, fire, water, and air!”

“Earth is a garden, an oasis in space, a world of boundless beauty and grace.”

“One might search the heavens in vain for the equal of the Earth, but never find it anywhere or anyplace.”

“You’ve discovered me at a good time,” he said. “In my early years, I was all caught up with technical things. I was then quite the stern classicist, droning onward toward some sort of mechanical perfection. Then I swung too far in the other direction and became an opiate romanticist, so to speak, drowning in my own amazement and stupefaction.”

“Didn’t we all,” she sighed.

“Then I eventually learned that the path was not this way or that, but in a joined direction, one that combines both romanticism and classicism.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, “all things are interrelated and melt into one another; nothing can really be isolated and completely separated from anything else.”

“True, the Yin is in the Yang and the Yang is in the Yin, ever turning and blending in its cyclical rotation. That’s rounded life for you!”

“Most importantly, we are here now,” she said triumphantly.

“Sometimes I visualize myself as old or sick, looking back at better times. I then tell myself that I’d give just about anything to have the good times back. Then I laugh and smile because I know that I’m pretending, for I am indeed young and fine!”

“And,” he added with a rhyme, “you’ll never again live this life of thine!”

They meandered on, fancying that they were not alive, but then smiling because they were. The hours were fresh and mild, like cleansing showers, and so the partners could retrieve all of the wingéd hours that time had devoured. As they walked, the peace of the forest was shattered by the sound of some people bickering and quarreling in an all too common way. He and she approached the noise; the people just stared at them.

“Save your breath,” said one of the fighters, “don’t tell us what to do!”

“Don’t meddle,” said another. We’re having a fight.”

“That’s funny,” she said. What you just said to me is the same as what I was going to say to you. Save your own breath. Don’t expend it on fighting. Fighting will sap your energy and will forever undo love’s promise. Your breath is dear and your breath is precious. Enjoy all that life can give ere comes death. Yelling drives people away; soft and gentle voices, whispering even, brings them closer. Tell them more, partner.”

He continued, “There are large worlds of life to live in. But, here you are, trapped in a little tiny cell of arguments, resentments, and animosity, wasting all your breath therein. Stand back and realize life’s total space—and note that quarreling occupies but a small place in that which can be accomplished by the human race.”

She added, “Well, if you’re not busy living, then I guess you’re busy dying. All the world’s riches cannot extend the power which drains the cup and withers the flower. What would be the price of your wasted breath, purchased from the hand of death at the final hour? Loving is what this life is all about. To have it is to live all out. Then why, oh why, do you not seek it out?”

Somehow, fighting didn’t seem appropriate anymore, so the quarrelers stopped doing it.

The love-intimates continued on down the trail, now and then reading verses from the mysterious book of lively poems. They soon ran into another problem, however, a very unhappy looking person.

“How are you?” they asked together, becoming inseparable now even in voice.

“My life is hell!” answered the complainer. “Well, we don’t want to hear about it,” they began together, then taking turns speaking to him.

“Don’t dwell on your problems, but instead, concentrate on the solutions.”

“Spend time on actions, not on complaints or on mere intentions.”

“Go out and make your life well.”

“Life is no more than what you make of it!”

“Then, after you’ve built a Heaven out of Hell—come back and tell!”

They ambled along the path, now pretty much ready for just about anything. They soon ran into yet another hapless person, one who seemed to be searching for something. Curiously, he was riding on an ox and chasing butterflies.

“Where are life and love?” said the ox-rider. “I’ve been looking all over the place for them.”

“Well, what are you looking for in particular?” she asked the person.

“I’m looking for life and trying to capture the butterfly of love.”

“I’ll take this one,” she said to her partner. “There’s nowhere else to look for life’s impact except in what you are doing now and where you’re at. You must experience the wonder and mystery of life in every single act. Chasing too intensely after life, romance, or butterflies is a lot like riding around on an ox looking for an ox. Life and romance are all around you. They’re right here! Relax, be still—then love’s butterfly will alight on you—for that’s the touch that romance is made of. As for life, it grows in the various cracks of the day from the seeds that you plant along the rocky way. Like an artisan, you can mix your work and play, all the while nurturing yourself and others with love; then you can continually harvest life’s bouquet. Therefore, make some investments.”

They moved on, feeling more lively, and so it was that they tasted a life that was sweet without the sour, as they whiled away the hours, for their souls had met through love’s great power. They stopped to look at some roses, and were rather surprised when one of the roses spoke to them, saying, “I am the rose and I am here.”

“You’ve just arrived?” they asked the rose.

“Yes. It is now and I am here,” said the rose.

“Where did you come from?”

“Once I was buried in the soil. It was my darkest hour, for the world around me was cold and lifeless. I was only a seed then. Then, some spirit, which I can’t begin to describe, started me to bud, and, as a wild flower, I burst from the soil, becoming radiant, alive, and full of power as you now see me! I prospered—even the weeds could not touch me!”

“What shall we call you?” she asked, hoping for a clue to the book’s questionable name. “What’s your name?”

“It’s not that easy,” said the rose, “you must learn my name through living. I cannot just simply reveal it to you!”

Satisfied, they walked on, living in the here and now, for there was nowhere and no-when else.

“What could be name of the rose?” he wondered.

“’What’ could be the name of the rose.”

“‘What’ is the name of the rose?”

“Maybe, but that would be quite a funny name!”

“Unless it was sort of a trick question.”

They ran into a person carrying a large clock. “There are not enough hours in the day,” the clock-man complained to them.

“I’ll handle this one,” he said. “What are you spending the time of your life on?”

“The same old drudgery. Usually nothing that’s new. There are too many customary obligations.”

“And what do you do during the rest of your time?”

“Well, nothing really that I ought to do, but certainly there are lots of rites and rituals that I must attend to.”

“So you feel that you have to do them?”

“I guess so. There are many routines in my life.”

“Or ruts. When will you do what you really want to do?

“Oh, someday, I guess—there will be many days in the future.”

“So, let me get this straight: you put off your life, acting as if you have forever, then you complain that your hours are too few!”

They left him behind, one of those hopeless cases who knew very well what the situation was, yet did nothing to change it.

“It’s so frustrating sometimes,” she added. “You can lead ‘em to life, but you can’t make ‘em live.”

The two walked down to the waterside. Warm breezes were blowing from the west. The sun was low and so there was a wealth of diamonds sparkling on the water—a glitter path. They filled their cups and raised a toast to the zephyr: “To nature! May it ever run through us and we through it! Life’s love runs deep on a summer afternoon. May we ever float on its currents.”

For dinner they ate the nuts and berries that they’d collected, along with some rhubarb and guavas. They also had a few clams from the river. Night was falling. Soon the planets came out, just ahead of the stars, as they always did. “There’s Mars and Venus!” she exclaimed, pointing. “Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and Venus is the second.”

“What a pair they are, he answered, “for Mars represents war and Venus represents love.”

“And here we are on the Earth, the third planet, situated right between those two opposites of love and war.”

“Here on Earth we live in a perfect state of balance, although it is a rather delicate thing. We’re a blend of war and peace, passion and reason, sobriety and drunkenness, adventurousness and foolishness, violence and forgiveness. That is our life! Oh, it is such a tenuous state of awareness.”

“We must walk the tightrope, balancing there between the foolish and the reckless. It’s the point between up and down, the point between night and day, like that of half light dusk or dawn.”

“Indeed, the greatest blunder in this life is to continually fear that you might make one.”

“I love it! Your passion is so reasonable in this state of awareness.”

“And your reasoning is so passionate!”

“That reminds me of a poetic joke I heard, from the poet Byron, though I’ve extended it slightly” she said, “but, as you know, there is some truth behind all jokes. This is sort of how it goes:”

Let us have wine, lovers, song, and laughter;

Water, chastity, prayer the day after.

Such, we’ll alternate the rest of our days—

On the average, we’ll make hereafter!

“It’s funny, but true—a real golden mean.”

“By our nature we’re all a mixture of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’.”

“Yes, there is a beast within us, but it helps us to survive. It is the reason that we dance and dream, the reason that we feel and live with zest. It makes us push and try and climb. Without this beast within us, life would be so boring.”

“We’d be perfect angels.”

“But—we wouldn’t be us.”

“So—all’s right with the world—just the way it is.”

They laid back and looked up at the night sky again. “Look there,” he pointed, “the moon is in a conjunction with Venus.”

“I can hear them speaking. Listen.”

The moon, representing cold chaste reason, said to Venus, with logic cool “Quench thy inner fire, fool, lest it destroy us and all the heavens with it.”

Venus, the goddess of love and passion, answered, “I only know WHAT I feel, not WHY! So—I must be the one to rule!”

“Don’t confuse me with feelings,” said the moon.

“And don’t you confuse me with facts,” said Venus.

“I guess we can’t always understand each other,” the moon finally admitted after a long pause, having reasoned it out. You have feelings that I could never understand. I have reasons that you could never feel. Let us try our best to temper each other, and then let’s take it from there.”

“Otherwise, some of your decisions would be heartless,” said Venus.

“And sometimes your actions will be illogical,” answered the moon.

“But I’ll still do WHAT I feel is right,” said Venus, “and sometimes you can tell me WHY, although it may not always matter.”

“OK,” said the moon, “we’ll try to work together. Peace to you. Perhaps I am beginning to understand this thing called feeling. Perhaps, emotions play a big role in making decisions.”

All now became so very quiet. Starlight stabbed the utter darkness of night, causing new ideas to wink in their joined mind as sparkling thoughts from the eternal flame, as all the while the Cosmos played rhythm to their merged and singing souls. The night winds began to blow, so the lovers nestled deeper into the leaves. “Hold me, it’s getting cool,” she said when they were under their cloaks, using them for blankets. He held her snug, his front against her back, until they were warm. Then she turned and kissed him. “As long as love’s kisses can live,” she said, “neither age nor wear on our life will show.”

He sighed, growing younger, for their love was very beautiful. “We are wealthier than the richest Sultans,” she said. “I pity the poor Sultan. Even with his power and status he’s not as free to live as we are.”

“Yes, we are poor but rich, free yet home, famous but unknown.”

“And the poor Sultan is stuck on his throne.”

“And I am immersed in the boundless stream of your love, whereas the Sultan has only his paid-for-love harem.”

“I’m realizing you now with my whole body, mind, heart, and soul.”

“They work well together, don’t they?”

“Of course, they were built together and so they weren’t meant to operate separately.”

“Love is reason enough for all that we do.”

“Through love, all things are possible.”

“Let us talk of love. Let us say what it is and glory in it,” she re- quested.

“The truth of all truths is love,” he offered. “What is the ultimate source of love?”

“Perhaps its source springs from Heaven above?”

“I don’t know, but its rhythm resonates within us, in depths un- heard of.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere deep, beneath all our words and thoughts, some- where in our unsounded fathomless deeps.”

“What is love?”

“Love is giving—with no motive toward getting anything back in return. There’s not even a hint of ‘taking’ involved in giving love, because, for sure, ‘taking’ is the opposite of giving.”

“Of course; I will graciously receive whatever is given to me, but I will never take it. I will never ask for it. I will never demand. I will never enclose you in a cage. In fact, I will enhance you so you can give even better love to all those of the world.”

“Let us give kindness to everyone in turn.”

“Yes, because if you keep your love, you will have nothing.”

“And if you give your love, you will have everything!”

“Love is more than just words of sentiment—love is action.”

“One small lovely action weighs much more on the scale than an infinite number of sentiments!”

“Sharing and caring are the reasons for giving.”

“Love grows for friends and lovers when they let it flow freely, beyond any confines. One wants their partner to be fulfilled in every way, even if those pursuits take that partner away for awhile.”

“Unconditional love can never bind—it bonds.”

“I give love to everyone in whatever way is appropriate.”

“There is a lot of love which can be given. Love never gets used up! It is boundless.”

“I, too, have found that the capacity for love is infinite. Arithmetic theory does not apply to love, for when love is divided amongst the many, it is not diminished in any way. Sure, the time spent is diminished, but not the love—I can still fully love! In fact, each love seems to grow to exceed the entire lot. That’s the paradox.”

“There’s no good reason to ever withhold love. Why consign someone to cold oblivion by not sharing your love with them? Of course, some must do otherwise out of tradition and moral method, or from bonding and commitment, and that is their choice, but I say ‘why not share’ what is left.”

“Why indeed. Give all the love you can give, and then some.”

“Yes, since the sum of love’s parts exceeds the whole, one can keep on giving and giving love, never the less.”

“And, with a such many faceted life, one improves, and then one can give more love thereafter as a more complete person.”

“Yes, life is more like a vast mosaic done than a focused beam of the sun. There are many parts of the collage.”

“That’s because few lengthy pleasures are lent to us. We must therefore build a stained-glass window of small ones.”

“Yes, every piece of the puzzle is just as important as every other, for together they support each other and make up the entire picture, a masterpiece. It takes a lot of pieces to fit around all the sides of a person. No one interest can match one on every side.”

“A complete life sparkles like a diamond. Each facet of the diamond contributes its view of the world and adds to the lustrous effect.”

“Friends and interests are glints and gleams of reality’s sparkle.”

“Each face of the diamond enriches the view of the other faces.”

“All of the facets reflect off each other, combining and then building into the overall brilliance of life.”

“Which makes you a more rounded person.”

“Which in turn adds to the luster of your individual pursuits.”

“Which therefore makes the diamond even brighter still, and so forth, and so on—it is self perpetuating, and of infinite growth.”

“Love is the key to everything.”

“Reason and passion merge into love when truth, goodness, and beauty make their rendezvous.”

“Love is made up of truth, goodness, and beauty—all three are clearly seen within.”

“They’re intertwined as the eternal triad, woven into the perfect romantic braid as its weft, warp, and wave.”

“And yet they’re each different aspects of the same ALL.”

“For example?”

“When a deep truth is intensely known and stripped of all its clothes, then what is left is beauty.”

“Beauty is the reality of truth’s meaning. Is this the name of the rose?”

“I don’t know, but beauty blooms, as it were, like a rose from the soil of truth.”

“To know beauty, one must also know sorrow, for if you’re alive enough to experience beauty, then you’re also vulnerable enough to be exposed to its opposite twin of melancholy.”

“If we lived as figures in a painting, then we would never have to face death or sadness.”

“However, that may not be so great as it seems, for what is deathless is also lifeless, as we have seen.”

“True. Once I had a beautiful love with a person. It was painful when it ended. My reason’s light began to depart. Darkness was rising in me, beginning to snuff out my spark.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I gave the feelings their due. I duly visited the shrine of sorrow. There I found, inseparable from truth, the beauty that had given rise to my sadness. Upon realizing that, rhythms soon rose from the depths of sorrow. I began to sing and celebrate the very song whose sweetness had broken my heart.”

“So, the haze couldn’t stop the brightness that it veiled?”

“No, it couldn’t, even though a dark fog had sunk and swelled all through me.”

“Your love, beauty, and joy flowed like rays of sunshine?”

“Yes, and burned the mist until warmth prevailed.”

“You’re a positive thinker.”

( Love = Love / Infinity )

Still awake, they looked up into the night sky. He began to formulate a poetic theory of life. “Somewhere out there, deep in the vast darkroom of the endless void, is the eternal light from which we flashed into being—exhibiting all of our color and grace. Like a prismatic lens, we strain the white lights of the stars into the rainbows of our lives, as the poet Shelley has alluded to.”

“And here we shine! We’ve come a long way from the stars, from stardust.”

“And all those stars burning out there, they are the fires of home!”

“Some legends say that the stars are goblets in the sky, placed there so we can taste Heaven’s drink when we die.”

“We have many myths and legends, but, while we talk and hope and dream, the stars shine on, heedless of where we lie—after we die.”

He looked up at the stars and began to wonder aloud. “The one metaphysical question that people have always asked is, Where did it all come from? But, there are no simple answers.”

“First, let us think of what we know, or even what we think that we know: Either matter is eternal and it has always existed in some form or potential, or it somehow sprang into being out of nowhere. Both propositions are equally difficult to answer. All that we really can be expected to know is that we are here. All else is merely conjecture and is therefore before and/or beyond thought—being merely aforethought and afterthought.”

“But, people keep thinking about it and sometimes they fool themselves into thinking that they have found the answer to the ultimate question,” she noted.

“How do they do that?”

“Well, they beg the question by proposing a mysterious solution which, though seemingly satisfying at first, only introduces a deeper question that is larger than, although similar to, the original question.”

“For example?”

“Well, because the Earth is so complex and because its life processes are not all readily understandable, some people believe that Earth and life must have a Designer.”

“The Earth couldn’t just simply be here without any such Designer, meaning a Being?”

“Well, it could be, actually. What I mean is that it could have been formed by natural laws from the eternal matter that you mentioned before, but people still feel, or perhaps strongly wish, that the Earth should have an origin from a Designer. After all, effects do seem to usually have causes, do they not, though a Being raises similar questions?”

“Well, either matter could have formed itself or it could have always have been around!”

“True enough, but people feel that this could never have happened, for they reason that all things must have a divine source. God is their solution, the beginning.”

“You mean a creative deity? A super being?”

“Yes, and the other nice thing about their solution is that it gives them something to look forward to—a divine destiny in Heaven, a reward—something that is quite desirable, of course.”

“That solution is a gigantic step, but an understandable one.”

“Yes, but people still have a tendency to assign divinity for what they do not understand. Thousands of years ago, the gods were said to have resided on the highest mountain tops of Olympus.”

“Until people climbed those mountains and saw no gods there.”

“Yes, and so then the gods were relegated to more distant and Heavenly realms, such as the sun and the moon, but were not found there either. But, we’re getting off the subject.”

“Well, I may believe in laws by which the universe naturally operates due to the interrelations of magnetic, electric, and atomic forces and such, but that’s not the God to which you’re referring to, of course.”

“Right, I’m referring to a conscious super being called God, the supposed creator of Heaven and Earth. You’re referring to the life principle that is part and parcel of all that exists, the very force of existence itself—a force that’s eternal, although we ourselves may not be.”

“So, God created matter and energy and all that is?”

“So they say.”

“But where did God come from?”

“Well, either he always existed or he was created from nothing.”

“Or both, since it is said that he made himself.”

“But, of course, now we’re right back to the original dilemma.”

“Ah, they have begged the question!”

“Yes, they’ve answered the question by proposing a more difficult question.”

“True; to summarize: They weren’t willing to accept that all the matter and energy of the universe could have formed itself or always have been, so they said that God created it; but then they easily accepted the fact that God, who is way more complex than the universe, formed himself or always had been!”

“Right, the solution to the larger problem is exactly the solution that they refused to accept to the smaller problem in the first place. A needless extra step was introduced, an extra complexity.”

“However, after all this we still don’t know where the universe came from.”

“True, all we really know for sure is that we’re here and that there are laws and forces and life principles which have and may continue to allow the universe to operate in the consistent and stable fashion that we can know and see.”

“Well, we’ll just have to listen to our own intuition.”

“It’s all we have to go on.”

“Is the super being, if there is one, good, bad, or indifferent?”

“It is assumed that he is good, but there’s no reason he couldn’t be bad. But, again, it’s merely conjecture to ascribe human emotions to a being who may well be above all that. Some religions say that’s he’s both bountiful and vengeful, that his love is conditional; that is, either we obey his laws or he’ll punish and torture us in Hell. And that he destroys life, as in the great flood”

“And that he allows the Devil to exist to tempt us?”

“Yes, maybe, as they say or invent, so we can earn our place in Heaven.”

“You mean, or rather, some religions say that God shaped our human nature, and then introduced temptations to our nature, and then intends to punish us merely for being human?”

“So they say, although you’ve pointed out the absurdity of it.”

“Anyway, the gods of all religions don’t have the same character.”

“How do religions know any of this stuff anyway?”

“Well, the founders of many of the various religions claim to have had divine inspirations, either by direct contact or through visions and visitations with God himself. Unfortunately, God told them each something different; thus the existence of the Mormons, Lutherans, Moslems, Jews, Catholics, etc. There must be hundreds of religions, all claiming by divine inspiration that they are the one and only true path to Heaven, and that all the others are false, or so they heard from the voices in their heads.”

“Well, since they all contradict each other, how do we know which is the right one, if any?”

“We don’t; it’s hard to sort it all out. There’s Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and some other prophets—telling us of places like Hell, Heaven, purgatory, nirvana, etc. These are all major differences in beliefs!”

“And some eastern religions don’t even mention God. They’re based more on the idea of a life principle being ingrained in all things, below, not above.”

“And some western religions say that God must be adored and glorified and bowed down to. But again, this may just be one of man’s own emotional inventions from what he’s used to.”

“Well, if I were a god and ruled above, you could take away all of my powers but love!”

“That’s very ingenious and generous of you—but, of course, love means generosity. We have no use for an unloving God”

“And then there are the Polynesians, the Indonesians, and the Melanesians. They have elaborate superstitions and beliefs in good and evil spirits and how to get a higher place in Heaven.”

“Which isn’t really too different from most religions today, actually.”

“Yes, but doesn’t the end sometimes justify the means, for most religions advocate goodness. Jesus preached that we should give love and kindness to our fellow man, just like the Buddha taught. And the Virgin Mary was a good person, though some religions don’t believe in her.”

“Yes, those are good policies for anyone to follow, anytime, regardless of religion or belief. I live them. You live them. Jesus was good, but his father wasn’t.”

“Religion is good for certain borderline people; it can nudge them toward the way to being good. Unfortunately, it can also blind them, brainwash them, and bias them.”

“How so?”

“Well, when one believes in something very deeply, one tends to become intolerant of those with other beliefs, even good ones, because allowance of other beliefs seems to lessen the credibility of one’s own belief.”

“Then so it is that Moslem children learn at a young age to dislike the Jewish people and their culture.”

“Yes, that’s part of it. It’s the differences between cultures that starts wars, and there have been plenty of religious differences that have caused wars.”

“Such as the Protestants vs. the Catholics in Ireland, the Sikhs vs. the Hindus in India, the Jewish persecution, the Wars of the Crusades, the Shiites vs. the Sunnis in Persia.”

“So, like anything else, religions are neither good nor bad but humans only make them so.”

“One is free to believe as one chooses, but there will always be some know-it-all evangelist trying to convince us otherwise.”

“Maybe we should put all the evangelists, preachers, and solicitors in one room and let them all talk to each other.”

“At first, each would be convinced beyond a doubt that they were right.”

“Yes, they would, but soon they’d all see that the others were convinced, also, then perhaps they might realize that that their beliefs were arbitrary—being dependent mostly on their parent’s religion or region of birth, and realize that they, if born elsewhere or under other circumstances, might espouse different beliefs.”

“Well, my dear, you’ve come a long way for a nun.”

“And you, for a monk.”

“So, perhaps Heaven’s promise is bereft, but I’m not distressed. I can’t know all the secrets, so I’ve dismissed the dream of immortality, although I certainly wouldn’t mind having it. For now, I live life with gratitude and accept whatever is left.”

“Me too. I’ve said my good-byes to faith’s dream of forever. I am, of course, much too philosophical to be bitter. Like you, I am resigned to it. I, too, accept, with hunger and joy and pleasure, whatever is left of the dream.”

“People like to wish and dream and believe that they are more than they are, that they deserve a divine destiny, that they are special among all creation. It’s only natural to desire something good, although greedy, perhaps.”

“Of course, but the ultimate humility would be to know that there may be no divine destiny, that we are all just fancy electrochemical organisms, and very much a part of the natural organic world.”

“All I know is that we’re an expression of some life principle or life-force that comes from some mysterious source. This I can know because we are living. Whether the force is conscious or not, or what it’s like, I do not know. All I can do now is flow with that force.”

“Me, too, for when I go against the flow, there is only pain and suffering. Instincts, intuition, and natural urges must exist for a reason. So, I listen to them.”

“Rather than struggling against the way things are, one must become the way things are, giving oneself to the moving whole and flowing with it.”

( Myth-takes )

“Well, here we are—living a loving relationship.”

“Back in the monastery I though a lot about our developing relationship. Once, I stayed up all night thinking it out, but getting nowhere. Then it suddenly came to me, and I found serenity and delight, for I had discovered that only the heart can know what is right.”

“Men and women cannot exist in isolation. The nature of one makes necessary the other. One cannot have the mountain without the valley. Then, when men and women join in love, there is wholeness again. So, the laws of celibacy are artificial and go against nature.”

“Follow your natural urges. It’s not natural to suppress a natural urge.”

“Yes, it takes a strong desire to overcome desire. It’s paradoxical and self defeating.”

“Come to me!” First they touched then embraced and held each other. They began to merge, snuggling into the other’s being, blending in ways that seemed to completely transcend the physical plane, as if they could both occupy the same space. Mind, heart, soul, and body were all of a oneness. They drifted in the blackness, floating through the universe, suspended by their love. There was no past, no future; there was only NOW.

“Where does the rose bloom?” she asked.

“In loving hearts,” he answered. “Which roses last the longest?” she asked.

“Roses last when they grow steadily and slowly, for, if their growth is too quick, then they will wither very fast.”

She opened her cloak to take him in to it and they embraced lovingly, longingly, and thoroughly. They felt the unlimited power of the universe. She felt that she held the entire cosmos within her. They were weightless, warm, and together, drifting up through the forest. There were no reference points, no walls, no rough edges. They became one as they floated heavenward, drifting through the clouds.

“You have enclosed my universe,” he said, “yet it is still boundless.”

She replied, “You have filled the universe that I enclose.”

“I will fill that emptiness with my fullness,” he added.

She said, “I will empty your fullness with my emptiness.”

“What ‘is not’ is equally as great as what ‘is’. We are equal partners in life and love. The monk and the nun cannot live by bread alone.”

“Yes,” she added, “celibacy is a crime against nature. One might as well stop eating, breathing, or any other such natural function.”

And so it went…they spoke of the philosophies gleaned from the learnéd books of life…and from the Book of Quatrains…

“When opposites are balanced, the edges of all things dissolve; time and space become as one; all dimensions are transcended.”

“Yes, everything melts into everything, yet remains as itself.”

“All is of a piece, yet, all is interconnected and related.”

“Yes, all things are interrelated; opposites are merely different aspects of the same phenomenon—like a tear and a smile, light and dark, man and woman.”

“As equal partners, men and women may achieve a perfect balance.”

Soon he was saying what she thought and vice versa, and now they were speaking as one, like voices merged in the Pachelbel Canon.

“The tide of love supports us and carries us along with it.”

“We are carried together down the mountain stream to rejoin the sea, for therein lies completeness. Life is a diamond, a rainbow of many colors.

“Human beings need each other, especially in nunneries and monasteries.

“Body and spirit cannot be separated, for they are integral parts of the human—they must operate in tandem to make the being human. They are inseparable. It is as the flower drawing life’s spirit from the soil.”

“A man and a woman are drawn together by the same urge that’s between root and flower, leaf and soil, breath and wind, sun and water, star and planet.”

“Man and woman cannot exist alone; the nature of one requires the other to be complete. When they join in love there is wholeness again.”

“Like the Yin and the Yang, the man is in the woman and the woman is in the man.”

“From the hardness of the world, a man comes to the valley of the soft mountains to be overcome by woman. She is the roundness of Earth and moon, warm with promise.”

“The valley and the mountain each make the other possible; they are opposites, yet they are really one and the same.”

“My words to you are a faint echo of what my heart truly feels.”

“What ‘is’ and what ‘is not’ combine to make wholeness.”

“Love is lived by lovers. They come together, like mountain and valley, rain and river, air and mist, Earth and moon.”

“Yes, they go with the flow and give themselves to the moving whole.”

“Male and female are each the opposite twin of the other.”

“They are—just as we are each other’s satellite.”

“Yes, we are like twin planets, linked and traveling together through space.”

“I am thy co-planet, like Shelley wrote, thy constant satellite, thy paramour of day and night. Around you, above you, below you, and within your sight I whirl about in loving delight!”

“My heavenly love, I am your pearl. In a magnetic dance I twirl and whirl about you, attracted to you—the sun’s liveliest world. Around you like a necklace I’m aswirl. Wear me as thy crystalline gem impearled.”

“I am always with you. Wherever thou must goest, ‘round and ‘round Apollo, I must turn and whirl, hurry and follow, meeting meteors and dust, traveling far and wide through space not hollow.”

“You are my heart light. Thy magnetic beam, like Cupid’s arrow, injects life and love into my heart for my tomorrow. Henceforth, I shine with this light I borrow.”

“We are involved. As twin planets, our orbits must convolve, a made-up word. Into each other our tidal motions have dissolved. Around a common center we revolve, gazing on each other from every side. It’s the focus from which our love evolves.”

“Yes, as twin planets, each other’s way we pave through space with the push and pulse of our gravitating waves. We’re captured by a romantic attraction, but not as each other’s slave, for to the sun’s light our orbits are concave. This is unconditional love.”

“Your love echoes in my heart and soul. I align my path with your magnetic lines of flux. I’m your constant paramour. Your world pours life and love on mine. On mine! Oh, it echoes. Dearest twin, I must be thine, must be thine, be thine… ”

“Your love echoes and reverberates in me. A romantic beam emanates from thee, attracting me, holding me, caressing me, kissing me. Your tidal love washes freely over me, linking you and me for eternity.”

“I feel the warmth. I am basking in your reflected light. Oh, I’m so bright, so very bright in your sight. In the love and light of your spirit bright, I need not ever face the endless night.”

“The vibrations of your electromagnetic waves travel without a sound. They come from all directions to surround, while your affection touches me all around. Now I’m close to you in orbit; I’m love-bound!”

“We’ll bathe in love’s radiance, cleansing ourselves.”

“’Round and ‘round each other, as twin planets, we dance, entranced in the whirl of our romance.”

“Although we’re as different as midnight and noon, we’re drawn close by the forces of sun and moon. As lovers we merge in a sweet eclipse, when world meets world as a kiss on our lips.”

“While your shadow of love covers me, I’m full, oh so full, in the shade of thee.”

“Our worlds overlap; this union is ‘us’. The ‘you’ is in me and the ‘me’ is in thee!”

“Thy heart hast touched my own; no, ‘tis more I love thee!”

“Yes, much more thou art loved; the ‘me’ is now in thee.”

“Thou art the soul of my soul and mine is of thine.”

“Nay, ‘tis more than that: thou art me and I am thee.”

( Eclipse — A Kiss )

They awoke early the next day and again drank the dew from the flowers. She picked a new rose to carry with her. They thought they heard the rose laughing and that they could even see it smiling. The rose spoke, “I am the rose that blows laughing into the world, until my tassels tear and I throw my petals on the garden. Cherish me, for I represent the fragility and impermanence of life. I live in my prime but for just awhile. First I’m flowering and free, but then I am fragile, and finally, forlorn. When my beauty is past, my petals float to earth—and all that’s left is the thorn! But, while I live I am the queen of flowers!”

She clutched the rose, then said to her partner, “Like the rose, we will grow old one day and then throw our treasure back to earth.”

He thought on that awhile. “When I was young, I wildly embraced many causes, including monkhood, and searched for all the answers, but I have no regrets—I enjoyed my life as such when I was young.”

“Yes,” she continued, “me too, for every age has it’s own charm, much like the different lights of morning, noon, and evening. There are always new worlds to explore, and each year seems to get better.”

“Yes, just when you think you’ve done it all, you rise up to the next level, build on what’s been done before, then do everything even better.”

“As for feeling old, it is only a state of mind anyway,” she said as she playfully toyed with his hair.

“Keep playing,” he said, “for the day one stops being playful is the day one begins to get old.”

( Thorns Have Roses )

They moved on, finding the remains of a ghost town, and soon arrived in another cemetery, where they saw a man sitting next to a grave. “What are you doing?” they asked.

“I waiting for this dead and buried man to come back from death and tell me what it’s like on the other side. We made a deal. I’ve been waiting here ten years now.”

“What have you learned?” he asked.

“Nothing. I fear that perhaps ideas may die when the mind turns to dust, that there can be no unique and enduring identity after death without the mind and its memory, just as there wouldn’t be before birth.”

“It could very well be that death is mindless and senseless. No one knows,” she added.

“Well, if no one comes back to tell, I will have to die to find out.”

“We will all die someday,” she said, “so you might as well live your life in the meanwhile. Remember, your warm body full of bloom is worth ten thousand lying in the tomb. Live while you’re still full of life. By these verses let your lamp of life relume!”

The man thought a while. Currents flashed signals through his living mind—as chemicals decoded the impulses in kind. He came to a conclusion and said, “We are all a part of nature, and to nature we must return.” He then got up and went off in another direction. They could still hear him talking to himself. “I sprang from the soil, born to live and die. Then I beheld life’s font and drank it dry. I may not live forever, but my words and good deeds will live on. As for me, I must go back whence I came; I must return to earth and die.”

( Everyone Dies, But Not Everyone Lives )

They walked and wondered about that which could never be known, trying to make something positive out of it.

“I know where purgatory is,” she said playfully.

“Where?”

“It’s on the planet Venus,” she said, “because that’s where sulfuric acid rains down from the skies.”

“Must be. I know where Hell is,” he added.

“Where? Wait, I know. It’s got to be in the sun!”

“Of course, there’s no place hotter.”

“And we know where Heaven is, don’t we?”

“Yes we do, even though it is the world’s best kept secret—Earth is its name!”

They strolled ever onward, feeling rather Heavenly.

He and she were living, sleeping, and eating with their lover, the Earth, sensing all of its charms, treasures, joys, and mirth. It began to rain. Way off in the distance, they could hear people cursing at the rain.

“I never curse the rain,” he said to her, “for without water there would be no life.”

“The universe has our well-being at stake in the general sense, in the long run.”

“But not in the specific sense, because, for example, your home could float away if there’s too much rain. Then the worms will come out.”

“Worms are wonderful too, even though many people hate them.”

“How come they’re so useful?”

“They aerate over four hundred million tons of soil per day. If it weren’t for the worms, there would not have been the plant growth that now sustains the world. No worms, no life!”

“So, we’re all in this together—you, me, and the worms.”

“Yes, there seems to be a subtle, interlinked complexity to life.”

“The Earth is the best of all possible worlds!”

“Yes, all is right with the world, even though it may not seem so at first glance, what with the calamities of nature and so forth, but it couldn’t really work any other way—and so it’s hard to argue with what works.”

“Right, the food chain works, the climate works, everything works!”

“My blood runs warm, like the fire of the sun at noon.”

“My spirit is swept by the swelling moon!”

“Water is in me.”

“The air flows through me.”

Together, they said, in one voice, “Earth’s rhythm is always playing our tune!”

“Earth, air, fire, and water—that ‘s life’s recipe!”

“How is it that everything works on Earth if it is so rare?”

“Well, think of it this way: If it didn’t work then we wouldn’t be here to even think about it—so, it’s not so very remarkable after all!”

“Nevertheless, I propose a toast,” he said, “to life, seeing as we’re here!”

She raised herself up. “I am the cup,” she said.

“Then, as my chalice I will lift you up!”

“And take of me a sup!”

“I’ll drink deep the wine that satisfies love’s thirst.”

“Before the winds of change dry you up!”

“Here, here!”

“Drink me!”

“And here’s another toast:”

Drink the lifeblood of the grapes you’ve sown,

Before pressing time squeezes out what’s grown.

“And the closer:”

Do toast with thy chalice and all inspire,

To life’s red wine I give all that I own!

They walked away the day, making an early camp so they could warm again together. Soon the stars came out. They liked to talk about the stars.

“Lay down on your back,” she said. “Let’s pretend that we’re floating through deep space.”

“Once we were,” he said.

“When we were stardust,” she surmised.

“Time, death, and stardust.

Those three were our birthright.” She noted, “Death chose the wise from the silly, the useful from the useless, the pointed from the pointless. Death sifted the best from the rest.”

“But it took a lot of time,” he added. “Since death was the only evaluator, it took eons and ages of time for us to evolve from stardust into humans.”

“Time, death, and stardust. They write our epitaph as well as our birthright,” she noted.

“Yes, they do. When our time expires, death will come, and only dust will be left.”

“From time and death and dust we came, and to this, that, and thus we must return.”

“Born from stardust, nourished by sunlight, I’ve filled my cup with wonders of delight.”

“Life is a treasure, a radiant gem, a light that I’ll never see again.”

“Your words show me all the more the worth of our love. Hold me, love me, be one with me,” he said.

“Let’s merge yours and mine into ours,” she said. They embraced under the stars. Endless flames burned in the sky as they snuggled by their inner fire.

“When I see the stars, then I know that all’s right with the universe.”

“They are eternity’s running lights; look, they shine, even through the blackness of the fathomless night!”

“It’s as if good had conquered evil; for darkness can’t even quench the smallest light. Even a mere candle can vanquish the night!”

“They say that twin genii split day and night, and wrong and right.”

“The candle lights up and fills the darkness!”

“Starlight is the origin of my being.”

“A star is the soul of the universe.”

“The sun is our soul and life star.”

“We are sparks from the stars. We glow bright for awhile, then flicker and die.”

“Your light shines now, reluming the flames in the black of night.”

“We are magic lanterns shining—our spirits are the lights in there.”

He looked deep into her eyes. “From what bright star came the gleam in your eyes?” he asked.

She answered with a question, from Blake’s poem, “From what distant sun came your smile’s light?”

Their hearts answered for them. Soon they were ready to sleep. “Embrace me, starlight!”

“Hold me, stardust!”

“Goodnight. Sleep well. Say a prayer of sleep.”

“Each night my genie comes to fill my urn, pouring sleep into me until day’s return. I dream of the beauty of night and the bounty of day. As the day follows night for all eternity, fulfillment follows all for which I yearn.”

As they were drifting off to sleep, some voices filled the blackness of the night. It was some sort of celestial debate:

“I’m the darkest,” said the Shadow to the Night.

“No,” said Midnight, “compared to me you’re bright.”

“You floodlights!” said Starless Space, “Stop your fight! The darkest plight is the lack of love’s delight.”

( Love-Lights )

After a good night’s sleep, they awoke, like dewdrops, all agleam, fresh with the delight of some remembered dream.

“We are the creative principle, aren’t we.”

“Yes, it is embodied in us. We live by our intuitive strength.”

“And this intuition—‘it’ seems to know all, which, I suppose, is why they call it intuition in the first place.”

“It is the light within. It is a form of the life principle.”

“It’s an inner creative source. It may even be eternal. It is our awareness, our consciousness. We hardly even see the sea in which we see”

“So, I’ll live from my intuitive wisdom and act spontaneously on it, rather than get labored down with conventional reasoning.”

“Yes, because what really ‘is’ is completely beyond thought.”

“This is my idea of how creativity springs from the unity of the heart, soul, senses, and mind: The wonders of life bring love to the heart and cause it to take flight, so to speak, as all the while the soul whispers unimaged things to us through its own language, which makes them unimaginable—but they are ever in our subconscious; and all this, if we let it, streams dually into our senses and into our intellect, merging there, taking us to a point quite beyond joy—for that’s when imagination freely enlightens the mind. This is what I call creative unity.”

“All is interrelated and interconnected.”

“Life’s oneness is a constant sensation.”

“It’s beyond intellectual concepts.”

“It occurs on a much deeper level.”

“Since it defies description there’s not much more that I can say about it!”

“Follow the water to where your mind leads you.”

“Do what your senses tell you.”

“Sail on the wind of your soul.”

“Flow where your heart takes you.”

“In us the cosmos has achieved consciousness!”

“We’re the Cosmos itself! We’re a conscious form of its life principle.”

“I believe so. We are the universe come alive.”

“We are magic lanterns shining.”

“From the light that never dies!”

“We are the triumph of life, love, and being!”

“We are the smile of being, the joy of the universe’s creation. In us the Cosmos has come alive. It has reached consciousness from it’s primordial matter and energy.”

“We have arrived! We are life from stardust!”

“And we live but for one of eternity’s heartbeats.”

“We owe all that we are to time, death, and the stars. Truly from the stars cometh our help. Stars are the creators of matter—this is why they shine.”

“Death is the evaluator, the chooser, but it takes time.”

“Billions of years.”

“Our spirits have waited to catch light, life, and rapture from Heaven’s smile.”

“Oh! what a joy to be alive.”

“Yes, now we are alive, and our minds interpret the one reality into the many colors of the phenomenal world.”

“Our lives, like a prism, strain the white radiance of eternity, like Shelley said.”

“While we are here we can take a glass of water from the well, we can enjoy the breeze, we can sing and laugh and love with our friends.”

“We can enjoy everything and everyone.”

“I will live for truth, beauty, and goodness—love.”

“Yes, for their own sake. Love, for its own sake.”

“The stars are eternity’s love lamps.”

“They represent our good deeds, which even the death of night cannot quench.”

“My star’s light is the origin of

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