An angel appeared out of the blue. It manifested from the shapes and sounds of my daily life. When it's eyes shined time would tremble. They were magic and their moisture drew me inside. I felt drawn to join its ethreal groundlessness.
Was it a dream; a hallucination?
I dreamed I would be real. I dreamed I would be born into form. Where did this arise from I wondered? I couldn't look away from the spirit born in the morning mist. It was drawing me out of death and into life. It's colours magnetized. It's song pacified. It's form enriched.
Somebody spoke and it was destroyed.
Awake, I noticed there was nothing to grasp.
The dream left me empty and I realized the angel was real.
It showed me the rich mixture and flow of sadness, love, death, and birth. The dream - or better still, the angel, reminded me that emptiness and form are seamless.
It was a bodhisattva out of the blue.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
The Mad Dog and The Englishwoman
I watched my neighbour with some interest. I noticed her life; something about her suggested she may be a few degrees away from ordinary. Her name was Valerie.
Married she was with a small child, and the bulge beneath her breasts held another. From time to time she'd have a minute to speak to me over the picket fence that marked the edge of her family's private world. She'd tell me the details of her confusing and hectic existence. While holding a part time job she attended part time college. She cared for her child with the rest of her time - and then there was Sally.
Sally was an utterly insane and fucked up mutt that she took in as a stray. It's straydom may have caused the madness or maybe the madness caused the straydom. In any case, mad she was; mad as a hatter. On top of this, the dog managed to get fertilized in solidarity with her assumed commander and was beginning to show.
I'd watch as Sally would roll around in the front yard after shitting on the grass. She'd roll around in her own shit smearing it through the grass and her own fur. Valerie would arrive home, put on tea, tend to her daughter, wrap up a zillion minor chores, and then deal with Sally. And in dealing with Sally, she would wrap her up in towels in an effort to avoid contamination and then carry her up the stairs to the bathtub. To make matters worse, the dog dispised water. Each time the affair was marked with sudden spats of resistance and multiple lunges for freedom and she would manage to escape and hide under a car, a step, or anything at all. Valerie would never give up and each time, she managed to defeat the defiant and angry mutant till all the shit was cleaned away.
One day she told me that Sally had been vomiting and loved rolling around in that as well. The dog had become sick and required medication that Valerie could not be close to. It could affect her own pregnancy. The weight of the dilemma was obvious in her eyes and speech. The medicine rarely stayed down before Sally would retch it up and playfully roll around in the spew that would come up with it.
On top of it all, those closest to her never stopped complaining about Sally; about the smell, the danger, or some new offence to the world of sane humans. She was unpredictable and as a result, struck fear into many passers-by and visitors.
I would catch Valerie, from time to time, alone with Sally; softly rubbing the dog's neck and back; softly telling the oblivious mutt about her day; her trials and tribulations. In some way, Valerie loved that dog as she could love no human. The dog was hopeless and in the most desperate and precarious state a being could be in. And it was mad; a complete and total outcast. She was completely dependent on Valerie. Who else would tolerate the daily rolling through shit and now, the even more odious addition of vomit in the mix? Every time Valerie arrived home, she would be greeted by the ever loving Sally, jumping up on Val with her coat awash in a stew from the depths of hell.
I watched one damp evening as an animal control van pulled up in the ally behind Valerie's back fence. Valerie carried her innocent pet to the fence and passed it over to the waiting arms of the animal control officer. Sally licked Val's face, completely unaware what's behind the salty taste.
From my perch, I could feel the edge of Valerie's unfathomable pain as she wept on her way back to the house. She turned around to see Sal one last time. The man had already put the dog in the back, and she stood on her grass and cried in the pouring rain. She had to sacrifice her child to save another. Valerie understood all the reasons for doing what she had to do. But for Valerie, a profound betrayal echoed against every corner of the universe. It stood outside the fine lines of reason. And she stood there with it, in the rain, in her back yard - alone.
And that was the reality of Valerie's life as I watched from the sidelines. Nobody could understand her pain because Sally was, after all, a dog.
Nobody cold see her extraordinary heart as it melted in the rain and aloneless, in the sadness and love. She turned and went back into her ordinary house and into her ordinary life.
Married she was with a small child, and the bulge beneath her breasts held another. From time to time she'd have a minute to speak to me over the picket fence that marked the edge of her family's private world. She'd tell me the details of her confusing and hectic existence. While holding a part time job she attended part time college. She cared for her child with the rest of her time - and then there was Sally.
Sally was an utterly insane and fucked up mutt that she took in as a stray. It's straydom may have caused the madness or maybe the madness caused the straydom. In any case, mad she was; mad as a hatter. On top of this, the dog managed to get fertilized in solidarity with her assumed commander and was beginning to show.
I'd watch as Sally would roll around in the front yard after shitting on the grass. She'd roll around in her own shit smearing it through the grass and her own fur. Valerie would arrive home, put on tea, tend to her daughter, wrap up a zillion minor chores, and then deal with Sally. And in dealing with Sally, she would wrap her up in towels in an effort to avoid contamination and then carry her up the stairs to the bathtub. To make matters worse, the dog dispised water. Each time the affair was marked with sudden spats of resistance and multiple lunges for freedom and she would manage to escape and hide under a car, a step, or anything at all. Valerie would never give up and each time, she managed to defeat the defiant and angry mutant till all the shit was cleaned away.
One day she told me that Sally had been vomiting and loved rolling around in that as well. The dog had become sick and required medication that Valerie could not be close to. It could affect her own pregnancy. The weight of the dilemma was obvious in her eyes and speech. The medicine rarely stayed down before Sally would retch it up and playfully roll around in the spew that would come up with it.
On top of it all, those closest to her never stopped complaining about Sally; about the smell, the danger, or some new offence to the world of sane humans. She was unpredictable and as a result, struck fear into many passers-by and visitors.
I would catch Valerie, from time to time, alone with Sally; softly rubbing the dog's neck and back; softly telling the oblivious mutt about her day; her trials and tribulations. In some way, Valerie loved that dog as she could love no human. The dog was hopeless and in the most desperate and precarious state a being could be in. And it was mad; a complete and total outcast. She was completely dependent on Valerie. Who else would tolerate the daily rolling through shit and now, the even more odious addition of vomit in the mix? Every time Valerie arrived home, she would be greeted by the ever loving Sally, jumping up on Val with her coat awash in a stew from the depths of hell.
I watched one damp evening as an animal control van pulled up in the ally behind Valerie's back fence. Valerie carried her innocent pet to the fence and passed it over to the waiting arms of the animal control officer. Sally licked Val's face, completely unaware what's behind the salty taste.
From my perch, I could feel the edge of Valerie's unfathomable pain as she wept on her way back to the house. She turned around to see Sal one last time. The man had already put the dog in the back, and she stood on her grass and cried in the pouring rain. She had to sacrifice her child to save another. Valerie understood all the reasons for doing what she had to do. But for Valerie, a profound betrayal echoed against every corner of the universe. It stood outside the fine lines of reason. And she stood there with it, in the rain, in her back yard - alone.
And that was the reality of Valerie's life as I watched from the sidelines. Nobody could understand her pain because Sally was, after all, a dog.
Nobody cold see her extraordinary heart as it melted in the rain and aloneless, in the sadness and love. She turned and went back into her ordinary house and into her ordinary life.
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