Sep 21, 2004 13:20
in the real world -- how am i doing ---?
fighting stagnancy. die, stagnancy, die!
if really trying to cut down on smoking. haven't quit outright -- but i haven't bought a pack since i decided, anyway so -- that's good, i think. on sunday i took a hike by myself up to Laurel Falls -- as pretty as it sounds -- on a beautiful cloudless crisp day in the wake of the dregs of hurricane Ivan -- I've never seen the river so full and churning -- never seen the waterfall so high and roaring, boiling ... i made my way up a steep ledge -- the same slope that i fell down in the 8th grade and could have died (i was trying to descend the wrong way and i lost grip and fell -- tumbled backwards thirty feet down a near vertical ravine, hit my head on a tree on the way down -- when i put my hand to my head i found an egg-sized knot and blood -- my 1st thought was -- oh, god, i've cracked my skull open! -- but i didn't, and skull is intact to this day ...)
anyhow, got up to the top and sat there watching the waterfall -- i'd hiked up there because i woke up and my heart was hurting, and i needed to be clean, something to restore, refresh -- "go to the river, " they say, "when you need healing" and so i did -- and watching the river i meditated and thought about smoking and realized how much i fucking whine about "how i should quit" and victimize myself -- its killing me and its absurd, these cancer sticks --- this is not what you intended, Indian Spirits -- this is a processed, manufactured tobacco, dumbed down -- and here's i am with "American Spirit" tobacco --
-----oh!oh! it has an indian on it! and its called american spirit! surely this is the sacred tobacco of the american indians ....!
bullshit. we killed them and displaced them and now we feel so fucking reverent when we buy a goddam dreamcatcher or something ...
...
anyway, i said to myself in a deep meditation -- at least, it was my voice, but it seemed to speak by itself, and it addressed me in the second-person ...
"If I could give you a key to quit smoking, would you take it?"
And I immediately replied yes.
then i took the tobacco - it was rolling tobacco in a blue pouch -- and i proceeded to offer it up to the spirits as the indians used to, in my own way -- the cherokee incantation, i remembered actually speaks of "Blue Tobacco" -- so i apologized to the spirits for how diluted the tobacco was and gave it to them -- all i asked was to help me not fall down the slope on the way back, to help me follow the Path ...
And that was that. So now when i feel an urge to smoke or buy a pack, i say, "no, i have the key."
--we'll see how long this lasts, ha ha.
....
and its getting cooler, fall has fallen -- the air is crisp ...
in the woods, out in the mountains, the air is actually sweet.
the earth will remain forever, for all practical purposes. the rivers will run till they're boiled up by the dying sun.
the mountains will rest forever, being ground down by wind and rain forever.
man will scramble in fast motion upon the plains till his footstep is heard no more, but the seasons will come and go, every year -- the tides will always lap at the shore -- the storms will always swirl -- the fires will always burn and renew...
it's silly to worry about anything when you consider the vastness of time and space -- the hugeness of the cosmos, the emptiness -- out of a billion stars and a trillion planets, we've come to be -- we're sentient. we think, therefore we are. we are the eyes and ears of the universe -- matter organizing itself into more and more complex forms until we can contemplate ourselves. our lives -- a brief candle, to be sure -- but not signifying nothing ...
signifying how important it is to love --
while we worry about being loved and risking love and losing love ---
it's so easy! just love! one day the sky will melt away anyway, so you might as well.
love is the fire whereby stars express their gratitude.
thank you, too, stars.