Random Kerouac
I was stumbling off into the darkness, my feet leading the way that my eyes could barely see. It was like a tunneling womb, holding me close in the cold and the damp and the absence of the world outside my view. It was more of a womb then I could have ever dared dream, as the shadows shifted and danced across my dazed consciousness. The world was shaping itself, rearranging itself in my head. Patterns of life, my life, their life, intersecting and bifurcating and touching on what was and is and will be. I wanted to shake the people in my life, scream at them, "don't you understand, can't you see, OPEN YOUR EYES!" I wanted to shake them until their bones rattled and their world came crashing down around them. Open up those four walled prisons of house, home, work, job, church. I wanted to pry them out of their little cadges and show them true freedom, the expanse of the universe. I could feel something wrench inside, something tear away. I stumbled on the path, once again physical. My feet that had been moving smoothly before, following one after another suddenly became part of me and ungamely as my flesh, as my self reasserted. The world moved around me as I fell to my knees. My heart bursting with the enormity of it all. The brush of my mind against god, the creator, the entire universe so terrible in its enormity. I could feel the wrench of my spirit, of my soul bouncing around in my physical prison that we inhabit in this world, my body. My heart felt two sizes too big for my chest, pounding hard and loud. I clawed at my chest, my fingers scrambling at my breast, touching warm cotton fabric layers but I could feel the pain of those sharp ridged nails through the padding. I wanted to claw my heart out, rip it out at the enormous sadness and despair that clutched me in its rotten bosom. The night felt like a lovers arms, holding me in that emptiness as my self tore and re-made itself. I couldn't stand the pain, I couldn't stand the agony. Tears, heavy and hot and so salty dripping down my face. My throat raw from the animal sounds of despair I was making. I pulled at my hair, pressing my fists into my head that was the same as my heart, too big and too full to even comprehend.
In that enormity, in that womb of night, I brushed against god, the creator, the all, the everything, the beginning and the end and despite my desire, despite my will to seek and embrace god, it was all a nightmare. I couldn't believe my foolishness, my avarice. To know god. To seek god and come to know him as a companion like my dear little kitties. No, no, it was too much, too wonderful, to terrible. I wanted to stop, get off this ride called life. I wanted to sip from the river lithe and forget what I had learned. I wanted my walls back. I wanted my little cadge. I wanted my rules and regulations and patterns. This hell that was freedom, this hell that was knowledge, true knowledge of the divine was too vast and incomprehensible to live in. To touch. To know.
To Really Know.
I understood why now. I understood why my parents chose the 'tight' path of Christianity. Why they chose the man called Jesus to lead them in their life. I know why Moses, on that mountaintop covered his face after a glimpse of god. I know why he came down the mountain top with those stone tablets with the ten commandments on it. I know why Jesus could submit, to allow himself to be nailed to a cross and bleed for me. I know why we cling to the saints and the marters and the stories. No matter how irrational, how irreverent they seem, they were something we could hold and point to and rely on. Something physical to cling to by our fingertips. For the Truth, that awful, wonderful Truth. To know God and be God and see his face for even an instant...
I died that night, in that darkness, I know. I rose out of that stupor, the paralysis that was my understanding, my birth- or rebirth. I was cold and chilled. The dew clung to my skin and I reached out to touch my arm. To feel that cold water beading on my self. I giggled at the feel of it. I licked my finger, the cold, chemical taste of it on my tounge a joy, a happyness. My face felt awkward and strange and stretched as I smiled. The ground was soggy and gave a little as I levered myself up. I felt dirty and sticky and sweaty and goopy but it was the most wonderful thing in the world. The clothes that felt comfortable before felt weird and binding and I couldn't help but be thankful. I breathed in the sweet night air. The smell of cold damp mixed with the heady scent of wood smoke drifiting here and there.
My stomach rumbled. When had I last eaten? When was the last that I stopped and let myself be on this whirl wind of a weekend? When was I slow enough to let myself just partake of nurishment? Oh, I had eaten. I had scarfed down food inbetween the workshops and running around to booths and bumping into people. But to sit down and have a meal. Oh, what devine heaven that would be.
I giggled at that. Knowing that terrible truth, that terrible secret of the universe and here I would give so much for food.
I pulled on some leaves and put them in my mouth. Not thinking about the dirt or the strangeness of it. It was there, I partook. The underside of the leaf was rough and snagged on my tounge. The woody stem, seams that took nutrients out to the flat areas of green leaf were bitter. Tart. Wonderful.
I shook for a moment. Realizing what I had done. I had torn the leaf off to feed me. I could see, in that new awareness and understanding the cells, the life blood of water and clorifil moving in those stems to bring nutrients to the green leaf cells. The little tiny engines devouring the heat and warmth of the sun, soaking it up during the day then mixing it up in the cellular pot of themselves to make more. To have baby cells. To rip themselves apart and divide to make more cells. And I had just torn it away from the mother tree.
I wept. I cried tears and appologized to the tree I treated so poorly. Despite what you may think, hugging a tree isn't as fun as you would think. There is no give. No gentle warmth. No heartbeat to listen to. It was alien in my arms. Scratchy. Rough. Beautiful. I smelled the freshness that was the tree.
In that enormity, in that womb of night, I brushed against god, the creator, the all, the everything, the beginning and the end and despite my desire, despite my will to seek and embrace god, it was all a nightmare. I couldn't believe my foolishness, my avarice. To know god. To seek god and come to know him as a companion like my dear little kitties. No, no, it was too much, too wonderful, to terrible. I wanted to stop, get off this ride called life. I wanted to sip from the river lithe and forget what I had learned. I wanted my walls back. I wanted my little cadge. I wanted my rules and regulations and patterns. This hell that was freedom, this hell that was knowledge, true knowledge of the divine was too vast and incomprehensible to live in. To touch. To know.
To Really Know.
I understood why now. I understood why my parents chose the 'tight' path of Christianity. Why they chose the man called Jesus to lead them in their life. I know why Moses, on that mountaintop covered his face after a glimpse of god. I know why he came down the mountain top with those stone tablets with the ten commandments on it. I know why Jesus could submit, to allow himself to be nailed to a cross and bleed for me. I know why we cling to the saints and the marters and the stories. No matter how irrational, how irreverent they seem, they were something we could hold and point to and rely on. Something physical to cling to by our fingertips. For the Truth, that awful, wonderful Truth. To know God and be God and see his face for even an instant...
I died that night, in that darkness, I know. I rose out of that stupor, the paralysis that was my understanding, my birth- or rebirth. I was cold and chilled. The dew clung to my skin and I reached out to touch my arm. To feel that cold water beading on my self. I giggled at the feel of it. I licked my finger, the cold, chemical taste of it on my tounge a joy, a happyness. My face felt awkward and strange and stretched as I smiled. The ground was soggy and gave a little as I levered myself up. I felt dirty and sticky and sweaty and goopy but it was the most wonderful thing in the world. The clothes that felt comfortable before felt weird and binding and I couldn't help but be thankful. I breathed in the sweet night air. The smell of cold damp mixed with the heady scent of wood smoke drifiting here and there.
My stomach rumbled. When had I last eaten? When was the last that I stopped and let myself be on this whirl wind of a weekend? When was I slow enough to let myself just partake of nurishment? Oh, I had eaten. I had scarfed down food inbetween the workshops and running around to booths and bumping into people. But to sit down and have a meal. Oh, what devine heaven that would be.
I giggled at that. Knowing that terrible truth, that terrible secret of the universe and here I would give so much for food.
I pulled on some leaves and put them in my mouth. Not thinking about the dirt or the strangeness of it. It was there, I partook. The underside of the leaf was rough and snagged on my tounge. The woody stem, seams that took nutrients out to the flat areas of green leaf were bitter. Tart. Wonderful.
I shook for a moment. Realizing what I had done. I had torn the leaf off to feed me. I could see, in that new awareness and understanding the cells, the life blood of water and clorifil moving in those stems to bring nutrients to the green leaf cells. The little tiny engines devouring the heat and warmth of the sun, soaking it up during the day then mixing it up in the cellular pot of themselves to make more. To have baby cells. To rip themselves apart and divide to make more cells. And I had just torn it away from the mother tree.
I wept. I cried tears and appologized to the tree I treated so poorly. Despite what you may think, hugging a tree isn't as fun as you would think. There is no give. No gentle warmth. No heartbeat to listen to. It was alien in my arms. Scratchy. Rough. Beautiful. I smelled the freshness that was the tree.