Goodbye to Malevolance

Reduced to my smallest most delicate self, the seeds of me humbly kiss the feet of the towering mystery of choice--in this world that allows for every possibility and concerns itself not with the outcome. This summer was spent navigating through an existential crisis; seeking a foothold after abandoning dichotomy in an effort to understand perfect union. This has led me to embrace my fear of nothing and savor the notion that to forgo is the same as experiencing in this world without duality. This opens the way for many decisions and proceedings according to my own volition without fear of inhibiting the natural course of reality. The way to contribute to Maya, the great illusion, is to regret an action or to wish for something other than my place in a moment--for there is nothing but this and this encompasses everything--according to this line of thought.

Yesterday this brought me to Anna. Anna is one who has explored the darkest darks to aid her in her hunt for the lightest lights. Among many things, she is a member of a small but elite group of people with whom I lead a parallel life of sorts--inexplicably and beyond our intention. She contemplates a life unadulterated by outside affectors and experiences this to the ever-changing best of her understanding. This is a game that I play at times and it currently makes for some deep conversations--as I've just returned from the trenches and crave only light. As far as I can determine, the only way to avoid outside influence is to stop relating to everything, to stop breathing, to stop desiring experience--which is nearly impossible to do without dying. So this currently leads us and many others on this path towards a deep contemplation of our association with each thing that we come into contact with.

So we went to the arboretum in Santa Cruz. I took pictures of flowers for a painting project about realism that I'm working on. We found many duck cocoons—and things that looked like hungry vaginas. Even the sculptures intended to follow the movements of plants looked like vaginas…or breasts…The conversation was so stimulating, we hardly noticed where we were going—often wandering out of the garden proper, into staging areas and storage. I became a preacher-teacher, administering ancient knowledge about the advantages of silence and listening. Anna, one who has journeyed to planets far and wide, asked me how to merge with the infinite and I gave her at least a dozen different methods. We finished the evening with dinner at a fifties-style vegan/vegetarian diner and some throat chakra, pre-sleep dream meditation and I made a solemn vow to do six full sun-salutations a day for a month…oops…..

I flipped a coin upon leaving the next morning to decide if I should take the sensible option and go back to San Francisco or drive the hour and a half to Bolinas and free myself from my dance with those who dance with the devil. Of course the coin demanded I move forward with the gigantic ceremony that had been taunting me since my Petaluma detour and off to Bolinas I went.

The Church of Mary Magdalene greeted me at the corridor. I parked my car in almost the same place and the tide was out, allowing my return to the beautiful epicenter, a favorite place for the bliss that could justify such violence. Armed with rainbow leaf, labradorite heart and camera, I made my way across the beach.

I prostrated in the sand and attuned to the energy that cycles through my body, the earth and the sky (and everything else--is there anything else?). I went back through the evil that I’ve seen and allowed myself to be subjected to. I acknowledged my curiosity and the notion that I would learn things about life from this darkness, that I would know more about people from experiencing their violent lows and infused the feeding/nurturing cycle I had established with this violence into the leaf. I then crumpled the leaf into dust and fed it to the place, to the music, to the ocean, to the sky, to the wind.

I gave some to the musician and the base of the sculpture there lay a dead bird and a dead crab on a child’s bike. The walk back across the beach revealed spiral after beautiful iridescent spiral after heart concave after spiral shell. I stopped to meditate for a while and do my six sun salutations and looked up to see that the vultures had collected and were circling above me.

I have killed many things in these last days. I slough off layers of self and resurrect a little nearer to the infinite. Today it is death to the warewolf. I left its carcass for the beach to feed on. I am here to feed the light. I am free…..