Fall Equinox 2009

Fall Equinox 2009 - a reading (on YouTube)

More than a dozen years ago, I learned to juggle. That Christmas, my father had given me a set of juggling balls and I decided to give them a try. Karen remembered juggling when she was in school and very patiently taught me what she knew. Anymore, I like to use a set of small, suede beanbags that she gave me a few years later.

The trick with three ball juggling is to always keep at least one ball in the air. As one ball is arriving in your left hand, another is always leaving your right. The problem is you can't really watch your hands while you're learning or you'll miss a catch, or one will collide with another and balls will scatter everywhere. As you get more comfortable with the standard underhand throws, you can try tossing them overhand in a pattern not much different from the traditional three-ball cascade.

Once you get the knack of it, juggling is almost meditative. You no longer think about what your hands are doing. In fact, the more you focus on your hands, the more likely you are to interrupt the pattern. Left catch, right toss, right catch, left toss. With the beanbags there is a soft, contenting thump each time one finds your hand and a little squoosh when it leaves. Thump, squoosh, thump, squoosh, thump, squoosh, always in a braided circle, repeating like a mantra. One rising, another falling, the third being redirected by a hand. Like the wheel of life always turning only following mirrored left and right cascades.

Your mind drifts off into simpler patterns. There is no past, no future, only a continuous, peaceful present as you keep the pattern going. Until you realize what you're doing or your thoughts drift off completely. Then, a hand spasms either with enthusiasm or hesitation and you find yourself chasing balls across the room. If you're lucky, they remain in the air and only walk away from you. But even when the pattern is broken, it resumes with a simple toss, toss, catch, toss, catch, toss, and there you are again, in constant balance, catching, throwing and redirecting.

Juggling is constancy in motion. One cycle ending, one beginning, one hanging in the air. One beanbag rising and one falling while I feel another in my hand. Eventually, the cycle, like my concentration, will be broken; one beanbag is bound to hit the floor. But I'll just pick it up, dust it off and toss it back into the air, beginning my simple hand dance once again.

As you know, today is the fall equinox, one of two balance points in the solar year. For me, summer is always a time of juggling, a time when there are too many balls in motion. Even this message is balanced against several other activities and concerns that demand my attention right now. I always look forward to autumn then winter, a time for me when all the balls settle back in my hand to rest for a little while. A year ago, it was just the same, only then the ball that dropped was Tina. Some balls can never be retrieved; they only roll away into memory.

I hope you find balance with all your activities today. Remember to enjoy the day, and hold on to what's important so that it cannot fall beyond your reach.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

September 11, 2009

Outside eight years ago, I steeped in sudden silence. Within that stillness, fear and uncertainty festered, infecting many with suspicion and mistrust. To soothe unquiet minds, we sculpted fresh heroes, saints and demons, breathing life into them before the dust had settled from the air. Now, once-shining avatars weather into golems whose crumbling structures reveal the rubble, dirt and ash still trapped deep within.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Anticipation

Anticipation - a reading (on YouTube)

Waiting, waiting, always waiting. 360 days of waiting and still we wait some more.

If you look for me over Labor Day, you'll find me in Atlanta. As we crawl through the unending days until Dragon*Con, we are like teenagers on the night before the first day of school, restless with thoughts of old friends, new teachers and new classes. We meet up to compare schedules and lockers, check out who's new and who's missing, who’s changed and who is just the same. We revel in that moment of endless promise and possibility before the first bell rings and notes are made on our permanent records. Excitement. Anticipation. An adventure.

Only geeks, right?

We arrive early to review our battle plan, our timetable gridded out with spreadsheet-like precision, knowing it will be shredded by the first encounter wandering down the hall. We reconnoiter the terrain, though after more than half a decade, we know it like the inside of our home at night. We note any rearrangement in the landscape, new tracks, new traps, new ambush sites.

We map out each encounter space, ruins, lairs, abandoned towers, any new source of potential treasure. Like sailors on a circumnavigation, we review our upcoming ports of call, Savannah, Cairo, Singapore, Manila. Like starship troopers, we learn the alien runes designating our assigned compartments, A703, M105, L504. For the next four days, we will be minotaurs wandering through this maze, vampires who fear the slightest kiss of sun. When Monday comes, we will be like clockwork toys whose springs are in need of winding.

Right now, our springs are fully wound, tight with anticipation. We are like children craving sugar the eve of Halloween, college students preparing for half a week of Mardi Gras rolled in with New Year's Eve. Our giddiness only intensifies as we stand in line waiting to get badged and cleared for entry. Like the alarms on our watches and cameras and cell phones, we slowly count down until D-Day, H-Hour, the second when the ball drops, the panels open and we let the games begin.

On the eve of this invasion, we roam the empty halls embracing the tingling, contented silence before they burst to overflowing. We stand watch on a balcony overlooking an impending anachronistic battle where the deaths are only temporary and the violence make-believe. We can almost hear the previous year echoing through the hotel lobbies and atriums and interconnecting hallways. Though a few old veterans are missing, we feel their presence like kindly spirits moving through the haze below, friendly ghosts drawn back to the self-described best weekend of their year.

When the gates finally creak open in the morning, we abandon all our cares in a pile by the door. Our days turn into bivouacs on a wilderness adventure. We carry rations in our backpacks, sling waterskins to be filled in this land of many springs. We become a recon team for the odd and the offbeat, slipping unnoticed into the strangest panels on the strangest tracks in the smallest, sometimes most crowded rooms. The quirky ones that surface then disappear. The ones that send archetypes and ingénues stalking through our collective subconscious, or settle in our minds like weird states of matter that shouldn't quite exist. Or dance before our eyes like symbols in the formulas defining interstellar combat. Or tickle our reasoning with the myth of photographic truth. The ones that fire our imaginations. The ones that make us think

For now, we read the intel reports to choose our encounters wisely. Occasionally, we reference the topo maps to find alternate routes around blocking actions and the inevitable pitched battle between the Miss Klingon Empire contestants and the Imperial 501st that spills into the hall. We are men and women on a mission; no one can bar our way. We fight through a phalanx of Kentucky-Fried 300, their creamy white beer-bellies blinding our eyes and sending our minds reeling with thoughts that loincloths are a privilege, not a right. Armies of angels and demons and faeries hover and flit around us, attempting to distract us with their plunging necklines before battering us with their underwired wings. We claw our way through hordes of synchronized Jacksonian undead, then dice with the blunderbuss-toting ranks of Victorian steam-punk explorers who stumbled into our melee, wagering for a map to guide them home.

We stockpile provisions in our night camp, content to live off the land and our rations until we return each day to rest. We hold vigils in the drum circle each night, dancing with the shadows in the concert halls, crawling back to our bedrolls with the False Dawn Brigade to catch enough sleep to stay on track tomorrow, whatever track that is, Art or Science, Space or Writing. In the morning we might wander the Silk Road or roam the Electronic Frontier until we are consumed by an Apocalypse Rising against the horizon.

We sprinkle business cards on the tables, hoping to seed some new readers, hoping at least a few will grow. We exchange coded contacts with fellow adventurers in casual meetings over coffee or in the lull of empty rooms. When the adventure is over, we will gather virtually or face-to-face to recount our tales, exchange our lies and compare our notes and treasure as we quietly sip our coffee. Very, very quietly.

Before we break camp on Monday, we will load up with parti-colored trinkets, baubles, books and music that we haggle from dealers and artisans in the booths of the bazaar. By then, we will have become like children's tops that have wound almost completely down, wobbling before we topple over on the plane.

But now, our strings are tightly wrapped, ready for the pull that spins us into the four dizzying days we crave to create sufficient memories to see us through the remainder of the year. Until then, we wait like children impatient to open our presents on this alternative Christmas Eve, sleeplessly wondering what surprises our secret Santa has in store for us this year.

If you look for me over Labor Day, you'll find me in Atlanta. I'll be the tall, dark-haired, geeky looking guy with glasses staying in the Marriott Marquis, the one carrying the khaki shoulder pack, the one with a leather notebook always in hand. That should narrow it down to one of several thousand. If you’re truly brave or interested, find the needle in the haystack called Smoke or Nodda Imaginings. If you get close enough to read my badge, perhaps I'll see you there.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Lost

Lost -a reading (on YouTube)

Some weeks seem so full of problems, plans and appointments piled one atop another day after day that when they are all resolved, I'm uncertain what to do next. I feel like a child searching for direction, striving toward a goal that he has lost sight of or never completely understood. I'm not sure if it's the pollen, the weather, or some other internal or external factor. The feeling just envelops me like a fog until my world becomes unclear and indistinct. I feel as though I'm still waiting, stuck circling in an endless holding pattern. The runway lights are visible but I never receive clearance to land.

On days like this, it is hard not to feel completely isolated and alone. I belong to no pack, embrace no herd, have no clan to call my own. I feel like a one-man play with no supporting cast, no Greek chorus to warn me of my folly, no social safety net to catch me if I fall. Instead of exploring new or undiscovered countries, I circle back along the fringes of familiar places, uncertain whether to stay or go.

On Sunday I had an unexpected visitor. A young, gray tiger came knocking at my front door. When he saw me through the window, he immediately started crying as if I had been remiss and left him out all night. It was cold outside that morning, at least for a cat born in Florida. I thought to offer him a little food, something to warm him a bit until the sun could take over. As soon as he heard the cabinet open, his ears perked. He sat up on his hind legs when he heard kibble rattle against the ceramic bowl.

When I joined him on the front porch, he was friendly but cautious. He had obviously been around people and knew what he was missing in regular meals and a warm bed. His fur, thick, rough and a little gritty, gave him away as spending most of his time outdoors. His white socks were just an off color of gray. He had scratches along his nose from defending his territory. He was comfortable at being petted, though somewhat skittish of any sudden movement. When he turned his attention to the bowl I set before him, I could see he was an unneutered male.

He dove into the dish like a man just rescued from a deserted island. He finished every morsel, sniffing along the ground for any crumb he'd left behind. When I retreated back inside after he'd eaten and washed, he sat staring at the front door, waiting for it to reopen, waiting for an invitation to follow me inside. After several minutes of disappointment, he trotted behind the house to stalk the top of the ditch in the now bright morning sun.

I don't know his story, don't know whether he was a stray abandoned by his owner, a wildling raised around people, or simply a semi-neglected pet forced to spend his life outside. He comes around some nights and cries at the back door as if surprised to find it closed. It's heartbreaking not to be able to open it and let him in. The other two just wouldn't understand.

Many days I know how he feels. I've been outside polite company for so long that I am cautious when the opportunity presents itself. But I haven't turned completely feral. Some instinct drives me back toward the door and longs to be allowed back inside, despite my uncertainty at what I might find within. Despite my reluctance to enter lest someone raise a hand to me again.

In that way, perhaps we are both lost, caught in the twilight between a shadowed world of solitude and self-reliance, and a brighter one of constant warmth and companionship. We beg at the door, accepting any scraps laid out before us. Perhaps, if we are friendly enough or gentle enough, if we purr loudly enough, someone will accept us and let us in. Or perhaps we are merely trying to convince ourselves that inside is where we belong.

So we linger beside the door, hesitating at the threshold when it opens. Afraid that if we enter we will become trapped inside, losing our identity or our independence. Afraid that such a prison within is worse than the one we've already constructed for ourselves without.

Gripped by indecision, we wait in the fog, gray and indistinct, until the sunlight burns through to warm our spirits, and we wander off to hunt or play alone.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Body Language

Grazing through the channels last week, I stopped to watch some of President Bush's press conference with the sound off. I generally find his speeches easier that way. Despite his being muted, I noticed that his body language, the shrugs, the slouching posture, the sly half-smile, the avoidance of eye contact, might not have reinforced the overall message he intended.

Up to ninety percent of human communication is nonverbal. We rely heavily on tone, posture and gesture to understand one another even when we don't actually listen or absorb the individual words. If we see a man and woman in conversation, we all have an idea of her intentions with the hair twirl, the downturned eyes, the half-bitten lip, the over-the-shoulder glance and the upturned face, regardless of the words of being exchanged.

If you want to see the epitome of body language in action, just ask a married couple a question, preferably one where neither is certain how the other will want to answer. Scheduling, especially an event one or the other might not want to attend, is always a good choice. What you will witness is a hive mind being born.

Sure other cliques have their own communication shorthand. They can welcome or reject a new member, even admonish an existing one, all without a word being said. As an outsider, you may understand what's happened but not always how or why. If you are very observant, you might pick out the bellwether, not the obvious leader of the group, but the social force that gives it life. The individual who guides the others without exposing himself to danger, shielding himself in the center of group.

With a married couple, that shorthand is refined down to its essence. Confronted with the right question, they will lock eyes with slightly confused expressions, staring at one another for a moment in silence. With newlyweds, you might spot a subtle hand gesture or the nearly imperceptible nod but such extraneous expressions fade with time.

That eye contact intimacy masks a high-speed data link being engaged. Behind the quiet facade, a contact protocol has been initiated. Once the link is up and operational, information packets are exchanged from separate databases stored redundantly, but incompletely, in each mind as a security precaution. After the combined data set has been reassembled, each partner enters an internal review cycle. Here both inspect the joint data, performing checksums and decryption to verify its validity and authenticity. The reconstructed file is reviewed to ensure no meaningful gaps exist. If a hole is detected, one partner may request duplicate information from the other. If the missing packets aren't forthcoming, say due to a garbled link, a compromise to the secure channel or the lack of proper clearance, one or the other will each briefly enter an extrapolation mode. This breach of the trust protocol could impact future negotiations.

Once both partners are satisfied with the assembled data, they enter a negotiation phase. Bursts of information are exchanged, request/confirm/acknowledge messages gauging the interest in the event, whether it must be a shared venture, and the cost to the more desirous party, even if that is only an unspecified draft choice to be named at a later date. Once the terms have been agreed, they nominate and elect a spokesperson. This may or may not be the more appetent party depending on the analyzed strength and clarity of the link. This likely initiates a second round of negotiation and a price adjustment. Then the precise language of press statement both parties are willing to release is negotiated. Like a SALT II discussion or an Arab-Israeli peace accord, the terms of this joint message could result in further, prolonged negotiations and significantly alter the final cost.

Once the white smoke has cleared, one of them will slowly turn to speak, perhaps trailing his eyes toward his partner as if reluctant to venture out on his own. If he violates the negotiated terms, or his volatile memory corrupts some vital portion of the script, he may hesitate, and his partner will take over mid-sentence, perhaps without a pause.

The entire exchange requires no more than three seconds. Outside the eye contact, the only other visible body language will be perhaps a slight squinting of the eyes or a furrowing of the brow. Should a compromise not be reached within that three-second window, the party breaking the link will likely offer to get back to you noncommittally. If entrenchment results in a forcibly aborted protocol, the aggrieved party may attempt to renew negotiations verbally and sway inconsequential allies to his side. This is a dangerous act of desperation. Immediately change the subject, or glance at your watch and remember somewhere else to be.

Intimacy breeds understanding. Humans are the only animals that mate face to face. Women often complain about where a man's eyes gravitate, not realizing that both genders' gazes subconsciously drift there during a conversation with a woman. When conversing with a man, both stray farther south. We size each other up instinctively, both our prospects and our rivals. Watch yourself more consciously during your next interaction. You might be surprised at the thoughts your eyes betray.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Shadow Play

I talk a lot in these messages about the natural environment, flowers and trees, birds and squirrels, snakes and hawks, light and shadow and color. Generally, they provide my inspiration. They anchor me.

When I started this message, I had a different exercise in mind. Books on writing dialogue recommend exercises in eavesdropping to get a feel for how people actually talk to one another. The point is not to capture the exact manner in which people converse, it's more to get an impression of it, then distill it down to its crucial elements, boiling away all the ers and uhms, the pauses and non-productive tangents to capture the essence of the exchange.

When I sat down to write this, I had a particular theme in mind: watching the people outside my window and what I could learn from the few seconds they are within my sight each day. My notes included things like who had become pregnant, who had hired a nanny, who had gotten a new dog. A husband and wife walking together but separate, her several feet behind as though they shared a completely separate world. Who had started on an exercise routine, who was trying out for cross-country. Who was gleaning extra money by picking through their neighbors' recycling.

The first rule of inspiration is that it's capricious. The muse changes direction without warning or explanation, like a butterfly on the wing. At first I felt resistance, though I couldn't figure out why. Resistance turned to judgment, the idea that the original concept had never been worthwhile and never would be, not matter how long I struggled with it. It is easy to tip from there into melancholy, doubting everything from my talent to my purpose, my direction and my voice. Those are the inglorious moments that few people witness. The joys of being a writer.

I set the message down to salvage another message, another errant child who didn't want to be led down the path where I thought it should go. If anyone is looking for an insight into writing, into creative endeavors of any kind, it is that sometimes you have to force your way through the resistance no matter how wrong it feels. Not your original idea. If you get too rooted in that you will get frustrated and give up. You have to travel where the river takes you, not swim against the current, and trust that you will end up at a pleasant destination. So I sat back down with this message and kept typing, just to see where the stream of thoughts would lead.

People tend to see nature as something different from their everyday surroundings. I'm not sure a bright line exists between natural and man-made environments. Where does my yard end and nature begin? Do the snakes notice the lines of demarcation, or do they just circumvent them like so many thickets and brambles and fallen logs? Do the squirrels notice any difference between the acorns in the oaks on either side of the ditch? Do coyotes discern between a cat on the prowl in the park and in my yard? Does a fox care where it finds a rabbit? Does a hawk think of our chainlink fence as anything more than a cool and slippery perch?

We like to think we control the environment around us, but we don't. Sure we clear land, build houses, transplant non-native species, exterminate pests. Everything we do has an impact. At the same time, other species, pigeons and cats, squirrels, roaches and rats, are at least as adaptable as we are. While we push some creatures to the verge of extinction, others flourish in the margins we've created and thrive on the detritus we leave behind. I'm not saying our impact is value-neutral. Nor do I see it as an anthropocentric manifest destiny. As long as we see ourselves as separate from our environment, we will continue to cause unintended consequences as we alter the complex systems upon which our lives depend. As long as we see ourselves as separate, we are benign dictators, Marie Antoinettes trapped within our Versailles gardens while the countryside erupts and the flames entertain us by casting shadows on our walls.

That was the beginning of my tangent as I sat back down to write. I wasn't sure where it was going or what it had to do with watching people, so I set it down again, waiting for another inspiration, some combination of man and nature to draw it all together.

On Saturday morning, our neighbor had a yard sale. She had one last weekend but didn't get the numbers she'd hoped for so she advertised and tried again. This week the turnout was brisk. Cars came and went, parking on both sides of the street, often across our driveway. But there was not so much traffic as to scare the blue jays off the birdfeeder out front. While we ate breakfast, Mara, our youngest cat, sat in the front window watching them. A car parked beyond our mailbox and a couple got out to see what treasures might lay hidden amongst the castoffs scattered across our neighbor's drive.

For an instant, those elements of man and nature came together. The sun, just high enough to reflect off the curve of the car's windshield but low enough to sneak beneath the trees, passed through the low, bare myrtle branches, then through front window and past the cat to paint a perfect silhouette in shadow on our living room wall. Something about the balance of images caught me, the crosshatch of muntins defining the window broken by the sweeping curves of branches, the shadow cat below with ears erect balanced by the squares of light above, all overlaid onto the everyday items that occupy our painted wall. I pointed it out to Karen who, in her own creative moment, captured the portrait with her camera. A moment later the couple returned from their outing and drove away. The scene before us faded.

Some days, I only get a glimpse of an inspiration, cobbled together from the elements at hand. Like a signpost on a switchback path, the way is only visible for a moment before it darkens and is gone. Like the sunlight dancing across the wall of Plato's cave, that shadow play made it difficult to tell where nature ends and man begins, which was real and which an illusion. Or whether the combination of both had created something else completely.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Simplicity

When I was younger, I enjoyed complexity. Third Reich, Squad Leader, Stellar Conquest, understanding rules of complex game systems was entertaining and engaging. My dream vacation was to gather seven other people and play a game of Machiavelli to absolute victory. I figured that would take a long weekend at least. If I had a week to burn with like-minded people, it would be with a five-player game of Third Reich in a cabin in the mountains.

I always thought I might have an advantage, not because I understood the rules better or had some brilliant strategy, but because I maintain a singular focus for long periods of time where others got bored and drifted off. If I was ever a decent engineer, it was because I could hold complex concepts in my head and focus on them. Not as well as a few analysts I know and respect, but better than average. Too bad I could never quite fathom the rules of personal interactions, though I still find them fascinating to try and decipher.

I received an e-mail from a friend late last night, replying to my latest Imaginings, asking me not to respond. She's working her way through some 2000 e-mails and I think that's just her personal account. Of course, she might think this is my passive-aggressive attempt to engage her in conversation without actually dishonoring her request. She doesn't know that I, too, am working off a backlog this week, attempting to catch up with unwritten messages as a daily exercise before starting on the four short stories I have sketched out. Nor does she realize the title and several lines have been lingering in my Drafts folder for several weeks while my focus drifted elsewhere.

I see so many people with so much technology that is advertised to simplify their lives but only makes them more complex. E-mail, text messages, blogs, IM's, web sites, cell phones. The last two strike me. Web sites. The Web. Cell phones. Cells. Even the words are indicative of modern technology, sticky, informational prisons of our own creation from which we can't get escape, within which we struggle but only become more deeply entangled. The irony is that the very things that are supposed to free us to communicate more effectively are the ones that chain us deeper in confusion.

What I find odd and amusing is how many people I know who have all the latest gadgets but don't have the time to use or keep up with them. They lose e-mails or miss phone calls, or just don't have time to be in touch. Not that the technology itself helps us there. Once a week I have one program or another downloading an update, sometimes innocuously, other times completely restructuring the interface (like my Yahoo homepage today). Each iteration is supposed to be "new and improved" which it generally is, though there is a trade-off between the time it saves and the time I have to spend relearning it.

That doesn't include the ubiquitous entertainment occupying every moment of every day in almost every facet of our lives. X-Boxes, DVR's, high-def Dolby 7.1 surround. We emerge from our homes as iPod people, walking automatons each wrapped in a private world of sights and sounds but desperately afraid we might miss something going on around us that we don't have time to notice. Internet access at work. Televisions with bottom-lines and sidebars and endless streaming speculation in every public space from restaurants to waiting rooms to gyms to bathrooms. Yes, ladies, the men's room is now equipped with high-def sports and business broadcasts over the urinals in mid-line to high-end restaurants and bars. Are you jealous, or just amazed that we can concentrate on two things at once? I think they only upgraded us from newspapers because they discovered that reading required a little too much of our attention. Just think, guys, one day we'll have video games to occupy our time in there like they do in Holland, though I won't explain how. Plumbing and electricity, two great inventions that go great together.

How long before we mainline information directly to our brains in a completely dark and Gibsonian future. As soon as Apple and Dow Chemical can agree on the materials and protocol for the interface with the Society of Neuroscience, I would think. Or will that be Microsoft and GE? We are an info-tainment addicted society. Wi-fi is our gateway drug.

People undervalue simplicity. How many of you come up with your best ideas or solutions in the shower? Why is that? Perhaps because you are allowing a level of your mind to work without inundating it with stimuli that requires its attention and response. This is your subconscious calling. I'm sorry, he's not available at the moment, would you like to leave a message? No, I'll just follow-up with an encrypted video/voice-mail later in a dream.

Some of what we see as ADD (or ADHD) in children is in fact over-stimulation, giving them too many choices. Anecdotally, many mild to moderate behavior problems subside when the clutter is cleared away and their toys are reduced to a cherished few. There is nothing quite like scarcity to enrich our experiences, and nothing like distraction to dilute them.

In writing, as with other less structured vocations, distraction is a constant danger. Every year I attend conferences where established writers warn against fooling yourself into thinking that you are writing when you are not. The easiest way not to write is to read up on technique, update your software, organize your information, or research a topic on the web, all in the name of greater productivity. Perhaps you need a laptop, a wireless modem, a digital voice recorder, a Blackberry, plotting software and iPhone so you can write whenever and wherever the inspiration strikes. The problem is, most of that time and equipment doesn't lead anywhere. Writers write. Messages, stories and chapters don't usually write themselves, well, except maybe once or twice in a dream.

For me, nothing beats sitting on a porch in the cool of the day or evening, listening to the birds and other sounds of nature with a notebook in my lap. Just slowing down to the ultimate simplicity of me, the ideas and the world at large with none of the other worries and complexities of life to intrude. Unlike the games of my youth, there are no complex rules or scenarios, no long setup time or scheduling conflicts. Just my imagination and the satisfying audio-tactile scratching of 0.5 lead against paper. I find the act meditative and therapeutic, like zazen for a Buddhist monk.

I read this weekend that Buddhism is dying in Japan. The Japanese are turning to Christianity and Islam because they want to hear a sermon every week, which strikes me both as a social function and another form of entertainment. The goal of Zen is not some mysterious state or destination. It is to live each moment fully, to be engaged in each activity without being distracted by other thoughts or plans, the past or the future. You feel a master's presence because he focuses all of his attention, his entire being upon you. He brings that intensity to every activity in his life whether chopping wood or cooking dinner or simple conversation. How poor our world will become if that example is lost beneath the rising tide of noise.

I think we will always need mystics, monks and poets, perhaps even the odd dilettante writer, to remind us to turn off and tune in to the beauty just within our sight as we sit to catch our breath. Whatever their creed, they have but one commandment: Simplify.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Ghost

Many cultures believe that a soul remains in the area of its life for three days after death, sometimes longer, finishing the details of its life, checking on the loved ones it left behind. During that time, you must do everything in your power to appease that spirit, or confuse it in some traditions so that it doesn't wreak havoc upon you from the other side. In many cultures, that handful of days is a narrow window to communicate with the dead, to wish them well before they begin their journey, to say the things you forgot to say while they were still a part of your world.
But in most folklore, especially Eastern European folklore, ghosts and spirits are cunning and opportunistic. They attend the times when our eyes most deceive us, the shadowy light of dawn and dusk. They can appear as corporeal beings, creatures that interact and seem real in every sense of the word. That is part of their disguise and deception. You must be careful as you never know what spirit you're dealing with. A spirit you think may be a loved one could in truth be a local godling or demon wanting to ingratiate itself to you for its own purposes. Desire and a willingness to believe what you see are what make you vulnerable.
Karen and I went out to the lake in the park to watch the sunset tonight. In the twilight on our way home, a black cat sat astride our path, one we'd never seen before. He watched us, unfazed by our approach. His eyes almost glowed against the dark fur of his narrow face like topaz jewels backlit in a stained-glass panel, like the one Karen made me of Smoke many years ago.
As we got nearer, he started to leave, then stopped and looked at us again. And cried, like an infant, or a Siamese. We squatted down and held out our hands to show we were harmless as we know to do with strange cats. He approached cautiously, sensing we were safe, still crying intermittently. He sniffed our hands. Karen petted him. I gently stroked his side. He was a young, unneutered male with well-groomed fur that wasn't coarse like it gets when a cat lives its life outside. Not thin like he was wild, but no sign of a collar. Definitely comfortable with people.
But was he real, or a ghost? Perhaps he was a messenger carrying news from the other side, or relaying what he saw the other way. Karen is convinced he was real, that he had substance. I'm not as certain. My people believe that spirits inhabit every stone and tree, every mountain and river. Animals can be omens, good or bad, couriers from another world to remind us of things we've forgotten, or to warn us of things we have not yet seen. Sometimes these things are only revealed in time. Maybe he was just a construct of my own desire. Or just a friendly black cat with a few white guard hairs that coincidentally lived nearby. It's hard to know.
We all see the world in different ways. Most days, I'm not quite sure if I should completely believe my eyes. And, some days, I wish I could.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Drowning

The dream always begins the same. The memory surfaces with a line from a book, a scene from a movie, the splash of the shower against my face. My feet dangle above open water. The world becomes horizontal, no topography but the waves. The contours lie beyond the horizon, or yards below with the boat.

Another memory rises. Another body of water, this one with a sandy bottom pressed against my face. Me holding my breath as though my life depends on it, which it might.

Exhaling slowly, I simulate drowning in this personal waterboarding, only without the board or the information or the medical team standing by in case I fail. Only the water and her weight over locked elbows pressing against my neck that leaves me no leverage but deceit. When I lay still, almost floating beneath her hands, her grip slackens and I am reborn, reentering the world kicking and screaming, never quite seeing it the same after the struggle, after seeing the expression on her face which reminds me that I am alive, unexpectedly.

And she wonders why I lie to her. That day it was the only way to survive. I know I should feel guilty, and often do, for both lying and surviving.

When we begin this life, we can see the bottom clearly. Gold and jewels strewn from other people's wrecks lay sparkling upon the ocean floor, waiting for us to reach out and claim them. We learn to snorkel, then to dive. Confident, we strap on our equipment and slip beneath the waves.

Immediately, unseen currents pull us. Sharks maraud us and eels snap at us from hidden holes. Coral fingers grasp at our air hoses, at our exposed skin. Jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-war threaten to entangle us in their tentacles.

When we recover, we find the sun has retreated behind the clouds. The water has turned murky, the treasure is no longer within sight. Low on air, tired and cramping, we return to the surface. Some exchange air tanks and rest to try again, learning from their experience. Others learn to embrace the sea.

Novels become short stories that shrink to essays small enough to send by e-mail, descriptions without purpose, fragments without context repeated endlessly like waves upon the sea. Echoes of a life drawn to its own reflection in the water, the words my nemesis and her curse.

In the dream there is no weight, only the perfect freedom of water embracing me like a womb, the ocean a mother willing to reclaim me if I let her. The shore is distant. Darkness nears. I only have to wait. Though before I am drawn to her breast, the hands of strangers pluck me from the water. But I continue to hold my breath until I wake on the shore, safe in my bed, the sea still echoing in my ears.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

The Monkey Howls

Deep within the jungle the monkey howls, unsure how it became trapped within a carpeted cage of concrete and gypsum. It awakens matted and alone, bereft of the soothing ritual of mutual grooming, uncertain what became of its troop, its tribe, its family, unable to comprehend the rules that regulate its primal needs.

It screams its frustration to the darkness. No one listens.

Each day we beat the monkey down, relegating its desires to the cold-blooded landscape between sentience and survival. It dwells in the reptilian depths, only surfacing with frustration and anger at the Other, the one who does not belong, the one encroaching on its territory, its mate, its life, its existence. The one threatening the first of its tree, the women of its troop, the children of its line. Then it growls and howls and shakes the bars of our frontal lobes.

We camouflage our hairy hides beneath a cloak of civilization whose thin leather cracks and peels as those around us abandon the conventions upon which we thought we had all agreed. Others no longer turn their faces away but reclaim eye for blind eye confident the magic of their shamans will grant them second sight. Fear sends us huddling to one another, terrified that the shadow stalking the night is a hungry leopard rather than a tame and playful housecat.

Each morning the monkey raises its voice with the dawn, chattering its protests, its anger, its discontent. That cathartic cry rises to a warning wail of loneliness to the wilderness we fear may claim our souls again.


© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Memorial

He lies sleeping in stone, reclining on a pedestal devotedly polished by a thousand hands for his eternal rest. Resplendent in the armor that marked him as fearless on the battlefield, he is coifed and clad mail. The rings are bent but unbroken, his flesh bruised but whole just as it was before he entered his final battle. His hair, clean and even, peeks out in the wild twists and curls that marked his fierceness, his courage, his passion.

A sword has been worked into his hands, naked steel clutched to his chest like a talisman or a shield. Its tip rests near his boots as it had after so many victories when he dropped to one knee thanking his gods for the strength to overcome his adversaries, thanking his gods for their blessings and protection. His is pose of peace after conflict, marking him as a hero fallen in battle.

Three more swords adorn the pedestal, one building upon the next. At the top, the sword of his father marks the house and family whose honor he maintained. In the middle, the sword of his king and country, the realm he swore to defend from invasion and assault. At the bottom, the sword of his faith that formed the foundation of his every deed and action.

Passing strangers who view this monument see the end of an age. Some mourn a lost prince, the last Defender of their Faith, the final Protector of their Realm. Others believe he will rise reborn, returning in their time of need to shield their nation once again from enemies within and without. A few see this hero reborn each day in the eyes of the children whose parents worship him as a savior.

The handful who gather closer begin to perceive the flaws eating at the monument's structure and hierarchy. The swords set into pedestal are tarnished and discolored. To him family was more an obligation than real flesh and blood, his daily interactions sacrificed to duty. As Lord Protector, he stained his sword more with the blood of his countrymen than that of any outsiders or invaders. As Defender of the Faith, he aggressively wielded that sword to enforce the tenets of a religion based on peace. Even the sword poised upon his chest remains flecked with the blood of battle, no one having thought to clean it before committing him to stone. Unable to bear the weight above, the monument's foundation crumbles along its edges as gilt slowly flakes to rust.

Through the rain and ice and heat of each passing season, the memorial slowly cracks and splits open as if struggling to contain its secrets. Each year, his admirers patch the polished stone with concrete, hoping to conceal the nature of the man enshrined within.


© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Trash Migration

Trash Migration - a reading (on YouTube)

Here at the house, our trash gets collected twice each week, Monday and Thursday. While we're lucky if we put out one barrel once a week, our neighbors are much more prolific in their trash generation. Every Sunday and Wednesday, we are privileged to witness the rare trash migration that occurs next door.

It starts before dawn with us waking to find one trash can perched like a pillar at the edge of the curb. It stands as a lone sentry for most of the morning, a kind of bellwether guardian to ensure the remainder of the herd will be safe as they approach. One by one over the course of the next several hours, individual cans cluster around their leader until, by evening, three to four well-stuffed barrels have colonized the banks of the asphalt stream. Only then does the young, less contained trash of the herd, the miscellaneous boxes, bags and household detritus, feel safe enough to emerge from hiding and cling to the handles of their elders. Once weekly, they are joined by their low, squat cousins, the recycling bins, always arriving in pairs, usually after a heavy feeding. Some days, they bring snacks of bundled yard waste to see them through the long, dark night until collection the next morning.

Each week, they remain quite cautious. In my twenty years of observation, I've never seen the herd rush the curb en masse. Perhaps the subtropical heat holds them to a slower pace. Perhaps it's their natural shyness or an instinct for self-preservation against the packs of salvage scavengers and rogue recyclers that circle the neighborhood. Perhaps only one or two ever make the migration at all and breed at the curb in some unwitnessed mating ritual or asexual budding. I'm not sure we'll know unless we set up a scent-masked blind with a motion-sensing, night-vision camera to monitor their diurnal rhythms in this their natural habitat.

But we must be quick or by morning all we'll find are their empty carcasses. The grunting, grinding predator that roams the asphalt river is large and its appetite nearly insatiable.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III