WHEN THE GREAT SPIRIT SPEAKS

         My last story/article based in the WAIT-A-BIT!
community, I'm told, was kinda gross. "With very
little redeeming value..." 
       Yeah,  well, that might be true... but if
there are a few laughs in the piece,or a few bits
that  make you smile... that's the redeeming value,
as far as I'm concerned.

       In the recent past, this community
of wild men and women,  had been so stunned by a bomb blast that no one can remember the name of
the old town we used to live in...when the town still had brick buildings in it...
      
      There are no longer any brick buildings   So far as any of us know, the village now has 16 people in it. Some people live in foxholes just below the surface.There are some women who live a full tier below the surface bunkers, I am told, so it seems  there are another 8 to 15 more villagers... too distrustful to ever venture up towards the surface.
                With the summer flies and the almost unrelenting ice, not many of us enjoy
much surface time... Though there is the ever-rolling river down the hill, and three canoes
... two you can paddle.... only one that is reliable
over any distance...
                I took a ninety mile canoe trip. I did it  once. Artie and I made it to a village south of
Inuvik, where we ate great autumn food and moose steaks. Then we got drunk and I seem to remember having sex with a strong gal on top of me. I lost all my socks ( six pairs) and Artie
lost his wallet...mostly for the pictures in it.
                   But I paddled away south of there
wearing  beaded leather pants
a lovely woman gave
to me.
                  This was when I had just arrived
in the Arctic, and I wasn't used to
women being quiet. She didn't say more than
ten words in three days, and I wasn't mature
enough in the ways of the North to realize
that this was a sign of love, respect and
exceptionally good breeding.
                Me, I talked too much
most of the time, I suppose. But never
once did I hear a word of recrimination.

                We live in cities and we think we know all there is to know. That visit deeper into the north
was my first learning experience. It was the
first time I realized I knew nothing at all.

                 We made it down to WAIT-A-BIT!
8 days later... And going south, we were paddling
upstream.
                 We paddled south into a glorious
crimson, orange and pink sunset
such as I never believed possible.
                 There are moments or Grace
and communion with the landscape up
here... It's difficult to write about such
moments, because these moments are born
out of times when the harsh living world
is kind to us. It is inevitable that such
moments are lived in solitude
and silence, utter silence when
the Spirit of the Great One speaks.




**************************************************
EDIT BELOW  -- (make below a separate story?)
But a
priest and a stripper showed up and 
took over the foxhole of a couple who
took off  east on a little dogsled jaunt.
             These were the "doers" and the "thinkers"
of the town. Their dogsled trip would be 3600 miles
 across the Arctic to Hudson's Bay...No one could agree on the exact mileage of the trip.
              No one could agree on the mileage
because the trip had never been done before,
not in the last three thousand years, anyway.
              The only person in recent memory
who  might have been crazy to try it is the Mad Trapper if Rat River, when the cops were after him.
(the RCMP redcoats, it's said they always get their
man... and maybe you can still say it...
because nobody can agree whether the Mad Trapper WAS a man. A man or a beast, that is.
              I see on a piece of municipal paper
that the population of the town was once 146.
Now it's 16. 
I can see these numbers on a piece of Town Hall paper, along with a picture of the town hall (R.I.P.) 

       Anything over a 3000 mile trip  is considered a long jaunt in the Arctic Winter. Of course,the same distance would be a murderous pilgrimage in the fly-mad summer. Such a trip would be something
only a madman would try.
        So only a few of my neighbours would
think of such an endeavour.
         (One of them's sleeping right across the
bunker from me)
           Hank's been thinking of dashing
east... thought about it all through last winter,
when he was digging that tunnel towards the east.
But the sun is shining and I can almost see
its glow through the triple screens. Why bring
up painful memories such as Hank's
psychosis?
        Yes, I'm sitting here on an old wooden
chair having a smoke, gazing at the noonday
sun through the "twilight screening". The
triple screens will turn even the brightest
sun into a romantic twilight. Think
of a candlelight dinner with someone who
appeals to you.
             I used to dream of moments like this
when I was locked up in those overcrowded
jails to the south.
             I went from being a jailbird in the
south - to mayor of a northern town. That's
why they call the north, "the land of opportunity."
Because anything can happen, and often does.
           Mostemaining
population took off after the BOOM of at least
two 2000 pound bombs and a few other
exploding surprises shot off in cruise missiles...
           All the rubble of the town on the
eastern edge of the northern Mackenzie River
was blown north of where the town had been...
so we who were left in the village ---
at least we had a place to dig! Twenty
feet deep rubble with re-bar included
and chunks of cement that would fit
in the hand of yer local Sasquatch
huge mad trapper men.
           (These types who have never
yet been heard to speak an articulate word)

            Where am I going with this?

             I have no idea... I meant to talk
about another topic entirely.
town = villa  

((NOTE woman's rights as being the real substance
of the war between moslem and Christian.... the status of women
in the two civilizations)
                                  WRITE THIS DELICATELY)      

         My last story/article based in the WAIT-A-BIT!
community, I'm told, was kinda gross. "With very
little redeeming value..." 
       Yeah,  well, that might be true... but if
there are a few laughs in the piece,or a few bits
that  make you smile... that's the redeeming value,
as far as I'm concerned.

       In the recent past, this community
of wild men and women,  had been so stunned by a bomb blast that no one can remember the name of
the old town we used to live in...when the town still had brick buildings in it...
      
      There are no longer any brick buildings   So far as any of us know, the village now has 16 people in it. Some people live in foxholes just below the surface.There are some women who live a full tier below the surface bunkers, I am told, so it seems  there are another 8 to 15 more villagers too distrustful to ever venture up towards the surface.
                With the summer flies and the almost unrelenting ice, not many of us enjoy
much surface time... Though there is the ever-rollowing river down the hill, and three canoes
... two you can paddle.... only one that is reliable
over any distance...
                I took a ninety mile canoe trip. I did it  once. Artie and I made it to a village south of
Innuvik, where we ate great autumn food and moose steaks. Then we got drunk and I seem to remember having sex with a strong gal on top of me. I lost all my socks ( six pairs) and Artie
lost his wallet....
                   But I paddled away south of there
wearing  beaded leather pants
a lovely woman named Chris Macdonald gave
to me.
                  This was when I had just arrived
in the Arctic, and I wasn't used to
women being quiet. She didn't say more than
ten words in three days, and I wasn't mature
enough in the ways of the North to realize
that this was a sign of love, respect and
exceptionally good breeding.
                Me, I talked too much
most of the time, I suppose. But never
once did I hear a word of recrimination.

                We live in cities and we think we know all there is to know. That visit deeper into the north
was my first learning experience. It was the
first time I realized I knew nothing at all.

                 We made it down to WAIT-A-BIT!
8 days later... And going south, we were paddling
upstream.
                 We paddled south into a glorious
crimson, orange and pink sunset
such as I never believed possible.
                 There are moments or Grace
and communion with the landscape up
here... It's difficult to write about such
moments, because these moments are born
out of times when the harsh living world
is kind to us. It is inevitable that such
moments are lived in solitude
and silence, utter silence when
the Spirit of the Great One speaks.




**************************************************
EDIT BELOW  -- (make below a separate story?)
But a
priest and a stripper showed up and 
took over the foxhole of a couple who
took off  east on a little dogsled jaunt.
             These were the "doers" and the "thinkers"
of the town. Their dogsled trip would be 3600 miles
 across the Arctic to Hudson's Bay...No one could agree on the exact mileage of the trip.
              No one could agree on the mileage
because the trip had never been done before,
not in the last three thousand years, anyway.
              The only person in recent memory
who  might have been crazy to try it is the Mad Trapper if Rat River, when the cops were after him.
(the RCMP redcoats, it's said they always get their
man... and maybe you can still say it...
because nobody can agree whether the Mad Trapper WAS a man. A man or a beast, that is.
              I see on a piece of municipal paper
that the population of the town was once 146.
Now it's 16. 
I can see these numbers on a piece of Town Hall paper, along with a picture of the town hall (R.I.P.) 

       Anything over a 3000 mile trip  is considered a long jaunt in the Arctic Winter. Of course,the same distance would be a murderous pilgrimage in the fly-mad summer. Such a trip would be something
only a madman would try.
        So only a few of my neighbours would
think of such an endeavour.
         (One of them's sleeping right across the
bunker from me)
           Hank's been thinking of dashing
east... thought about it all through last winter,
when he was digging that tunnel towards the east.
But the sun is shining and I can almost see
its glow through the triple screens. Why bring
up painful memories such as Hank's
psychosis?
        Yes, I'm sitting here on an old wooden
chair having a smoke, gazing at the noonday
sun through the "twilight screening". The
triple screens will turn even the brightest
sun into a romantic twilight. Think
of a candlelight dinner with someone who
appeals to you.
             I used to dream of moments like this
when I was locked up in those overcrowded
jails to the south.
             I went from being a jailbird in the
south - to mayor of a northern town. That's
why they call the north, "the land of opportunity."
Because anything can happen, and often does.
           Mostemaining
population took off after the BOOM of at least
two 2000 pound bombs and a few other
exploding surprises shot off in cruise missiles...
           All the rubble of the town on the
eastern edge of the northern Mackenzie River
was blown north of where the town had been...
so we who were left in the village ---
at least we had a place to dig! Twenty
feet deep rubble with re-bar included
and chunks of cement that would fit
in the hand of yer local Sasquatch
huge mad trapper men.
           (These types who have never
yet been heard to speak an articulate word)

            Where am I going with this?

             I have no idea... I meant to talk
about another topic entirely.
town = villa  

((NOTE woman's rights as being the real substance
of the war between moslem and Christian.... the status of women
in the two civilizations)
                                  WRITE THIS DELICATELY)      


         My last story/article based in the WAIT-A-BIT!
community, I'm told, was kinda gross. "With very
little redeeming value..." 
       Yeah,  well, that might be true... but if
there are a few laughs in the piece,or a few bits
that  make you smile... that's the redeeming value,
as far as I'm concerned.

       In the recent past, this community
of wild men and women,  had been so stunned by a bomb blast that no one can remember the name of
the old town we used to live in...when the town still had brick buildings in it...
      
      There are no longer any brick buildings   So far as any of us know, the village now has 16 people in it. Some people live in foxholes just below the surface.There are some women who live a full tier below the surface bunkers, I am told, so it seems  there are another 8 to 15 more villagers too distrustful to ever venture up towards the surface.
                With the summer flies and the almost unrelenting ice, not many of us enjoy
much surface time... Though there is the ever-rollowing river down the hill, and three canoes
... two you can paddle.... only one that is reliable
over any distance...
                I took a ninety mile canoe trip. I did it  once. Artie and I made it to a village south of
Innuvik, where we ate great autumn food and moose steaks. Then we got drunk and I seem to remember having sex with a strong gal on top of me. I lost all my socks ( six pairs) and Artie
lost his wallet....
                   But I paddled away south of there
wearing  beaded leather pants
a lovely woman named Chris Macdonald gave
to me.
                  This was when I had just arrived
in the Arctic, and I wasn't used to
women being quiet. She didn't say more than
ten words in three days, and I wasn't mature
enough in the ways of the North to realize
that this was a sign of love, respect and
exceptionally good breeding.
                Me, I talked too much
most of the time, I suppose. But never
once did I hear a word of recrimination.

                We live in cities and we think we know all there is to know. That visit deeper into the north
was my first learning experience. It was the
first time I realized I knew nothing at all.

                 We made it down to WAIT-A-BIT!
8 days later... And going south, we were paddling
upstream.
                 We paddled south into a glorious
crimson, orange and pink sunset
such as I never believed possible.
                 There are moments or Grace
and communion with the landscape up
here... It's difficult to write about such
moments, because these moments are born
out of times when the harsh living world
is kind to us. It is inevitable that such
moments are lived in solitude
and silence, utter silence when
the Spirit of the Great One speaks.




***************************
                                                                 (C)2014 by W.G.Milne

FUN WITH HEAVEN AND HELL

           It is said there is a place called heaven and
a place called hell. But where are these places?
Do we really believe that heaven is above the
clouds and hell is beneath our feet?
       

THE WHIP AND THE CROSS

PAIN IN SEX AND THE FLESH........ COMPLETION IN THE SPIRIT...............HELL AND HEAVEN?.....TWO REALMS BUT ONE WORLD ONLY     

 

PAIN                                    SPIRITUALITY
IN THE FLESH                     IN THE FLESH
PAIN                                     SPIRIT


           There are not two worlds, there is only one.

 So why this dichotomy? Why this major split in our morality?  Affairs of the spirit   vs   affairs of the flesh?
Is one realm morally superior to the other?

      It's where we place our FOCUS

       Where we focus our desires.

       Total focus on the genital region will
make this all-encompassing energy seem
as if it's a world unto itself. It's a sphere
all right, but it's not a world.
       The energy of the 1st chakra - HUMP!
HUMP! HUMP! Jack off like a monkey
at the zoo. Staring at the crotches of all
who pass...
       It's a transient world, but what isn't
transient?  The roots that clutch, the
hidden caverns of lust under the earth...
Is it a hell?  Not quite and not yet... it
depends on the intensity and the
duration of your focus.
        The problem with desire? Desire
is usually for something outside of
yourself - it expresses an incompletion
in the psyche.
   
         I WANT MORE

       This could be the motto for the
realms of desire. 
              Lovers chained together at
the ankle or groin.



     If you focus on the beginningless
and endless TAO... A completion resides
in this sphere.  If we're looking
for some kind of peace, peace resides
in the realms of completion.

        IT IS ENOUGH

      This could be the motto for the
realms of peace, the higher chakras,
the realm of completion,  the
heavens - the chaste and sacred realms -
the one who is creating us  uses male and
female in one crucible.
         "When you make the two one" a paragraph
in the Gospel of Thomas, "When you make the
male and the female into a single one..." 
           Desire then does not have to be for an external love.

              
                Is desire truly the powerful enemy of the soul?   (see Bhagavad Gita) "Arjuna, kill desire, the powerful
enemy of the soul."

         A few  thoughts on:

  THE WHIP   AND THE   CROSS 


                          Enjoy.

ROOM TEMPATURE FUEL CELL EXISTS

          I CAME across an interesting site this morning
called the "Carbon Capture Report". It's expertly run
and I recommend checking it out. 
       A company my family invested in 35 years ago
developed the Keefer Fuel Cell, invented by the son
of the Keefer family. The cell was able to take
energy from the effluent of a town and light
the town electrically with that energy.
  ENERGY CANNOT BE CREATED OR DESTROYED
 
         THIS IS THE MAXIM THAT APPLIES.

         They had a small car driving around with a big lit
light bulb on its roof. Some of the PHDs at University of Toronto swore that the process couldn't work - but there it was working!
       It was difficult to deny the efficacy of the process
then. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the U.S. Navy uses the process to illuminate deep sea buoys.       

THERE'S A CRAZY MAN UPSTAIRS WITH SOMETHING IN HIS HAND

                     There's a man sitting on a chair
in the middle of an empty room.                   


               

                     He's hearing  various voices, and talking
    to some of them.   characters he's drawn up - but very real to him...personalities he does not
wish to lose... that arise out of and return to
some plenum void of the unconscious. In his
head he's got  all the characters you might need
for a Shakespearean drama
              Characters all based on real people,
some of them are still alive; many of them are dead. Some of them have died quite recently.
Also, there are echoes he has hears of voices in
the night... some of them coming from
across the sea.
           What's worse is... the people downstairs,
the very real people are plotting to have him arrested....And he can hear their thoughts
                   The wife in particular is getting
annoyed that Charlie is constantly crushing his
medications... and snorting them... and of course
Charlie begins to get paranoid.
                  He endures waves of paranoid
fantasies, especially when he
is high from inhaling too many medicines.
 When he is high he has preternatural
hearing --- he can hear for miles, with a clarity
he can't explain...it is almost supernatural
what he can hear. 
         And he's hearing too much of the moralistic, complaining wife, droning on about calling the police. 

Charlie:  (growls in his throat)          "Or maybe   she's calling a priest," he thinks, " An S&M hooker priest with high heels and stockings... Yes,
have her read the sexual last rites to me while
 berating my name...Staring down at me
with that great ass!"
        (Charlie loves his landlady's ass)


She:  He's cutting up drugs up,
         there. That's all he's done for days

Husband: It's not  illegal. It's not cocaine... it's just 
         anti-depressants and other substances. He snorts them. 'Just to curb the hunger inside.'
That's what he said when I asked what
the fuck was he pounding and scraping at...

Husband shouts: We hear it real clear thru the    floor!

She's shouting up at the ceiling:  "We hear you 
          when you masturbate, too!
Can't you take it easy with the grunts and pounding, and that slapping sound? 
 It's like somebody kicking a heavy bag...
What the hell is that?"

Husband: It sounds like he's whipping
               himself!

Wife: Let's call the cops.. He's making
        horrible noises! What is he puking
up... a lung?




Husband: No! No cops around here!  Last 
                time you called the cops on a
tenant, they almost took me away!

She grabs for the phone... 

WHACK!

Wife/she: OOWEEEEEEEEEEEE!

He: You can take a punch better than that! *

She: (crying, fondling a knife in her left hand,
        the hand Shaky, the husband, can't see).

He:  "He pays his rent real regular and we need it."

She: That crazy place  up the hill pays his rent.

He: Naw, he pays it. He don't want nothin more
      to do with the crazy house. By the way,
      They don't call them crazy houses anymore.
       They call them asylums...It's more polite.
           
  Brenda: swirls the olive in her drink, Says:
            "It'll always be the nuthouse to me."
            (pause...swirls the olive, one stockinged
             leg crossed over the other, high heel shoe
             slowly nodding in the air)
            
 She:          "I don't care what they call it.
If you start hearing voices, you should be
locked up.   These psychos can turn on you
at any time..Soon as they're off their
medication, their dicks work again!
That fucker upstairs, he's hearing voices all
the time!

Husband (Shaky): He's hearing your voice!
                            You can bet on that!

She: He looks at me, stares right at my crotch
        and he sniffs the air.HE SNIFFS THE AIR
        LIKE SOME KIND OF ANIMAL!And he
stares at my ass...with those red eyes of his.
Like some beast in the forest at night!

 Cassie, the wife,she continues: "Yeah, they get off their medication, then their dicks work again.
Then all they want to do is RAPE WHITE WOMEN!

He: I get it!  I understand!

She: You should see the way he looks at me! And I  can tell he's got something in his hand!





 
                            2


He: Hell, I look at you that way,too!
        You cut me off that pussy of yours 
for a month, I'm  running around with a tent pole
looking to fuck somethin'... anything warm.

She: Hey! Is that all you think I am
       a warm pussy and a gorgeous ass?

He:  slaps her ass, says: "I love that big ass
of yours. Right now,,, let me tongue your
ass hole.. Then call me a pig, tell me how
I'm weak, indecisive & obedient... and what a pig
I am. And how I have a small cock!

She: Honey, your cock is huge that's why
       I'm with you. It's sure not your personality.
       Ha! Ha!

He: Tell me it's small! Go ahead, insult me!

 She:  "You're a moron. You've got the job
            of a moron! And the salary to match!"

He:  Not like that! You know what I mean!
        (He's jacking off)

 She: "You're a premature ejaculator

He:    That's it!  (he pants)  What else?

She:   You've been soft 90% of the time all
this year..!

He... yeah, that's good! (beating off) Keep going!

She: And when you're not soft, your cock
        is too small to bother with...

He:    YES!                          


She: I feel that beast upstairs staring
        at me... I get all tingly between
         my knees...

He:  Yah?

 She: I want him to beat me the way
         he beats his meat. I want him
to beat my ass with a stick! Then
I want him to fuck me...

He:   (panting)

She: I want him to fuck me 'til I scream!

He:   (gasping. His hand is a blur it's
          moving so fast)
          
She: I can tell by his eyes that's he's
        got a big dick...And he knows how
to use it, too. He'd have no trouble
getting it in me. All the way in me. Deep!

He: (...  ...)

She: He might be crazy,
but some crazy people have huge cocks!
I just bet he's one of them... I want him
to fuck me with his huge cock!

He: (breathing hard) Don't stop!

She: Those rare times when you get hard...

He:  yah.................?

She: You last about a minute...

He:   "urf!"   (he's masturbating wildly... making
          high-pitched hooting sounds .... as if he's
           being goosed repeatedly)

She:  "What kind of a man are you? You crawl
          across the bed towards me....

He:    (panting)

She:   You try to mount me.... but you're too 
          pathetic to achieve penetration.... you
           know what happens...

He:   (He knows what happens, all right. It's
         beginning to happen now.... his dick is
         twitching, throbbing up and down... the
         eye of his considerable schlong winks
          at her, before).... just before...
          his member which he's pulling at with
          both hands... begins to spurt in all
          directions, especially hers...

She:   You came on my stockings! Just now!
          Once again!.. you didn't make it
           did you?

He:      Noooooo!

She:   You didn't achieve penetration!
           You're pathetic! You came on my leg!

She:     You know what you have to do now,
            don't you...

He:        Yes. ma'am, I sure do.

              He crawls over between her legs,
pushes his nose up between the lips of her
labia.
              He knows all right. Yes, he does.
He sure does. He slips his tongue deep
inside her and allows it to happen.
               ...The gasping... The quivering... 




                                 (C)2014 Walker Ballantine

WATCHING THE STUMP WHERE THE RABBIT WAS

PHRASES USED IN SPIRITUAL QUESTS AND MYSTICAL PRACTICES
___________________________________________________________

"watching the stump where the rabbit was"
                         =  MISSING THE POINT, FOCUSING ON  THE WRONG  THING
ENTIRELY

CATCHING A CATFISH WITH A GOURD
                                             = ATTEMPTING WITH RIGID INTELLECTUAL
THINKING TO REALIZE A FLUID REALITY (comes from a Zen drawing)

just a finger pointing at the moon, not the
moon itself =   phrase describing the nature of verbal
teachings

 it is a foolish dog that barks at a
flying bird (Bob Marley song)

a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
(self explanatory, Shakespeare)

before Abraham was, I am
(man sees time; God sees the timeless)  

 
the eye through which you see God
is the same eye through which
God sees you
(Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart)

I am the living and fiery essence that
glows in the beauty of the fields
(Hildengard of Bingen)  

all is flux - you can't step in the same
river twice
(Heraclitus)

I am he who is from the Same
(Christ)

forever changing, eternally the same
(Walker Ballantine)    

each day the bucket goes through the well,
one day the bottom will drop out (Marley song)  

 "Nonsense is nonsense, but the study
of nonsense, that's serious business!"
(a banner that should be draped around university buildings
  according to Father David Belyea)


ten years hard at work in the trees,
now sitting by the edge of the forest laughing,
laughing a new laugh  
(zen  poem)

DOWN IN THE HOLE, IN THE DARK...HOW MANY INNER VOICES DO YOU HAVE?

FEBRUARY - DEEP IN THE BUNKER  DARK
- FLICKERING YELLOW CANDLES ONLY
- HOW MANY INNER VOICES DO YOU HEAR?
______________________________________
SCENE 1, Hank and Frank



Hank:    I woke up this morning, feeling like I'm
doomed. All my inner voices are condemning me.     

Frank: Oh yes? And how many inner voices do
you have?

Hank: I've never counted. But there are at least
          five voices, more like six.

Frank: Is that so?

Hank: One condemning voice
          is my ex-wife . Another is my grandfather.
One other is the mine captain boss I had. I should
have killed that prick years before he died
a natural death... Now I have to perform
an exorcism... to clear his spirit from my brain...

Frank says:  "What are saying? What are
                    you doing? Where'd you get
 those nasty magazines?"

Frank is leaning forward over Hank's shoulder,
watching him read some kind of scrapbook,
inserting pictures with scotch tape...
He notices a horrible smell...
       "Something stinks over here!"
 
Hank: "Don't look at me!" "Why d'ya think I dug
        a twenty foot tunnel?"

Frank:  "Pardon me? What did you just say?"

Hank: Why d'ya think I moved my bed twenty 
          feet away?"
         "To get away from the stink of you!" 

Frank knows this is not true:  "You dug
             that tunnel when you were going insane
about the cave bear people!
            You kept muttering about 'the people of the
 east'.

Hank: I remember thinking something about
'the east'. I remember  saying, 'Gotta go!'

Frank: You said that several hundred times.
           It was more like, "GOTTA GO!"

         The truth is - neither man
has washed  (washed using water, that is)
 in three months...Both of them are wearing
the same clothes now in February that they
dressed in last October... and stayed in right
through November, Decemeber, January etc.

           November, that's when the wolves
begin to howl. They howl
all along, every night, most of the year,
Full moon or no moon...But in November
that's when the howling REALLY begins...

the moaning, the barking, and the gutteral
sounds...


Frank: Speaking of "the People of the Bear Cave in the mountains to the East," how did you meet that
woman of yours? How  did ya ever manage to split up?

Hank: She tried to kill me with a hammer...
         but that wasn't the worst of it!

Frank: What was the worst of it?

Hank: She crept up behind me in the dark.
          I didn't know she  was there behind me.
She whispered real quietly in my ear, "I'll kill you in your sleep!" That really spooked me.

Frank:  Was she serious?

Hank: "It sounded as if she was extremely serious - serious as a heart attack, serious a hemroids
in the fall."

Frank: I hope you hopped on the next train
          out of there.

Hank:  No, I added a second oak door to
         my office. I figured by the time
she hammered through the first door,
I could make my escape out the back
and hop in my car before she could
get her shoes on, I could take off.

down the driveway.

Frank: Did you ever do that? Did
          you ever have to make an escape?

Hank: Oh, two or three times I left...but I kept    going  back.

Frank:  So you never  made the great
escape...?

Hank:  No. I got arrested instead.


                          *


They have just returned back from Artie's Bar.
They are both lickkered up.
           They've been hearing stories of various
insanities that have taken place in the various
burrows up and down the 'Main Lane of WAIT-A-BIT!'
            Some of the stories are hilarious.
Some are just plain disturbing - like an
attempted decapitation with a chain saw.
Bertie got real tired of the preacher
trying to bless him, by pressing his palm
down on Bertie's head.
          "I don't know where those hands have
been, do I?" said Bertie. "He might be
a preacher, but he has the most obnoxious table
manners I have ever seen!"
          "Not only does he fart continually,
but he keeps picking his teeth when he talks,
and if it's not his teeth, he picks his nose!
He keeps stickin stuff up under the table.
And he keeps scratching his ass under
his coveralls... Then he tries to press
that very same hand down upon my head,
or stroke my face with the palm!
When he's drunk... And I'm way too sober
for that kinda shit, no matter how
loaded I am!"
          "And when he goes outside to have
a shit... he wipes his ass with the snow.
In the last three months, I've never seen
him wash his hands.... then he takes a hunk
of bread in his hand and hands it to me!"                  "Even Barbie avoids him like
a contagious rat plague, and she used to
be so sweet on him...remember?"
          "Yah, sure," says Frank, "She wuz always
slippin her tongue in his ear, and tickling his
butt!"
          "Not no more..." sez Bertie.
           "Well, ain't that a kick in the ass!" Hank says.


  
            Later on, back in the burrow, as the two
men lay in their separate bunks, intoxicated,
loaded so's the ceilings wheeled, Hank asked:
            "How come you never freak out...
like everybody else, as the winter weighs on?"
            "I think it's the 93 days I spent in
the dark in solitary confinement... in the West
Detention Centre."



             "Shit! Sorry I asked!" Hank mutters
into his pillow...Nearly unconscious, he says,
             "I feel so much fuckin better now!"
              
               They both pass out.



               There's no sound but the wind up
from the frozen river. 




                                                            *

THE MIRROR OF ZEN - So Sahn, d.1654 - SOME WORDS FROM HIS INTRODUCTION

        *There is only one thing, from the very beginning,
infinitely bright and mysterious by nature.
It was never born, and it never dies.
It cannot be described or given a name.
The appearance of all Buddhas and Patriarchs
in this world  can be likened to waves
arising suddenly on  a windless ocean.

                  I would like to say just one thing:
              Cutting off all thinking, forgetting all conditions
            While sitting here with nothing to do--
               Spring comes, and grass grows
                  all by itself.

"WE SHALL NOT CEASE FROM EXPLORATION, AND AT THE END OF ALL OUR EXPLORING, WE COME TO THE PLACE WHERE WE STARTED AND KNOW IT FOR THE FIRST TIME."

                 A few hints are all that is necessary, for some
poems, to provide a key to entering.
            There is a green door in what appears to
be an endless wall. There is no keyhole in the
door, and no door knob to pull or turn.
            It appears there may be great
secrets behind that door, but how to
open it?
              A few directions would be
helpful...maybe just a hint, and the door
can be opened.

             In stories what can happen,
a weird looking street person might
come along, or some person out of a park
nearby, who looks like he lives in the
park... and has been sleeping there
in the same clothes for a long
time.
            Or he's a dwarf or a troll
from under a bridge...
            When you meet this person,
your first thought will likely be -
"This is a guy I want to avoid. He
looks dangerous, crazy... His clothes
are none too clean. There are
pieces of earth hanging from his
coat...And there is a mad look in his
eye. He's not the sort
of guy any civilized person
would wish to associate with....
        But it could be he's exactly
the person you need to open
the door in the wall... And it's
getting to be evening now, and
one distant streetlamp shines
on the door. Now the task
seems impossible.

         In poems from the West,
there is the figure of the green man,
often associated with forests.
The green man is pliable. He can
bend. He can also give youth and life.
          When you find him, the scope
of your life is deepened. Everything
seems more significant. You
see a perspective that you
prviously did not know was
there.
          But in order to find him
you must go on a journey, a vision quest,
it is sometimes called.
          You might have to talk to a shaman.
And the shaman might give you
a nasty looking liquid to drink...
and you know you have to ingest it,
this unpleasant or strange looking
circumstance... You have to digest
it completely.
          To learn anything at all
you must step beyond the village
gates. Only so will a new
perspective come to you.

          Here are some lines from
T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Four Quartets".

We shall not cease from exploration,
And at the end of all our exploring,
We come to the place where we started,
And know it for the first time. 

         One way to approach the above
statement is this:
        Watching a child playing in the park, 
a person might see that the child is in paradise.
The child is playing in Eden, but it is an
unconscious Eden. The child is there,
one with the world around him, but the child
does not know he is there.
          Human beings have what I like to call
"a piggy-back consciousness." We do things
and we watch ourselves doing them.
This self-consciousness, however, has
an unfortunate tendency to separate us
from the world around us.
         Psychologists have argued that this
self-consciousness comes into our being
with puberty. I think it comes much
earlier than puberty, but self-consciousness
is associated with a loss of innocence,
because of the separation that
self-consciousness involves.
        So one step farther is necessary.
We must open the door in the wall.
When we step through the door,
we enter into a new land. And when
we walk in the new land, we realize
we are in Eden once more.
       The world is glorious, new and
immaculate. The return has been made.
We come back to the place where
we started. And we know it for the
first time.
 
 

SKETCH FOR STORY, 'THE MATING HABITS OF THE WOODPECKER."

Follow                                                   Sketch by Ernie Taylor of Roving Reporter at work

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

                   I intend to enclose some of my favourite
passages from William Wordsworth's poem
"Imitations of Immortality".


Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
   Hath had elsewhere its setting,
   And cometh from afar:
   Not in entire forgetfulness,
   And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
   From God, who is our home:



"Trailing clouds of glory do we come" -
famous words & spiritual, too!



Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
   Thy soul's immensity;


This is what any real teacher will tell you...
don't listen to all the petty horseshit you
hear about yourself in the media...
Your heart-soul-mind is an immensity
that is the conscious organ 
at the core of the infinite universe.
At the heart of the spiral galaxy
there is one mind... The mind of God
is your mind.

 
 Hence in a season of calm weather
   Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
   Which brought us hither.

Memories of that Eternal Silence
from which we come.

 

   Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
   We will grieve not, rather find
   Strength in what remains behind;
   In the primal sympathy
   Which having been must ever be.


 Years ago there was a pretty good movie
called, "Splendour In The Grass".
The person who chose that title knew
something about something. 

WHAT'S YOUR AUTHORITY? REMEMBERING LAW SCHOOL

              At law school, if you made a statement
of any kind, the first response you'd get from
your professor would always be: "What's you authority
for that statement?"
       After several months passed and I'd been asked
"what's your authority?" about 100 times... being the pain in the ass I'm told I have always been, I started asking the same question back.

       I asked, "What's your authority for property law?"
       The professor said: "I don't understand your
question."
       "We're living in a Christian country, are we not?"
       "Supposedly, yes we are," the prof said.
        "The authority of the law is said to derive
from "God and natural law", whatever that means...  Because Christ and his disciples held property in common, what's your authority for property law?"
I asked."If God holds property in common with others, why do we have such extreme penalties
for offences against property?"
        Of course, this opened up a whole can of worms...
       A long discussion followed, time and again.But not too long a time, "I'd be told to 'screw myself down into my chair,"
so to speak.

       My question was never really answered, though. Not to my satisfaction, anyway.
        So I kept asking questions about
 jurisprudence and its sources. Jurisprudence might roughly be summed up as being, "The morality of the law."
         If anyone were to give such a course
at law school, a course in the origins of jurisprudence.... in those days when I was at law
school, the course of study would have been
a very short course. Not too much
of real significance had been written on the
subject 20 years ago.

         I got answers such as, "God and natural law.
That's the authority for property law."
        Another teacher said just one word: "Necessity."
        That seemed like a pretty good answer at
the time. It was an effective answer, if not
a complete answer.

             I wanted a more specific answer. I had
a disturbing feeling I was going to have to
(create it) make it up myself.

                                         ****