The Diamond Island

Adjustments continue in the honeycomb hideout.  The fallout from the haunted house has passed away and healing continues.  K and I are doing decompression and decontamination procedures, putting furniture in place while we unpack the numerous storage units.  Cleaning and minor repairs are moving along, as we make sure the heater is working, has a fresh filter, and the vents are all vacuumed out.

As I was passing by the secondary landing from the crow’s nest, Blink was poised before one of the storage units.  She mewowed at me as if to say, “Hey whattabout this one?”

Oh yeah, that storage unit.  The one that holds The Box.  One of those things you just pick up on a perfectly unremarkable day, not unlike Edward Gorey’s The Doubtful Guest.  Since I became the caretaker of The Box, I regard the contents and make adjustments, additions and subtractions as needed.  Things appear and disappear, so I never quite know what to expect.

Well, crumbs.  I suppose I ought to take The Box out and see what’s going on.  So I clear my desk and unscrew the bolts.  All the things inside are in a state of disarray and flux.  The boxes are practically hopping up and down with the need for attention.  The creatures, tools, and knick-knacks (at least I think they are knick-knacks, I’m not always sure) are all over the place.

But once I begin my meditations and direct my active imagination to the task, a new form takes shape inside The Box.  The dimensions widen out, indicating the things don’t want to be stacked anymore.  They want a horizon, a diorama of vast view.  Take it all in instead of dig for layers.

A few things leave, some never to be seen again, others wanting to return to living in the honeycomb hideout after a long hypersleep into the future which is now.  One item, my Kokeshi doll, no longer wishes to reside in The Box.  Like a heroine going on an adventure, she won’t take no for an answer.  She wants to see the world now, get involved.  I’m a little taken aback, but what she says goes.  I know she’s going to take a few hits, but maybe that will make her all the more beautiful and herself.

Then I get a real shock.  The Kali-Yoni origami box I made (at Kali’s active-imagination request) has imploded open.  Shrunk in on itself until it popped open in two pieces, yellow and black.  I don’t know what was in that box, it was a secret so unknown it could only be conceived of in a void space of emptiness, never to be opened.  I made it fully expecting it would never be opened.

There’s a crack in the top of The Box, to allow a view of the outside world.  Sometimes I adjust The Box to accommodate these sorts of requests.  Sometimes The Box does them itself.  So whatever might have been in the origami box that is popped open could have gotten out.

Indeed, I find a trail of red cloth spilling out one end of the crack, as if whatever happened pulled along until it broke free.  Yeah, I get the birth reference.  I’m still stunned.  I have to take a breather and stare for a good ten minutes before I get my act together again.

It’s almost as if I am a caretaker, a janitor and director at the same time of otherworldly things beyond my comprehension.

The new configuration slowly takes shape as I handle items and attend to their requests.  Two slumbering monsters awaken with a loud roar, stirring the ocean of red cloths that form a kind of soft playing field for certain inhabitants.  A beached behemoth finally finds a swathe of red sea foam suitable for it’s dense, impenetrable frame.

As I finish up this session of adjustment, a small lockless chest and brass symbol merge together in a way I would never have expected.  They come from two different times and places, yet they fit together as if they were two pieces of a larger puzzle.  I don’t think I can ever see these things the same, contemplating how incomprehensible their fitting together is.  I mean, if the sun and moon became one for the first time, how transforming an event that would have been for life on this planet!

No order, and so there is pattern.  Ceaseless change, and so there is eternity.  I realize it has been so long…so distant a time when I attended to this responsibility on a regular basis.  I’ve just been shuffling The Box from one battleground to another, barely keeping up with what is required.  The Box used to be much larger than it is now.  I used to be somebody too, or so I heard.

I pick up Peter Pan’s knife, and examine it closely.  Hairline cracks in whatever it’s made of, a smell of fine myrrh coming from the claw on the pommel.  Dare I remember the time I used to carry this in costume–before I walked away from Never-Never Land?  Or was it Rima the Jungle Girl who gave this to me?  I’m not quite sure.  I couldn’t fight a codfish or smile at a crocodile to save my life now.  Those days are long faded, as Lorien, Imladris, and the Grey Havens have passed into the West.  Another century altogether.

I think of a dear friend, and the conversations we used to have before I discovered The Box.  He drew out of me so many things about the haunted horrors I would face, he had to have been a prophet back then.  Now he’s a doctor, struggling against the status quo, in a very lucky place to be.  I beam every time I speak with him these days, he’s so awesome.  Back then I pretended to take it in stride, but I missed nothing.  He was right, so right on I had to pretend he was off the mark.  But now I know better.

I close The Box, quite shaken.

The surprises keep on coming.  A friend of mine is wrestling with her shadow, and exploring her deepest self right now.  Wounds, going straight to the core, hard stuff to untangle.  Her outward life is wonderful though.  She’s found a power of her own.  Awesome family, job that pays the bills and keeps her in the mix of what she likes.  Finding time to be creative despite her limits.

But oh, that wound.  She’s closed up, making time to be alone with her riddles now.  Can any of us undo a life-changing decision from the depths of time?  When we lose ourselves to the harsh cage we place over our true selves, what is the magic word that will spring us free?  The clock is ticking.

It’s a fathomless question, reaching down and above to both heaven and hell.  Here we are stuck in the middle and expected to have a clue.  That’s just how it is.  We have to pay the bills and we have to pay the price.  Both sides at once, all the while we’re running out of time to become whole before our grave cries “Bingo!”

Kimaroo, keep on truckin’.  You are wiser than you know and stronger than you realize.  Keep on doing yer time—there are miracles and get out of jail free cards and magic words.

Talk about the winter wolf howling in the foothills.  The bite of the cold snapping into every nook and cranny.

You see, it snowed today here in the locality.  For the first time this late in the year.  The balmy weather has been retreating, and this is the first howl I’ve heard of that wolf.  Likely the global warming robotazoids will push that wolf back north again for a week–after a freezing night we expect milder temperatures.  Fluctuations are now the norm as the monster from the Id busts down the climate door to make us pay for our disloyalty and disobedience to nature.

My friend Alexi is on the move, nomad that he is.  Letting go of his relationship with his girlfriend and moving again to follow his dream in Orlando, Florida.  I’m a little startled and a small bit scared for him.  It takes tremendous courage and faith to hear the calling of your heart and go into the unknown with a willing step.

But then I wonder if once he puts foot in that city he might not find the resources he’s looking for.  Alexi has been gathering up skills and experiences as if he were preparing for a new phase in his life.  Well, crumbs, my thoughts and feelings are with him.  Dude, may blessings and light clear your path, so that you might discover all the important, good stuff residing within you.

At least he will be out of range of the winter wolf’s bite.

At the top of the Paulie headlines today, my friend and hek-sistah Xtine has decided to seclude herself for some much-needed hermitage and non-engagement.  Considering all the magnificent finds she’s been digging up since she started blogging, I’m actually relieved she’s taking some time off.  We need both human contact and non-contact to remain human and grounded.

So here’s a super-duper shout out to my hek-sistah X.  Total love, blessings and light to yah from the bottom of my pond!