Digging Through the Ashes of My Past Lives

I've spent the better part of the evening digging through the ashes of my past lives. That may seem odd, but it is true.

Oh, I am the same man I have always been...

... but not.

There is a such a thing as "repentance" and repentance directs you to change course.

I have shifted course many times, but never lost a certain common thread - an enchantment with beauty and mystery, with secret glimpses of my God of Light in strange and dark places.

I was about to completely close down an entire web site I've got - nail boards across the windows and such - because I haven't sold a book as that author in more than 2 years, and the things that I wrote about way back when were as scandalous as they were beautiful. But it turned out that several things stayed my hand: One was a story my wife told me about a box of letters she had and how she was about to throw it away until a certain priest stopped her. His perspective was: that's your cross to bear, it is a part of you, and don't ever throw yourself away.

The second was the fact that I actually got fan mail. It happens so seldom, and I was quite surprised, but pleasantly. Once or twice a year I get an email from some junior high, or high school kid asking if they can have permission to use, quote, whatever, my poetry. I've had paintings made, and recitations performed, and even a play and a ballet done based on my poetry. This was one more reminder that perhaps there is some beauty I've left there for others to cherish.

The final thing that did it was I started reading my own poetry. I'm not saying I'm brilliant or a great poet or anything like that, but as I read some of the things I had once written I realized I could still FEEL them. To me that's what poetry is all about. I don't know if anybody else feels anything when they read it, but if anybody does at all, then I'm doing a good thing by giving it to them, so why take it away?

So, instead I decided to shore up the collapsing house a little, remove a few broken links, take away things that were completely obsolete. I found two whole branches of the building that I think I need to completely gut, they are in such decay.

But I am still tormented that I should remove it, because I am still tormented that I will offend someone, cause someone shame, or hurt someone by what they may find there. Is that my cross? That I should live out my days knowing that in order to do good, I constantly take the risk that I may cause offense to someone?

One of the final, final things, that may nudge me and set my mind at ease, was one of the old reviews I read on Amazon.com - it was from someone I know and he told me he was going to write it. He is a priest's son, and currently a novice in a monastery, and I could tell by what he wrote that I touched him in a very positive way. But somehow I still struggle with it all. I still sometimes wonder if the cross is too great to bear.

A walk at night through the soul

Wisdom walks at midnight
amidst the stars and dandelions
upon dew-covered feet

She comes as a great gaping
hole in the night to devour
and consume me

Her subtle bliss enshrouds
me as a poultice and a
two-edged sword of flame

~

Wisdom sits beside me
upon the rock where honey
and water have freely flown

She speaks to me of humblings
and alienations, of love ill-found
and misunderstood

Her truths cut open the wounds
and they bleed-forth
unto my healing

~

Wisdom rises to take me
not in her arms as a friend
but as a babe gently upborne

Her loving breast nourishes
my soul with sorrows and
the solitude of humanity

She whispers to me of sunshine
as I can only dream
in this dark place of soul

~

Wisdom takes my hand
and walks beside me as
our feet crunch on the frost

She warms me as no other
in her tender arms
wide and vast as the heavens

Her sharp words set me
in the path to where I would
have never known to go

~

Wisdom flies at midnight
amidst the stars and dandelions
upon dew-covered wings

She takes me to the realms
I would never choose to go
amidst the pasts and futures

Her subtle bliss enshrouds
me as a poultice and a
two-edged sword of flame

Across Dark Waters

Today was a wondrous day, and tomorrow is sure to be even more wondrous. I can say this now because my heart is truly at peace, the way a man might be who is about to go to the gallows.

It might surprise you, but I have a past, the way that many people have a past. I have largely ignored my past and let it slowly rot and decay, become burred in leaves, infested with cock roaches, and covered with a canopy of cobwebs like a silk lace to keep out all but the truly hardy of heart. I made the discovery today that someone actually found my past. I was quite surprised that anyone would, because I had truly forgotten about it.

This wasn't really a pleasant surprise. I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, and for the most part disavow many of the notions of my past. Yet I struggle: should all that I created in that distant world become but dust? I've left it around for a reason, I guess. To see if it could ever amount to anything. And now I wonder if that was so wise.

You see there are things that are important to me for the future, and many of them do not coincide very well with my past.

And worst of all, it is quite possible that this whole distraction of reconciling my past with my present is something outside the scope of what I await on the morrow.

I have wanted only one thing my entire life: the ability to express myself in a way that was meaningful and beneficial to others. I have been through many cycles in terms of how I managed all forms of expression, but there has always been a central theme: to shine forth in beauty the Glory of God's love. I do not always speak of God, in fact, I seldom speak of God, but I try to write in such a way that He is always just around each corner.

I find my motifs in things of beauty: the arts, ballet, mountains, rivers, trees, the vastness of the heavens, magic, love, romance, mystery, suspense, and most particularly young women. I think I must be unapologetic in the later of these things, because it would be hypocritical to do otherwise. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of my marital happiness. It has nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality. And my notion is not in the least bit preoccupied with physical beauty. If you were to read through my literary works you would find that most of the young women in them have a beauty that surpasses any physical beauty - it may be a beauty of soul, a beauty of spirit, a beauty of determination. But it is still beauty.

Benjamin Frankly apparently once said that "beer is proof that there is a God and that He loves us." Well, I'd like to trump (and yes, I think this is trumping because if there is one thing the world loves more than beer it is women) Mr. Franklin by stating that "beautiful women are proof that there is a God and that He loves us."

But why young women? After many years working with the oppressed, the downtrodden, the outsider, the mentally ill, I came to recognize certain things: that the victims are usually women, that no matter how abused, battered, neglected they are, they still have an inner beauty deep inside. I think it is the beauty of the inner child - still unspoiled and undisturbed by the abuse that later has devoured them.

And so, you will find in my literary works, that most of my characters are young women struggling for something: perhaps they are struggling to end years of abuse, perhaps they are struggling for freedom, for truth, for love, for understanding. Perhaps their struggle is against magical creatures that seek to destroy the world. Perhaps their struggle is against the demons inside.

Whatever the case, I find that by creating characters that are young women, and helping them triumph over obstacles and adversity, I am able to tacitly proclaim divine truths about the nature of the universe and the God who created a universe of perfect and pristine beauty, a virginal universe if you will, and now seeks to restore it to its sublime state of wholeness and light.

I think it is fitting to note that the world is constantly destroying and perverting feminine beauty toward twisted ends by a unnatural focus on sexuality. As Christians, particularly Orthodox Christians, we celebrate the Holy Virgin, and even her Ever-Virginity, as an ideal of Godliness, and I would add, beauty. The whores, strippers, and sexy rock-star-goddesses that we celebrate in our secular media are no match for the holiness of a virgin who has given herself up totally to God when it comes to speaking of beauty, and they do not stand up to the holiness of a godly mother either. If you think about it, in a sense society itself conspires to create the image of The Female that is perverse when compared to the godly counterparts of a young virgin or a devoted mother.

I think it should come as no surprise to anyone then, that the place to fight society's constant destruction of femininity in the movies, books and on TV is with feminine characters that rise up above society's demoralization and accomplish great things. And, I am happy to say, that no matter the past and how it informs the future, I as a literary artist am committed (and have always been committed) to that very thing.

~ Basil

The Boy Who Never Grew Up



Great movie.

I have discovered that my life is too ordinary to report on here any more.

Everything of significance that I could ever have to say can be narrowed down to only 440 characters and posted on my Facebook Account which is here: http://www.facebook.com/13asilsprig

I invite you there with all sincerity to join me on my many misadventures.

Meanwhile, if I decide to post on anything that is truly meaningful, I'll be posting it here: http://dreamerofdreams.blogspot.com/ buried in subterfuge and pseudonymity.

Because, really, that's all we have: our thoughts and feelings right?

I don't think so.

God Bless Phineas Gage

In September 13th we celebrate the notorious case of Mr. Phineas Gage. On that day in the year 1845, Mr. Gage experienced a mind-numbing thing: he was working on a railroad building project when an explosion sent a steel rod through his head (it landed about 80 yards away.)

What's special about Mr. Gage as opposed to everyone else who gets a 1.5 inch thick metal shaft sent through their head, is that Mr. Gage survived, and lived a relatively normal life afterwards. Apparently his is the subject of study to this day at universities and colleges that address issues of neurological science: every different perspective using him as an example to support their beliefs and claims (even when those claims oppose one another.)

You can read about Mr. Gage here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
Happy Gage Day!

Basil

Fake Moon Rock

Now here's something interesting. It has just come out of Amsterdam that a moon rock given to that country in a gesture of friendship by the U.S. Ambassador not long after the Apollo Moon landing is FAKE.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8226075.stm

Apparently they decided to perform tests on it, and discovered that it is nothing more than a small rock of petrified wood.

And "US officials said they had no explanation for the Dutch discovery" - makes you wonder.

Cheers!
~Basil