Late Summer Dreaming
What did I do on my summer vacation?
Sneaky old summertime took me on an inadvertent vacation from all things Substack for weeks now. I was still thinking of posts of course, saving ideas and pix. And thinking of all you dear readers: hoping you, too, were in the throes of summer and able to overlook my truancy. I imagine you just moving your sunglasses down your nose a skitch, peering over the frame for an instant before going back to that summer novel and the one paragraph you read over and over again. Or checking your phone with relief, “Oh good, nothing!”
Absorbed in midsummer dreaming, I lost the thread. I blame the Time Lords, who must have been stirring their cauldron counter-clockwise. My July became timeless, unable to catch itself in the reflection of June. Meanwhile August was not in focus yet, still waiting for a full reveal.
Full moon now, I turn toward the last part of the summer calendar. Time to get going again! Is it too late for the grasshopper to become an ant? I’m still in the summer moods, but I’m back to writing more now, collecting my sun-baked thoughts, gathering words for the season to come.
Announcing: the little library by the mailbox!
People are using the library! Taking books, leaving books. Some great finds include a Spike Milligan collection, a Sandman comic, original James Bond paperbacks, Lorca in Spanish.
Meanwhile, here’s a bit from my book, Attars. Listen or read along…
In the Forest of Offerings
I begin walking to the east in the light of the new-risen sun. To the left are fields and flowers, with a rolling hillside leading down toward the dry river valley. To the right is a bright birch forest with many flowers on the ground between these tall and loving trees. Their leaves rustle together in the wind as if they are singing, it is a fairyland moment. But I know it is imaginary. There is something more to find, something beyond this delightful opening. I sense there are other areas to expand that have nothing to do with this veil. The orchestral beginning is only a ruse, something to attract and tantalize but not ever to truly live in, for it is an illusion.
I see no noble horses looking through the tall tree trunks, no little elves and fairies singing songs of delight. No, that would be our own invention, the power of imagination, to cover something much more complex and perhaps horrible.
Beneath that meadow are the bones of many warriors, and it is their blood that has nurtured the birches. Theirs are the eyes that see through the bark, staring toward me as I walk upon their mass grave. For there is little here that is what it seems.
At sunset a reddish shape flits through the birch trees, almost like a flame or fiery one. It is not visible, only sensed, appearing at twilight. It sounds like a howling scream. It is without eyes, for its eyes are dispersed within the forest, and remain always captive there. It is not a safe place. There are old things here.
These are the guardians of the essences, and they are the dead. It would be a simple thing to turn away now.
I do not turn away, for I am traveling to the essences and so am compelled to leave the guardians an offering. In my bag I keep little things that may be of use sometime. Today I have some hard candies wrapped in twisted cellophane, some loose change, lipstick, tampons, a box of pushpins, a scarf, my phone.
I stick pushpins through the candy wrappers, fixing seven candies to the trunks of seven trees. Then I tie my blue scarf on one of the branches, and I say out loud, “Thank you for giving me safe passage. These things I offer to you now are in honour of your sacrifice. May you have peace.”
Wind comes up and the glittering leaves of the trees flash together in sound. The blue scarf waves. I think of people who have died. I look up and now notice that offerings like mine fill the whole forest. Why hadn’t I seen them before?
Cloths are tied to branches, bundles wrapped around the trunks of the trees, high near the crotches where the branches begin. There are all sorts of offerings and most look like they have been here for some time, exposed to sun, rain and seasons. I see an old suitcase rotting in the woods, a faded photograph, coins, sodden stuffed animals, a fresh package of cigarettes. In my body I sense contact from the many others who have been here before me.
A branchy path leads me to the top of the slight hill, where a pile of stones seems to survey the land below. Open to the sky, this mound seems significant. It holds many more simple offerings beneath and all around. A star Christmas decoration, a worn map, a novelty coffee mug, more cigarettes, candies, toys, pop bottles. Crummy stuff, weathered and wrecked, faded, looking like junk and garbage. These are our prayers.
A cloud passes over the sun and its shadow moves over the hill like the wide gesture of a great hand. It is a sacred moment.
Now the pile of stones reveals itself as a mountain of grey skulls: large and small animal skulls, and human skulls, too. Faces, teeth, caverns, forms. For an instant, they shine with an inner illumination. Brilliant blue-white light radiates from within them, they are not granite, not bone, but crystal.
All the offerings around them transform in light, glowing as gold and multi-coloured jewels. This timeless instant flows and extends through the atmosphere as the vision fades away.
I move on, aware. The guardians have accepted my offering and bless my journey.
I am protected. From this day forward I am permitted to be a collector of essences.
I’ll be posting more from Attars in coming issues.
For your interest
FYI 1 - Some very fun bar charts by Ethan Mollick on Twitter
FYI 2 - You may have seen this before but it is worth re-sharing. A beautiful working of time and nature together, the long view.
FYI 3 - And here’s Donovan, aging into wisdom, in this video by David Lynch - stay with it for the simple and exquisite transcendent ending.
Thanks for reading and sharing. It means a lot to me. I’ll write more often now that the heavy summer spell on Salt Spring Island has lifted.
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Thank you Carol.
Your writing is so exquisite!!
And thank you for the Donovan clip...
Sending love!
xoxoxo
B.