Fables, Myths, & Word Pictures...
A Fable is something that in the telling you have the sense that it could have happened in your childhood...
A Myth is something that never happened, but always is... |
 - The Wall...
The war in Vietnam is for many in our country a fading memory - this is very sad, and dangerous. For those of us who remember, however, both here and in Vietnam, it remains a bad dream, a nightmare, and one well remembered not only for its hellishness but for its legacy through time. Much has healed since that war, but now in a time that sees our leaders pursuing war as their primary diplomatic measure that threatens to sacrifice our youth yet again on the altar of this administration's ego, there is a need for deep reflection, and more importantly, soul-searching about the wages of war. How little we heed history's lessons - for those who went and served in Vietnam and returned carrying deep wounds, for those loved ones who remained here to watch in horror and wait in dread of the visitation from the Pentagon, for those fathers, brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends, here and in Vietnam, who did not return to their loved ones, this is for them...
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 - Dream Catcher...
The oral traditions of ancient peoples provide us with windows to the past, at times giving glimpses of our true nature as humans, at other times reflecting how we as a people have dealt with adversity, yet again giving cause to contemplate the nature of our relationships with our home, the earth, and with our neighbors and brothers. Significantly it has been the latter relationships we have had that have plagued our line and heritage through time - and, it is our collective learnings with both that have the import for our future - it is time we learned to read the figurative, though mythic, handwriting on the wall if we are not only to survive, but to flourish...
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 - The Flute Maker and the Song of the Buffalo...
In the legends and myths of the First Nation Peoples the buffalo holds deep meaning. It speaks to a dynamic and essential part of the spirit world that infused the life and times of a people. Based more on my own aesthetic sensibilities, inner thoughts, and personal reading, this mythic bridge speaks of a world of a time not long ago, when men were men - bold and courageous, sensitive to the deep movements of the earth, their home, and aligned with the pulse of life. Here a child is touched through an encounter with such a one. Her experience is a portal to a world of knowledge of the way of life, and would touch us, if we as men would put aside our minds and open our hearts to it...
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 - The Velvet Samurai
In the culture of ancient Japan, the Samurai represents a considerable tradition of honor and duty. The code of conduct is specific, and as a way of life is all-encompassing - one's obligations and filial duty are crystal clear. The Samurai historically is a class of warrior steeped in valor and romance, though draped equally with shadow and intrigue...
"The Velvet Samurai" is remotely autobiographical - as the elements of all fables are universal, I can say that without fear of misleading...
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 - Morning Star
"In the beginning was the word..." - It was just so...
In the realm of myth, the word gives form to origins, to the elemental. Creation myths have been a significant part of oral traditions from time immemorial, coloring in those vast spaces of nothingness and timelessness with word pictures, giving us a link to our distant beginnings. They have given us a sense of self and place - self as humanity, and place, as of the earth, our home. There are many creation stories, from all peoples, all cultures, and all times, but they are all the same story - there is the dawning and those early days of unfolding, the excitation of curiosity and wonder, followed by the taste of knowledge and awakening to possibilities, and finally the discerning of the the gate and the pathway leading out of the garden...
"Morning Star" is a creation fable - a tale of the loss of innocence, of awakening from the sleep of unconsciousness, of the discomforts of disillusionment, and of a birth of awareness that rises to meet the calling of a new day and a new world...
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 - The Ancient Ones (to be developed)
Time passes and we mark events and experiences with digital seconds or on a calendar - we think of life for an infant in terms of months, and for ourselves in those measures that screen our vanity - wrinkles around the eyes, a grey hair, or worse, two - our weight, and how we compete on a level playing field....we relate time and aging, and seek to deny it quarter in order to remain eternally young - as we scramble furiously to retain our youth, we in the end miss so much of life...
Time-Space is more a measure of the inner - a calibration of how, and perhaps, whether, you experience the world around you - the touch of rain on your forehead, the smell of the earth as it receives the first showers after a dry spell, or the coolness of its soil in your fingers - the call of a meadowlark on the wind, or a gentle zephyr wending through a canyon stirring a cottonwood from its reverie - of whether you know the seasons, the rising of the sun and its retiring amidst the lavenders at sunset, or the chill shudder on seeing the midnight heavens studded with the myriad eyes of the night...
The Ancient Ones lived in a world that was thus - they were in that world, and of that world, and there was no separation....there is a learning here - it is with this connection that we will survive - it is how we shall endure - would that they could speak, and that we would listen... |
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