Desire

Yellow Crystal Warrior 9.16.17

My camel has golden hairs, tawny creams, tan sandy colors that glow red in sunlight. She’s a long way from the desert. Here in these lush green mountains, carpeted by emerald grass braided with white blossoms and purple petals, hedgerows of thorny thickets jeweled brightly in red berries dangling amidst yellowing leaves, here there is no oasis nor scuttling scorpions. The trees grow with bends in their trunks, pointing the way to water. Springs bubble out from under roots up in air. Thick gnarly knotted roots holding mounds of brown dirt between them form doorways to other places, or a resting place while walking in the woods. Talking roots when they feel conversational, they burble and babble about mushrooms high above, jutting out like rubbery red tongues from trunks, standing still.
My camel and I ride the trails. The ground is far below me where I’m seated on her back, holding her hump. We stop sometimes and she kneels to let me off, then I drink clear sweet water and sit with her for a while, feeling the brushy green needles that grow from mossy rocks, spiraling around a tall stem, many stems growing in clusters, a sea of green brushes near the creek’s bank. My camel drinks too, her frilly eyelashes, double layered, blink as though seeing something peculiar while she slowly nuzzles the water. Her hump must be well loaded, constantly full as there are hardly any dry spells here.
She’s a languid creature, content to sit quietly for long periods at a time. Once a hummingbird thrummed around us. She watched carefully as the tiny bird dove in and out of the thicket, beak dipping into tiny orange flowers, fishy flowers, speckled with red. She turned her long neck to watch the wee bird weaving her way from flower to flower when the bird was out of sight behind her. She blinked only once: when the hummingbird landed on her hump and sat there for a brief moment to preen under her wings before zipping away. It seemed as though she smiled.
I’m getting to know my camel little by little. She’s a large creature, wide and broad, she stands so far off the ground that when I’m on her back I reach my hand up and pick apples from the higher branches of the apple tree. She enjoys apples too, munches on them one by one; savoring under the apple tree.

Blue Planetary Hand Core Day 9.27.17

Shambhala Kamala. This is her name. I call her Shamhal. I tell her my frustrations. With humankind and fabrications, the shimmery lies that shape seemingly magical lives. Waterfalls. Once hidden from prying hand and spying eyes, forests and mists their veil where they reside on rugged slopes, off the beaten path. To find a waterfall, to follow the trail, the golden path of devotion into discovery and magic, forgotten realms crashing down making thunderous sound, calling the ones who put in effort to find the source of effortless flow. To find a waterfall: revelation. Now they are marked on maps, trails and tours leading with arrows that point the way, a click of a button, the words entered into a google search bring up location, mileage, height, photographs, destination known before the journey is embarked on and then the fabrication::the lie that flows effortlessly from wells of desire, conceit with which to veil the way . . . not to the waterfall, but to the way it was found without error, without trial nor twisted ankle nor wandering to the sound of water gushing over rocks, without stepping into yellow jacket nests and being stung toward plantain, without flirtation and heart beating faster to the rhythm getting closer and closer to discovery, without days weeks or years of trusting the nose to lead the way to the smell of water, without the experiences that go into wayfinding . . .the fabrication that creates an iridescent illusion that one is a wayfinder living deep in magic, while the story behind the fabric is simply that the rights and lefts were shown at the click of a button and internet search, followed and behold, there one is with camera in hand, ready to walk to the x spot marked then gush about how it was off the beaten path and magical, so much gushing but not from the waterfall . . . . Shamhal asks, What story could you turn this perception toward?? Where could you steer it?

I move a few armloads of wood from what’s left of what once was a mountain of red oak that began in sun and has since been covered by shade. There is only sawdust leftover. Shamhal sits with her knees folded under her, observing with sidelong glances. The set of her neck gives her the appearance of looking straight ahead. But I know she watches and listens patiently until I’m ready to discuss::

Perception::I perceive this:: behind the ‘lie’ is desire that fuels the story. Beyond truth and lie fields of perception, there is desire . . . desire has many forms and faces, hot quickening fiery wanton lusty; the core essence and motivation toward truth lie or story is desire. How and where and to what it is used as fuel for steering deep ends on the person, who they are, what they value, their essential being. There is no right or wrong, truth or lie in this field nor is there any fabrication.

Once we get to the core, it is desire flowing through the veins of silver and gold that run along hidden lines within the earth, streaming into cavernous pools and flowing out into rivers and waters falling. Once we get to the root, it is desire that we grab hold of and pull ourselves with higher and higher, first as stems then trunk and branches before reaching the canopy where blue sky greets the risen eye meeting hawk screeing over leaves.

When there is plenty of desire, abundance of desire, heaps and loads of desire joined and united with knowing what it is one desires, thus setting one’s sight on the subject or object of one’s desire, coupled with surety and ruthlessness in good measure::the ability to not only desire and want and to identify clearly what one desires but also the ability to move toward attaining one’s desire regardless of the cost, the price, the consequences of choices. Some people justify their actions, others casually flick a hand at justification, shrug it off and place themselves outside of and above justifications, yet paradoxically this is what points toward the crux of the matter::the actions and choices that go toward attaining one’s desire or choosing to let go of one’s desire and quicken toward something else instead. It is not the desire itself nor being clear about what one desires that is an issue, but the choices one makes when waltzing with desire that may become issues.

This is where perception and wisdom and compassion come into play, tempering ruthlessness with other elements whereby when one is ruthless one is ruthless with full awareness and clarity that one is being ruthless and what for, in deed has embraced it fully at the moment for what one desires is clearly worth the opening of the door into ruthless realms whereby to get what one wants despite the cost to anyone, there is justification and also there is not. There is simply sharp clarity and keenness woven together into precise conscious actions and choices one is prepared to be accountable for beyond the field of justifications . . . this is alchemical work, magical work, and alarm bells ring out at the willy nilly silly ways in which people practice ruthlessness carelessly without consideration, knowledge, accountability, or measure other than a child like desire to just get whatever it is they want as soon as possible::someone else’s man, woman, child, dream, livelihood, lifestyle, work, icecream cone, medal, candy bar, lunch money, whatever it is they want, wantonly and lustily with effort put toward nothing but the single minded pursuit of the object of desire.

There is a virtue here as it shows the hows of getting what one desires . . . but desire without contemplation, without wisdom, without temperance, without a dialogue between elements, without vision, becomes a sordid affair where virtue is lacking even when one perceives oneself as having been victor obtaining the spoils . . . .

Shamhal munches on apples from where they’ve fallen and lay on the grasses. Yellow Jackets hover around, crawl about apples and begin their work of turning the round golden globes into vinegar.