the water trough visits the horse

… so the boulder is crashing down the hill towards the unsuspecting village a long way away.  The seemingly inevitable is looking for a time to enter history and record itself.

Should we stand in front of the rolling rock and try to pit our meagre strength and determination against the unimaginable weight and velocity of the hurtling projectile, or should we try to run frantically behind it, attempting  to strategically apply our shoulder in order to provoke a deflection away from the doomed inhabitants?

If we called out would they hear, … and if they heard would they be willing to listen?

… but why is the boulder rolling? … and how is it that the village situated itself just there?

the dog marks its territory

I have a friend who had a little mongrel dog as a pet.  The dog was a family pet and to my understanding was in no way mistreated or neglected.   To the contrary, it was loved and cared for.

Now there is always more than one side to any story but for some unknown reason(s) this dog upped and moved across the road to a neighbour – lock, stock, and barrel.  The dog now struts around in the street outside like a bantam-cock yapping at all who pass by as if it owned the whole suburb.

How and why did this happen?  I really cannot say.  Whether the neighbour lured the dog over with more delectable food titbits or pampered the dog, convincing it into deciding to cross over and switch affection, allegiances and devotion and even as a result now into co-habiting with the neighbour will probably never be known.  But there we have it.  The deed is done and the results speak for themselves.

Now the dog even barks at my friend and his family (along with all the other people in the street) when they leave or return from their homes.  It seems to have taken on a new sense of territorial responsibility for the street and surrounding environment and makes its presence felt in no uncertain terms.  Sometimes the only way to get the dog to remain silent is to actually charge at it, yelling in a threatening way so that the little mutt retreats hastily into the safety and privacy of its new home with its tail between its miniature legs.  This only works for a short time and as soon as it feels the coast is clear once again it struts out and the yapping starts all over.

One thing does seem apparent though, and that is that the dog doesn’t seem to have a sleepless night over any of this.   It’s business as usual and life goes on.  I often wonder what it does think actually (if it thinks about it at all that is).   Does the dog think about commitment and past affection?  Do the concepts of loyalty, responsibility or the feelings of the ex-cohabitants ever enter into the equation in its mind?   Perhaps it’s simply a matter of whatever is directly beneficial to the dog at any given moment that is the key or even sole factor in any of this?

But what am I thinking? … this is a dog for goodness sake!  Dogs don’t have a higher sense of conscience.   They are brute beasts.  They can’t think about their thinking like humans do, … can they?   They are driven purely by beastly instinct  and unbridled self-preservation.  Not so?

Interestingly the neighbour also seems to see nothing wrong at all with the current state of affairs and can be heard lovingly calling the mutt for food and left-overs and in the evening for the dog to come in for bedtime.  The neighbour also seems naturally content, even happy and at ease with the little mongrel bustling playfully around at their feet whilst they are working in the garden or doing chores outside.  The neighbour even greets my friend and his family warmly whenever their eyes meet, even whilst the dog is there in plain view and even sometimes when yapping at my friend and his family.   It would also appear that the neighbour too seems not to lose any sleep over the turn of events and the shift in allegiance.

Strange creatures these … aren’t they?

I have another friend who has a wife and two delightful and beautiful children.

He recently left home and family and now has a very young lady lover.

them bones, them bones …. and the butchers of civil

 

One cannot be accused of being indecisive if one has no real personal opinion.

One also cannot be accused of being opinionated if one has no real opinion to begin with.

 

We’re in a mess.  It seems that those whose decisions really matter are indecisive, even silent, and those who are decisive have only one voluminous perspective – their own.  And quite frankly they have relegated themselves to where their opinion really doesn’t matter at all anymore anyway.  Mostly it’s just a lot of foul smelling hot air.  It draws attention, yes, but only because a smelly decaying corpse does too.

 

This is not a new thing.  We’ve been like this for a very long time.  The problem has been with us right from our very beginnings.

The challenge is that we might never get out of the mess we are in until we make some sound decisions.  We need to stand up and then take that stand.  But clearly we  need help.  Many of us don’t think we do but I think we do.  I’m sure we do.  I even think that we need it badly, even desperately.  We need some radical stuff to happen.  And maybe that radical stuff is us.

 

Here’s how I see it: ~ God decides the only way to sort this whole mess out is to lower the playing field to the lowest common denominator and effectively take a stab at raising the game and even changing the rules from there.  A huge risk with unbelievable capital investment demanded, but clearly not only a good shot, but the best shot possible.

 

So he does what we clever religious ones have called the ‘condescension’.  An interesting label we give it because we seem to have totally messed it up and inverted its meaning and application completely.

Now the dictionary wasn’t really on the web in those days but these days it says:

Condescend = 1. To act graciously towards another or others regarded as being on a lower level; behave patronizingly  2. To do something that one regards as below one’s dignity http://www.thefreedictionary.com/condescend .

 

So, God gets his feet dirty, his hands, his torso, his head, everything gets utterly filthy.

 

And here’s the nuts and bolts of God’s idea ~ God is going to try beat the dirt at its own game, … and this from the bottom of the pit.

 

Actually it all starts with this injected metaphor of the creative power of concepts, ideas – ‘words’ to be practically specific.  At first this is sort of spoken but then it is recorded in text some time later.  The whole idea is made into a picture and is securely installed into the hearts and minds of men through oral tradition and then later in the first recorded textual stories of creation.  It is reemphasised and redefined again right at the beginning of the final act when God’s becoming like one of us to do the dirty deed is done and recorded.

 

The idea is that the life taken up will be a sign.  A sign filled with amazing power.  Like a tiny seed that can be the start of a whole forest, this seed of an idea is sown.  And as we know, seeds grow best in dirt.  And this dirt is very dirty and the ground is smelly, rotten and ripe.  But this seed is simply busting with potential.

This is an outrageous idea as the platform for this seed is not a beautiful and majestic social structure at all.  It’s not a religious structure either – neither a political one.  If anything the structure it is sown into and even the way it manifests in its structure is quite literally despicable (much like disgustingly filthy sand mixed with rotting, smelly refuse – decaying life and organic food scraps rejected and discarded from last night’s meal).

This seed, this idea, is inseminated into the stench of the dirt and some of it takes root and flourishes.  Not all of it, mind you, only some of it.  Most is trampled under foot by men or rejected – even stolen by birds or simply falls in strange, inhospitable  places.  But this is part of the calculated risk – no problem!

 

Well, it happened.  The seed was sown.  And yes, it was messy.

And the life it lives, it lives from the ground up, from the earth.  From out of the stinky dirt it breaks out.

The ‘DNA’ of the seed is pre-determined, it needs no teacher, no supervisor, no controller and it doesn’t listen to the dirt around it.  In fact when interference from such overseeing, meddling intruders comes along it only serves to block the flow and the natural growth processes.

These weeds block out the sun and drink all the water up, preventing the already dirty, smelly soil around them from decaying and thereby forming a conducive solution with the water to be absorbed and transformed into fuel for abundant life.

 

It’s these weeds which are the problem mostly.  These weeds see things only from their own conceited perspectives.   They, being aliens and hired hands, know only how to choke and even scorch the earth around them, poisoning it with their very presence so that they and they alone can thrive and that at the expense of the life around them.  These weeds are in direct opposition to the seed and the sower of the seed (although they masquerade as friends and helpers and caregivers).  These weeds make themselves look pretty and cover themselves with colourful coats.  But these only hide the toxic intend that lurks beneath the extravagant linings.  You see, pigs dressed in velvet are still pigs.

But the growing seeds also need to take responsibility and rise up.  They need to stretch upwards and reach out for the sun.  They need to respond to the voice of the DNA inside of them and not listen to the voices of the weeds who tell them what to think about themselves, what to do, how to do it, and why.  The voices that confuse them, saying that they are only there to make the weeds look good.

The seeds need to become decisive, even opinionated about the life they see and feel cascading out of their veins bursting out of every pore on them.  They need to open their own petals and make room for the voice of their own DNA – the sower of the seed – to fill the air with the fragrance of life and abundance.

So now it turns out that what the clever religious ones have done is that they have developed God’s idea by redesigning the condescension into a religious, socio-political structure where the equally dirty can rise to a position of superiority above the other dirties.  This conveniently affords them the inalienable right, they tell us, to tell the other dirties how to get clean.  However, the only way they can do this is not by also following the ways of the sower by going down below and beating dirt from the bottom of the sand pit.  They do it by magic.  They get a scientific qualification, frame it, and hang it on their wall.  The title on the wall reads in extravagant, bold calligraphy, “QUALIFIED PASTOR” and they usually roll this up when leaving their study – sort of in a rolled up form of a common magicians wand.  They step out boldly, flapping and swishing it about like a frenzied conjurer looking much like Don Quixote’s windmills.  “In Jesus’ Name!!” they cry aloud!

This magical “alakazam!” they believe, bewitchingly entitles them to speak with an authority over the rest and hold onto centre stage and the all-powerful podium.   That ultimate qualifier of all things spiritual in their religious economy.  Not anybody is allowed to take hold of the bewitching podium, mind you.  In fact this magical space is reserved exclusively for the physically qualified elite and only those whom they deem worthy to speak over the dirt, and about the dirt on the dirty.

Sadly we have believed it as well mostly.

 

However, the whole idea that God had in the first place was that the dirty seeds would discover that from the inside they have been, and are being cleaned and transformed and that the dirt around them, as smelly and putrid as it is, is actually the intended seedbed that they were always meant to be rising up out of.  That they are seeds with a vibrant variety within them, that they are planted to display this according to the sowers unique DNA within each individual seed, until they all together make up an explosive, radiant, vibrant, aroma-filled jungle of life and staggering beauty.  That each voice, fragrance, blaze of colour be heard, felt, seen, smelt.  That the sound and presence of the toxic weeds is irrelevant, pitiful, fit only to be rejected and flung into the fire.  That the seeds would grow up and displace the weeds and cause them to naturally choke in their own vomit.

 

And now, now it is time.  It is time for the seeds to realise that this all was intended to  cause the dry, rotten bones, once merged with the disgustingly smelly and offensive soil, to begin vibrating and quivering and begin to clatter and clang together again, and for the decayed sinews and flesh once long dead, to mysteriously start coming together and twang and snap back together almost elastically, causing the whole body to rise up, take form and start moving, walking, running, even dancing.

 

Man alive!! … this will top and overshadow any Stephen King horror movie scene.

 

So, will those standing please take a stand!!

 

 

a myth is as good as a mile

I personally think that modern science has dealt a harsh, low-blow to mythology and the ancient oral traditions of wisdom and understanding as well as to the inarticulate speech of the heart.  These days it seems to me clearly apparent that myths and ancient oral traditions have virtually been totally discredited, even disqualified and relegated to the irrelevant, irredeemably primitive, uneducated, unsubstantiated, fanciful, even useless ‘old wives tales’, fit only for ignorant children as placatory bed-time stories.

Our modern scientific culture now demands more detail, more qualification, more empirical evidence, more factual substantiation for meaning and truth.  For me this could be seen as a very unscientific process in and of itself.  My reason for saying this is that our scientific era is extremely youthful and a very, very late entry onto the stage of the history of the universe and even that of man.  In terms of man’s history it is only very recently that deductive reasoning has entered into the equation.  Perhaps for this ‘new-kid-on-the-block’ to be standing up and confidently declaring such brazen categorical absolutes is very arrogant and possibly much like a kindergarten child babbling on about their own wisdom in the presence of others more than 10 times their age and experience.  It’s not that the kindergarten child is less than human, disqualified or even in error, but the reality is that at around 6 years of age the average child still has a great number of years of practical testing and application to go through to let experience catch up and test the eternal wisdom thus far acquired.

There is an old saying that goes something like this, “before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their moccasins.”  I’d like us to attempt to walk a mile if we could in the moccasins of Jesus who was not a scientist according to our times or interpretation of scientific and who spoke not in detailed, scientific terms but almost exclusively in parables, ‘dark’ sayings, stories, mystically veiled teachings, even somewhat confusing metaphors and mysteries, and not only that, but in a local language that was very possibly much like that used by a loving  parent honouring the inexperienced, infantile logic and comprehension of the precious but young and naïve offspring and using analogies and subject matter and content easily accessible to the infant.

In his life and conduct he never closed down the teachings of the law or the prophets but instead opened them up.  He seemed to turn the restrictive funnel of the legislated religious code into an open sluice gate of freedom and opportunity.  This served to open and liberate the minds of his hearers to such an extent that they even began to threaten the political grip the religious leaders had in that day.  He never did this by bringing systematic religious definition or empirical detail but instead he unveiled a compassionate, gracious revelation of the ancient sacred traditions in word and deed that was of such magnitude that even the highly educated teachers themselves tried persistently to get him to clarify his meaning and intent over and over again.  He never responded to them to their satisfaction so they relentlessly tried to trap and corner him as to who exactly he was, what exactly he was doing, what exactly he was meaning, by what authority he spoke and why he spoke and lived the way he did.  Eventually they could only trump up fictitious charges against him and use these as the only desperate way they could aim any accusation his way.

Yet amazingly Jesus simply continued to tell stories.  He never took the bait by entering into the fray at their level.  He just continued to speak in parables and veiled sayings, presenting a tapestry for the sincere and humble to enjoy and the less than open to hate.  Yes, he did say many other things as well and some of these were specific and mostly quite revolutionary, but even these seemed to be so veiled to all who heard (including his closest disciples), that they too were like mysterious stories in and of themselves.  He spoke of the kingdom of heaven not being an external thing in accordance with any legislated, ritual, social, political, religious, ethical or even moral code, but rather something that was within each individual person, right there, within easy reach, but yet also so far away.  He also said that if they destroyed the holy temple he would raise it up in 3 days.  This really set them all flapping.  Once when questioned as to his authority he even said most disturbingly that he himself was alive before Abraham was born.  Today we would have mocked and certified him without a moments hesitation and would have felt content with this act of worship.  For this we killed him yet he never even began to respond by explaining what he meant even when his own life hung literally in the balance.  This amazes me and opens up even more questions.  … and so the stories continue to this day.

The way I see it is that empirical science, as much as it thrills and fascinates me, as much as it amazingly answers so many of my  questions, challenges my myopia and rattles my complacency, unwittingly seems to assume that the universe is all completely rational, finite, measurable, comprehensible, and ordered according to our own very linear, deductive way of thinking and in so doing to my mind,  sadly it closes down truth.  In its quest to fully understand and discover the truth, to define, contain, measure and systematise the laws of the universe, to bring order to our thinking, it to my mind seems only to limit, contain and perhaps even deploy at times great faith in order to close down the threatening wonder of the vastness that is all around us.  Science’s passionate quest to uncover the secrets of the universe and thereby comprehend all things fully by way of reasonable research is to my mind very possibly a reaction to the presence of the vast unanswered reaches of the universe we find ourselves in and something the religious order of society had long held the reigns in …  but in light of this all I do have to ask logically if anyone can really open up the truth by closing it down?  For me the only way I can imagine personally standing on the outstretched head of my own shadow at sunrise is to extinguish the sun itself.

And also for me, as frail and as whimsical as they might appear to us all to be, the ancient oral traditions, the parables, the fables, even mythology, theology, the sacred texts, the deep mysticisms, spirituality, the intuitive and the like, all seem in many ways mostly to assume by faith that there are more questions than answers, that there might well even be more than one possible answer or explanation to anything and that the universe is infinite and eternally vast – perhaps even forever beyond our ability to fully comprehend.  They seem to be able in some ways to embrace that the origins, like the ends of the universe are possibly equally beyond our full understanding but that the journey is well worth the taking.  ….  Except perhaps for the fanatically religious fundamentalists, I must add, who sadly to my mind have perhaps unwittingly managed to adopt more of a scientific paradigm to their spirituality than they are prepared to acknowledge, persistently seeking not the truth, but justification for their mostly unexplored beliefs.  They also seem to be preoccupied with trying to quantify, systematise, and codify the sacred texts not necessarily because they have faith, but probably mostly through insecurity and fear.  In my opinion the obsessive quoting of chapter, verse and intellectual reference is not really used because of godly wisdom or humble, righteous respect and accuracy, but primarily as a fear based reaction to the scientific era and strangely, strangely, what can be seen as actually an emulation of the scientific revolutions methodologies that seem to threatens their frail religious and political stability.  To these too I have to ask reasonably if anyone can really open up the truth by closing it down?

But maybe there is a way ahead for the humble and meek, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, those who mourn and hunger and thirst for right standing in a universe that persists in spinning like wheels within wheels, even spinning in many directions all at once and filling us with virtually unquenchable wonder?

Maybe a myth is indeed as good as a mile?

is your hut burning?

The sole survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, virtually barren, uninhabited island.  He prayed desperately for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.  Exhausted and disillusioned he eventually managed to build a little hut out of the last remaining shreds of driftwood he could gather from the beach to try protect himself from the elements.  But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived back at his lean-to hut to find his only source of protection in flames with smoke rolling up into the sky.

This was far too much for him to bear.  The worst possible thing had now happened.  He was a totally broken man.  Everything appeared lost.  He was stunned with grief and despair, even anger.  At last, after a lonely, bitter, aching spell of  tearing grief and disbelief he broke his anguished silence, “God, how could you do this to me!” he screamed into the night sky.

Early the next day, after a long,  dark, cold and unforgiving night, he was awakened by the sight and sound of a ship that was slowly approaching the island. It had come to rescue him.

“How on earth did you know I was here?” asked the exhausted man of his rescuers after they had lifted him off his island of doom.

“We never even knew there was an island here …  we saw your smoke signal,” they replied.

the mirror in the monkey

Once there was a monkey who happened on a marvellous thing.  A small mirror lay before him at the foot of a great tree in the center of the forest.  Of course he had never seen a mirror before so at first he was quite startled and somewhat fearful of the strange but familiar monkey that kept staring back fearfully at him and copying his every move.  However, soon he came to be totally fascinated by how the monkey seemed to know him so well.  It would mimic his every move, confirming each action, each and every intimate intent was magically guessed by this mysterious monkey.  It was as if this strange, flat and almost ‘other worldly’ monkey could actually read his mind and even seemed to know exactly what he was thinking or even planning, even down to the most random moods and facial expressions.  Slowly it dawned on him that this was a friend indeed.  A friend for life even who could bring great comfort and significant meaning.  After some time it also became apparent that this was also a wonderful way for the monkey to get in touch with himself and he soon began to learn many new things about his own facial expressions and how these led to express the feelings he had so deep inside of him.

The monkey was so enamoured by the perfect purity of the reflection directly before his eyes that he simply could not let go of the piece of mirror that was now firmly in his hand.  He would drift off and stare at it for hours on end, seeing new facets and wonders every time he looked at the mirror (although of course, he never knew it was a mirror or what even a mirror was).  It was such a comforting presence in his life, so much so that soon he refused to move away from it in any way.  He would sleep with it clutched firmly to his heart and he would even dream about all he had seen in it.  It was indeed an enlightening find.

Now our monkey was not totally selfish and eventually he did want others to see his new discovery as well.  After all it had made him quite the celebrity in his troop as he strutted about, clutching his strange, treasured discovery for all it was worth.  It was indeed a sensational find and he eventually tried to share it with the others but even when he did excitedly show his wonderful new possession to the other monkey’s in the troop he would hold it so closely to his own face that the other monkeys would mainly see his reflection in the mirror even when trying desperately to see themselves or whatever else was in the mirror.  To them it almost seemed as if the mirror only reflected our friend the monkey.  This communal activity wasn’t all plain sailing though as the monkey in the mirror also tended to cause some troublesome division in the troop and even at times some serious pain especially when the other monkey’s out of frustration perhaps, or just playfully, tried to grab the mirror away from him.  Sadly, when this happened the only result was that it cut deep into the hands of the other monkey’s as well as his as the tussle for possession and control of the reflected image ensued.

The mirror soon began to absorb godlike qualities to the monkey as well as the troop and all of life increasingly began to be determined and reflected through this small, shiny piece of mysterious, reflective glass.

Very soon the monkey became so intoxicated by the perceived power and stability of the immediate reflection before him that he was unable to disengage with this reflection at all.  To add to this dilemma he was now also unable to understand that the only way to really explore truth and reality in all it’s fullness in and around him was to take the risk of moving away from the immediate reflection he held so close to him, loosing his hold on his immediate reflective perception and taking a few short steps back to see what might possibly lie directly behind, and to either side of the small piece of flat, two-dimensional reflective glass  …  the same glass which he had now placed directly before his own eyes … so close in fact that the very image he had first seen was now somewhat blurred and vague.  Indeed, it took great imagination and not a small amount of speculation to recreate what images of the original reflection he could recall when he had first picked up the small piece of mirror found at the base of the great tree in the middle of the forest.

… that will teach them!

There was a time when we all spoke the same and we gathered together to speak the same things.  We began to forge a shared understanding and because of this we believed that we were very powerful.  We all migrated towards a unified plane of understanding where there was to be neither high nor low ground – where all were on the same level.  It was a comfortable place for us where the mountains that were before us were not too high and the valleys not too low.  Where the playing fields were level and life was comfortable and beneficial for us all.

It all seemed very good to us and we got more and more confident until eventually we decided to make a mark for ourselves.  We believed we were powerful and secure yet we felt the need to make this even more sure for ourselves by constructing a functional monument in honour of our own efforts, our unity and our strength.  We also wanted to begin to stretch out our hands and if possible, touch the very face of God.  After all, we had come a long way, and we had things to say.

Up till then our worship of the gods was with what the land had blessed us with.  Our temples were assembled with natural stones as were our homes and fields.  Uncut stones which we had easily gathered up and assembled for protection and covering.  But now we were well advanced in wisdom through our shared understanding and we had a few excellent ideas of our own.  So we built a structure with the dust and water and other natural elements instead and baked it carefully and thoroughly.  We rejected what we found in our hands as a natural blessing from the gods and decided to do it for ourselves instead.  It had all sufficed well enough up till then, but now we had some serious contributions to make.  We even decided to make a structure for ourselves that would reach up to the heavens.  After all, why should we have to call out to the gods for them to come down to visit us when we could go up and stand before them ourselves, talking face to face as equals?

But the gods were apparently not very happy as they gazed down on our activities and heard our plans and intentions.  So before they got very quiet and hid themselves in the clouds they did something that seemed very strange and which seemed to begin to confuse us all a great deal and we all tended to drift off in different directions and like the continents divided, so did we.  And then, after some time and when the dust of our migrating feet had eventually settled we noticed that the structures we had been building and the ideas we had were now forgotten and lying silent, still half-built and partly in ruin.

It has taken some time, but have no fear, for we are well on the way to completing what we first had begun.  And sooner than you know it, we will rise up in our new found unity and power and speak once again with those once lofty beings who dared to challenge our greatness long, long ago.  And if they won’t listen this time, why, we might even scorch the sun and the stars and even the very ground they first gave us as an offering, … to teach them a final lesson.

a lonely, stormy hood

It’s a lonely, stormy neighbourhood out here. We seem to have settled somewhat but we keep our distance. It’s best for all that we keep our distance. Somehow, like moths to candles we have gravitated towards unique orbits around each other, or so it seems. Some circle others who are in turn circling others themselves.  Some seem so far away that they are not circling anyone, but they are. From time to time we get a little closer but this tends mostly to produce more storm activity on our surfaces.  The conflict of intimacy is a tacky reality but there’s something in us or around us that pulls us relentlessly to move closer. It’s almost like being caught in a circle and we can’t stop spinning.  Something pulls us away while at the same time almost equal yet opposite forces pull us apart. Eventually one or the other gives in. It’s a morbidly intense ordeal. The fascination is one thing but the encounter is wholly another. Is it apparently better that we keep our distances? The only way we have is to try tolerate and absorb the turbulence as a normal day at the office.  Maybe we just have to remain content to watch each other twinkle away at more than a healthy arms length?
Mostly it’s pretty cold out here which is amazing considering the heat of the initial explosion back in the day, but that was a long time ago. Seems we’ve lost track of time, sense and sensibility since then but it’s almost like someone smacked a mysterious bonfire and completely dispersed everything to a stormy cloud of turbulent embers, floating frantically outwards.
So here we are.  It’s mostly quiet as we all seem to have our minds on our own things although there’s the endless static crackle of seemingly chaotic data that streams out randomly in all directions. We float in packs, distorted clusters of celestial orbs having avoided crashing into each other somehow in melted times past, but now in a relatively stable state of turbulent truce.
Somehow perhaps we decide that there is some form of tribal link and we feel a resonance to persist with the notion of similarity and build into the investment almost unconsciously.  Sort of a clinging to that around us perhaps in an attempt to dispel the ever-widening expanding space that rolls out into countless horizons which seem to point to the vastness of empty nothingness out there.  Our orbits are all we have really.  As cold as the expanse is it’s the only warmth we can generate. The formation of our constellations is the only order out here, or so we think.  So we cling to it whether we like it or not.  We have to like it.  Perhaps we have no choice?

In his mind he had been there – he was sure he had, but he hadn’t

The travel agent never really left his office. He devoted himself to the study of all the possible destinations available. He was a busy man. He spend virtually all his time going through glossy books filled with glossy pictures of wonderful, glossy places. He constantly read through reams and reams of detailed information. He devoured the details published in text about every conceivable angle on all of the most amazing trips. He read through the many different ways one could get to these destinations. He became an expert in all aspects of the travel experience, the best available routes, all the possible connecting points, even the costs structures of each journey with all the necessary travel documents needed to cross each and every border. He had indexed all the significant places of interest. It was a huge and time consuming exercise. Many who had traveled before had taken pictures of their journeys. Many of these records were in glowing colour, some even in hi-tech 3-D, many had even taken detailed video footage sometimes even with recorded commentary included as they journaled their delightful experiences. He had even developed a photographic memory of the photographs he had studied.
He loved his job and it captured his passion. His mind was filled with details of so many possibilities. He so wanted to encourage as many as possible to go. In his mind he had been there himself – he was sure he had been there himself, but he hadn’t. …… isn’t he a bit like you and me?