tipping this way and that

with each step on the tightrope

bringing things closer to the brink.

it’s the edge of things,

the very edge.

a single blink

between now and then

between vanilla and chocolate

between life and death.

it’s inside and outside

within and without

between the word and the thing

between the ideal and the actual

between the coming and going.

it’s a fragile equilibrium

tip toe on the point of a pin

poised and steady

gently swaying

with the movement of breath

conscious of nothing

and fully aware.

it’s an equinox point

inside the sunset

in the midst of the moment

seeing without judgment

the purity of perception

a gentle and heavy spring snow.

don’t even have cable. nope. just 7 or 8 (depending) fuzzy channels that if conditions are right, may be tuned in long enough to tolerate.

and well, all that pseudo intellectual too good for TV stuff aside, have to admit am way into this Judging Amy show. love it. full of regularly scheduled moral and ethical dilemmas. brilliant fantasy stuff for me. i wanna be Judge Amy. and i wanna be her mom Tyne Daly too. because man, these two strong intelligent women, a juvenile court judge and a social worker, just take on the most difficult heart wrenching stuff. they stand in their own truth and they make lots of mistakes but they work so hard and they cut right through the crap and they do it with love and they bring truth and wisdom into the lives of lost souls caught in the midst of their emotional dramas and entanglements with peace and justice for all amen.

partly am fascinated by it because as a paralegal, used to do lots of domestic law stuff, and have also done a lot of volunteer work as a court advocate for abused women and children. and oh man, if only if only i could be one of those characters in that show because they’ve got all the answers and they know where they stand in each situation and they never waver and they sort it all out and people are saved and truth prevails and all in the course of a hour long (with commercials) TV program. wah-hoo! it’s vicarious perfection, for me. a possible incarnation of one of my multiple wannabe personalities.

and when my old 19 year old best friend kitty was dying a few years ago, i used to get up early in the morning before work to spend some extra time with her. she was mostly curled up on a pillow on the sofa downstairs, and i would get up to make special treats and coax her to eat and lick things off my fingers and just hang out and have some early affection time before i had to leave her alone for the rest of the day, never sure if she’d still be there when i got home. and it was at that time, sitting downstairs in the wee early hours with her, that we used to watch Arthur, a kid’s show on PBS, full of sweet gentle common sense stuff. and every morning i watched it with her on the couch, it made me smile and weep and feel how precious everything was. and yes i do know this sounds so sappy but am so highly susceptible first thing in the morning and it was a very emotional time for me. and so still remember (and sing . . oh look out) the little reggae theme song that goes, "hey! what a wonderful kind of day. where we can learn to work and play. and get along with each other. it’s a simple lesson. and it comes from the heart. believe in yourself. that’s the place to start."

so, that’s enough ridiculous sentimental TV related background material you may say. off on tangent and wanted to make a point about being drawn to stories, books, films, art, with moral or ethical issues, and also about how all this stuff affects my own personal moral compass. how anything that makes me think is good, but i especially like stuff that seems to redeem human behavior in some manner. it’s very comforting.

well anyway, for quite a while there, at the height of my heaviest Aristotle exposure, it did seem quite logical that ethics and social and political philosophy were probably the whole practical purpose of the inquiry, to begin with. how into philosophy the founding fathers were and how they came by such ideals that we now hold dear. and, it seemed that there was a clear goal in sight. and our rationality would redeem us. and as each successive bit of Aristotle’s metaphysics seemed to hand me a crystalized gem of magnificent clarity, leading up to the next, even through the transcendental un-moved mover biz, i was with him. and still am, in many ways.

but oh, when we hit the realm of ethics and all Aritotle really seemed to say to me was, well it’s only an issue for young men, and either they get it or they don’t, and an aristocracy is probably the only rational way to run things, and the cream will always rise to the top and oh dear i can’t even bear to go into how upset i was to get into his concepts of literary criticism and how to apply standards to works of art. and much as i loved Kant, there’s where i started to get break with him as well, now that i think of it. it was something in where he was heading with the whole thing in the critique of pure judgment and the concept of art being classified and determined by its morality or lack thereof and well . . . .

so maybe by many standards, including a little quizzie mentioned on calgal’s blog, i could be and probably am by many, considered to be oh so immoral and permissive. yeah i'm a live and let live kind of gal. a do as ye wilt but harm ye none. uh huh.

no doubt all you philosophers out there may be ready to jump in and tell me i have got it all wrong, and i could agree with you to some extent of course and we could contrast and compare all sorts of stuff. bring it on, if you want. i enjoy philosophy and debate and the dialectic and those that deviate as well. and yeah i do love Aristotle and Kant and always will because they taught me so much, showed me so much, took so much love and time for them to work it all out for us. intricate precise concise painstaking sweat and blood work they put into it. but even so, even so, as much as i learned and hopefully still continue to, still also know where at some point, a part of me says . . hang on. hold on. i can listen, i can be open to what you’re saying, i can even do my best to withhold judgment, i can do my best to learn from this teaching without immediately judging it, i can entertain conflicting points of view without a preference with the best of 'em but still . . yet . . . there’s something else to listen to in the midst of all this and it’s coming from inside.

and it seems there is a place, a point, a knowing spot, deep within. like a pearl, a seed, a little flame, a heart within my heart that listens to my gut and floats between my eyes sometimes when i meditate, a piece that watches and knows and remains as the essence of me as a primary substance that smiles and looks on the whole thing with much amusement and love.

and everybody’s got one. and the essence is the same!

and so you may wonder where this is all going because wasn’t this all supposed to be about morals and ethics and wasn’t i going to make a big point about how important the distinction between these two are? yeah. yeah i was.

because it is. way important. in times such as these, where there is so much violence and great suffering of innocents, this time of the great oxymoron of holy war where everybody insists God is on their side and they're doing His will . . there was going to be a big finish leading up to just why we have to be so clear right now about the distinction between morals and ethics. and this great rambling bloggy post was going to demonstrate just so clearly how important this distinction is and why we need to be so aware of it right now.

and the punch line, the big finish, was going to be all about how morals are personal, and based on personal judgment and belief, and how ethics is about our behavior and our sense of honesty and cooperation in the spirit of living together in harmony. how our morality is unique and personal, and ethics is the realm in which we strive to make universal rational contact despite differences in personal belief and individual definitions of morality.

and that in times of war, such as these, we must understand this distinction in order to not get into the finger pointing hate filled morality contest of who’s evil and who’s moral. who’s right and who’s wrong. in times such as these where we have so many precious innocent beautiful lives hanging in the balance and we’ve got Christians pitted themselves as to who’s more Christian and who’s more patriotic, and we’ve got Muslims v. Jews, and we’ve got Hindus v. Muslims, and on and on. so, we can’t be screaming on about morals because they are so personal and close to our hearts and them’s fightin’ words, by god, and essentially not even appropriate, much less acceptable, to discuss in polite company and civilized society.

ah but ethics, dear friends. ethics is where we must always endeavor to keep the dialogue open. ethics and law and responsibility and honesty. this is what we need to focus on now. this is the realm of human rights. of civil liberties. of freedom and justice and the spirit of human dignity. ethics is where we hold leaders accountable for their behavior, their choices and their actions. ethics is where we agree to suspend our moral preferences and personal beliefs for the moment in order to figure out, across and despite great canyons of high moral indignation, just what’s actually going on here and where are we going and how has this happened, and what on earth are we going to do about it?

ethics, me buddies. not morals. lets talk about ethics. keep those lines of communication open, because the moral outrage will always do its best to shut it all down and divert the situation. ethics we can talk about regardless of what we believe in. in ethics, everybody has a voice.

and so on this runaway bloggy, there was going to be this great and powerful manifesto of brilliant rational sparkling clarity, a light in the darkness that would shine forth and illuminate the Truth for all to witness and say, "ahhh." like one of beautiful Judge Amy’s perfect rulings from the bench.

yeah. there was going to be that.

but instead you got today’s rant from a madwoman.

maybe things will pick up tomorrow.

see you then.

peace out.

that is, for me, there has always been an interest in ancient as well as recent history, of things and events that went before. things that happened, things that didn't happen, mysteries and legends and stories and myths. and in the physical, material sense, there has been a pull towards the past previous incarnation of even physical locations themselves. houses, buildings, ruins, remains, old trees, rocks, canyons.

for instance, in colorado, the "civilized" history is young, though the place itself is as old as the earth. there is a lot of the old west in tact if you look for it. mining towns, winding mountain villages, old ranches with the frames of homesteads and log cabins, water wheels, old farm implements rusting in the fields. and then beyond that, is a sense of the native american presence. plains indians and mountain folk, and even the remnants of some cliff dwellings and pueblos. trading and hunting and traveling. and there is a feel for the animals that lived here before, buffalo and mountain lions, coyotes and big horn sheep, bears and wolves and beaver and martins and trout and hummingbirds and hawks and dragonflies. grasses and valleys, streams, cactus, sage, pine, spruce, cottonwoods, columbines and sunflowers. and earthquakes and tropics and wooly mammoths and lava and ice.

haven't been very far abroad, but have always had a great desire to experience the presence of the old places. castles, pyramids, standing stones, cathedrals, all of it. something pulls and yanks and tugs at me to sense and feel it. as if everything calls to me to see it backwards, previous incarnations, previous lifetimes. art. remnants. packages of existence, wrapped to be unopened and explored.

is it ghosties or spirits or just some sort of misplaced sentimentality and a desire for connection, roots, belonging within the dialectic of humanity? is it a genuine interest and fascination, or is it merely born out of a deep romanticism, a nostalgia that longs for a past that is idealized as being somehow more pure than the present moment?

there is a longing and desire, but there is also a sadness, a sorrow, as if somehow a message is being lost. time moves only forward and the previous experience needs to be acknowledged in order to learn or gain something. it all seems to say "look at me. things are not as they seem. this is not how it was, and will never come this way again."

i think it was Lily Tomlin who once said that if only people would listen to it, history would be able to stop repeating itself.

there is some great movement within us to put up monuments to the past, cave paintings, markers of battles, lives lost, headstones, cemeteries, birth and death records, time capsules, burial tombs, some grasping desire to save and preserve and document it all.

and so we take photographs and make paintings and sculptures and monuments and sing songs and tell stories and we write poems and histories and epics and we keep records and keep track keep track keep track of it, mark it down, imprint it on the earth, etch it in stone and scribble it on tablets and release these words into the electronic bardo as if to reach out and say hello out there. to communicate, to touch, to reach out, to share, to speak beyond the immediate for we know the time has passed before we finish typing out the words.

it is as if this knowledge of inevitable death creates a need to hang on to something. to nail down a piece of this transitory shifting changing ephemeral organic sudden spurt of consciousness that wants to remember, grasp, learn, hold on hold on get this, get it right, understand understand and know remember know within remember take this down save this remember this was how it was and how it came to be and where we came from and there is something pulling me back to hear it. hear it and know that there is something here to find, something to listen to, something to learn from, something that requires acknowledgment and respect.

the thing is, there is some great sense of beauty in looking backward, to glance into the past, to see beyond the forward movement, and sense the comings and goings of the previous, as if in some sense awareness of all that came before brings a great depth and renewed appreciation of the glorious holy now in its full flowering fragrance.

and don't we all like to believe in progress? that there is evolution, that we are going to somewhere? whether it's to hell in a hand basket, or to a beautiful paradise, or just riding a train into a dark tunnel, or swirling up in a stormy cyclone that will drop us down from this black and white existence into full stereo sound and technicolor?

the destination, the path, the quest, the goal, the present, the past, and the uncertainty of the future.

and where are we now and what have we learned and are we getting the message and if we are why does it call to us, why do we long to hear it, why do we search back into time to find out who we are now? why dig into the past, why search within this soul, why seek to return to what was forgotten, or left behind, misplaced, lost, secret, buried? ancient scriptures, sacred mythologies, distant gods of a previous time, the history of the ancestors has been written to read now.

for the past is not silent. it is so full of chatter, clamoring to be heard, rattling chains, calling from beyond the grave.

and though it calls to me, i say to it: rest in peace. be at peace.

but still the silence screams to be heard. and perhaps it is me who is not always at peace. and perhaps this is why the past is pounding on the backdoor to let it in, to bring it in and give it some food and shelter and listen to it. to let it tell me the story of its long journey and how it all came to be now.

at first i noticed some pages of a book were flipping open by themselves. then a few things on the end table started moving around very gently. my cup spun around and the tea bag flicked out. a couple kleenex jumped out of the wastebasket.

and in the dream, i didn't think it was anything strange or scary, but just thought to myself, oh darn it's these guys again. oh what to do, what to do. and i thought, i have to call Dave, one of the attorneys i used to work for a long time ago. somehow i remembered that we had some sort of similar infestation at the office and he had dealt with it rather effectively at the time. something to do with the office christmas tree.

so, as i start sorting through strange high dream stacks of colored papers to find his phone number, i noticed these little critters are rolling and unrolling my socks, pulling apart the folded bundles, and then rolling the socks up into little spirals like cinnamon rolls and snail shells. and then the lampshade started spinning because they were riding some unraveled fringe on the rim and swinging from the threads, making the lampshade go around like a carousel. i might have heard them say "wheeeee!" looking down, i noticed the ones playing with socks were rolling in several more socks from the bedroom, and they started arranging them on the floor to spell something out, but i couldn't quite make out their symbols.

and i thought about a flea circus that i had seen in a cartoon, and i thought maybe i could probably teach them tricks or something. and so i gave them this incredible little dollhouse with tiny furniture and little rugs and fully equipped with appliances and all manner of mod cons in amazing detail. just happened to have on hand a fully functional intricate dollhouse of course, just in case a dream need such as this were to arise.

so meanwhile i finally find Dave's phone number, and i start to talk to him on the phone about the tiny buggies, and he's saying something like it's going to take a concentration of cleaning foam and raid and oven cleaner and it will have to be done in a series of applications, and as he explains the process to me it's upsetting me that it's going to take chemicals and that these little guys have to be poisoned. i panic because i know all of a sudden that killing them is just out of the question.

meanwhile, i look down into the little dollhouse and can see that they've moved right in. they're even moving the little dolls around inside the house as though they're playing dolls themselves, and as i look down into the intricate pink plastic bathroom, i can see them moving the mother doll around and she's wearing an apron and looking oh so mini mrs. knows best, and she's cleaning the bathroom, bending down into the tiny pink tub and cleaning out all the soap scum and wiping off the countertops and mirrors.

and it occurs to me that these guys are intelligent life. sentient beings. tiny little creatures that might just need a place to stay. maybe they had a purpose. maybe they were even trying to show me something important.

just then Dave the attorney shows up at the door with a backpack with a hose and nozzle attached and he's wearing big goggles and long black rubber gloves and he says man have you got an outbreak, you're absolutely crawling with them. as i turn and look at myself in the mirror, i can see that they're doing funny stuff and making swirls with my hair. and i start to flip out a bit because i realize they're actually on me now. but, i remember thinking wow they don't even itch.

and then i really freak because i am completely gripped with the fact that i don't want to hurt them. suddenly something has to be done about them without poisons and i tell Dave this but he says that they just have to be exterminated. they're multiplying at an incredibly rapid rate, and soon they'll take over the entire house.

i was working myself up into quite the dream panic when the alarm went off and the infestation ceased abruptly. i didn't have to make any major life or death decisions about the invisible tiny bug creatures.

periodically throughout the day today, i wondered how i was going to deal with the infestation without killing the buggies. maybe i would have tried to communicate with them somehow -- decipher their sock symbols, or maybe build them a bigger dollhouse to clean. that's the sort of thing with dilemma dreams -- if i don't get to work out the problem in the dream, there's no resolution. no closure.

still not quite sure what to make of it all, but i did decide to do a deep clean on the bathroom this afternoon. i threw out the old rubber shower floor mat and vigorously scrubbed out the tub. i wasn't wearing an apron like the mini mrs. knows best doll, but i did have the feeling that maybe i was being propelled by invisible forces.