The Human Animal

My mind's a mess.

Words, 50 + years of distractions, a well-

practiced self-flagellation.

It wakes me at 5:15.

By the rising sun I wrestle my own demons;

nothing is won because 

nothing is.

I turn and nestle my head against

the fur on your chest,

that well worn breast, with its

well-practiced heart.

I smell your breath, 

feel the folds of my own skin,

imagining

us as creatures in a cave; along with kin

we struggle to save

ourselves for one more day.

We, a species among many species made of

the same stuff: dogs,

cats, pigs, birds, snakes, apes and we -- 

each mutely fulfilling our own tasks to ensure

the larger harmony.  What

makes we we 

is our dexterity.  Strike

a match.

Evolution burns

forward.

The earth turns,

patiently.

To this, I fall asleep, content to live

one more day.

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted, by Jalal al-Din Rumi

This place is a dream.

Only a sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.

Everything cruel and unconscious

done in the illusion of the present world

all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,

and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,

all the quick, sexual wanting,

those torn coats of Joseph,

they change into powerful wolves

that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes comes now,

the swift, payback hit,

is just a boy's game

to what the other will be. . . .

And this groggy time we live,

this is what it's like:

                                              A man goes to sleep in the town

where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living

in another town.

In the dream, he doesn't remember 

the town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believes 

the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled cities 

settles over us like a forgetful doze,

but we are older than those cities.

                                        We begin

as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life

and into the animal state, and then into being human,

and always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring when we slightly recall

being green again.

That's how a young person turns

toward a teacher.  That's how a baby leans

toward the breast, without knowing the secret

of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,

through this migration of intelligences,

and though we seem to be sleeping,

there is an inner wakefulness

that directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us back

to the truth of who we are.

all photos by Makropoulos

Time passes in the blink of an eye when you're as old as I am.

No, I haven't posted in a while. And the Blooger world has passed me by. This new technology sometimes baffles me, though I must confess to loving it, too.

Much has happened to me, some of which I may share at some time. The challenging part of being my age is that I've known so many men, and generally, I've learned the types. There are really very few male types. But every now and then one comes along that baffles me, even scares me in his originality. And that is what I've been involved with, until I realized that if I really wanted to live until I was finished living, I really might want to get out of his life. Or get him out of mine. I hope I did it soon enough.

Yes, some people call me a risk taker. I went to a counselor who called me that, and then her conclusion after talking to me for about an hour was that I am an alcoholic. That Twentieth Century; it really was a century of hang-ups. Anything that was done in excess became an illness. One has to understand, though, the anyone who does things in excess is just being human in high gear. And unfortunately, some can't handle it. Indeed, no one can handle it if you push it too high - everyone reaches their limits. A Romanian friend made the comment to me just the other day that we strive to reach our inadequacies. We strive to find our limits. And when we find them, well we try to break through them.

When I was child, oh way too long ago, I was terrifically shy. Everything was a limit for me. You'd think I wouldn't remember that far back, but I do. Because I am still always already that terribly shy fearful child. And whenever I feel myself settling back into my fearful self, I do something else to exceed my limits. The thing is - at 424 years old, well, your outermost limit keeps becoming more extreme and extraordinary.

But I do have my limits.

Like aging children. We are really just aging children. For a period of time, we play the game of society - society is, after all, nothing but a game. The child inside of us learns to play it; some of us learn to play it better than others, because we're a little more keyed in to the folks who are setting the rules. But as we get older, well, the game gets a bit boring. This is why older people become so absolutely childish. They just resort back to their essential selves, the selves they were born with.

Mankind too gets bored with playing the game; this is why we have revolutions. We're due for a big one. Read my blogs about The Grid to see why this is an important topic to me.

Among humans, though, there are some people, who for one reason or another, recognize early on that it's all a game. They decide they will keep their childish selves alive, and take out their social selves whenever they need it. These are some of the most intelligent people around, and the most interesting. But they can also be the most dangerous. Childish impulses can be hurtful, especially when the child was reprimanded with pain. This produces mean abusive adults. You have to watch out for them; they look for people who keep the childish innocence in their eyes, and take the rules of the game very seriously. These are the people who are easily fooled.

I say these things largely because this is what I feel like talking about right now. But also, I look back at my post about Michael Jackson. He was an old soul, too, you know. As a soul, he had become so old that he was just always a child. This can be good and this can be bad. People like this sometimes get confused, and think they can play certain childish games that one really can't play when they've grown out of their childish body.

Yes, that's one of the benefits of just not having died. My body has remained my own; I'm very aware of the stages of its aging. And it is aging, now; it has been, for hundreds of years, aged rather slowly, but it's becoming a little more noticeable these days. In this body, and having never left the earth, I know what I can safely get away with. Michael kept coming back, kept getting new bodies, and he kept forgetting that bodies have this problem with growing up.

I still have so much to share, but I am getting weary. I performed Turandot at the Met tonight, and even though I love singing Turandot, and this bass Ramey is not bad for an old man, well, I am exhausted. But I'll be back, sooner rather than later.