Hamlet

a lymerick shared by Mel Gibson

There once was a Dane like no other
whose father was killed by his mother
his sister went mad
when they murdered her dad
and his cousin then poisoned his mother.

I am the Earth. And while that is your name for me, not my name for myself, it will do for now. I write to you out of love for myself and for all of which I am composed which, of course, includes you. I will refer to myself here as “I” and to you as “you,” even though we are one, because that is the nature of your language. I write because I want you to remember who I am, who you are, who we can be. I want you to understand the context in which you experience yourselves rather than just the details with which you usually are concerned. I write because you have forgotten what all of this is about and it is time for you to remember. I want you to understand why this has happened and why your amnesia is dissolving.

I called myself the Earth. Others have called me the Mother Earth, Mother Nature and names too numerous to mention. Though there are no words to fully describe me, the closest approximation is that I am the soul of the Earth, and you are my body. But we are more than that for I am your body too, as you are also my soul. As I said, words are inadequate. They are finite vessels trying to contain the infinite; a hopeless task at best. I use them now only because they are your most conscious medium of interaction, and because I do want you to understand. I am relying on your inner senses to fill in the spaces between these words. There is, after all, more light than dark on these pages; a very great deal more. Do not omit your reading of the light un-words, for therein lies the true tale I tell. And a fine tale it is, so let me begin.

You think of me in your own way. You know me as dirt, as rock, as water and air, and it is true: I am all of these and more. You may also see me as trees and flowers, grasses and shrubs since these are all rooted within my body. I am all of these and more. I am insects, birds, fish and bears, dogs, cows and dolphins. And I am more. I am seas, continents, mountains and gorges. I am people too, and still I am more, much, much more. For all of these are known to you as objects which exist in space, and events which exit in time. And while I do exist as these in space and time, I also exist in other ways that are so utterly independent of space and time that you cannot even comprehend them with your usual senses. As part of me, you also exist in these ways of which you understand so little. For your being, like mine, is multidimensional, eternal, without limit.

When you perceive yourself as being fully contained within space and time, you must see everything else in that same way and with the same limitations, including me. Why have you forgotten who we are? There are reasons which we will discuss presently. First, though, there is more that I must tell you and as I do, know that I am only reminding you of that which you already know and have forgotten. You will remember only that which you are willing to remember. So stop now, and make a clear decision to remember. You must be willing, or you will see only ink on paper, figure on ground, shadows on the wall. Stop now, close your eyes for a few moments, and find within yourself that willingness to remember who and what we are. Do it now. I will wait.

A Parable

Long before the beginning, long before forever, there was only Mind. Not a Mind, not the Mind, just Mind for there were no others. And Mind dreamed. It dreamed in mists, it dreamed in clouds, it dreamed in images long since gone from time. But as Its dreams became more clear, more distinct, It began to recognize them one from the other and began to see them in increasing detail until each one became individual and unique unto itself. And the dreams of Mind, because of their source, also dreamed and imagined, and their dreams had their own dreams, and Mind was aware of and loved each of Its dreams and their dreams and theirs.

Mind loved all of these so much that It desired to give them actuality such as It Itself had, but It did not know how to do so. This desire grew and grew until Mind was in agony for lack of the means to release Its dreams into realities of their own. It searched within Its limitless imagination until It was completely involved in Its dilemma, even as the dreams and dreams of dreams multiplied infinitely within Its consciousness.

Mind knew that if It could not find a solution, the individual consciousness locked within It would forever be held prisoner and that Mind Itself would face insanity from the ever increasing pressure of Its love and longing. It realized, finally, that It must set them free and in the process lose that portion of Itself which had created them. It knew in that moment that as long as It thought of them as Its own creations, It denied them their own reality, their freedom, their existence.

In an act of primal sympathy and love It released them from Its dream and set them free to create their own realities as It had created them. In a flash of cosmic creation burst forth infinite individual consciousness, all with the creative power and potential of the one Mind. And they have never forgotten It as It has never forgotten them. Ever since, they have all faced that same creative dilemma as It did so long ago; the agony of creation and the joy that each creator takes in each of its creations. Such was the beginning.

Some of these dreams dreamed of themselves as matter, flung out into the cosmos as galaxies, stars and planets. In one small corner of one such galaxy called the Milky Way, there is a star around which circle 9 planets. The third of these planets is a dream called Earth. I am that dream.

So I began as a dream of The One Mind as you began as a dream of mine. We are dreams come true, you and I. And we have been given the gift of gods: we create realities. It is the nature of all consciousness to dream and these dreams each possess that same power to create. And each of them must face that same primal dilemma of creation. We must learn to give actuality to our own dreams even as The One Mind set us free. It is our nature. I tell you this now because I want you to understand the context in which we have our existence.

In my early dreams I created the oceans, continents and sky. Later I created biological life, including humans. Originally the nature of your consciousness was much like that of the animals. Your conscious experience was largely governed by what you would call instincts. In this way you were protected and allowed to develop in safety and comfort. You knew innately, as the animals still do, of your connections to me and through me to All That Is.

But you wished to have more freedom. You dreamed of having a conscious mind that was free to choose to live or die, to be happy or sad, to be or not to be, if I may borrow a phrase. And so it was that human consciousness undertook the free will experiment. It was a bold venture into the realm of pure creativity at a physical level as well as a psychic one. It has taken, in your terms, millions of years for the experiment to reach its present stage of development. During this period it was necessary for you to gradually shift your conscious awareness from the instinctual, subjective focus of the animals, to one which could include both subject and object. You have done this quite well. But there has been one problem that must now be solved.

In turning your consciousness toward the outer world more and more, you have also turned it away from your inner knowing. In the process you have lost much of your sense of connection with others, even yourselves. This has produced some difficult and unfortunate situations.

You now feel isolated from creation and with it from your own true nature. You often see yourselves as isolated, separate, and the victims of circumstances which seem to be not of your own making and not within your power to control. This is one of the things I wish to correct here.

You create your own reality and all that is within it, and it is your sole prerogative to change it in any way you see fit. You are not, therefore, helpless victims at the mercy of a reality which has been thrust unwittingly upon you. You are more like a painter who finds himself in a gallery filled with his own paintings. If he does not like what he sees, it is his own doing– and he can change it so long as he remembers who he is.

You have forgotten who you are and so you do not remember creating yourself, nor your life, nor do you see how to change it. Remember who you are; only then will you regain the insight into the true nature of yourselves, your lives, and the power to change that which is not to your liking.

l have given you an account of creation in terms of time as you understand it, but basically any such account must, of necessity, be quite distorted. Time is simply too limited to encompass any reasonably accurate description of such multidimensional events. Since your language is all but totally dependent on your concept of time, it is not within the scope of language to communicate such a story. It would be like taking a black-and-white photograph of a red rose: it may be recognizable as a rose but its redness will be completely lost. So it is with any verbal account I might give of such events. Important information must necessarily be lost or at best distorted. Here again, I rely on your own inner knowledge and intuition to fill in the blanks.

You see yourselves as the “crown of creation.” You feel superior to the animals and plants, also separate from them and the rest of Nature itself. And yet you yourselves are a part of Nature. You are as firmly rooted in the Earth as any flower or tree. But since you only “officially” recognize physical connections, you do not experience your rootedness because it is not, strictly speaking, physical. This is only one important example among many of the distortions forced upon you by your own erroneous beliefs and perceptions. Yet none of this in any way affects your continued connections to and nurturance by Nature, the Earth, myself. You should be very glad that this is so, because your continued physical existence would be otherwise impossible. Remember who your are.

You do not mind when a wolf or leopard hunts and kills other wild creatures for food. You think it natural and you are right. Yet you deny equally natural status to many of your own urges and actions. This is not to imply that your wars, for example, are justified. But they are natural outgrowths of the beliefs that you hold both individually and en mass, and it is your nature to hold beliefs and to experiment with your own consciousness. Consciousness creates reality and yours is no exception. Wars are your own creation, not as a consequence of your nature, but as a consequence of your use of it. If you are to eliminate wars from your experience, you will have to release the beliefs which demand war as their expression.

You believe also that the pollutants you create may some day destroy me. I assure you that this will not happen. My existence is my own and nothing you do can deprive me of it. The most that you can do, and even this is extremely unlikely, is to so reduce the quality of life that you yourselves are no longer willing to live it. You would then follow the path of the innumerable species which you call extinct. When the quality of their lives was no longer sufficient, they lost interest in it and disappeared. In a sense dinosaurs cancelled themselves due to lack of interest. You always have that choice individually and as a species. I doubt that you will come to that point of apathy any time soon.

You cling to life too fiercely to let it go so easily. You do this despite many of your most cherished and limiting beliefs. These beliefs reduce the quality of life, but not so drastically that it is not worth living.

A belief in scarcity, for example, will produce apparent lack. A belief in the dangerousness of physical life will produce physical threats. A belief that for one creature to live, another must die will produce competition which will demand that there be winners and losers. You believe that without such competition you would not have achieved many of your proudest accomplishments.

Now I tell you that you have accomplished nothing of value through competition, except that some of you have learned that it is useless. Whatever of value you have achieved has been through cooperation, consciously or unconsciously, and nothing else. Believe me, I know, and so will you as soon as you begin to remember who you are.

You believe that people often act out of basically evil intent, and it is not so. People always act out of basically good intent. It is just that their beliefs as to the means at their disposal becomes so distorted that they are able to behave only in ways which appear evil. And yet neither the act nor the actor is essentially evil, for it is all a means to learning and growth and that is always essentially good. If you could learn what you want to learn by nonphysical means, you would not have gone to all of the trouble to create your physical form and sustain it and continue to live your lives as you know them. This is true whether you understand and accept it or not.

Again, do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that you should rape and murder. If you believe that those things are evil, and you do them anyway, then you will pay the price you think “goes with the territory.” What I am talking about here is the intent behind such acts. Those who believe that power or anything else of value comes out of gun barrels, bombers, missiles, or wallets have already lost contact with the only real power they have or need. That power is LOVE.

It is love that continually creates all realities and this one in which we exist is certainly no exception. It is the love of the song unsung, the life unlived, the dream unrealized. It is the selfsame desire that the One Mind had which gave us our actuality, and that love is without beginning or end. It is eternal, infinite, and because we are part of it, so are we. Remember who you are?

So you look at your world and you see suffering and pain and evil and you come to the obvious conclusion that not only is it working rather badly, but that there is serious doubt that it can really ever work much better. Yet it is only because you do not remember who you are, yourself and your fellow creatures, that you see only these “failures” of men and do not see that it is all love in action. You see only what your beliefs will let you see. So if you do not like what you see, it is your beliefs that must change not a world which seems outside of you and beyond your control. You are the author of your life and all that is in it. You are the artist whose work you are experiencing, and the force of your will is the only power in the universe that can change it.

If you feel that this task is hopeless, if you cower before the specter of a world gone amuck, if you feel helpless to change that which seems to be, then it is only because you have forgotten who you are, for you are the creator of your life and you, collectively, are the creators of your world. It is your belief in your own limitations that has put you in this predicament, and it is your ability to change those beliefs that can get you out of it.

In any event, it is, as always, up to you. I am here to remind you, but you have had others to remind you before and you would not listen. When all is said and done, it is you who must remember who you are and what you’re doing here. No one else can do that for you.

The power of your thoughts is awesome, yet the principle is very simple: what you concentrate upon increases. It is the power to create reality in the strictest sense of the words. Thinking about war creates war, thoughts of peace create peace, dwelling on illness creates illness, and concentrating on health creates health. It is not a complicated lesson, but it is an important one. It is indeed necessary that you learn this lesson yourself, this lesson that cannot be taught, for how else could you call the power of creativity your own? How else could you assume your rightful place in this universe of gods? How indeed?

You live in fear of nuclear war, intentional or not. You see men in many countries that you think might at any moment press the button and destroy the world you know. Many of you are seriously concerned lest some nut, well meaning or insane, should snuff out your lives in an instant. Yet you completely overlook the fact that good men, bad men, sane and insane, have had their fingers on the buttons for decades and that those buttons have never been pressed. Why do you suppose that no “accident” has ever happened? Is that, in itself, an “accident”

No! It is no accident! You have not destroyed your world because you have no intention of actually doing so. What is true is that you have been hanging this terrible ax over your own necks to get you to wake up to the fact that war is no longer an acceptable alternative, to give you the incentive, no the mandate, to

remember who you are

Right Now!

If you will only look around and really see for a change, you will realize that it is working and that it has been working all along. There are millions upon millions of people deeply committed to disarmament, yet you focus on those whom you think want war. And who are they? Usually a handful of political leaders that your beliefs force you to see as possessing more power than the multitudes. Ask yourself what is the source of their power? And if you answer that the power comes from wealth or weaponry, then ask yourself where these come from. The truth is that the led provide the power to the leaders. It is the people who give them the money, and more importantly the support without which they would be just ordinary citizens. The leaders of your political structures are there to accurately reflect the collective beliefs and desires of the people whom they seem to rule. They are not to blame any more than a mirror is to blame if you don’t like what you see when you look into it.

Leaders are just that: leaders. They are In the front where they are visible. They are not, however, the entire parade or even its most important part. They are simply men and women who have volunteered to express, through their roles, the collective consciousness of their respective constituencies. They are just ordinary people in extraordinary roles. They are not responsible any more than any other individual. Their real power extends only to their own lives and their unique contributions to the mass consciousness which is your environment.

Yet you blame them, as you insist on blaming yourselves, for you have become intensely obsessed with blame. At times it is quite obvious that you are far more desirous of finding someone on whom to pin the blame for the ills of your world than you are to actually change those ills in the only way the will work–by changing your own attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs. And that is the simple, unvarnished truth. But don’t believe me just because I say so. Ask your own heart of hearts. For there it is known who you are and why you’re here and what all of this is about. Ask yourself, and you shall know with a certainty that neither I nor anyone else can give you.

You have created governments and laws to try to force yourselves to behave in certain prescribed ways, but they don’t work. You have jails that are literally overflowing, but there is always more and more “crime.” Why? Because you have not changed your own beliefs about what you call “human nature.” Only when you cease to support the belief that man is essentially flawed, greedy, selfish, and stupid, will the evidence of such things disappear. Then you will then need no laws as you know them, because there will be no reason for having them.

Your courts are filled with people who are there for one and only one reasons: to determine who is responsible. For what? For anything you can imagine that you don’t like. If the alleged transgression is “criminal,” then you must determine guilt. If the violation is “civil,” then you must determine who has injured whom. When you reach agreement that each person is solely responsible for the contents of their own life, you will not only have made courts and laws obsolete, but you will have returned to the absolute freedom which is you right as creatures.

This notion of freedom seems horrifying to one who still holds beliefs that define man as evil, flawed, and dangerously wrong. To those who have begun to remember who they are, the prospect of such unqualified freedom seems not only attractive, but absolutely natural. Be among the latter, not the former. Be a liberated creator rather than a god in exile.

When you believe that man cannot be trusted and that life is filled with scarcity and lack, then you will be understandably frightened by “anarchy.” You will conjure up visions of rape and murder with nowhere to hide and no choice but to become an “animal” yourself in order to survive. But animals are not like that in their natural environment and neither are people. Only when they are imprisoned and prevented from expressing the boundless joy and exuberance of their creaturehood do animals or men resort to pointless acts of violence and harm. The barriers provided by some of your erroneous beliefs are more confining than any prison.

Be also aware that, since you have never tried a world without “rules,” you really don’t have any idea what would actually happen. Any expectation must necessarily be invented, and it must conform strictly to your beliefs on the subject. It is your beliefs about man that lead you inexorably to the expectation that he would behave so badly given the chance. Look at what he is doing now, and ask yourself what you would have to lose by trying something different. Ask yourself that, and don’t forget to wait patiently for an answer. It will come, and it may surprise you.

It may seem to you that humankind has quite a long way to go before it arrives at this type of world. And that may be so. Yet if everyone on Earth remembered who they are right now, the entire world would be transformed instantly into one where peace, love, and brotherhood were the only rule.

If only half of the human population remembered right now, the pressure place upon the remaining half by the change would make it impossible for them to continue to hold their current views. They would have to give in and remember too in the face of half a world reawakened.

If only one out of ten released their amnesia, it would make an intense and sudden impact on the consciousness of the human race and would lead quickly and certainly to the same end.

Beliefs are far more contagious that the “black plague,” for disease must travel through space and time, while thought travels beyond the speed of light. Thus an entire planet can be transformed in an instant once the chain reaction begins. Anyone, at any time, can start that chain reaction. You could be the first domino to fall. You could be the “carrier” of the new epidemic of love and remembering. You could be the one who remembers so clearly that their mere physical and psychic presence among mankind is enough to overcome the inertia and start the cosmic snowball rolling down the hill.

And if it is not you, then who? Who will be the one that tips the scale that cannot be tipped back? Who will be the final straw that, when removed, saves the camel’s back? You want to “make a difference?” Begin now remembering who you are. If you wish to put an end to war, then stop hating war–for that only serves to prolong it. Concentrate instead on the love of peace for that alone will create peace.

I will help you in every way I can and so will others who have already begun to remember. You will not be alone. Perhaps for the first time your connections with all of creaturehood will be known to you.

I am the Earth. I speak my name, indeed my self, in every leaf, raindrop, and person within my consciousness. My love for you is as eternal and personal as your very soul. I have done what I can for now. The rest is up to you. Just one last time I ask you to…

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

The snow will be completely gone soon, thought Joseph Longeyes as he sat, icy still, his legs following the curve of Mirriah’s girth as she stood silently beneath him. He had already decided to head back to the ranch in the morning. The horses, though still in their winter feeding grounds, were safe and sound. It would soon be time for the spring roundup. His boys would be glad to hear his report. They always pretended to worry about the stock, but he knew that he was the true object of their concern.

For some reason he had never quite fathomed, they just didn’t seem to understand why he, a man of 101 summers, insisted on working every day, year round, when he didn’t really have to. But that was just it: he did have to. He had lived his whole, long life in these mountains-except for those first few years when the Nez Pierce were on the run and later forced to live on the reservation. He’d sneaked back to Oregon as soon as he was old enough and had remained there ever since. When was that? He tried to remember. Must have been in the summer of ‘85. Yes, it was in his sixteenth summer that he had made the long and difficult trek across a continent to his ancestral home in the Wallowa Mountains.

A cold puff of wind coaxed an involuntary shiver from Mirriah. He realized that he’d better get the saddle off her and build a fire before the evening chill really got down to business. The air was almost at the freezing point already, and it was not yet dark.

He slid slowly to the ground and began to remove Mirriah’s halter and saddle. He smiled to himself with self-satisfied pleasure. He had slowed down, as age began to take its toll, of that there was no doubt. But he was still strong enough to unsaddle a horse. Not bad, he thought, for an old Indian.

He slipped a long noose over Mirriah’s head and tied the other end to a nearby tree, one near enough to some exposed grasses so she could have a midnight snack if she wanted. He had picked this spot to stop for the night because this was where he had always camped when he was in the area. How many fires he had set in the same stone hearth, under the same trees? Hundreds for sure. Thousands maybe. He had never counted.

He ambled around the area picking up squaw wood, those handy dry branches that littered the floor of the old-growth forest. He made several trips, returning to the hearth after each loop, before he had collected enough to last all night and into the sharp morning. When he had finished, dusk was breaking out all over and he was anxious to feel the heat from a new fire. There was nothing quite like that to comfort old bones.

In minutes the fire was blazing and he sat down on a favorite rock to warm himself in the glow. When he was nice and warm, he started thinking about supper. Unlike his children, he had never taken to eating “white man’s food” when on the trail. He opted instead for a more traditional menu of jerky and whatever he could forage locally. Sometimes he would hunt for small game, a bird or squirrel, but he was tired tonight. He would be happy with a simple meal of jerky and pine nuts.

He mused how lucky he was to still have enough good eeth to chew the stiff strips of cured venison. Strong teeth were vital to longevity when one lived as he had for so long. He walked slowly, though not as stiffly as before, over to his saddle pack and retrieved the bag of berries and other food.

Sitting back down on the rock, he took his hunting knife from its scabbard and cut off a nice piece of jerky, chasing it with a swig of spring water from his canteen. As he chewed, he looked out over Dark Horse Valley, through which he had come earlier, just as the last traces of daylight skittered into the shadows. A broad smile spread across the trenches of his leathered face. God how he loved this country. His heart sang songs of joy in harmony with the whispering breeze coursing through the trees above and the distant rippling of the spring. He found himself humming ancient Nez Pierce chants to himself as he ate. His mind, though not his body, sang the songs. In mental lyrics, he praised the spirits for the bounty of the land he so loved, for the sky and the game, and most of all, for the beauty of the land itself.

When the light died, he closed his ancient eyes and was drawn back into his youth, when he had first camped on this very spot. It had been spring, just as it was now, and he had only recently arrived after his long journey from the east. He had thought much in his months of travel about what he would do when he finally returned to his homeland. He had determined to live alone in these mountains because the white man seemed to fear Indians who traveled in packs.

He had decided that he would become a merchant of horses. Everyone always needed horses and he was, if nothing else, a gifted horseman and trainer. Soon after his return he had collected a small herd composed of wild ponies and other unbranded stock that he found running wild in the mountains. In the remote reaches he had chosen, he seldom saw another soul-white or red-even in the warmer seasons. When the weather turned cold, he could go for months without human contact.

In those early years he lived all but entirely off the land. Game was already becoming somewhat scarce, but he didn’t need much to stay alive. When he did find the need to buy something, he would just bring one of his fine horses into a town and trade it for whatever he needed. Then he would again be swallowed up by the vastness of the wilderness. It had been a lonely life, but a good one.

Having satisfied his belly, he stoked the fire a little and spread his bedroll out on some fir boughs before laying down. Once snuggled in, he looked skyward at the blanket of stars emerging from the darkening sky. His eyes weren’t as eagle-sharp as they had once been, but he could still find familiar patterns up there. What was it the white men called them? Constellations? Yes, that was it. They had names for everything but understood so little. He rolled his head back and forth on the bedroll in lieu of shaking it. How was it that white men could be so stupid about so many things and yet be smart enough to do some of the amazing things they did? This thought sent him into another reverie.

Joseph had been born in 1869, the year in which, he later learned, the transcontinental railroad was completed. The iron horse was one of those amazing accomplishments of the white man that were in such stark contrast to all the stupid things he did. It still boggled his mind how they could do such a wondrous thing, even after a century of living with and around them.

He looked at the rising Moon as it peeked out from behind a nearby tree. Why just a few months ago those crazy white men had actually sent three men to the Moon! He had no idea why they would want to do that, but it was still an astounding accomplishment. For Joseph, however, it just deepened his confusion. They were walking on the Moon, but didn’t have the vaguest idea how to properly care for the Earth. What a strange race they were. A strange race indeed.

The first owl hoot of the evening broke the silence as it echoed through the trees above him. At least there were still some places, places like this one, where one could pretend that the white man and the Oregon Trail and the iron horse were all just part of a bad dream, a dream from which one could awaken into a world that was as it should be, as it had always been, ever since his most ancient ancestors had come here in the time before time.

He thought back to his earliest days, before the great march in which Chief Joseph had led his people to within a scant 40 miles of Canada and freedom, before the pony soldiers captured them and the great Joseph, his namesake, spoke his famous words, “I will fight no more forever.” The boy Joseph had been just eight years old then and was one of the few children to survive the march. The next eight years of his life were spent on reservations until he finally made good his escape and returned to this very spot to live out the rest of his long life.

And what a life he had lived, thought old Joseph as he gazed up at the infinity that surrounds our mother Earth. He was so grateful that he had not had to live it in solitude as he had when he first came home. He had outlived three wives who had, between them born him15 children, all but two of which he had also outlived.

His tired old eyes began to well up now as he thought back to the passing of so many whom he had loved. In his time, Joseph had felt much pain, but none greater than burying 13 children. Even losing his parents and wives was somehow easier to endure. Even now, after 80 years, he could still see the face of his first-born who had succumbed to smallpox at the age of two. Oh how he had loved that baby boy. He had long believed, probably correctly, that the only reason he continued to live was that by then he had another son, one who survived well into his seventies.

He had lost sons in every war in which America had participated, all but this mess going on now in Viet Nam. The only reason he had been spared another loss was because he had no more sons left that were of age. Harold was in his 60s and Birch was nearly 80 now. They don’t draft men of that age no matter how desperate they are. His grandsons and great-grandsons were another matter. Five of them had died in W.W.II. and Korea. Another profound sadness to be endured. There was so much.

Joseph was having to actively fight back the tears now, and it was not an easy battle. A faint rustling in the brush roused him enough to break his concentration. Must be a beaver or other varmint, he judged. In his mind’s eye he saw the beaver he had trapped for his first wife, Two Shoes. He’d used the pelt to trade for a metal cooking pot for her. She’d wanted one since before he’d married her and she was thrilled to tears when he finally came home with it. She promised to cook the best meals he’d ever eaten for the rest of her life. She did not lie. They had 25 wonderful years together, raising children and horses, building a ranch house (something else she had long wanted).

His second wife, Esther, had been all but waiting in the wings for Two Shoes to die. She had been in love with-or if that’s not the right word, infatuated with-Joseph since she was a small child. She only saw him once or twice a year, but he was such a handsome figure of a man, tall and elegant, that her knees just went to jelly whenever he was around.

When Two Shoes died from complications of childbirth after delivering their fourth boy, Esther saw her chance. She waited as long as she could stand, out of courtesy, but the following spring, when Joseph and his sons came out of the mountains, she made it very clear that she meant to have him as a mate. Being over 20 years her senior, he was at first flattered by her shameless advances, but once he realize her sincerity, he made a pretty easy catch.

In the end, Esther was his favorite, and though they both expected that she would outlive him, it was not to be. After 32 years of marriage, she died on VE day of what would later be called cancer. Joseph had taken her deep into the mountains and given her a proper ritual burial. That duty having been performed, he lost himself in the mountains for nearly two months. His children agreed that he was never quite the same after he came back, as if part of him chose to stay forever in the wilderness with his beloved Esther. In Joseph’s mind, she had simply left too big a hole in his heart to ever be filled. And that was so for many years-until he met and married his third and last wife, Maris.

She too was many years his junior, still young enough to bear him one last child; her fourth, his thirteenth. Their relationship was different than those who came before. Joseph’s first marriage to Two Shoes was devoted to carving out a niche in the wilderness, both natural and human. His years with Esther were patterned after the halcyon days of summer, filled with joy and glory and plenty, punctuated only occasionally by tragedy.

Maris, on the other hand, was the woman with whom he had chosen to grow old. She was above all else comfortable. At that time in his life, comfort had risen to a place of honor on his list of values. For her part, Maris was quite content with her role. She was a soft-spoken woman of great pulchritude, with a true gift for pleasing others.

But even she had left him behind, though much more recently. She had simply failed to wake up the morning after they had sat transfixed to the television set in the Ramada Inn in Pendleton, watching Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. During the few months since then, Joseph had felt like a rudderless ship in becalmed seas. Just drifting  aimlessly through the remainder of winter. The family was fearful he would just fade away, and they were nearly right.

But once the first signs of spring peaked timidly out from behind winter’s cape, Joseph seemed to come back alive. Next thing they knew, he was packing for his annual survey of the herds. They were reluctant to let him go, but they knew they’d have to tie him in bed to stop him, and even that wasn’t sure to work. In the end, they decided that it was his life to use as he chose, and lesson he’d been teaching them for decades, almost as if in preparation for this very moment.

Joseph roused himself enough to place more piece of wood on the fire before laying back again and closing his eyes for the long night ahead. As he drifted off to sleep his thoughts again backtracked over the long and wondrous journey he called his life. The smile on his face was one of the densest imaginable satisfaction, the look of a man who had found his true place on this good Earth and lived there long and well. And as his soul slipped quietly, imperceptibly, from his form, he was sure he could hear Esther calling him to her bosom once again, to the home of his heart, from which he would nevermore have cause to travel.

When I switched my college major from engineering to clinical psychology, I was fortunate to have a new next-door neighbor, Al,  who was a graduate student in clinical psychology. He was in the final months of an eleven-year saga to his PhD.

One day I asked him what the difference was between a psychologist and a psychiatrist. To my surprise he didn’t go into the differences in their education, or the focus of the practices, or any of the obvious distinctions. He took a very different approach. He told me a joke, and here it is.

A psychiatrist and psychologist were good friends. They had been for many years. They also both loved fly fishing, and often spent time together fishing on the banks of their favorite streams.  

On one such outing, after spending a couple of hours fishing, they noticed that someone was coming down the middle of the river drowning. They quickly removed their shoes and wallets, and swam out to save the man. Fortunately, they got to him in time, and were able to revive him. Once they were sure he was going to be fine, they sent him on his way and went back to fishing.

A few minutes later, they saw a woman floating down the stream drowning. They immediately sprang into action. They swam out and rescued her, brought her back, revived her, and sent her on her way. Then they went back to fishing again.

Not 10 minutes later, yet a third person came floating down the river drowning. The psychiatrist was up to his waist in the water before he realized that his friend was not beside him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the psychologist walking up the bank of the stream.

“Hey, aren’t you going to help me save this guy?” he shouted at his friend.

The psychologist answer back, “No. You go save him. I’m going upstream to see who’s pushing everyone in.”

Al then explained to me how the story answered my question, and I was quite satisfied. However, as with many things I learned from him, this one taught me a lot more over the remainder of my life than was at first obvious.

Today this has become one of the most important lessons of my life, because it has shown me, in crystal clear terms, the difference between rescuing people from problems, and eliminating the problems themselves. Both have their place, of that there can be little doubt.

The trouble is that it seems much harder to prevent problems than to fix their consequences. At least that’s the way it appears to someone who doesn’t understand the nature of the problems and how they came to be there. Once that knowledge is available, it is child’s play to prevent virtually any kind of problem. But until that understanding is present, it will always seem easier to just limit the damage after the fact.

So our world is filled with groups of people who have taken it upon themselves to address the awful consequences of any number of problems. There seem no practical limits to the range and scope of tragedies, nor is there a limit to the kinds of people who want to help provide aid and comfort to the victims.

On the other hand, virtually no one seems to have the least interest in doing anything to prevent the problems from happening in the first place. Oh, some say they do, but one look at their idea of what will accomplish that shows just how little they really understand about what they are trying to prevent.

For instance, many people are sincerely and vehemently involved in “anti-war” actions of one kind or another. They have no idea whatsoever that simply by taking the position of hating war, they bind themselves to it. There is no recognition at all that the way to eliminate war is not by hating it, but by loving and promoting peace. It simply makes no sense to them.

The same applies to those who are “fighting” one kind of disease or another. They are so focused on the disease that they never even consider being pro-health, rather than anti-disease.

My own mother died of cancer that started in her breasts and eventually metastasized into her bones. No one can accuse me of not being “sensitive” to the plight of “cancer victims.” But I would no more join the “fight against breast cancer” than I would throw a gallon of gasoline on a fire in my living room to put it out.

What I would do is anything I can that will promote the free and unresisted expression of authentic self-hood in all people. It was the lack of that from which my mother suffered, that was eventually expressed as cancer, and that finally killed her in a most painful, humiliating, and horrible way.

Have I saved any lives? I don’t know. But I feel pretty sure that I have at least not added to the casualty list by refusing to join the crowds of protesters.

Am I saying that no one should ever rescue a drowning man? Absolutely not. What kind of stone heart would it take to sit by passively and watch someone drowning who could be saved?

But how can someone sit by quietly watching thousands upon thousands of people dying of wars and disease and all manner of pestilence and do nothing that has any chance of preventing those things? Yet humans today do precisely that by the billions on a daily basis, and no one seems to even notice.

So the answer is not which approach is right or wrong. The only sane answer is to do both at the same time. The folly is to do either exclusively, which is precisely the way it has always been done: rescue the victim, and let the true causes proliferate unobstructed.

I have nothing whatsoever against the causes of feeding children, or removing mine fields, or any of the countless other causes we hear about every day. But it is to me an outrage that I virtually never hear about anything being done on such a scale that offers any real chance of changing the minds of men and women in such a way that these unfortunate conditions die off of neglect and lack of interest.

There are reasons why it is so difficult to make such changes. The main reason is that from war to illness to starvation, all problems are created and sustained by the ways in which the principle players in the dramas think. And those thoughts are formed and guided by their beliefs, which are in turn derived from some kind of cultural tradition. most commonly religious in nature. People do not give up those kinds of centuries-long traditions easily. It is almost always a multi-generational process even when it’s highly motivated and in the fast lane.

A case in point is the so-called “racial prejudice” in America. We made it illegal almost 150 years ago, but we didn’t even get serious about it until the last 50 years, and it took until 2008 to elect a president of these United States who carried African blood in noticeable amounts. As a people, including all races, we have been highly motivated to end this once and for all, yet it has taken this long to get this far, and I don’t know of anyone who things it’s all over now. (Read this for a more thorough examination of the whole American racial issue.)

So any approach to preventing things like war or HIV/AIDS or starvation or global warming or any of the other high-profile plagues of our planet must deal directly and effectively with the multi-generational nature of the beast itself. Anything less can be at best little more than “busywork,” offering plausible deniability: “I did everything I could. The problems is just too big.”

If we were really serious about elimination of these tragedies–you know, the ones everyone looks at, shaking their heads sadly and asks, “Why?” without waiting for a answer–if we really meant it, we’d be pursuing answers to the questions that at least could provide answers (click here for more).

Inconvenient questions. Questions that would force us to reach a higher level of honesty with ourselves. Questions that demand more integrity than we have thus far, as a species, been able to muster. Questions like, “How and why do these things really happen? And how am I helping to create them? And what can I do (or stop doing) that will make the most different now and in the future? How important is it to me that these changes occur? And why?” Now those are some questions worth answering, and they’re a hell of a lot more productive, not to mention inconvenient, than “Where do I send the check?”

So go ahead. Send your money to Save the Children. Salve your conscience (if you think it really will). And try to ignore the incontrovertible fact on April 15th, when you sign that other check, that it is your money that is being used to bomb children who never did you any harm. And that calling them “acceptable casualties” or “collateral damage” doesn’t change a damn thing.

Al Gore thinks he’s got an “Inconvenient Truth” with global warming. And he probably does. But the real inconvenient truth is a lot closer to home than that. And it’s not decades or centuries away. The real and far more inconvenient truth is right here, right now, right in your own heart and mind: Are you going to keep feeding the problems and saving the “victims?” Or are you going to make sure that someone goes upstream, if not yourself, to see who’s pushing everyone it and do something to put a stop to it?

Regardless of what you choose, at least have the integrity to own the choice and its full consequence.

This famous opening line from Ayn Rand’s best selling novel Atlas Shrugged comes to mind every time a new tragedy explodes on the scene and people ask “Why?” I am now convinced that before they ask the question, they have already decided that the answer is either nonexistent or at least unknowable. I don’t believe that is true. There are answers and they are readily available to anyone who chooses to see them. They may not be complete answers. They may not be simple answers. They most certainly are not popular answers. But they do exist, and if taken seriously by enough people, they would produce the changes so desperately desired by so many.

The basic answer to all these questions can be summed up in a single four-letter word: fear. Not just the fear of those who are attacked, or who feel vulnerable to attack. I am also speaking of fear on the part of the attackers. The simple fact that a person commits an act of violence such as we have seen in Littleton, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere tells me that the perpetrators were scared stupid. Almost anyone could do these things if they’re scared enough. The question is what can be done about it? To answer that, we must look for the roots of those fears and the process that elevated them to such gargantuan proportions.

Everyone who kills was once some mother’s baby. How do they get from the cradle to the killing fields? They develop a belief system that leaves them little choice. This is not easily done, or we would all be out there killing for our own reasons. It requires a lifetime to craft a system of beliefs that lead ultimately to such acts.

It may begin with a family who thinks of themselves as doing the best they can to prepare their child for the world. But the world they see is a fearful one in which the individual is perceived as powerless. They may prove it to their children by acts of senseless violence themselves, or they may choose the role of passive victims who are trod upon by anyone and everyone. Sometimes it’s both. But in the end, the child learns the lesson well.

Another cornerstone of this mentality is that you are never to blame: others are. It is often irresistibly convenient to focus this blame on certain ethnic, religious, cultural, national, or other groups. “The (fill in the blank)s are out to get us. If it weren’t for them, life would be safe.”

Taken together, these beliefs provide a fertile bed in which to grow all manner of fear and the craziness that comes from it.

Later in their lives the individuals have to carry the torch themselves, reinforcing these basic beliefs with experiences of their own. They often seek out like-minded individuals with whom to explore and express their fears and growing hatred. This consensual validation provides needed fuel for the fires of fear. Some individuals, like Ted Kaczynski, the Unibomber, withdraw into their own private world of terror, but they appear to be in the minority.

All that is needed to bring them to the flash point is some event, real or imagined, that seems to draw together all their fear, hatred, and anger. The trigger can be a deeply personal experience like rejection by a loved one, loss of a job, or other personal tragedy. Or it can be based on their interpretation of a larger, more abstract event such as a political election or the rise of a famous person who is seen as “one of them.” Regardless, the trigger is pulled on their fear, and they in turn pull the trigger on “the enemy.”

Now, having answered the why? question, we can ask the real question: “What can be done about it?” In a general sense, we have to stop raising children who believe that the world is a dangerous place, that they are personally powerless to protect themselves from those dangers, and that others are to blame. If this were somehow done, the results would be miraculous. Unfortunately, this is one of those things for which the phrase “easier said than done” was invented. Every parent likes to believe that they and they alone know what is best for their children. Some of them, of course, are proven unequivocally mistaken in the end. But by that time, the damage is done. Should we pass laws that require people to get a license to have children and issue those licenses only to those whose beliefs about life are acceptable? Imagine trying to get that one through committee.

Regrettably, I have no silver bullet to offer here. What I do know is that if we spent a fraction of the time, money, words, and effort looking for effective answers at this level as we do on cleaning up the mess left afterward, something good would most certainly come of it. But it is not popular to examine root causes. It is far easier to build prisons than to deal with child-rearing. It is more comfortable to blame “them,” than to take ourselves to task over our own errant beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. It is easier to ask “why,” not waiting for the answer, than to ask where it really begins and do everything we can to change it.

At the end of the day we are left with the original question, “Who is John Galt?” The answer is as simple as the question: he is us.

The ashtray looked like a pile of white driftwood stacked by an angry sea.  It had been a long night and lighting one butt after another had become as natural as, of all things, breathing.  Soon it would be dawn announcing the last day of what had become for Jennifer ordinary life.  In a few hours it would all be over; the boredom, the frustration, the waiting, the oppression — after 2 years, 11 months, 17 days and 15 hours she would be free at last.

She was trying to prepare herself for the explosive change in her environment but she knew that it was no use.  She would just have to wait until they came to escort her through the doors and gates, layered like petrified baklava, and then out into that terrifying open space she hadn’t seen for three years.

Yes, she agreed with herself, she was genuinely afraid of freedom.  It meant she would have to make her own choices again, something she’d never been very good at.  No longer would her life be tightly ordered by others.  Her life was now her own, to do with as she pleased - if only she knew what that would be.

Living in a ten-by-ten cell was a way of life she had become accustomed to and it would be hard to readjust to the outside.  But Jenny was determined.  She had been planning and waiting ever since her parole was granted and at least part of her believed that she knew exactly what she was doing.  The rest of her was feeling the same fear she had felt when her parents died.  That part of her was still just seven years old and knew nothing of real life.

How ironic it was that at the age of 25, so much of her was still back there in the second grade.  And yet wasn’t that where it had all begun, the relentless downhill slide that had culminated in her pumping half a dozen .22 caliber slugs into Carl that night?  It was so clear to her now that she had simply never regained her equilibrium after being orphaned.  Even now, nearly two decades later, two thirds of her life later, it hurt like hell just to think about that night when her aunt told her she was all alone.

Was it any wonder that she was frightened?  Was it any wonder that she was angry?  Anyone would be.  But hers was a different kind of anger, not the anger that makes you throw things and stamp your feet, but the kind that drives you to strike out violently, albeit vainly, at the ghosts who had deserted you.  Could it be true that as Carl raised his hand with the tire iron in it, in that split second before she squeezed off the first round, did she really see her father’s face?  Was it her father’s mouth that begged her not to fire again after every shot?  Was it her father’s eyes that pleaded with her to forgive him just one more time?  She couldn’t be completely sure and it was very difficult to think about.  Not now, not on the verge of a new life.  She rolled over on her cot and lit another cigarette.

She was at least sure of one thing now, that she was glad Carl had lived.  Not for his sake, but for hers.  If she’d actually succeed in snuffing out his life as she had thought she wanted to, she would not be seeing freedom this day or any day for a very long time.  And she knew now that Carl was just a poor sick guy who, in his own violent and ill tempered way, was just trying to make the best of his own bad situation.  Last time she had seen him, he wasn’t doing any better than she was.  Now she was better, much better, and he was as much worse.  If she really wanted revenge, she had it and she didn’t have to do a thing to get it.  He took care of that for her by getting himself blown in half by a police shotgun last year.  Even then all she could think of was that it served him right.  But that was then.

Now she felt differently.  It wasn’t pity or sorrow that she felt, the best word she had come up with was compassion.  After his death she had thought long and hard about his fate and ultimately decided that no one deserves what happened to him, or to herself for that matter.  No one fully earns time in a coffin, whether ten-by-ten or six-by-two, above or below ground.  What they had both needed and never found was love and acceptance, not from others, but from themselves.

Jenny had that now, well some of it anyway, and that is what made her feel that this time would be different.  She had forgiven herself, with a little help from her uncle Roy, for the crime of hating her parents for abandoning her.  It took over 2 years in stir to get to the point where she could even talk about it honestly but she would never forget the day when it finally happened.

Uncle Roy had come to see her again as he had each of the 114 Wednesday’s she’d been inside.  The first 20 times she wouldn’t even see him but he kept coming.  For the next 30 or so she met him with defiance, daring him to accept her as she was.  He did.  Another year was spent gradually moving from tense small talk to real conversation.

The breakthrough came on June 23rd of last year, just one week short of a year ago.  That Wednesday uncle Roy arrived with a book for her.  It was a book he had mentioned before and which, judging from her questions, he had thought she might like to read.  Maybe it was the title that intrigued her: Real Freedom.  He had quoted from it with increasing frequency for many months and as he did, her interest took root from which her openness then flowered.  He had offered it to her nonchalantly and she had accepted it only with the safety a facade of apathy could provide.

She had disciplined herself to leave it alone for a day and a night so as not to feel too anxious, but on the second day she finally opened it up and began.  She had read it twice before his return the following week.  She was ripe and ready then, filled with an enthusiasm he had never seen in her before.  She peppered him with questions about his interpretation of the numberless passages she had underlined in red.  During the hour they spent together that day, the walls and bars melted away, so much so that it shocked her when they reappeared as they stood to say goodbye before parting.  For the first time in all their visits he opened his arms and stood waiting for her to respond.  After only a moment’s hesitation, Jenny stepped forward and they embraced, tentatively at first and then with enthusiasm.

And that was the moment, a singular moment in all of history where the forces of the universe converged on a tiny pin point in her heart causing an explosion of emotion that was so powerful, so irresistible that it captured her like a pirate at sea and spirited her away to feelings long since forgotten.  She began to sob shamelessly, quietly, with a grace that only complete surrender bestows.  At last they were friends, lovers of a sort, joined at the heart never to be torn asunder.  It was glorious.  Only later, back in her cell, did she shake uncontrollably with the fear of what she had unleashed within herself.  Then she knew she had always been afraid of freedom, afraid that she was bound to misuse it, sure that nothing but harm was possible.  Today she saw beyond that image of herself, she saw for the first time her own sweet and loving soul, that center within all of us which knows nothing of fear, hate, greed and jealousy, that one absolutely safe place where you are known most intimately, and her heart had shown her the way.

On this day, the last of her physical imprisonment, she faced her fear again.  This time she could see it coming.  This time it was her body that was being set free.  This time it was her heart that picked the lock and opened the door.  This time it was to be complete.  Jenny smiled as she thought of that day and this and how much they were alike, how they were shadows of each other.  She remembered how exhilarated she had been before and knew that she was about to feel that way again.

She heard the measured footsteps of the guard approaching her cell, stopping just outside.  The door opened and she stepped out in street clothes, carrying a small bag containing her earthly possessions, out of that cell for the last time.  Down the cell block, through the gates and doors and passageways, opening before them, closing behind them, out of the cavernous barracks, and with every passing second the air grew lighter as did her steps. Then they were outside, walking toward the outer gate, the final barrier.

As she emerged into the bar-less world of the outside, there stood uncle Roy, smiling, arms open wide like the bosom of the earth to a returning astronaut.  She tried to walk calmly for a few steps but it was futile.  Her heart erupted again like a year-old after shock and she first bounded, then ran and finally hurled herself into the arms of her waiting mentor.  They stood there wrapped in each others arms almost motionless for a minute before he asked, “How are you, Jen?”

“Free!”

The snow will be completely gone soon, thought Joseph Longeyes as he sat, icy still, his legs following the curve of Mirriah’s girth as she stood silently beneath him. He had already decided to head back to the ranch in the morning. The horses, though still in their winter feeding grounds, were safe and sound. It would soon be time for the spring roundup. His boys would be glad to hear his report. They always pretended to worry about the stock, but he knew that he was the true object of their concern.

For some reason he had never quite fathomed, they just didn’t seem to understand why he, a man of 101 summers, insisted on working every day, year round, when he didn’t really have to. But that was just it: he did have to. He had lived his whole, long life in these mountains—except for those first few years when the Nez Pierce were on the run and later forced to live on the reservation. He’d sneaked back to Oregon as soon as he was old enough and had remained there ever since. When was that? He tried to remember. Must have been in the summer of ’85. Yes, it was in his sixteenth summer that he had made the long and difficult trek across a continent to his ancestral home in the Wallowa Mountains.

A cold puff of wind coaxed an involuntary shiver from Mirriah. He realized that he’d better get the saddle off her and build a fire before the evening chill really got down to business. The air was almost at the freezing point already, and it was not yet dark.

He slid slowly to the ground and began to remove Mirriah’s halter and saddle. He smiled to himself with self-satisfied pleasure. He had slowed down, as age began to take its toll, of that there was no doubt. But he was still strong enough to unsaddle a horse. Not bad, he thought, for an old Indian.

He slipped a long noose over Mirriah’s head and tied the other end to a nearby tree, one near enough to some exposed grasses so she could have a midnight snack if she wanted. He had picked this spot to stop for the night because this was where he had always camped when he was in the area. How many fires he had set in the same stone hearth, under the same trees? Hundreds for sure. Thousands maybe. He had never counted.

He ambled around the area picking up squaw wood, those handy dry branches that littered the floor of the old-growth forest. He made several trips, returning to the hearth after each loop, before he had collected enough to last all night and into the sharp morning. When he had finished, dusk was breaking out all over and he was anxious to feel the heat from a new fire. There was nothing quite like that to comfort old bones.

In minutes the fire was blazing and he sat down on a favorite rock to warm himself in the glow. When he was nice and warm, he started thinking about supper. Unlike his children, he had never taken to eating “white man’s food” when on the trail. He opted instead for a more traditional menu of jerky and whatever he could forage locally. Sometimes he would hunt for small game, a bird or squirrel, but he was tired tonight. He would be happy with a simple meal of jerky and pine nuts.

He mused how lucky he was to still have enough good teeth to chew the stiff strips of cured venison. Strong teeth were vital to longevity when one lived as he had for so long. He walked slowly, though not as stiffly as before, over to his saddle pack and retrieved the bag of berries and other food.

Sitting back down on the rock, he took his hunting knife from its scabbard and cut off a nice piece of jerky, chasing it with a swig of spring water from his canteen. As he chewed, he looked out over Dark Horse Valley, through which he had come earlier, just as the last traces of daylight skittered into the shadows. A broad smile spread across the trenches of his leathered face. God how he loved this country. His heart sang songs of joy in harmony with the whispering breeze coursing through the trees above and the distant rippling of the spring. He found himself humming ancient Nez Pierce chants to himself as he ate. His mind, though not his body, sang the songs. In mental lyrics, he praised the spirits for the bounty of the land he so loved, for the sky and the game, and most of all, for the beauty of the land itself.

When the light died, he closed his ancient eyes and was drawn back into his youth, when he had first camped on this very spot. It had been spring, just as it was now, and he had only recently arrived after his long journey from the east. He had thought much in his months of travel about what he would do when he finally returned to his homeland. He had determined to live alone in these mountains because the white man seemed to fear Indians who traveled in packs.

He had decided that he would become a merchant of horses. Everyone always needed horses and he was, if nothing else, a gifted horseman and trainer. Soon after his return he had collected a small herd composed of wild ponies and other unbranded stock that he found running wild in the mountains. In the remote reaches he had chosen, he seldom saw another soul—white or red—even in the warmer seasons. When the weather turned cold, he could go for months without human contact.

In those early years he lived all but entirely off the land. Game was already becoming somewhat scarce, but he didn’t need much to stay alive. When he did find the need to buy something, he would just bring one of his fine horses into a town and trade it for whatever he needed. Then he would again be swallowed up by the vastness of the wilderness. It had been a lonely life, but a good one.

Having satisfied his belly, he stoked the fire a little and spread his bedroll out on some fir boughs before laying down. Once snuggled in, he looked skyward at the blanket of stars emerging from the darkening sky. His eyes weren’t as eagle-sharp as they had once been, but he could still find familiar patterns up there. What was it the white men called them? Constellations? Yes, that was it. They had names for everything but understood so little. He rolled his head back and forth on the bedroll in lieu of shaking it. How was it that white men could be so stupid about so many things and yet be smart enough to do some of the amazing things they did? This thought sent him into another reverie.

Joseph had been born in 1869, the year in which, he later learned, the transcontinental railroad was completed. The iron horse was one of those amazing accomplishments of the white man that were in such stark contrast to all the stupid things he did. It still boggled his mind how they could do such a wondrous thing, even after a century of living with and around them.

He looked at the rising Moon as it peeked out from behind a nearby tree. Why just a few months ago those crazy white men had actually sent three men to the Moon! He had no idea why they would want to do that, but it was still an astounding accomplishment. For Joseph, however, it just deepened his confusion. They were walking on the Moon, but didn’t have the vaguest idea how to properly care for the Earth. What a strange race they were. A strange race indeed.

The first owl hoot of the evening broke the silence as it echoed through the trees above him. At least there were still some places, places like this one, where one could pretend that the white man and the Oregon Trail and the iron horse were all just part of a bad dream, a dream from which one could awaken into a world that was as it should be, as it had always been, ever since his most ancient ancestors had come here in the time before time.

He thought back to his earliest days, before the great march in which Chief Joseph had led his people to within a scant 40 miles of Canada and freedom, before the pony soldiers captured them and the great Joseph, his namesake, spoke his famous words, “I will fight no more forever.” The boy Joseph had been just eight years old then and was one of the few children to survive the march. The next eight years of his life were spent on reservations until he finally made good his escape and returned to this very spot to live out the rest of his long life.

And what a life he had lived, thought old Joseph as he gazed up at the infinity that surrounds our mother Earth. He was so grateful that he had not had to live it in solitude as he had when he first came home. He had outlived three wives who had, between them born him15 children, all but two of which he had also outlived.

His tired old eyes began to well up now as he thought back to the passing of so many whom he had loved. In his time, Joseph had felt much pain, but none greater than burying 13 children. Even losing his parents and wives was somehow easier to endure. Even now, after 80 years, he could still see the face of his first-born who had succumbed to smallpox at the age of two. Oh how he had loved that baby boy. He had long believed, probably correctly, that the only reason he continued to live was that by then he had another son, one who survived well into his seventies.

He had lost sons in every war in which America had participated, all but this mess going on now in Viet Nam. The only reason he had been spared another loss was because he had no more sons left that were of age. Harold was in his 60s and Birch was nearly 80 now. They don’t draft men of that age no matter how desperate they are. His grandsons and great-grandsons were another matter. Five of them had died in W.W.II. and Korea. Another profound sadness to be endured. There was so much.

Joseph was having to actively fight back the tears now, and it was not an easy battle. A faint rustling in the brush roused him enough to break his concentration. Must be a beaver or other varmint, he judged. In his mind’s eye he saw the beaver he had trapped for his first wife, Two Shoes. He’d used the pelt to trade for a metal cooking pot for her. She’d wanted one since before he’d married her and she was thrilled to tears when he finally came home with it. She promised to cook the best meals he’d ever eaten for the rest of her life. She did not lie. They had 25 wonderful years together, raising children and horses, building a ranch house (something else she had long wanted).

His second wife, Esther, had been all but waiting in the wings for Two Shoes to die. She had been in love with—or if that’s not the right word, infatuated with—Joseph since she was a small child. She only saw him once or twice a year, but he was such a handsome figure of a man, tall and elegant, that her knees just went to jelly whenever he was around.

When Two Shoes died from complications of childbirth after delivering their fourth boy, Esther saw her chance. She waited as long as she could stand, out of courtesy, but the following spring, when Joseph and his sons came out of the mountains, she made it very clear that she meant to have him as a mate. Being over 20 years her senior, he was at first flattered by her shameless advances, but once he realize her sincerity, he made a pretty easy catch.

In the end, Esther was his favorite, and though they both expected that she would outlive him, it was not to be. After 32 years of marriage, she died on VE day of what would later be called cancer. Joseph had taken her deep into the mountains and given her a proper ritual burial. That duty having been performed, he lost himself in the mountains for nearly two months. His children agreed that he was never quite the same after he came back, as if part of him chose to stay forever in the wilderness with his beloved Esther. In Joseph’s mind, she had simply left too big a hole in his heart to ever be filled. And that was so for many years—until he met and married his third and last wife, Maris.

She too was many years his junior, still young enough to bear him one last child; her fourth, his thirteenth. Their relationship was different than those who came before. Joseph’s first marriage to Two Shoes was devoted to carving out a niche in the wilderness, both natural and human. His years with Esther were patterned after the halcyon days of summer, filled with joy and glory and plenty, punctuated only occasionally by tragedy.

Maris, on the other hand, was the woman with whom he had chosen to grow old. She was above all else comfortable. At that time in his life, comfort had risen to a place of honor on his list of values. For her part, Maris was quite content with her role. She was a soft-spoken woman of great pulchritude, with a true gift for pleasing others.

But even she had left him behind, though much more recently. She had simply failed to wake up the morning after they had sat transfixed to the television set in the Ramada Inn in Pendleton, watching Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. During the few months since then, Joseph had felt like a rudderless ship in becalmed seas. Just drifting  aimlessly through the remainder of winter. The family was fearful he would just fade away, and they were nearly right.

But once the first signs of spring peaked timidly out from behind winter’s cape, Joseph seemed to come back alive. Next thing they knew, he was packing for his annual survey of the herds. They were reluctant to let him go, but they knew they’d have to tie him in bed to stop him, and even that wasn’t sure to work. In the end, they decided that it was his life to use as he chose, a lesson he’d been teaching them for decades, almost as if in preparation for this very moment.

Joseph roused himself enough to place more piece of wood on the fire before laying back again and closing his eyes for the long night ahead. As he drifted off to sleep his thoughts again backtracked over the long and wondrous journey he called his life. The smile on his face was one of the densest imaginable satisfaction, the look of a man who had found his true place on this good Earth and lived there long and well. And as his soul slipped quietly, imperceptibly, from his form, he was sure he could hear Esther calling him to her bosom once again, to the home of his heart, from which he would nevermore have cause to travel.

Standing Elk pulled the blanket closer around his broad shoulders as the coolness of the evening breeze embraced him. He spoke softly to the small boy across the hearth from him. “Bring more wood to the fire, Dancing Bear.”

The boy stood and walked silently to the stack of firewood he had gathered earlier in the day. The sun was already down and the evening light was fading quickly. It had been very hot that day but in this country the evenings grew cool quickly. The boy returned with an arm-load of wood which he then arranged carefully on the small fire. As the fire grew in light and warmth, Dancing Bear sat down again opposite the old chief to resume his vigil.

The boy didn’t fully understand why the old man was just sitting, day after day, night after night, moving only rarely to relieve himself. Nor did he understand why he had been chosen to attend to Standing Elk’s needs. He was simply proud that he, a boy of only 9 summers, had been given such an important task and he did his best to perform it well.

In the weeks that Standing Elk had been sitting in this spot, the boy had not spoken to him once. He had been content to do as he was asked and did not wish to intrude on the old man’s private thoughts. But his curiosity had been growing day by day and now almost hour by hour. He did not understand what kind of ritual he was participating in–its purpose, its outcome. Many times in the past few days he had wanted to ask the old chief but at the last moment found that he lacked the courage to intrude. After all, this was the man who had led their people for so long that even the majority of adults had never known another leader. Everyone said that Standing Elk was as fine a chief as any in the entire Nez Pierce nation.

But even a boy could see that he was growing old now. His step had slowed and his eyes, while still bright like the fire between them, no longer had their eagle sharpness. How was a boy to understand the wisest and bravest chief within a month’s ride in any direction. His duty was to attend to the old man’s wishes and no more. Still he wondered almost constantly.

Standing Elk interrupted the boy’s thoughts saying, “Fetch me a drink of water, my son.” The boy rose and carried the water bag over to the old chief.

After taking a long pull from the vessel, Standing Elk said, “The water is cool and sweet tonight, Dancing Bear, would you like a drink?”

This was his chance, thought the boy. He had been asked a question which required an answer, and once he began to speak, might he not continue by asking a question of his own? He gathered his courage and replied.

“I would be honored to share this water with Standing Elk.” He took his drink and when he was done he said, “It is cool and sweet. I brought it from the spring up on the cliffs this morning. I am glad it gives you pleasure.”

“I am grateful to you, Dancing Bear, for your thoughtfulness. You are a fine boy and a credit to our people. Perhaps some day, you will be their chief. Would you like that?”

The boy’s heart nearly exploded, so great was his joy. Not only had the great chief spoken to him directly, but he had honored him in ways greater than he could have imagined. He was so caught up in his pleasure that he nearly forgot that he had been asked another question to which he had not yet responded.

“Oh yes! great chief, I would be honored to follow the path you have walked. But I fear that I would be a poor imitation of one so great as you. How could I ever attain the wisdom and knowledge to lead our people.”

Standing Elk’ wrinkled, almost toothless mouth, formed just a hint of a smile. “You will learn and grow all the days of your life, my young warrior. You can gain the knowledge and wisdom, but to do so you must pay attention. You must become a devoted student of the people, the spirits, the earth who is our mother, and the creatures she has brought to share this land with us. There are lessons all around but only the strong of heart will learn form them. Be such a boy first, and later such a man.”

Dancing Bear listened to these words intently, recording every thought so that he would never forget even the smallest gesture. “Is that how you became so wise?” he asked.

“Yes. Of course. There is no other way.”

“You must know everything that there is to know about these things. How long did it take?”

Again the old man smiled. “It has taken me a lifetime, my son, but now I am done. I have learned all there is to learn. Now it is time for me to move on to the spirit world and begin again.”

“But you are still here, great chief. How will you get to the spirit world? And when?” the boy responded.

“The Great Spirit will send my totem, the Elk, to lead me there when it is time. I am waiting here for him to come, and when the time is right, he will.”

“Why do you wait like this?” the boy asked.

“I have learned all there is to learn and my work here is finished. There is nothing left for me but to wait for my totem to lead me beyond.” The boy thought he saw a quiet sadness in the old man’s eyes as he spoke. It lasted only a moment and then was gone like a shooting star, leaving no trace of its existence.

The two fell silent again and as the night sky grew darker revealing the blanket of stars above them, they both laid down and were soon asleep.

The stars were still raining their light upon the camp when Standing Elk was awakened by the cold. The fire had gone out while they slept. “Dancing Bear, wake up,” he said. The boy opened his eyes, rubbing them, and asked, “What is it Standing Elk?”

“The fire has gone out. Go to one of the other fires and bring back some coals to restart it.”

The boy wrapped his blanket tightly around himself and moved away toward the glow of a distant fire. In all the weeks since he had been attending Standing Elk, this was the first time he had allowed the fire to go out. He felt bad about it but at least the old chief didn’t seem upset at him. That made it easier to bear.

When he returned a few minutes later, Standing Elk noticed that the boy’s hands were cupped and extended in front of him as he approached. The boy knelt by the fire and deposited a large, glowing ember where the fire had been. He then covered it with dry grass and kindling. He blew on it, at first gently, then more forcibly until it burst into flame.

He then added more wood and in a few minutes the fire was radiating warmth on both of them. The boy then laid down again.

Standing Elk had said nothing until after the boy was finished. “Dancing Bear, how is it that you were able to carry that hot coal in your hands. Didn’t it burn you?”

The boy responded, “Oh no, it didn’t burn. I poured some water in the dirt and coated my hands with the mud first. I dried it by the other fire and then I was able to carry the coal without burning myself.”

The old man was astounded at the simplicity and effectiveness of his method. He was also amazed that this small boy had taught him something so simple yet completely new to him.

“Dancing Bear, you have saved my life, do you know that?”

The boy was confused. “I have? How?”

“I have been sitting here waiting for my totem spirit to lead me to the next world, because I thought that my education in this life was at an end. You have shown me that I still have much to learn, even from a small boy. I see now that I am not finished. I believe that you were sent to me by the Great Spirit to show me that my time has not yet come, that there is more I must do in this world before I am ready for the next one. Thank you, my son, for delivering the message so well.” Standing up, he continued, “Come. Let’s walk up to the top of that hill and watch the sunrise together on this first day of my new life.”

Dancing Bear smiled a smile filled with teeth and joy and the two walked, hand in hand, to the top of the nearby hill where they silently reveled in the beauty of the dawn washing over their homeland.

Albert Einstein is alleged to have said, “Great spirits have always encountered violent oppostion from mediocre minds.” Over forty years before I read that, I expressed a similar observation at a deeply personal level in this poem:

In dead of night I skulk about
my secret to pursue.
This lonly place will hide my fac
as well as what I do.

I’ve come alone to come alive
and I shall come again,
in hope that on tomorrow’s morn
a brighter sun might spin.

But I wonder at the justice
that seems to be my fate,
that makes me hide
deny the pride
of saying

I create! 

A short story by
Ned B. Johnson
 

For a moment Harriet Templeton might have thought she was walking into a wet cellar rather than out of a theater into the night; she might have, that is, if she had been thinking at all.  To call her mental activity at that moment thinking, however, would be like kissing one’s own sister on the cheek and calling it sex.  She was far too absorbed in the emotional residue of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal to rationally consider any thought.  Her mind was inundated with images of arcane chessmen and the pursuit of hooded, faceless stalkers, icons from a brief detour into death by plague, sword and time itself.  She was captive of these images for as long as they wished her to be.  That time did not end even when she slipped into a deep sleep several hours later.

The next morning Harriet wrote in her dream journal:

Monday, September 27, 1984, 8:45 am

Bizarre doesn’t begin to describe my dreams of last night.  It must have been that damn movie.  All night long I dreamed of knights of the crusades hacking away at huge grandfather’s clocks.  Some were tall as houses, others only the size a small pony.  The clocks bled when they were struck and wailed and writhed and died.  They fought back with some mysterious and unseen power which they wielded with ruthless precision, cutting knights in half, dicing them over and over until there was no piece larger than a grain of dust.  Then they caused a wind to blow and the dust that remained was carried up and over the city until it was gone — all gone.

It was as if I were waiting on the bench to be called into the game.  I just sat there at the ready, terrified by the knowledge that my turn would soon come.  When one clock, after dispatching its adversary, turned toward me, I knew it was my time to enter the fray.  My heart nearly exploded and I woke up panting and sweating.  It was not so much a terror as an ordeal.  Oh yes, by the time my turn came, it was clear that the clocks would win.

Finishing her first cup of French Roast, Harriet looked up from the journal and stared out the kitchen window.  The sun shone, the wind blew and summer fought for its life in another losing battle.  She looked at the kitchen clock.  It was 9:15, time to get to work.  In the bedroom she decided to wear her running suit instead of getting fully dressed.  She wasn’t expecting any company today and it was so much more comfortable than regular clothes.  That extra measure of comfort was important to her today and she insisted on indulging herself.

After completing her morning toilette, she entered her study (actually a spare bedroom) and sat down at the computer.  With any luck she would finish her article by mid-afternoon and would have the rest of the day free.  Clickity-click-click.  The computer keys tapped out messages to nameless, faceless readers.  Harriet new her subject and her tools so well that she could entertain completely unrelated thoughts as she wrote.  She thought about the movie, about the dream, about the feelings they evoked and about her own reactions.

When noon rolled around, she was nearly finished with the first draft of the article: Alternative Counseling in the Eighties.  Hunger insinuated itself into her thoughts and she responded.  Back in the kitchen she heated a bowl of soup and toasted two slices of Russian Rye.  She ate slowly, automatically, hardly tasting the food.  Questions began flooding her mind, questions about time and aging and death.  Images followed one another in a procession; watching her grandmother grow older, more feeble, less vital, ending with a snapshot of her lifeless face in a coffin; clocks and watches working with impunity, ravaging all life from within; her own childhood, adolescence, youth and now - she couldn’t even think the words - middle-age.  Was it all just some cosmic practical joke?  Was there someone watching it all from a box seat, laughing at us like Caesar in the Coliseum?  Harriet was not upset, not really, but she was most definitely concerned and that concern was light-speeding toward obsession.

At 2:30 she declared the editing completed, shut off the computer and picked up the cordless phone.  A few moments later, “Is Zan Fielding in?”  Yes, he was, could she hold a moment while he finished the call he was on.  Of course.

“Zan Fielding,” came the voice.

Harriet put on her most cheerful and nonchalant telephone face, “How’s my favorite editor today?”

“Great!  Just great.  How’s the article coming along?”

“Well, I think it’s all done but you’ll probably have something to say about that.  Want it by fax or e-mail?”

“I’m going to need it in electronic form sooner or later anyway, so why don’t you modem it to me.  Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s not the best piece I’ve ever written, but I think it does the job quite nicely.  Zan ….?”  In the moment she hesitated he knew that there was something else on her mind and that she could use a little coaxing.

“Yes, love, my editor’s hat is back on the hat rack and I have my friend-and-confidant’s chapeau in place.  What is it?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot today about aging and death and, well, about time in general.  It all started when I went to see a movie by that terrible Swede last night.”

“Ingmar strikes again, I see.” he quipped.

“You bet your life.  I guess that wasn’t enough to suit me ’cause I came right home and spent the rest of the night dreaming about angels of death dressed up like clocks doing battle with crusaders in a losing cause.  You’d be proud of me though, I have been keeping up my dream journal religiously.”

“Sounds like something whose time has come.  I don’t suppose I have to ask you how you’re feeling about it.”

“Not hardly.  Actually I’m doing pretty well, all things considered, but it is becoming a little obsessive.  It’s all your fault, you know.  Ever since you gave me that damn book on dreaming it seems like that’s all I do at night.”

“Try to remember, dear heart,” he interrupted, “you’re probably not dreaming any more than you used to, you’re just remembering more.  And don’t blame me.  It was your idea to begin exploring the dream state, and you’re the one who’s been giving yourself suggestions every night that you will dream and remember.  Now you’re complaining because it’s working too well?”

“Yes, yes, I know.  I didn’t mean it, of course.  The thing is that I’m beginning to feel like I’m getting in over my head.  I’m not so much scared as I am scared that I will get scared.  You know what I mean?”

“Sure,”  Zan paused for a moment, “There’s another book perhaps you should read.  This one’s on lucid dreaming.

“Lucid dreaming — what’s that?”

“It’s simply becoming conscious while you’re dreaming and realizing that you’re dreaming.  Once you’re conscious, you can take charge of the dream and create whatever you want to.  If it’s scary, you can change it.  Once you develop some skill with lucid dreaming, you won’t have to worry about being under constant threat every time you go to sleep.  Plus, you can turn it to creative purposes just as easily.  I’ve been dabbling in it for a couple of years with some success.  I confess I haven’t devoted as much time and energy to it as I could have but you have better reasons than I’ve had.”

Harriet felt herself beginning to relax more than she had since she sat down in the theater the previous evening.  Zan always had a calming effect on her but his counsel now was even more tranquilizing.  ”You wouldn’t happen to have a spare copy of that book, would you?”

“Funny you should mention that, I sent it to you late last week.  You should be getting it any day.  Hell, it may be there already.  Have you checked your mail yet today?”

“No, I haven’t.  Hold on while I take a look.”  She rushed out to the mailbox, phone in hand, and sure enough, there was a book-sized package waiting.  Walking back she said, “Here it is, Zan.  What a treasure you are.  Just this one more time I’m going to forgive you for poking around inside my mind when I’m not looking but don’t think that gives you any sort of license.  Okay?”

“Duly noted.  Well, take a look at it and let me know what you think.”

“I have the rest of the day set aside with nothing in particular to do.  Guess I’ll do just that.  Thanks, Zan.  Call you later.”

“If you didn’t know better, you’d think there was only one mind.  Later, kiddo.  Bye.”

“Bye, Zan.”

Harriet opened the package and removed the book.  After building a fire in the fireplace, she settled into her favorite chair and began reading.

It was just after midnight when she finished the book.  She was so excited she could barely contain herself.  In the pages of Zan’s latest gift she had encountered possibilities she had never, pardon the expression, dreamed of.  Not just the maniacal ramblings of some self-styled guru, but the results of years of experience and clinical experiments by professional dream researchers at prestigious universities.  While the interpretations were not unanimous, the conclusions proffered by the author seemed unassailable to her.  She was completely convinced that we can become fully conscious while dreaming and that we have magical, if not divine, powers at our disposal the moment we become lucid.

According to the book most people can dream lucidly.  The only requirements seemed to be a high degree of motivation and sufficient practice.  Harriet could hardly wait to get started.  She decided to augment her nightly ritual of auto-suggestion by including strong encouragement to become conscious while dreaming.  So high was her level of expectancy that when she finally flopped into bed, it took her nearly an hour to slow her mind enough to sleep at all.  At last fatigue prevailed and she drifted off into a sound and, sadly, dreamless sleep.

In the weeks that followed, Harriet’s dream activity returned to normal, if dream activity can ever be called normal.  She continued with suggestions every night that she would become lucid while she dreamt but to no avail.  Her mental correspondence to herself seemed to end up in the psychic dead-letter office.  Nothing was getting through.  She discussed it several times with Zan and he offered some recommendations but nothing changed.  Her disappointment building, she re-read the book from cover to cover, this time taking several days to give it a chance to sink in.  She was heartened by the author’s comment that it can take months or even years of attempts to produce the first lucid dream but that if you really want it and just hang in there, it will work.  There was no doubt in Harriet’s mind that she wanted it.  She would just have to persist.

Then one morning:

Saturday, November 10, 1984, 8:22 am

Well, it finally happened.  I became lucid last night for the first time.  It was glorious.  I had been dreaming for quite awhile and having a very good time.  In fact, I was having so much fun that I started flying.  As I began to soar upward at a dizzying rate I virtually shouted, “I’m alive, I’m dreaming and I’m creating all of this!”  I then realized that I was lucid, fully conscious, looking down at the landscape below me as I careened through the air above like an exultant bird set free at last from its cage.  It was so exciting, it woke me up.  This time literally.  I was so pleased with myself for finally having succeeded, I wasn’t even disappointed that it lasted for only a few moments.  It was a first, a very big one, and I could feel nothing but joy about it.  I still do.  Now the fun begins.  I know I will be able to do it again soon.  I just know it.

That night she was in bed before eleven for the first time in months.  She slept restlessly for several hours, rising to semi-consciousness occasionally before drifting into a more profound dream state just before dawn.  Not only did she become lucid in her dream but she was able to make decisions to do things, magical things, while she was sound asleep.  She transformed an old woman into a young man right before her dreaming eyes.  The dream ended a short time later when she stopped to think of something else to try.  During that moment’s hesitation she drifted to the surface wide awake.  Again she was delighted.  A whole new dimension was unfolding before her and she was in awe.

Next morning she couldn’t wait to call Zan and do a little bragging.  She hadn’t called him after her first experience because she wanted to have more than a few seconds logged before going public.  He was, of course, both delighted and impressed.  He suggested that in order to avoid dreamus interruptus in the future she should have some agenda for lucid dreaming clearly in mind before going to sleep.  That way if she reached a point where she ran out of spontaneous inspiration, she could just start in on her pre-defined list of activities.

On his advice, she spent the rest of the day thinking about and finally committing to writing a list of the things she would most like to do during periods of lucidity.  At first it was hard to invent activities that seemed worthwhile.  It was as if this were a long awaited audience with God and she didn’t want to waste a single moment.  Later she couldn’t stop writing.  The longer her list become, the easier it was to extend.  When she’d filled several pages with notes, she decided that it was time to stop expanding and start refining.  First she sorted the items into prioritized order, starting with those that she felt would be easy to do yet were also worthwhile.  Below these she placed the most exciting possibilities she had considered.  Last were the ones that she just thought might be fun or interesting.  When she had finished sorting the list, she read it over from beginning to end.  She could hardly wait to get at it.

By the first of December she had had more than a dozen lucid dreams, sometimes several in a single night.  She had reached the point where remembering her agenda was all but automatic in the lucid dream state.  On her list of accomplishments were; visiting with people she had loved who had died or left her life in other ways; piloting a Boeing 747; assorted romantic and sexually explicit adventures; exploring Mayan ruins with x-ray vision; strolling along the floors of the deepest abysses in the oceans of the world; traveling to other star systems and visiting with the locals.  The possibilities were endless.  The trouble was that once the newness wore off, it began to leave her a little hungry in the morning.  It was as though she was filling up on desert but was leaving out the main course.  Her to-do list was used up and she didn’t quite know what to try next.

That night she found herself in a full fledged rematch with The Clocks From Hell.  She remained in a normal dream state until nearly the point where she had awakened in the previous edition after the Bergman film.  Suddenly, she became lucid and decided to save the day for all Christendom.  She pointed a dream finger directly at the clock nearest her (a two story monolith originally built for the Jolly Green Giant’s grandfather) and focused her intent on extreme cold.  At first, frost began to appear on the horizontal surfaces of the huge timepiece.  Then its movement began to slow.  Soon it came to a complete stop, frozen solid, encased in invisible ice, completely petrified.  Harriet was utterly thrilled.  She turned her attention to all the other time-soldiers she could see, and there were hundreds of them, then, using both hands, she subjected them each and all to the same temporal winter.  In short order her dreamscape looked like a snapshot pried loose from a glacier.  The war was over and she was victorious.

On waking Harriet realized the immense scope of this revelation.  This was the missing item on her list.  She had done battle with the minions of time and had prevailed.  Her elation lasted for hours; while she recorded it in labored detail in her now burgeoning dream journal; while she exposed herself to Zan; while she sat quietly before a fire throughout the winter afternoon.  As dusk descended imperceptibly she was overtaken again with the feeling that something was still missing.

For several hours she pondered the question of what she had left out.  It wasn’t until she was in bed reciting her pre-sleep litany that it dawned on her; she might be the master of time at night, but time was still the undisputed master of her days.  At first the thought depressed her.  It all but destroyed the elation she had been feeling all day.  Then the grand idea jumped right into her mind’s lap and gave her a huge, wet and warm kiss squarely on the lips.  If she could give her dreaming self suggestions to perform miracles while sleeping, why couldn’t her dreaming self return the favor?  If she could enable her dream-self to master time at night, why couldn’t it provide her with dominion over time while she was awake.

Harriet’s mind and body suddenly became as stiff as the clock-soldiers.  What if she actually could?  It seemed just within her reach.  Even if it didn’t work, it would be so simple to try it out.  What did she have to lose?  And if it did work ….

Her mind rocketed along with (if this is possible) a mind of its own.  She remembered reading once that Albert Einstein said there was no such thing as objective time, only personal psychological time.  Others said that all time is simultaneous, that only our experience of it is linear.  She saw thousands of images of all the articles, books, TV shows and movies she had ever seen that dealt with the underlying nature of time and the mosaic created by all of these was revealed in one simple statement she had once heard: “time is a fiction created by humans to keep everything from happening at once.”

Harriet’s attention turned to the challenge of devising a method for testing this hypothesis.  She concluded at length that the easiest and most direct test would be to change the behavior of a clock.  She decided to see if she could program her dreaming self to program her waking self to slow down a clock.  She could easily determine whether it worked or not by comparing that one clock with others.  This was where she would begin.

That night, as she was drifting toward sleep, she repeated a mental message to her other self to give that suggestion while she dreamed.  In the morning she was disappointed that she remembered nothing about her dreams.  The results were the same for the next three nights.  It was as if she was in full scale resistance to the entire notion.  It was the first time since she began her dream journal that she had not made an entry on four consecutive mornings.  This occurrence only served to redouble her passion to succeed.

On the fifth night, she had a lucid dream but the thought of the time experiment didn’t surface until she had again awakened.  Well, she thought, progress is, after all, progress.  The nightly suggestions continued.  Another night without dreaming.  And another with dreams but no lucidity.

On the eighth morning she recorded the following:

Wednesday, December 19, 1984, 7:24 am

I recall only one dream from last night.  It was neither long nor elaborate.  I was sitting by a fire in a huge hall in an Elizabethan manor just looking into the flames.  I was male, a gentleman of nobility I think.  For no apparent reason I suddenly became lucid.  I continued to sit staring at the fire and then the flames themselves spelled out a message:  ”It’s time.”  The letters hovered for a few moments and then the fire returned to illiteracy.  This reminded me of my suggestion and I, he, sat there wondering how to proceed.  The flames again spelled out:  ”timelessness.”  This reminded me/him/us of the mission.  In an instant the message changed again to: “stop 45.”  We had no idea what it meant but the more we looked at it the larger and brighter it grew until it seemed to fill the whole room.  He/I/we just relaxed in the chair and took it all in for a while.  If I had to guess I would say that he just fell asleep sitting there.  I don’t know what “stop 45″ means.  It is, to say the least, frustrating.  It seems as though it should be something very significant but as yet I just don’t get it.

All that morning, Harriet had “stop 45″ on the brain but no blazing insights occurred.  She talked briefly to Zan on the phone but decided not to tell him about the experiment, not until she had more to report.  Besides, shortly after they had said their hellos, he got another call and asked if he could call her back in five minutes.  She said fine and hung up.  The smell of coffee from the kitchen lured her back for one more cup but before she could reach the door the phone rang and it was Zan.

“That was quick,” she said, surprised to hear from him so soon.

“Don’t be sarcastic, Harriet.  I said five minutes and according to my watch it’s only been 4 minutes 38 seconds.”

“Are you kidding?  It couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds.  I barely had time to get up and head for the kitchen for another cup of coffee,” she responded in amazement.

“Harriet, I know I’m a pretty fast talker, but even I can’t read half a page of figures over the phone in 10 seconds.  You must have dozed off or something?”

The shock hit her like The Ice-Pick Express.  Either Zan was having a little joke with her or she’d lost that five minutes.  ”Zan, no kidding now, isn’t there any way you could be mistaken?”

I could be a few seconds off but no more.  Why does it concern you?”

Harriet told him everything now, about the experiment and last night’s dream and the message which now clearly meant “stop for five (minutes).”  He was, of course, amazed and intrigued.  He asked if she had plans to continue her efforts which of course she most certainly did, now more than ever.  He insisted that she call him every morning after she had any kind of related dream and she agreed.  She told him that her next venture would be a more objective one: clock stopping.  When he hung up, she dropped into her chair by the fire like five empty sacks of Minute Rice.  Her mind returned to Churchill Downs and the race was again on.

Night after night Harriet pressed onward with the experiments, first with stopping clocks, then with speeding them up.  Sooner or later the desired effect was always created.  She considered the possibilities of what could be done with her developing abilities.  After much thought and confabulation with Zan, she decided that the ultimate challenge would be to reverse time.  That seemed to be essentially useless in and of itself.  Looking in her mirror one morning and noticing the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes she seized upon the boldest idea of all: she would try to reverse the aging process itself.  Yes, this was the most practical application she’d thought of yet and she felt that she was as ready as she would ever be to make the attempt.

Week by week, month by month she worked by day and by night to accomplish her goal: to be 25 again, not just in appearance but in vigor and joi de vivre.  Slowly at first, then with increasing visibility, the wrinkles faded, a ruddiness of cheek emerged along with a quickness of step and firmness of flesh.  It was actually working.  By New Year’s Day she looked not a minute over 30 and people were beginning to notice.  There were rumors that she’d had a nip-and-tuck job but as the process continued unabated, even that offered no suitable explanation.

By late January she was nearing her goal. The looks she got from friends and acquaintances were almost as strained as the leers from young men were lecherous.  It was getting, to say the least, a bit uncomfortable.  Zan had flown out to see for himself that it was working as well as she’d said.  He was astounded and immediately began his own campaign against time.  His efforts were a little different but just as sincere and successful.

Increasingly people were asking questions for which there were no easy answers and Harriet found herself staying home in relative seclusion, a situation that didn’t agree with her at all.  By spring she realized that something had to be done.  She just couldn’t live this way much longer.  She had tried everything, even telling people the whole unvarnished truth, but they didn’t believe her and were actually more than a little hostile that she should insult their intelligence that way.  Ultimately, in abject resignation, she decided to sell her home and start anew in another city.

The summer of 1985 found Harriet living in a different city in a different state, starting over without friends and with few acquaintances.  She pondered whether it was worth it or not sometimes, but, though it was too soon to be sure, she suspected that she had achieved physical immortality and that it had to be worth it.  Hadn’t man been seeking the Fountain of Youth for centuries?  Hadn’t she found it sans fountain?  She would be 25, or whatever age pleased her, forever.  She still wrote and Zan still edited her work.  For himself, Zan was playing competitive tennis again for the first time in almost 10 years.  He too was beginning to get those dirty looks and was considering drastic measures to preserve the quality of his life.

In the end, there was no other choice for them.  They really had no one but each other with whom to share their lives, not unless they could find others who would listen and follow the trail they had blazed.  You’d think that would be easy but it was not.  Even the author of the lucid dreaming book dismissed them as crackpots and hung up on them abruptly, thereafter refusing to take their calls.

Inconveniences notwithstanding, they never had the slightest temptation to return to their former aging selves.  They simply went on about their business as best they could and relied on each other for close companionship.  They concluded, however, that like so many other things, even immortality does not live up to its advertisements.