Any words written to explain what happened next would fall short of their goal. No words are big enough to contain where I went, what I saw. I saw the beginning. I saw the end. I watched the birth of countless stars and the deaths of even more. I found myself soaring through nebulae as big as galaxies, and through the cells of creatures unknown. I found myself inside and outside of an edge-less and center-less, creation.

I spent an eternity just watching. I spent another eternity just listening. I re-visited the cabin but it's machinations of creation didn't notice me anymore. I was outside the painting now, experiencing. I swam with dolphins, I flew with eagles, I followed comets and touched the surface of suns. Through it all my memory grew, I knew all and saw all, and yet was not omnipotent. I could go anywhere in any time because I could reach into the hourglass of time and pull out the grain where I wanted to be, and find myself there. Time was just another thing made in the cabin. A construct to help lifeforms cope with infinity.

It was then that I knew what I had to do...where I had to go...who I had to see. I had seen and tasted infinity, and all I wanted to do was go back to what was linear. All I wanted to do was help bring infinity to the finite. I found myself walking across a college campus on a pleasant spring day. Birds were singing, the wind was lightly blowing across my face...I had a face again. I could move from corporeal to incorporeal at will. I knew where to go, I'd been here before. I found the crowd of people in front of the Union building on this campus with ease. They were listening to a preacher, who's brand of fire and brimstone hammer handed theology was so distant to me now, yet so familiar and quaint as well. I sat on a bench and watched, and waited.

Artwork used by permission, and provided by:
The Inhabitant

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At length I came to a deep cliff. I looked out across an endless view of rolling hills and trees. I sat down, and leaned my back against a tree and continued to face the vastness. It seemed the thing to do.

I watched the sun set over the distant horizon, it's light warming my face. I wondered how I was going to get down so that I could continue my journey. A large bird flew overhead through the lowering light. It flew out over the cliff and floated on the updraft for a moment, then silently glided downward toward the canopy below.

I should fly, I thought. Then, I sat up and wondered at my own thought. I hadn't thought I wish I could fly, I'd thought I should fly. Something in me said...just fly. An unquestioning confidence came over me, and I stood up. As I stood, I realized that my feet weren't touching the ground. The more I thought about where I wanted to go, the more I went that direction. Navigation was a cinch, it seemed. Just look, and go.

I soared over the edge of the cliff, never encountering fear, just the brush of air through my hair as I swooped downward toward the forest below. Direction suddenly meant nothing, place and time, nothing. I suddenly could just think and go, my body didn't exist, though the phantom sensation of air rushing past my skin remained, like that of the sensations felt by an amputee.

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I just walked. I walked through the day, through the starlit night. I walked through cleansing rain showers and the warmth of the sunlight. The path I was on seemed right, somehow. It seemed right because I was always surrounded by the natural beauty of plants, trees, the flowing clouds above. This was right, this was real. But, it was never ending. There was no direction. It couldn't claim a purpose other than survival and mere existence. What else could there be for a wanderer in this wilderness?

Movement was the key. Back with the man at the cabin, I was too sedentary. I spend too much time thinking, too much time trying to change things, fix things. That's not what this was about, that was only a tiny part of this. A means by which one moved on to the next...something.

Like a cathedral, the trees arched above me. It brought to mind the naturalistic cathedral of Antoni Gaudi in Spain. An unfinished naturalistic masterwork. He knew, I thought. He'd been here, maybe. He knew that the natural world, while it was only a backdrop to it all, was somehow the keyhole through which all this was supposed to pass. This, what, though. The gnawing question of where I was, and who I was, was still present, though the pain of it had lessened. I somehow knew, I was on the right path...the natural path.

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"Where am I?" I asked again. He just sat there and continued to whittle away at what looked like a canyon or gorge.

"More coffee?" he finally said.

"No thanks." I replied, putting down my knives and tools. All this time, there'd been a path in front of us, beyond the fire, through the trees. The sunlight always penetrated the trees on that path dappling the ground in golden rays. "Where does that lead?" I asked. He stopped. I was almost stunned by the silence that resulted. He looked up at the path, slowly.

"It leads that way." he said, simply, motioning his head toward the path. He looked at me for a moment, then turned back to his work. I had questions I wanted to ask him, but I didn't. I looked at his form, watched him at his task for a moment, and then knew, he was only a part of this place, just like the trees, the house, or the motorcycle, nothing more. He was a force, like the wind, trying to find it's way through a crowded grove of trees, trying one way, then swirling around another way, always creating something. There was no direction or form, just mindless mechanical creation.

I walked toward the sunlit path. I was barefoot, and the ground felt warm and moist under my feet. I could feel the light breeze of my own movement on my face, something I hadn't felt in what seemed like an eternity.

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I had counted the tiles on the roof of the cottage. The bricks. The blades of grass. I had worked on the Harley using the book, to no avail.

We had sat, in silence. For days on end. Nothing changed. Nothing came, nothing went. Coffee was brewed. Food, partaken. A haze had dropped over my eyes. He did nothing to prod, nothing to change or help. He just observed. He just whittled. He just created.

I had created as well. I'd gotten good at trees especially. These were my favorites because it seemed I could explore more variations in limb and leaf than when making mountains or rivers. Trees existed both above and below the ground. Mountains extended into the ground, but their roots were as dull to make as their tops. Trees, though, were as interesting above, as below.

I don't know how long it had been. The sun rose and set but it's changes never made a temporal impression on me. When I was tired, I slept. When I was hungry, I ate. When I wanted to talk, I spoke.

But there was something creeping...creeping in the back of my atrophied mind. Something dark and distant. Something infinite and large. Something more. I tried to whittle what I was thinking, this deep dark something, but I just couldn't. As if it was outside, and I was inside. As if it was above water, and I was below. It was just beyond a barrier that I couldn't even discern.

Finally, one sunny day, just like all the others, sitting out by the fire, whittling, I stopped and looked at the old man and asked, "Where am I?"

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"It's just...well...this isn't exactly what I expected."

I was leaning back against the rounded moss covered logs of the cabin, watching the sun set through the trees picking my teeth with a toothpick. My host had returned to his whittling, after starting a cozy fire from which a thin line of blue smoke was slowly spiraling upward through the trees above. He looked up at me with a smile, when I spoke, then went back to his task.

"I'm not sure what I really expected, to tell you the truth."

He just smiled again.

"Would you like to learn how to whittle?" he finally asked, after several minutes of silence.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm not very creative. What would I make?"

"Anything you like, son."

I took the knife, and a small bit of wood...a thick branch of a tree. I scraped my knife across the surface, and whole galaxies appeared. I scraped again, and planets formed before my eyes. Scrape...trees...scrape...seas, oceans, birds.

"What's happening?" I asked?

"You're whittling, son. Easy, ain't it?"

"Yes." I kept doing it until my host had watched me form universe after universe from a bit of wood.

He smiled, took the newly formed worlds into his hands, looked them over and said "Not bad, for a beginner." Then he tossed the wood on the fire. It sparked, flamed, and turned to ash.

"Where did it all go?" I asked, an element of fear in my voice.

"Oh, don't you worry. It's all still there. Inside you." He abruptly got up. The air was turning dark and cool as the red glow of the sunset lessened. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure." I said. As he turned toward the door of the cabin, I quickly asked, "How long should I stay here, with you?"

"As long as you like, of course." He turned, and went inside. I smelled coffee brewing soon after.

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There's a quiet peace about whittling. It takes patience, caution, and concentration. That's where I found him; deep in concentration, calm, steadily creating something, out of only a bit of wood. He was leaning back on what must have been the north side of the cabin, a thick covering of moss threatened to completely obscure the logs with which it had been built probably eons ago.

He stopped briefly, and looked up at me. I couldn't hold his gaze, but quickly looked away, to the forest of green needles, golden leaves, the deep reds. Again, the light filtered through the canopy, casting a golden mellow light on the surrounding air.

"Nice, ain't it?" he said.

"Very nice." I replied.

"I like how it just kinda manages itself, you know?" I heard his knife scraping again.

"I don't follow you."

"Well, you know, it don't need no proddin' or nothin', just sorta works itself out into seasons." One of the whittling chips landed lightly on my foot, which I now realized, were bare. I knelt down, and picked it up...I remained kneeling as I turned the chip over in my hand, noting it's clean cut lines, the fibers of the wood, and the smell.

"It grew out of chaos though, right?" I mused.

"No. Ain't no such thing as chaos, is there? I mean, if there's rules for everything, even for chaos, then there ain't no such thing, is there? Chaos can only be called chaos if it don't follow no rules. It follows rules. Trust me. You people just ain't figured it out yet." He stopped again. "You hungry?"

"Yes. Very. Do you have any food?" I asked, suddenly sharply aware of the growing void in my middle.

"Sure. You go on inside, I been waitin for ya. Have a seat and I'll join ya directly."

I turned and walked toward the door.

---

I will be out of town from Sunday to Wednesday on a business trip, and am not sure if I'll get to write much while I'm away. Please bear with me.

Labels: don of the universe

Living in the woods, you get a lot of ideas about what God is up to.

- Louis Jenkins

It must have been about the third day, because I was really starting to get hungry. The forest had opened up into a valley of fall color so radiant that the ground at my feet seemed to glow with the colors of the trees around me. As I looked, in the distance, I could see a thin line of smoke rising up through the spires of the pines, and the red and golden crowns of the maples. From where I was standing, it looked like it was rising from the very center of a shallow bowl, hidden from all directions, first by low mountains, then by snow covered spires. I wondered who could possibly live down there, in this uncharted wilderness.

As I approached, I could see the cabin. It looked old. Very old. The roof was covered in grass and moss, the base of it's stone chimney was completely obscured by lichen. Oddly, there was what looked to be a rusted out Harley Davidson motorcycle that was at least 80 years old or more. I had only ever seen photographs of this kind of motorcycle in documentaries about the first world war. It leaned against a wooden table, and pine needles belied the fact that it hadn't been touched in ages. But there was one anomaly. There was a book laying on the table that hadn't yet been covered by needles, and must have been recently laid there, though it's spine was worn, and it's edges curled up.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was the title. Robert Pirsig. I wasn't familiar with this maintenance manual, and was picking it up when I heard a noise. It must have been the creaking of a screen door, because, soon after the noise, I saw a white headed and white bearded man look around the corner of the log cabin, busily drying his hands with a cloth. He looked up and saw me, and didn't seem surprised in the least.

"You know anything about Harley's like that?" he said.

"'fraid I don't, sorry." I replied as I placed the book back on the table.

"Well, that books been no help at all. They just don't have quality manuals on that type of bike anymore, I don't guess."

He turned and walked to the far side of the house.

Labels: don of the universe

There was no shadow, because there was no light. There was no silence, because there was no air. There was no nothingness, because there was no being. There was only paradox...an idea without a mind. A creator without a creation. A something, contained within a complete nothing.

Then something started. Some prime mover flipped a switch. Some threshold was crossed. Either way, somehow, it expanded, instantly...or so fast as to have seemed to be instantly. That instant explosion was silent. Nothing. No noise. No "bang" at all. There was no air. There was nothing, and yet there was everything, all at once. It raced outward from a center that didn't exist, to an outer that wasn't there. It was born. Don was born. In that instant. We were all there too, just not yet. Don watched the things needed for our existence drift past in silence. He followed. Watched. Listened. Learned.

If you lay on your back on a grassy hill, somewhere in the Palouse hills south of Spokane Washington, you can still hear Don watching. His breath is low, and his eyes are billions upon billions and can only be seen at night. Sometimes he inspires one of us to listen to what's beyond our dust speck, to listen, and hear, the ever expanding creative nothingness of which we've become the most interesting and ultimate expression. You can hear it in the buzz of the bugs on the ground near you, in the rustle of the newly cut wheat, in the laughter of your children and the breath of your sleeping lover. That beginning, that prime mover's touch, is still evident in all of these, and continues still today.

Labels: don of the universe

"Are you cold out here granddaddy?" came a soft voice.

"No dear, I'm fine. Thanks." I replied. I'd been spending a lot of time out here at my son's house, just sitting, watching the Palouse sunsets over their little flower farm. It was peaceful here, and not as lonely as it had been in my old house after my wife had passed away some years before. My son and his lovely wife had agreed to take me in and let me live in their spare "mother-in-law" apartment. That was nice.

"Kayleigh's waking up dad, you want to hold her?" Sure son. My fifth grandchild. A little girl. So beautiful and fresh. My son lay her in my weakening arms gently, as she cooed and smiled at me.

"I'll just be in side helping make dinner for us, ok dad?" said my son as he raised himself up, confident that his daughter was secure in my arms.

"Ok. We'll be fine. Thanks." I said. After a few minutes of silence, as the red summer sun set in the northwest, casting a candlelight glow on the face of my granddaughter, something in her face came into focus. "I was wondering when you'd show up." I said.

"Yes. I'm here." said Don. Don and I had been talking off and on, over the years. He'd been there at the birth of each of our children, and grandchildren. He stood aloof during the funeral of my wife two years before, and now, here he was again, in the face of my newest grandchild. We'd talked a lot, Don and I, over the years, but right now, it seemed like everything we needed to say or ask, had already been talked about. We sat in silence.

"There's peace here." he said.

"Yes. I like it here." I replied.

"I'm glad I had the time with you that I did." he said. "But I wish there was more time for us."

"You. You're funny. You have all the time in the universe." I chuckled.

"That's the problem," he said. "I never get to see what else there is, or even if there's anything else."

"Oh." I said, finally understanding his troubled expression. We sat in silence for a while longer.

"You're going to leave this place soon." he said. "It's time to pass me on to someone else."

I knew what he meant. I called to my son to come and get Kayleigh, who was peacefully gazing at the blue and purple sunset sky.

"You ok dad?" he said, taking his daughter in his arms.

"Yes son. Never better." I said with a slight smile.

He walked back in with her, and the sounds of their little family drifted out to the porch where I sat. I pulled the blanket that had been covering my legs up a little higher as the cool chill deepened in the darkening air. The smell of dinner wafted out on the air like an elixir of home. I felt peace. I felt happy. I felt full and finished. Slowly, I started to feel my left arm go numb. There was a slight tightening in my chest, then darkness and warmth and peace. From a distance I could hear someone yelling, then silence. I had left. I had gone where Don could never go, but so much desired to go. Though I left the universe that day, forever, my divided soul carried on in the ones I left behind.

Artist - Album - Song
Flower Kings - Stardust We Are - Don of the Universe

Photo credit: Keeping Watch, by Doug Fredericks.

Labels: don of the universe

It had been a particularly stressful Monday at work. Playing my music louder than is seemly for a thirty-six year old, and singing along, is my way of de-stressing on the drive home on days like this. As I've aged, my voice has changed, and I can't hit the high notes like I used to, so instead of singing the high harmony parts, I tend these days to hit the under harmony.

It was then that I heard him. Right there in the passenger seat next to me, Don was singing along with me, hitting the high notes that I once could. This time he was young, clean shaven, short haired, and bright faced. His eyes, however, still emanated the depth of distance, time, experience and mischeviousness that I'd noticed before. How he had gotten there, was much less disconcerting than the fact that he looked strikingly familiar.

When the song ended, he laughed. "I remember when the first proto-human sang. Actually sang. That was magic. Music and singing is older than language, you know?"

"I think I knew that." I replied.

We traveled in silence for a while, listening to the instrumental part of the song. Then I turned the music down just a bit, and asked him something I'd been wanting to ask for a ling time.

"Who are you?" I said. It sounded almost silly to ask this question, after encountering this person for so many years. But I had to know.

"I'm nobody important." Was all he said, as he looked out the window.

"But, you say you were there, at the beginning. Is that true?" I offered.

"Yes. It is." was his simple reply.

"Then...are you..." I couldn't bring myself to ask it. He sensed this and turned to look at me.

"The idea that God is inside of all of us is an arrogant notion, don't you think? I think it is. It dumbs down the very idea of God." he said with a smile on his face.

"What do you mean 'inside of all of us,' I was asking about you." I said.

"I know." he said.

As I exited on to Garden Springs off I-90, he was gone again.

Labels: don of the universe

"The universe is really big, you know?" He said this in such a matter of fact way it made me chuckle.

"Yes, I'd gathered that it was quite large." I replied.

"No, you don't understand. It's quite big. Think of the biggest thing you can think of, and then expand that as far as your mind can think, and you're not even coming close to the size of the universe." His gentle smile was there as he said this, a slight smirk in his eye. But he was different this time. Here in this smoky bar, between bands, I had found him again. I had seen him sitting in a high backed chair, facing the stage, drinking a large dark Guinness as the band played. His hair was dark this time, but still long. His beard was short, but turning gray.

I sat next to him in silence for a bit, then said "How much of it have you seen?"

"A bit. I was there when it started, you know." He replied as he raised his drink to his lips. For some reason, this didn't surprise me. That feeling of distance and age hit me again, as I sat in an even lengthier silence. I struggled with what to say next, but I knew there was something I wanted to know, so I took my chances, and asked.

"Who are you?" I finally said.

"Me? Oh, I'm nobody, really." was his simple reply.

"But, can't you tell me some of the things you've seen?" I implored, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Oh, not now...look, the next band is about to start. I really like these guys." He said with a slight wave of his hand, dismissing the subject. "Maybe later, ok?" He finally said, sensing my discomfort.

"Sure!" I had to yell in reply, as the music had started, and conversation beyond this point, was pointless.

Labels: don of the universe

I first met Don in 1994, on the campus of the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. He was sitting back, long white hair and beard, gently smiling at the crowd of jeering students that had gathered to laugh at preacher Joe who was spewing his special brand of fire, brimstone, hatred and insults from the free speech green in front of the student Union building. Nothing guides students into questioning their faith better than angry preachers on college campuses. Good job Joe.

Don just sat on a bench, watching. I needed a rest, and thought I'd sit on the bench next to him for a bit and enjoy the spring sun and the interesting show before us. I swung my backpack down to the grass beside the bench, and took a seat. I sat in silence for a bit, then looked over at the man next to me and said "what do you think of this guy?" indicating preacher Joe. Don looked at me, and it was then that I knew there was something different about him. His countenance at once expressed to me both age and youth, wisdom and whimsy.

"Oh, he's like all the others, mostly." He said, in a lilting voice and a slight wave of his hand. I shrugged and went back to resting and watching preacher Joe's performance. As I sat, I felt the presence of Don next to me swell and almost overtake my senses. I shook my head and looked over at him. His smile was gone, and he looked like he was in deep thought. But his thought was interrupted by my movement, and he looked at me.

"I'm sorry, I was remembering something." He said. It was at that moment that I realized how deep and wide his memory was. He had known so much, had seen so much, had been so many places, that the very essence of these memories swelled around him like an invisible aura. "Did you feel it?" He said.

"Yes. Why did I feel you remembering?" I asked.

"People do sometimes. Hello, my name is Don." he thrust his hand toward me in an awkward fashion. I took it and shook it in the normal way, but a numbness shot through my right hand and up my arm before I released my grip. "Sorry again." he said, sensing my discomfort. "Some people are more sensitive, it seems."

"To what?" I asked.

"To me." He then turned and watched preacher Joe for a while longer. "He doesn't feel it, though he should." He finally said, indicating preacher Joe. Then he turned to me and said "Shouldn't you be getting to your Anthropology class?"

"Yes. How did you..."

"Just something I sensed." He interrupted. "You'd better get going now. We'll talk more later."

"Where will you be?" I said as I got up and gathered my bag.

"Around." he said with a wave of his hand.

Labels: don of the universe