A Requiem Vigil

I look out as the omnipresent glory of the golden crowned monarch of the day becomes a radiant portal. Its last glistening beams stab my eyes like leaping darts of fire. I am forced to look away. There is soothing comfort in the softness of evening, as its blue-black sable curtain covers the velvet waters. It is the witching hour, where black magic opens the portal between the living and the dead.

The wind is still, yet a gap in the cedars starts to vibrate and the Douglas fir and willows gently rock. In a trice, I hear my heart beating at the same frequency as pulse of a fan and the whir of an overhead airplane. A bird chit passes on a spiritual message. The fridge clicks a switch and a siren sounds. I hear the warning signs as I enter deep within the recesses of my mind

It takes less than a minute to leave time as it is known, measured by the ticks of a battery-operated clock, or clicks of a cesium atom, or drips of water in a clepsydra. Thoughts repeat, like water in a dripping faucet then each particle joins another then flows in a stream. It becomes part of a field of a wave that either carries or takes down whatever is in its’ path.

Each precious minute has a linear measure, that according to the mathematician Zeno, is infinite. Some mark the eternal moment, that burns into the mind heart, soul. When the Twin Towers went down, or a cancer diagnosis with a predicted terminal lifespan is given, or there are other traumas that create the loss of innocence and security, a tectonic rupture causes a moment to stand still, then shake the very fibre of existence. Einstein was able to describe a scenario in which an astronaut leaves Earth, at fast speeds and returns to find that what was once known is dead. Death can elicit fear.

The adage that fear is the best teacher holds biological merit. Fear activates the primal instinct for self-preservation and motivates highly effective behaviour changes. Fear of the punishment, or eternal damnation, threats and ultimatums of pain and scarcity, are used as effective agents of change. Fear is essential for survival, yet fear training often has long-term consequences such as insecurity that weakens mental health and outweigh the benefits of short-term changes. Love, on the other hand, can be an excellent teacher that encourages courage, confidence and creativity which have the potential to go beyond the limits that fear imposes.

Love, defined as an attachment, extends into a universe where the number of atoms is fixed. Physical death of the simplest chemical element, Hydrogen, marks an event of nuclear proportion. After death chemicals are rearranged, and reused. They are essential to start life. The rearrangement of atoms creates a personalized mosaic of the past, that is in part the result of chance and/or agents of great control, and to some extent, an individual’s conditioned responses to extrinsic motivators.

Fear and love both apply principles of risk analyses and loss aversion, to establish the cost of coping with the unpleasant consequences of the status quo, and the unknown costs associated with the risk of change. Both motivators are a result of experiences with family, friends, strangers and the social setting. We are born with a fear response. Sometimes we learn the warmth of love. It can flourish, grow or fail to grow, and degenerate into an unresolved emotion that can turn into hate, a response to fear. The opposite of love is indifference.

Those who have learned about how to nurture love, aling with a time master, who is as rock solid as Nanabijou, the sleeping giant of the Deep Sea. Nanabijou is formed by an upheaval of a fault. The forces of nature establish the conditions needed to create silver and gold. Nanabijou, the King of the Jewels, protects gold and silver in the bimetallic alloy electrum.

Electrum is referred to throughout the Bible, the first book ever printed. Electrum formed the Stone of Destiny, the pillow upon which Jacob lay when he saw his stairway to heaven. David is thought to have plucked his plectrum of electrum. Daniel and Ezekiel, said divine messengers, had winged feet made of electrum. They carried the strength and steadfastness of the rays of God that can help or punish. The electrum stone is said to have held the Arc of the Covenant, and lays under the thrones of Ireland, Scotland and England.

Electrum is among the metals that catalyze the synthesis of key biomolecules, and the formation of genes. Electrum coordinates a collective oscillation movement. With a synergistic cohesive energy that is in itself a form of art creating, it creates a bespoke design, of repeating patterns that are found in stars to neurons and orbits of atoms and planets. According to mutual action and reaction, electrum weaves the silver and gold into the fire of the blood. Each individual transmits a conscious power and subtle clarity born of a nanoscale chemical memory that holds resiliency. It holds the memory that unites pieces of time in response to circumstances.

Memories are woven during depressed time, where each moment slowly passes, and with those that let time fly, or are what can be deemed a bad or good time. There are moments when the imminent future is seen in the mind’s eye because it is a possibility, and there are other moments, where chance turns into reasonable probability, then a divine blessing that results in much more than can ever be imagined. Memories that mark a presence, and the lack of presence, casually sifts into actions.

A memory flashes. As a young girl I dreamed of Nanabijou. I was sitting, head cradled in elbows, at his bedside when he was dying. As an adult, I discovered failed love. To heal, I wrote the list of what I thought my beloved should be like. That night I dreamed of a woman, the wife, of Cepheus, the constellation that looks like home whose footrests on the pole star Polaris. Born of elemental ether of the stars and written of since PreSumerian myths, the two are the great giant servants lords of heaven who help guide wanderers of life, so they do not have to struggle to find their way. She asked me to hold his heart in my hand. I drew Nanabijou’s image.

I felt my hair stand on end moments before I knew I would meet him. I recall the moment I first saw him. When we were introduced, he was asked to describe how the universe began. As the snow fell, a silent hush formed around us. We soon were engaged in a conversation that sealed us from the outside world. Nature conspired to have us meet and gave us the time we needed to enter into the sanctuary of each the other’s mind.

He spoke about the Law of the Lever, of how small interactions can create a critical mass in that lets something come of nothing. He talked about how time is measured by clicks of telephone poles when on a train, and timelessness. He shared snippets of Spinoza’s concept of time, the relationship between human beings and the universe, Plato’s concept of time, as an image of an eternal sphere of being, Aristotle’s concept of time, that argued time is a kind of number and kind of order that is continuous, and TS Eliot who says “Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past.” He told me about suffering the recent loss of his wife, who taught him that life can be seen in the beauty of a rose and about how he learned of love because of its lack during his youth.

I felt and heard the thunder of his words and was struck by the lightning that sparked from his eyes. He was an independent learner, one of those individuals who many call a savant. Long before the time of Googling, he was called a walking encyclopedia. He could access information that he read, and wring out the essence of what he absorbed then reconfigure it into a larger picture, in a manner that was sheer genius.

Yes, he was a genius by the measures that are made to determine such things, but he was much more than just an accumulation of facts. He understood fractals and the multiverse, and the statistics of chemical fluctuations that occur in the vacuum of a quantum universe, as do few others in the world. But ultimately, Nanabijou taught me the depth to which love is an attachment that must be nurtured. He designed his life to demonstrate the power of love. I felt that my life and experiences had all prepared me to accept the realization of this possibility of life.

The Wizard had the ability to stop the moment, to complete and imprint a thought. He was bizarrely skilled in awareness, of how a body can send and receive electricity internally, from toes to elbows, and externally, between others. He would toil under the hottest summer sun in the eternal present. His slow and tender efforts in linear time, turned actions into form. He created the Garden of Eden, a slice of paradise that was revealed to the observer. It had a strange effect on some individuals, creating an addictive response. They wanted more and were never satisfied.

Nanabijou was be open to reasonable possibilities based on the laws of science as they are known. Unusual synchronicities unfolded. He told me how his death would, and did happen, in the spring when the smell of wisteria filled the air, when the azalea was in bloom.

Once departed, no one really knows what happens. My mind plays with what little I know of game theories. They are the basis of the social and personal propaganda of mankind. I am a member of the faithful diaspora, part of the wave of the baby boomers, that preceded global population increases after the Great Leaps of China, the Great Wars, and the Independence of India. I carry within my heart various gifts and burdens from a multitude of other cultures and with elements from came before life.

I have learned how to camouflage myself, and follow the trends, and how to cut across at an angle of the light cone, and act as a vector, to deviate the direction of the flow.

I set my compass. Rotating the bezel to my true north, I align the arrow according to coordinates described by Shakespeare, who says, “Love is an ever-fixed mark, it is the star to every wand ‘ring bark.” I alter the degrees, minutes and seconds of the arc, as I slide the baseplate along the edge of the map in my mind’s eye.

I am grateful that my psyche is able to still reach out and accept now, the brief flashes that come to me from wherever Nanabijou is now. He offered me a portal to timelessness, where a reasonable hope can be realized, a dream attained. I am open to accept the unexpected.

A wave is approaching, I take a deep breath and exhale. I am ready. My hair stands on end. Soon I will meet him.

I am swept overboard. I face the greatest unknown. I am an explorer in the land where time no longer exist. When an element goes to ground state, the quantum fall releases light. I join those who pass on their light.

The torso sags, head drops limply, and the body becomes cold and void of life. I enter the spectrelike shadow of the night and join the eternal moment with Nanabijou.

Under a magenta glaze, the great boiling globe of sun eases down, hesitates for one brief moment, then the fiery firewall plunges beneath the ragged rim of the purple-shrouded western ranges that echo the shape of Nanabijou. Nature whispers a solemn Requiem at that moment when this day was dead.