TheBanyanTree: Mindset

Sun Aug 24 05:12:34 PDT 2003

(The context of this story is of a man who has suffered emotional trauma 
so extreme that his mind has all but collapsed. In his confusion he has 
discovered a newfound ability to write and in the process of so doing is 
gradually rebuilding his mind - and though he but dimly sees it, his 
life from thereon.)

I stood up to go and make a cup of tea, saw the blanket on an armchair 
where I had dropped it after my midnight excursion, and went to shake it 
out. As I did so, something fell on to the floor. By my feet I saw a 
vivid pink rose! Picking it up and sniffing the petals, I smelled a 
faint aroma, deeply aware there were no rose bushes at all on the 
property. I had puzzles enough, however; another made little difference 
and in any case it was mid-afternoon and I had to get to town before the 
shops closed.

The town of B straddles a low hill on the brow of which, aligned with 
the main street, is a park shaded by many substantial and well-cared for 
trees. As I drove up the hill towards it, I felt impelled to stop, 
pulled into a side street and parked.

The pools of shade were a welcome invitation to rest my watering eyes 
out of the glare of the sunshine. Slowly I made my way through the 
trees, reading the small plaques which told of their origin. Then on a 
bench dwarfed by the tree in whose shade it stood I spied a hunched up 
figure. On closer examination this proved to be an old woman in dark 
clothing and head scarf.

As I approached, she took something from her clothing and placed it 
beside her on the bench. As it caught my eye it seemed to flash and spin 
and the woman turned to look at me. She patted the seat on the other 
side of the crystal ball and I sat down there. Wordlessly, she took my 
hands in hers and bowed her head as though in contemplation of them. 
When she straightened up a few minutes later and released me, I saw she 
was crying.

"I am sorry, sometimes a reading is more difficult than normal," she 
said, her voice throaty with emotion. "You are in deep trouble, much of 
it of your own making."

She fell silent again. Conscious that I had not as yet spoken a single 
word, yet fearful of what she had 'seen' in me despite that, I waited as 
patiently as I could.

"Fate is inexorable," the seer said at last. "You cannot escape your 
destiny; sooner or later you must face up to that which bedevils within, 
must rid yourself of the fantasies which, in your distress, have grown 
out of all proportion. You must learn to recognise when something is 
finished, set it aside and start anew. As its burden lifts, so shall 
your fists unclench, your body straighten and the hidden skills of your 
mind leap out unfettered.

"You must also seek yourself. Though the truths of your findings may be 
unpalatable, accept them, for this will set you free to be yourself and 
not as others imagine you to be. Truth and its acceptance open the door 
to the higher consciousness."

The reading was over; unsteadily I stood and stumbled away until I felt 
I could go no further without surcease. Sinking down against the bole of 
a tree, I let my emotions go, shoulders quivering with the force of my 
sobs. It was at least half an hour before I calmed sufficiently to be 
able to find my ute, do my shopping and return home where I ignored 
everything but the wordprocessor and sat keying in data until late at night.

The next morning, I cleaned the cottage properly for the first time 
since I had moved in three months before. In the doing of it I shifted 
some the landlord's furniture into one of the sheds and drew an 
imaginary line across the centre of the main room. To the right became a 
study which contained desks, swivel chairs, computers, printer and a 
bookcase. On the left I created a Place of Solace - two armchairs in 
'corners', the coffee table within easy reach of both, and the settee 
forming a triangle; my sound system under the window to the left of the 
heater; favoured pictures on the side wall with the crosscut saw 
fastened above them. Then I took the rose from the tumbler of water in 
which I had placed it and went for a walk.

I allowed my feet to trace their own path. It came as no surprise at all 
when I found myself walking up the slope, covered with trees, which I 
had climbed less than two days before. Once at the top, I stopped, 
placed the rose carefully on a tree stump, sat down in front of it, 
crossed my legs and closed my eyes.

'Seek yourself', the astrologer had said. Well, I had begun to do that 
the previous evening by writing down keywords summarising as much as I 
could remember of my life up to then. It had not really helped, though, 
and I had a feeling I had mistaken her meaning. 'In turmoil,' she had 
said also. That was surely true but it did not come anywhere near the 
whole truth. Not unless 'turmoil' also meant amnesia. Then there were 
the fantasies I held within that I must get rid of - what were they? 
Another unknown. What else had she said? 'You must learn to recognise 
when something is finished, set it aside and start anew. ' That was it - 
and when I did so, hidden talents would spring forth. What could that 
possibly mean? What had finished?

There were no answers that way so I tried another tack - had anything 
started in the last few weeks? Well, yes - my writing - and my insanity 
as well, I thought wryly, balancing it out - one good thing, one bad 
thing. At that thought I closed my mind; I could go no further along 
that road just yet.

A piercing shriek splintered my thoughts into a million shards; leaping 
to my feet I gazed back towards the cottage in time to see a pair of 
peregrine falcons flash down the hillside and past it in perfect 
formation. Strange, I mused aloud, heartbeat slowing as the adrenaline 
surge eased, I have not seen any of those here before. Then at the sound 
of my voice I had an idea and lost no time putting it into practice. In 
a quiet but firm tone I said my full name and waited for something to 
happen.

For a moment or two, nothing did, and I began to experience a sense of 
disappointment. But then I had a distinct impression of an intense white 
light spearing down from the sky, into my skull and through my body to 
the ground below, accompanied by a headache so sudden and acute that I 
screamed and clutched my head with both hands. Consciousness fled like a 
fox before hounds and I collapsed in a heap.

****
It was dark when I awoke, feeling very weak and shivering with cold. 
Thankfully the headache had gone; somehow I found sufficient energy to 
stagger to my feet, to turn in the direction of the cottage. Then I 
stopped dead, gaping at the sight which lay before me brilliantly lit by 
the waxing moon, my mind scrabbling for understanding!

For the paddock which swept down to the one-vehicle track, and those 
which progressed beyond it to where the treeline marked the river, had 
disappeared, as had my cottage, sheds, stone homestead, everything I had 
become used to. In their place lay a landscape of hills, valleys, 
plateaux, rivers, creeks, whilst the track itself, normally straight and 
level, had transmogrified into a trail which twisted and turned here, 
there and everywhere. Sometimes so tight and close were the turns they 
gave the illusion of a maze, in other places the trail dipped and 
climbed so precipitously as to appear impossible to negotiate.

The landscape glowed not with one colour but many, from white through 
the full spectrum to deepest black. The colours were not solidly or 
evenly spread, however, but appeared as dots and splotches though there 
were zones of what I could only describe as a homogenous grey/white 
which gave off a sickening luminance. Where the trail ran through these 
areas, it either became black or vanished from view as though in fog.

Starkly frightened at first, my fear gradually gave way to curiosity and 
I began to study the montage in detail in an effort to work out its 
meaning. I gave that up very soon; there were no clues to a solution 
that I could see so instead I viewed the scene in its entirety. I was 
never sure afterwards whether what ensued was triggered by my mindvoice 
or by my imagination but suddenly I was standing on the trail next to a 
radiant white fountain of light. Looking down, I saw 'June 1938 AD' 
printed at my feet in a muddy film of water. Before I could rationalise 
the date I was whisked off to a sombre dark red illuminated 1955, and to 
another similar - 1958, followed by a step to an iridescent and glorious 
peach pool - 1961, and then to three more white flares, one after 
another - 1963, 1965 and 1966.

I found myself back on the hilltop, understanding that what was spread 
out in front of me was my life. Though I wasn't at all sure what June 
1938 signified, the other dates respectively denoted the deaths of my 
father and mother, my marriage to my former wife and the birth years of 
our three sons. On my getting that far, year dates appeared on all the 
other dots and splotches; it was clearly being left to me to determine 
what the grey areas indicated. A few were obvious but most were obscure; 
that did not worry me at all; I knew now that the information would be 
revealed to me 'at the proper time'.

I was more concerned about the objects scattered about along the sides 
of, and on the trail itself. I had taken these to be statues but now 
realised they were in fact people, many of whom had their backs turned 
to me. Internally, I framed a question; the response came from without, 
instantly, and the landscape changed dramatically, my portion of it 
dwindling to a couple of acres.

****
<You need to accept four things. First, if you believe the Universe, the 
Earth and all it contains including you came about by accident, accept 
it may have been otherwise. Second, if you believe you are locked into a 
situation from which you cannot escape, accept there are ways in which 
you may do so. Third, whether you believe in reincarnation or not, 
accept this is not your first life nor will it be your last. You are of 
the past, the present, and the future. Fourth, accept you have purpose 
in the Universe which will be fulfilled when you follow the Path. What 
say you?>

I tensed, cleared my voice, spoke aloud "I accept these things may be as 
you say." The 'outer' voice continued; clearly I had said the right thing.

****
The voice ended. I turned to retrieve the rose but it was no longer on 
the stump where I had placed it; turning back I saw the montage had also 
vanished and the original landscape been restored. I became aware of a 
numbing tiredness throughout my body and made my way back to the 
cottage, stumbling from time to time and falling over several times. I 
barely made it to the bedroom.

woodcat