The Shadow Box

“Good does not become better by being exaggerated, but worse, and a small evil becomes a big one through being disregarded and repressed.  The shadow is very much a part of human nature, and it is only at night that no shadows exist.”        Carl Jung

Once a deed or thought is justified with the blessings of goodness we feel we are in the right.  If we follow a creed or dogma of an excepted belief to the core we may find ourselves in the midst of doing just the opposite of what the original faith or institution was designed to embrace.  To stand at the  side of leader whether religious or secular we must always understand that there is a tipping point as with everything reversing the course of the intended journey.  

To keep life in balance we must always evaluate both sides of our nature and the nature of the creeds and values we hold as truth.  To stand back from the crowd, to view our place in the larger picture is vital to keeping the scale of life level.   To follow any group or individual that claims to have all the answers blindly with out question or introspection is stepping into the territory of the shadow; keeping in mind that the individual who claims to have all the answers may be oneself.

In Buddhism one aspect of the Fourth Noble Truth (MAGGA “The Path”) that encompasses the Eighth Fold Path.  One of the eight paths to enlightenment is RIGHT MINDFULNESS.

Right Mindfulness is being diligently aware of our thoughts, feelings and the activities of our mind.   The mind being the center that sets the stage of all our relationships human and non-human in the world.   When we are in control of our actions and thoughts we are Right Minded, when we allow our emotions to control our lives and what we do we are not walking the path towards a higher consciousness.  

Let us imagine a path in front of us made of stones with each stone representing a day in our life.  When we walk the path of stones (The Eightfold Path) we are walking towards enlightenment, when we deviate off the path we step into the realms of self or ego.  Here the ego often time leads us to the mental state of self importance and destructive behavior.  When we walk the stones on the Eightfold Path our daily life’s activities lead us to self discipline, self control.and self fullfillment.

As with anything in our life the choice is ours as to which path to walk. It is easy to justify our actions, our gossiping, our, our , our everything our to the world.   The Eightfold Path is eternal it will remain whether we choose to walk it or not.  Our mindfulness will continue as long as we breathe on this earth, whether it is Right Mindfulness is of no real importance to universe’s existence-  for it will continue with or without us.  Right Mindfulness becomes important if we choose to live our life well - with self respect and respecting all life around us as being as sacred as our own.

One may conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, yet he is the best of conquerors who conquers himself.

The DHAMMAPADA (The Words Of Truth) - #103

Brave’s New World

The history has past from calling you brother

Today you look beyond the time of the setting rays

And walk much closer to the window of the newest century

Not always so - willing to look so forward

There were only the memories of winters behind

The smell of spring in the first thaw

Time’s meaning had greater meaning then

You watched the herds for signs of movement

You  listened closer to the wind’s words

Voices today all melt together carrying no song

The sun still sets in the western horizon

The wolf once more finds shelter beneath the snow

In your face I read the turmoil of worlds

You glance at the window hungry to pass

This gap of era’s linked only by Wikipedia’s portal

Your youth still favored in resumes 

The choice of destiny stands impatiently bookmarked

You must let the call die quickly –

Or accept communion with the Greater Spirits

bkmackenzie

I always start at the ending.  It could be the ending of anything that has an ending, which is literally everything that is blessed with a beginning.   It is an unlikely story for most who have a bazaar tendency to begin at the beginning of things that have a beginning, but these people do, more times than not, never get to the ending.  

 I choose to shield myself from that group of humans choosing instead to follow the path of white rabbits and one-handed drummers.    I came upon this trait quite early in my life - not from being hit in the head, though that did happen when a rock who thought it would stop there on its course of travels to say hello, did just that.  And I replied “Hell oh!” 

No, No this extreme backward pleasure came upon me while visiting a woodland on the backside of the 40 acre field that was the home of a wild stream of creatures who within their treasures held a bottle. A bottle  that could never be emptied.   These gnome-like creatures though short in stature were tall in numbers.   I say tall in numbers because they stood on each others shoulders to get the best view of what was happening below.   I could have told them just to ask the guy at the bottom of the gnome ladder since he saw what was happening below better than anyone else.  Especially better than  the gnome on the very top who was much more concerned about the strength of the bottom gnome’s shoulders than what he was actually seeing from up there.   But I figured that they had to learn for theirs-elf’s, “like the rest of us,” my father would always say.   That reminds me why I came to the woods in the first place to find out what was there “like the rest,” of the humans who had stepped here before.  And all the gnomes shouted, “Here, Here! No humans have ever been here.” I echoed, “Oh Dear.”

Well it is time to get back to the story at hand, which is why we are starting at the end of this story.  The Bottle That Can Not Be Emptied was filled with the endings of stories from people who never finished what they had started; so the endings had to go somewhere and that somewhere was not over the rainbow like everybody thought, but into this bottle that could never be emptied.   Can you believe it?  I could not either, at first , until I asked the gnome holding up his fellow country gnomes above.   I said, “ Sir, Gnome is this truth you are speaking here? That this flowing liquid of life coming from this bottle labeled, Bottle That Can Not Be Emptied is all endings to stories that will never be completed by humans?”   He said, “Yes.”  Well, that was good enough for me.   I believed him and vowed never, never, never not to finish something again.

Later that night upon arriving at my place of abiding with the rest of my family of humans I sat and had dinner.   We talked about a lot of different subjects, but I refused to tell them of my visit in the woods behind the 40 acre field.   I did however, watch their every move and listened to their every word hoping I would here of an ending to anything that one of them had started.   To my gravest of fears that did not happen, so I had to make a decision right then and there.   I decided I would always and forever, begin at the end of everything I did, therefore I would finish everything and my endings would never wind up in the Bottle That Can Not Be Emptied.  (Is that clever or what?)

Within the next moments of moments I left my dinner and  my conversation.    Went to end my bath before drawing the water, and in preparing for bed I placed my feet on my pillow and covered the tips of my hair for a good mornings sleep.  I proceeded to dream of yesterday and what I would do then.

Well, I have to begin my story now, so thanks for helping me with the ending.  

signed bkm —

The Night’s Wings

I left Waldon Pond and

met you near the wood -

you stood between

the moss and morning

in the shadow of the crest

there was a moment

one moment -

where I could sense

more than I could see

my vision altered

by the pure completeness

I felt in loving thee

what sense - this sensibility?

worth a mere mortal’s thought -

if timelessness

not passed though

with life’s full measure

 left unsought

most travelers find no rest

upon such a road -

without formal bedding

said I  - to the Raven

“Call the night, and

this forest becomes my heaven!” 

bkmackenzie

At the American Magazine Conference (AMC) the American Society of Magazine Editor’s unveiled its selection of the top magazine covers from the prior four decades 1965-2005.  Out of the thousands of covers reviewed  in 2005, forty were selected and ranked from 1-40 respectively.

Awarded number one cover was Rolling Stone’s,   January 21,1981 issue exposing a vulnerable, naked John Lennon being reborn from the side of Yoko Ono.  Ironically this photo was taken by Annie Leibovitz just hours before Lennon was shot and killed on December 8th, 1980 as he left his New York apartment.  

Go back in time December 8th, 1980; in my time travels I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing and even wearing when the news of Lennon’s death hit the airways.  Like all moments of passionate significance the memory was etched in my brain for later total recall.  Really, does anyone care where I was or what I was wearing when the news came, I doubt it seriously.  But to the generation that grew up with John Lennon the impact of his tragic death made him an iconic god.   A god now immortalized by the Leibovitz photo on the Rolling Stone cover.

Magazine art has become a powerful medium expressing the heart and pulse of modern culture.  Though it may be a relatively new form of art, it carries the same significance as its predecessors from Gothic to Renaissance and Realism.   Art is a recorder of history, culture and the moments we as a society find important enough to be passed on to our children. 

Let us travel back in time even further, to a place and a young artist as passionate about his work and subject as Annie Liebovitz .    1498, Rome, Italy a 22-year-old Michelangelo  commissioned to sculpt a life size figure of the crucified Christ in the arms of his mother.   Placed before him a large block of marble uncut, untouched by time for millions of years  waiting for the right moment and hands to reveal the secrets of the god hidden in the stone.  With clear vision Michelangelo methodically brought to life what was hidden from the rest of the world.  Being heralded throughout Italy within weeks of its unveiling as a masterpiece, the Pieta has been viewed by many at as his greatest work.  It records for those not present at the crucifixion of Christ the emotion of the ultimate sacrifice - that  of  God in human form. 

Art, be it marble or a magazine cover tells the world what humanity values, it truths at that moment in time.   And when those truths are challenged or cut down by a bullet, a cross or act terrorism it is the artist who baptizes them into immortality.  Each generation has or will have its own significant moments of “I remember” etched within the vortexes of their brain, from Pearl Harbor to September 11^th, 2001 and beyond.   Some have already been recorded in the listing top 40 magazine covers.   One symbolizing the loss of someone the world held dear, another an  iconic symbol of freedom, both having been placed in the pretext of god or goddess, (i.e. Princess Diana, People, September 15, 1997  and the blacked out shadow of the World Trade Centers , The New Yorker, September 24^th, 2001.)    The one cover that went so far as to ask, Is God Dead?, Time’s April 8^th 1966 cover, this was the only cover out of the 40 where the probability of God was questioned.

Whatever your beliefs or non-beliefs may be or not be there will be a page recording them somewhere in history.   If one is a true iconoclast or self proclaimed atheist this iconic history may have little or no place of value, because belief is commitment.   And with that belief in someone or something there is always that underlying fear that someone will kill that which we believe in.  Maybe that is where faith steps in.

 • In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book.   I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.

Pearl S. Buck

Time passes and another day of needed tasks accomplished.  We insist on a balance of mind, body and spirit in order to take up a good night’s rest to meet the next day with the vigor that we met today.  We walk the treadmill of a planned and proper life in order to reach a visualized and calculated goal.  Should we fail, there may be no second chance.  Should we succeed we will more than likely ask, Is that all there is?

For most writers, myself included, writing is not now they make the money which they need to live their day to day treadmill life.  Most writers write simply -because-the thoughts held within can and will not stay confined.  The words flow many times simultaneously from the hand and the mouth to a scratch of paper , a notepad or back of a cashier receipt where a single word can run from one room to the next within the mind, collecting characters, plots, scenes and voice to create pages of script.  Nothing may ever come of the characters on those  pages, they may end up filed away with hundreds of other characters unknown to the world.  But, not to write would mean certain insanity, near the same insanity of not having a pencil or pen readily at hand.   For the release of words is part of fulfilling a writers purpose.  However, to approach the subject of words as worthy subjects for publication and/or platitudes would most likely lead to a rejected and deflated ego. 

All great writers have a formula for their writing style, and they carry that style with them in the course of their careers.  Since I am not a great writer, I could not recommend any said style or formula, I write solely to free my thoughts allowing my soul to have its say in who I am.

O Life, life, where canst thou find thy sustenance when thou art absent from thy Life?  In such great loneliness, how dost thou occupy thyself?  What dost thou do, since all thy actions are faulty and imperfect?  Wherein dost thou find comfort, O my soul, in this stormy sea?

St.Teresa of Avila 1515-1582

 ”Where in dost thou find comfort, O my soul…”  These words do not belong solely to  Teresa, she cries here not for herself but for the world. She knows that life has no fullfillment without the true wellspring of  sustenance that feeds it –which is Life itself.   It is the ebb and tide of the universal wheel that moves us forward through the storm, searching for comfort in the light of the Creator.  All to often it is instead the fog of our concealed fears, which we label imperfection, that prevents us from stirring clear of life’s unkind shorelines. Should we accept the pure light of Love - the fog clears; faults and imperfections are no longer visible to our eyes they are rendered powerless by Gods love.  It is this love that allows the compass of the heart to lead us directly to the safe harbor of the eternal World Soul. 

The sum of the parts of our nature are exemplified best when consumed as the whole; Teresa describes her vision of the mind, spirit and soul to her confessors:

They all seem the same to me, though the soul sometimes issues from itself, like a fire that is burning and has become wholly flame.  This flame rises very high above the fire, but that does not make it a different thing;  it is the same flame, which is in the fire.     

In 1962 – Teresa of Avila was made of Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church – her writings and mystical experiences are studied extensively by Catholic’s and non-Catholic’s alike. 

As before the precious mirror,
The form and reflection gaze on each other.
You are not it,
But it is just you. 

from the Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi
by Tung-shan Liang-chieh (807-869)

Are you the physical body or are you the reflection?  Can one exist without the other? Ch’an Master Sheng-Yen gives his explanation to these and other questions in his book, The Infinite Mirror;

“You cannot know a mirror exists until you see a reflection in it. You cannot see a reflection unless a mirror reflects it. The mirror and the reflection are interdependent. They are not the same; they are not separate. If you truly understand this, then you understand the precious mirror.”

He goes on to conclude that both are one and the same, both reflector and reflection are illusionary. 

As with the  priceless drops of youth that we so readily waste in the passing of our life - when youth’s illusion passes we find ourselves only thirsty for more time.  Time like the mirror’s reflection is illusionary and the now aged can never be separated from their youth.    Understanding and acceptance of the illusion allows transformation of  youth’s priceless gift into the precious gems of wisdom in our later years.  This is true alchemy.   And once the soul enters the portal of the Precious Mirror there is no returning to what has been -as the poem reads, “you are not it, but it is just you.