The Alchemist...

She could always,
 in the eleventh hour,
do what she did best....
She could manifest that specific brand of
 ""alchemical transmutation""....
HER brand,,,truth be told...
 which she'd practiced and honed over so many arduous years...
Put simply....
She could turn objects...even CONCEPTS actually.....
into GOLD....
And sell the gold for cash on the dollar....
Precious is as Precious does,,,right ??
She always had that resource if need be...

But for now, she'd usher in Shabbat...
lighting candles,,,preparing food...
The aromas of honey and orange and candle wafted throughout the home...
All was perfect.....

Delusion...Friend or Foe ?

 So...
We view something...
Let's use a RED DRESS as an example...

We walk into our local boutique and we are startled at the beauty of the RED DRESS on the mannequin..
That dress is GORGEOUS and SEXY and PERFECT for an evening soiree...
We MUST have the RED DRESS....

As we stand ogling the fabulous-ness, in comes Sally,,,(a second customer)..
She is also STRUCK by the RED DRESS...
She is actually OFFENDED by it....
She finds it FLAMBOYANT and TACKY and useful ONLY in a BROTHEL..
She leaves quickly, in a huff, mumbling about the decaying morals of our society, etc.

Enter a third customer,,,Margaret...
Margaret takes one look at the RED DRESS, and summons the saleswoman, as she wishes to purchase
it immediately!
She declares that she has NEVER seen a more PERFECT DRESS FOR THE OFFICE....
That it is SUITABLE and ELEGANT and SUBLIMELY CONSERVATIVE...
Margaret works for a prestigious accounting firm....

So, there you have it.....
One Red Dress....
Three customers...
Three utterly opposing opinions on the SAME Dress....

Which woman is correct ?
Which one is delusional ?
Is there ONE TRUTH ?

The woman was stunned...

She stood there afterwards...
very still....
Not afraid...
AU CONTRAIRE...
 comforted actually....
She had felt a presence...
It had happened in a moment of extreme frustration...
artistic blockage or something of the sort...
She'd been working on this same wretched canvas forever...
It happened like that sometimes...
The simplest thing could become tedious, arduous,,,impossible really...
while utter complexity and ambiguity could just invite her in from the cold...
as if she's known them forever...
Was it HER ?
Or...
 Was it ART ?
This irony ?
In any case, she'd been painting and re-painting this woman's face...
And no matter what she did,,,,,she just could not get it right....
And then she felt something beside her...
Actually CLOSER than just "beside her"...
almost IN her...
And then,,,,,,
just like that,
the impossible face was done !!
Angelic,,,this face...
Hmmmm....

Pomegranates, The Lumineers , and Paint Thinner.....

There are times,,,
without quetion,,,,'
when tiny,little particles of our lives become EVERYTHING...
We tend to essentially "CONTAIN" ourselves within small rivulets of space and time...
And when we are in the very trenches of these "CONTAINER MOMENTS",,,
we have some LARGE, gnawing sense that ...
THIS is "ALL THERE IS"...
Of course,
we don't utter these "ridiculous conclusions" aloud,
 for fear of
STONING and basic debauchery....
In point of fact,,,,
we don't even ALLOW these thoughts to FORMULATE into real concepts...
The alarm and speculation over
"ALL THERE IS"
then becomes overidden
by things like
POMEGRANATES and
THE LUMINEERS
and PAINT THINNER.....
We have buried our silly thoughts of foreboding with
juicy, red food,
alternative music,
 and CAUSE...
And then.....
just as we've cozied up to this looming, acquiescent present and "future",,,,
something happens.....
A twist of fate....a sound,,,,a delivery,,,,,,
and off we go.....full guns blazing.....
toward the inevitable formation of yet another
"CONTAINER MOMENT"....
And so it goes...... 

On Love....

Love....
What else is there REALLY ?
Love is EVERYTHING...
It's the INSIDE of the equation...
The MISSING LINK....
There is NOTHING that will AFFECT you in the ways LOVE will....

LOVE makes you pant...
and quiver...
and sweat....
and cry......

LOVE makes you sad...
and happy...
and reckless....
and driven...

Love gives you bliss...
and pain...
and hunger...
and beauty..

Love takes away your time....
and your freedom...
and your alone-ness....
and your ability to reason....
And it scrunches it all into a RED ball of SUPERFLUOUS SENTIMENT...
And then it chucks that ball right out the window.....
into a living body of water...
where it then floats away....
leaving you ONLY with the hint of a memory as to what is MISSING.....

Love will do to you what NOTHING else can.....
and you'll wake up wanting MORE.....

Where is the damn thing ???

Where is it ???
I've looked EVERYWHERE....and I do mean EVERYWHERE...
It has disappeared....
into thin air...
into NO air...
as if it never even existed at all....
Did it ?
Or...
Was I just IMAGINING that I had it in my hands ?
Firmly....
almost ARROGANTLY really...
Yes...
I was decidedly ARROGANT about my ownership of it.....
OK...so SUE ME....
I took it totally for granted....that's clear as day NOW...
Sure....NOW....
And the really awful thing about it......
is that I worked SO FREAKING HARD to get it !!!
The only plausible thing to do now.....
at this existential juncture...
is to WALK it off....
Because.....
if I DON'T walk it off....
I will surely explode...
And there will be piles of "EXPLODED TOBY" all over the place...
And that would make everybody VERY SAD, right ??
Am I right ???
So....
I'm walking out the door....as we speak....

Mis-Communication...

It continues to fascinate me.......
 how two people can be
 in the SAME place...
at the SAME time...
actually engaged in a conversation with EACH OTHER...
and still......and still....
have a diametrically different experience...
And furthermore.....
upon playback and/or regurgitation of 'said' scenario....
even the WORDS were heard differently..
When one declared their "take' as the actual CRUX of the matter....
the other just shook their head in blank bewilderment...
as if they had not even remotely considered this possibility...
 Ultimately,,,it was as if the pair had been on two different continents during the conversation...

What is that ??

Is it CULTURAL ?
Is it EMPIRICAL ?
If MY reality differs from YOUR reality, do they cancel one another out entirely ?
Is one VALID, somehow, while the other is just hoo-haa ?
Is there ONE SINGULAR TRUTH ?
with myriad versions ?
Does the tree make a sound if noone hears it ?
Frustratingly consistent....
this "HE said / SHE said" thing.....
And yet.....

There were gifts everywhere....(True Story!)

Dozens and dozens of beautifully wrapped boxes with gigantic red ribbons adorning them....
They were thrown somewhat haphazardly onto the dining room table...
It SEEMED, at first glance, that they were randomly strewn over the length of the huge surface...
But upon closer inspection, she could sense a kind of DELIBERATE intention.....
as if someone had placed each box succinctly into its predetermined position...
so as to APPEAR as though it were a 'free-for-all'....
She really must stop taking that nighttime cough medicine, she fleetingly thought....
It was making her WAY too paranoid...or detail-oriented...or something....
Anyway....
here she was...
looking at easily 2 hours or so of unwrapping gifts.....
Sounded like great fun, right ?
And she KNEW that they were meant for her only, as there were large white cards placed on each gift with ONLY her name in BOLD Italic letters....

But here's the thing....
She had NO CLUE as to WHO had brought them here...
Nobody had been home that afternoon...
NOBODY...
So the gift-bearer had either had access to the home, which, off the top of her head, seemed VERY unlikely....
or....
They had broken in !
(which seemed absurd, yet alarming....)
(to be continued)

No Coincidences....Just Silver Thread....

These things...these events...
these astounding moments which we are now experiencing....
these MIRACLES really....
They are neither coincidences....
nor random happenstance whatsoever......
Rather...
There is a wholly conspicuous, SILVER THREAD....
connecting one situation to another ...
 one person to another ...
seemingly unrelated,,,,yet somehow "Divinely Inspired"....
Clearly....
 the "thread-master" is manipulating the situation from above...
Clearly...
It's as though we are all puppets on a stage made of shoe box and sugar......
Didn't Shakespeare mention this once ??
about the "world being a stage" ?
The stage is covered with peaks and valleys...
with darks and lights...
Miracles await round every bend...
One must really only LOOK....
in order to observe the magic....
Open your eyes, my friends...
For that matter, your HEARTS may need some prying open as well...
Just ALLOW yourselves to experience that which awaits directly in your path.....

Higia Zman....(The Time Has Come)

It's time to come clean....
NOT with THEM...
but with YOURSELF...
Because face it, my friend, there's nowhere left to hide..
You've been dodging this big, silver bullet your WHOLE adult life...
Ducking the negative chi....
Never actually CLEARING it though...
Just pretending ....
or rather,,,,,eluding to the fact
that everything for YOU existed ONLY in the "FABULOUS" category ...
But guess what  ?
It doesn't....
It never has actually.....
For we can ONLY ascend to a level of PEACE and harmonious stature...
we can only ACTUALIZE positivity...
when the PAST has been firmly, yet lovingly,,,lain to rest....
Make amends with yourself, my sweet.....
Embrace that which appears to be LONG-BROKEN within your own personal space ...
Begin over.....
Cling to the light...
to GOD....
It's NEVER too late to REPAIR ...
to  REFRESH...
to RECONSIDER....
Veritable truckloads of SUNSHINE and APPLE PIE and PURE BLISS....
are awaiting just a hint of  encouragement from YOU to appear....
to RE-appear...
Higia Zman....
The time has come......