The Stand

The erotic scent of wood’s decay and earth after rain

fills the primal stand of giant poplars, oaks and elms

and I know I have been coming here always.

The golden one parts the forest as a wing of light.

The dark one pushes through as a ruthless red boar.

They come without armies, without banners

though legions have bled for them, and empires died.

They meet as She who watches loves them best:

as lithe young men in their prime of manhood,

as antlered kings in the fierce season, fighting to possess.

There has never been peace between them,

only a balance that shifts and spills, never still or sure.

They battle now with the arms of the forest,

wielding uprooted trees as spears, as clubs.

The trees groan and sway, taking sides.

The golden one finds the opening for the killing blow

but stays his hand. From his hesitation, the dark king

gains boldness and vigor, and drives a rowan

deep into his brother’s side. Wounded and waning,

the light king drags himself to the mothering oak

and darkness swallows the sun. The dark one

raises a cry that calls hungry ghosts to the feast.

But something restrains him from the final act.

It can only be Her voice, walking through his mind.

If either wins, the game is over.

Without contraries, nothing is created.

It is through your unending battleand its lack of resolution

that the game goes on.

The dark one brings a gift to the wounded king.

A flock of seven black sheep. One of them gags

and vomits up a glowing blue egg.

With his last strength, the light twin palms the gift

and his body is suffused with healing light.

He rises, intact, ready to renew the battle

here, or anywhere that is world.

"The Stand" is included in my collection Here, Everything Is Dreaming: Poems and Stories published by Excelsior Editions.

Split collusion, or the Fight Club of dreams

I am both protagonist and observer in a drama involving a contest between two men who are more than human. They fight their battles in different situations as two distinct individuals, possibly changing bodies. We are now approaching the climactic battle. They are no longer physically separate. They are warring inside one body. The stakes involved are now enormous. The final battle could result in "split collusion", which would emit a force greater than a thermonuclear explosion.

     The drama is unfolding in an area behind a busy commercial street, where a narrow road or alley leads to an area of garages, lofts and storage spaces. Special forces and SWAT teams have gathered, with snipers on the rooftops, but nobody knows how to handle this situation and any misstep could set off this human (or inhuman) bomb with devastating results.
     Watching the behavior of the subject from the outside is a bit like watching the Brad Pitt/Edward Norton character in the movie "Fight Club" when it's revealed that he has been fighting himself. I am aware of this when in observer mode. The figure clutches and pounds at his own body. But the real battle is going on inside.
      I am seeking to contain this by stepping in and out of the double mind. While "split collusion" could produce a terrible explosion, it could also - if harnessed and contained - turn this fellow into a prodigy for the good. As with the contest of the cosmic Twins, I don't think either element within him can be allowed to destroy the other.

I woke from this dream this weekend thrilled with excitement. So many possible threads to follow for self-understanding, and for understanding a larger theme, the eternal battle of the Dark and Light which cannot end unless the world is rolled up. I am intrigued by the previous unknown term "split collusion." Beyond analysis, I want to create from this.

Two of Disks

The lively discussion of my take on the Queen of Swords inspires me to pluck another page from my Tarot journal. The simplest way to get to know the Tarot is to draw one card for the day and stay in its presence until you develop a sense of what it means in your life, on that day. You'll want to study what the designers of the deck you are using and other knowing practitioners have to say about it; the books of Angeles Arrien, Mary Greer and Cynthia Giles are excellent guides. But first and last, you want to be present to the card that is looking at you, using all of your senses, inspecting the imagery in fine detail, alert to the feelings and sensations that are running through you and the memories and associations the card stirs in you.

You may find yourself drawn into the card, stepping through the frame, as through a door, into its own world, even entering the mindset of the figure or archetype that is depicted - as I sought to do with the Queen of Swords.

In the page that popped up from my Tarot journal, I am pulling one card with this question in mind:

What do I most need to know about in my life right now?

As in my encounter with the Queen of Swords, I am using a relatively unfamiliar deck, Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea. The advantage of working with decks that are partly or wholly unfamiliar is that it is often easier to look at the images with fresh eyes.

The card I pull is the Two of Disks, called in this deck the Two of Pentacles.

I see:

Two dancers, light and dark. They move in a pattern that may be ritual combat or the prelude to mating. The light dancer – male – wears a blue stone at the third eye position at the front of a vaguely Egyptian headdress. His pectoral ornament resembles an abstract fleur-de-lys. He is tossing a shield-sized disk, gold with a red pentacle into the air, in the direction of the black, female dancer. Her attention is on her own disk. She is getting ready to toss it like a Frisbee. Two white balls hand from the back of her skull-cap. She, also, wears blue stones.

They move in a dark desert landscape. The mound rising in the distance looks like Uluru (or Ayers Rock) in my native Australia. In a greener setting, it could be a mound grave.

In the sky above are six stars. The grouping on the left forms the letter A. With the pair to the right, they shine out the message A.

I feel:

It is thrilling to be here, playing this eternal game of the Twins.

My strongest association

I am being invited into an ancient story, a story that may have been seeking me. The story begins like this: Uluru remembers our game, which began among the stars. We are there, the twin stars to the right of the Alpha constellation.

The message

I can now express the message I have been given,in response to my question for the day, like this:

Without duality, there is no world, only potential worlds. You can type us as Light and Dark, male and female, but our attributions are not fixed. We may also be Order and Chaos, Good and Evil, Self and Other, Enemies and Lovers. In the suit of Earth, we are the beginnings of manifestation on Earth.