What is it about the tropics and alcohol that goes together. Is it the searing heat, the humid nights, the persistent thirst, a boredom with water, the thin brown girls, the restless advance and retreat of the tide, the effusion of sweat, the languid hours that bathe upon the breeze? Or what? Is it a rest, a way to relax, a reason to sit, or something at least to do while sitting. Is it all the waiting that goes on for nothing, no reason or need Exactly what?
Or is it just me? Is it me?
For I have a history, you see--hardly a stranger to the spirits. My cup of tea was vodka, vodka in the morning coffee, vodka to get me through the day, vodka after dinner to cleanse the palate, vodka with a cold to kill the germs--vodka to face the latest trouble, vodka to kill the latest pain, vodka for heartache, vodka for joy, and vodka . . . well, vodka just for vodka’s sake.
For some ten years I drank, then I did not. Then I started again (divorce being the convenient reason), then stopped again (married again). To what am I addicted? Alcohol or women? And which of the two satisfies best?
But of course this is different. Any practiced drunk would say so. There is the sun the day, the night still and hot, the rarity of the cooling breeze and the time in between one breath and the next. We surrender to the grace of the surging sea, to the womb of the tropics, to the fragrance of what we cannot touch or see.
Drink, drink, drink up and be merry. Meat for the belly and the belly for meat, and then something to wash it all down.
Visits
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Off To The Races
Vick, in his younger years, was a race car driver. He toured England, France, and Italy, racing all day in one city, driving all night in tandem with a partner to the next track, and then moving on to the next and the next, kind of like a cowboy in a rodeo circuit, or the next closest thing existing in Britain anyway.
Vick had told me about this occupation some time previous to our early morning dash against the clock to the Denpassar airport, but one does not fully appreciate a thing until it is made real through first hand experience.
A quarter to six in the morning it was. We were to have left our room by 5, but Vick was running late. Forty-five minutes behind schedule.
My son and I, nervous over the delay, had walked up the path from our room to the road side, and were sitting on the curb strip waiting. Preceding then the speed of sound ,a silver car flashed past. It looked very much like Vick’s car. It was Vick’s car. Soon we heard a screeching of tires, and then the car came blasting back in our direction.
“Okay then, mates, hop in, look smart.”
You will appreciate from this dialogue that Victor is British. From Manchester to be precise.
We tumbled in with our carry-ons.
“Hit the bloody snooze button” Vick says, flooring the accelerator as soon as our feet were inside, more or less. “But no worries, hang tight, we’ll get you there.”
Ninety-nine point nine percent of the roads in Bali are not made for racing, or even very well for driving in the manner most commonly known in the West. The road we were traveling was not one of those constituting that rare one percent. Not at all. This road, like the 98 others, was the width of perhaps 1-½ Western style lanes, and snaked rather than cut through the Sanur shopping district, making certain to pass close to each barung along the way, regardless of what side of the street it was on.
In what must surely have been record time, we were out of Sanur and headed down the Bypass; which is the main road on the Bali coast, and, as Vick had once commented, bypasses nothing whatsoever.
Other cars on the road seemed to stand still in time as our silver bullet shot by. It was as if all the world had gone to slow motion this early morning and we were the only ones that had been left behind--or rather ahead, as it were.
The counterpoint concert of gas and brake and clutch and shift was truly impressive, beautiful in its own way (if not for the interruption of terror). I had heard before of the G force experienced in supersonic flight, but had never before experienced the phenomenon in my body, bones, muscles, blood. To the left we all lean, then hard to the right, rubbing elbows, occasionally knocking heads. Vick is one with the automobile, operating, rather like Luke Skywalker, according to the force. This was not a machine, but an extension, a song, a woman (and Sasha and myself rather like floppy hats or loose knapsacks).
“This last part’s a bloody maze,” Vick says. “Hang tight mates!”
Here Vick referred to the final road that led to the departures terminal. The road had been laid in consecutive L shapes, a crazy zigzag covering about five times the amount of ground that would otherwise have been required of a straight line to the terminal. The reason behind this is a first cousin to the reason for everything else done in Bali, mechanically, legally, culturally. We, as Westerns, can hardly hope to grasp it (though of course we do not judge).
Vick negotiated the maze with a precision of sudden jerks of the steering wheel, punchings of the brake, torso lurching accelerations. I was glad I had not yet eaten, for I found myself with no appetite whatsoever. I felt what pea soup must feel in a blender. The curb strips, the tree branches, the other cars, the occasional startled pedestrian all seemed to lean steeply toward us, caught in some strange magnetism to silver, an inexplicable death wish.
Ah, but Vick is not a killer--not even, despite appearances, a reckless driver. Vick is, most consummately, a veteran of the circuit, an expert in his field (though retired)--a race car driver par excellence, and quite likely the only man in Bali who could have gotten to Denpassar on time.
Vick had told me about this occupation some time previous to our early morning dash against the clock to the Denpassar airport, but one does not fully appreciate a thing until it is made real through first hand experience.
A quarter to six in the morning it was. We were to have left our room by 5, but Vick was running late. Forty-five minutes behind schedule.
My son and I, nervous over the delay, had walked up the path from our room to the road side, and were sitting on the curb strip waiting. Preceding then the speed of sound ,a silver car flashed past. It looked very much like Vick’s car. It was Vick’s car. Soon we heard a screeching of tires, and then the car came blasting back in our direction.
“Okay then, mates, hop in, look smart.”
You will appreciate from this dialogue that Victor is British. From Manchester to be precise.
We tumbled in with our carry-ons.
“Hit the bloody snooze button” Vick says, flooring the accelerator as soon as our feet were inside, more or less. “But no worries, hang tight, we’ll get you there.”
Ninety-nine point nine percent of the roads in Bali are not made for racing, or even very well for driving in the manner most commonly known in the West. The road we were traveling was not one of those constituting that rare one percent. Not at all. This road, like the 98 others, was the width of perhaps 1-½ Western style lanes, and snaked rather than cut through the Sanur shopping district, making certain to pass close to each barung along the way, regardless of what side of the street it was on.
In what must surely have been record time, we were out of Sanur and headed down the Bypass; which is the main road on the Bali coast, and, as Vick had once commented, bypasses nothing whatsoever.
Other cars on the road seemed to stand still in time as our silver bullet shot by. It was as if all the world had gone to slow motion this early morning and we were the only ones that had been left behind--or rather ahead, as it were.
The counterpoint concert of gas and brake and clutch and shift was truly impressive, beautiful in its own way (if not for the interruption of terror). I had heard before of the G force experienced in supersonic flight, but had never before experienced the phenomenon in my body, bones, muscles, blood. To the left we all lean, then hard to the right, rubbing elbows, occasionally knocking heads. Vick is one with the automobile, operating, rather like Luke Skywalker, according to the force. This was not a machine, but an extension, a song, a woman (and Sasha and myself rather like floppy hats or loose knapsacks).
“This last part’s a bloody maze,” Vick says. “Hang tight mates!”
Here Vick referred to the final road that led to the departures terminal. The road had been laid in consecutive L shapes, a crazy zigzag covering about five times the amount of ground that would otherwise have been required of a straight line to the terminal. The reason behind this is a first cousin to the reason for everything else done in Bali, mechanically, legally, culturally. We, as Westerns, can hardly hope to grasp it (though of course we do not judge).
Vick negotiated the maze with a precision of sudden jerks of the steering wheel, punchings of the brake, torso lurching accelerations. I was glad I had not yet eaten, for I found myself with no appetite whatsoever. I felt what pea soup must feel in a blender. The curb strips, the tree branches, the other cars, the occasional startled pedestrian all seemed to lean steeply toward us, caught in some strange magnetism to silver, an inexplicable death wish.
Ah, but Vick is not a killer--not even, despite appearances, a reckless driver. Vick is, most consummately, a veteran of the circuit, an expert in his field (though retired)--a race car driver par excellence, and quite likely the only man in Bali who could have gotten to Denpassar on time.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Live and Learn
One might say that Indonesia is one of the last unspoiled countries--as far as cigarette smoking goes anyway. One smokes on the street, smokes in the barung (small local cafe), smokes in the restaurant, smokes inside the Duncan Donut shop, the McDonalds, the KFC, smokes in the mall, smokes in the barber shop--and most importantly, most indispensably, smokes at the bar.
The weird thing here is to be a nonsmoker. It is unusual. It is presumed that something must be wrong with the person who does not smoke. And certainly any objection to those who do smoke would not be well received.
God I love this country.
And here's the kicker: Indonesia has one of the lowest rates of lung cancer in the world, along with Greece,, and Turkey, and Japan, and Morocco, and other Countries with high smoking populations.
Go figure. Well, I've addressed this before, no point in doing so again.
Got my first traffic ticket here today, having failed to understand that both red and green mean Go. Fifty thousand rupiah, the equivalent of 11 dollars or so. Damn!
Here the policemen must pay 25 million rupiah just to be policemen. This money needs to be replaced over time, and this is most easily accomplished by skipping the ticket and pocketing the fine, which itself is pretty much open to negotiation. They start out at 100,000, you see, hoping to receive at least 20,000 when all is said and done.
You learn as you live, you live as you learn.
The weird thing here is to be a nonsmoker. It is unusual. It is presumed that something must be wrong with the person who does not smoke. And certainly any objection to those who do smoke would not be well received.
God I love this country.
And here's the kicker: Indonesia has one of the lowest rates of lung cancer in the world, along with Greece,, and Turkey, and Japan, and Morocco, and other Countries with high smoking populations.
Go figure. Well, I've addressed this before, no point in doing so again.
Got my first traffic ticket here today, having failed to understand that both red and green mean Go. Fifty thousand rupiah, the equivalent of 11 dollars or so. Damn!
Here the policemen must pay 25 million rupiah just to be policemen. This money needs to be replaced over time, and this is most easily accomplished by skipping the ticket and pocketing the fine, which itself is pretty much open to negotiation. They start out at 100,000, you see, hoping to receive at least 20,000 when all is said and done.
You learn as you live, you live as you learn.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Expelled
For the past week I have been going daily to the beach in front of the Bali Hyatt, enjoying the sun and sea, sipping jambo juice, and reading books by titles such as How to Speak Indonesian Like a Native In One Week, Bahasa Indonesia Made (Extremely) Simple, and such like.
Today, however, the powers that be on the Bali Hyatt beach put an end to my seemingly harmless enjoyment of their strip of sand.
I was just getting settled in my chair (or rather, their chair) when a man in uniform approached. Thinking that he would perhaps ask if he could rub tanning lotion on my back for a couple thousand rupiah, so I looked away politely and minded my own business.
“Permisi, Bapak,”the man said, “Apa anda tamu di Hyatt?”
I told him that I did not understand.
Unfortunately, however, the man spoke some English.
“Are you a guest here at the Hyatt?” he repeated.
“Oh, no. Why? Do I look like one? Are you trying to find a certain guest in particular?”
This was a bit unkind, I suppose. But I already knew why he had come. I knew because of his little powder blue uniform and his sea blue cap and his Bali Hyatt badge, and because his face reminded me of my father in law’s when he is about to take control of some family matter that’s none of his business.
“This is for Bali Hyatt only,” he says.
“Pantai ini untuk tamu Bali Hyatt saja?”
“Yes,” he said, appearing immensely relived that I was speaking his language, and that I seemed to understand that I was being expelled.
“Waduh!” Bangsa Indonesian menjadi seperti Americans, ya?” (The Indonesians are becoming just like the Americans, yes? This was meant to be a scolding). “Only the rich can relax on the beach,” I continued in English. They own the very sand.”
“Sorry, sorry. Maaf, Pak--kursi ini--untuk tamu Bali Hyatt--tapi anda boleh duduk dalam pasir.“
Essentially he had said the chairs were his, but I was welcome to sit on the sand.
“Sounds delightful.”
“It is okay, ya. On the sand is free.”
Untuk siapa?” (for who?).
The man said that he understood, but proceeded to explain that this particular beach was not for everyone.
“Tapi Bapak, lihat saja--Look, so many chairs--and no one sitting in them. There are many, many empty chairs, but just one me.“
The man understood that there were many chairs. He understood that 75 percent of the chairs were empty. And yet here, as in America, a rule is a rule, ownership is ownership, the rich are rich and the poor are poor, and non-guests of the Bali Hyatt are not welcome in the Bali Hyatt chairs.
“Okay then, okay.” I rose from my chair, nursing what I hoped would appear to be an excruciatingly painful back. I loaded my pack laboriously.
“Just one thing though,” I said before leaving. “Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea who you‘re talking to?”
“Siapa, Bapak. Who?”
I left some time for the thing to sink in. My chair was empty now, safely reserved for the possibility of a guest, reserved for the rich and the fat, reserved for those who are too lazy to waddle down to the sand anyway, reserved for those who were busy eating, busy drinking, busy sending servants for more; reserved for those who had seen no more of Bali than the hotel swimming pool and sauna and the nice little yellow brick roads that weave oh so elegantly through the grounds.
“I’ll tell you who I am,” I said, “and don’t you forget it, my friend. I am nobody, see? Of no account. I am nobody at all.”
Today, however, the powers that be on the Bali Hyatt beach put an end to my seemingly harmless enjoyment of their strip of sand.
I was just getting settled in my chair (or rather, their chair) when a man in uniform approached. Thinking that he would perhaps ask if he could rub tanning lotion on my back for a couple thousand rupiah, so I looked away politely and minded my own business.
“Permisi, Bapak,”the man said, “Apa anda tamu di Hyatt?”
I told him that I did not understand.
Unfortunately, however, the man spoke some English.
“Are you a guest here at the Hyatt?” he repeated.
“Oh, no. Why? Do I look like one? Are you trying to find a certain guest in particular?”
This was a bit unkind, I suppose. But I already knew why he had come. I knew because of his little powder blue uniform and his sea blue cap and his Bali Hyatt badge, and because his face reminded me of my father in law’s when he is about to take control of some family matter that’s none of his business.
“This is for Bali Hyatt only,” he says.
“Pantai ini untuk tamu Bali Hyatt saja?”
“Yes,” he said, appearing immensely relived that I was speaking his language, and that I seemed to understand that I was being expelled.
“Waduh!” Bangsa Indonesian menjadi seperti Americans, ya?” (The Indonesians are becoming just like the Americans, yes? This was meant to be a scolding). “Only the rich can relax on the beach,” I continued in English. They own the very sand.”
“Sorry, sorry. Maaf, Pak--kursi ini--untuk tamu Bali Hyatt--tapi anda boleh duduk dalam pasir.“
Essentially he had said the chairs were his, but I was welcome to sit on the sand.
“Sounds delightful.”
“It is okay, ya. On the sand is free.”
Untuk siapa?” (for who?).
The man said that he understood, but proceeded to explain that this particular beach was not for everyone.
“Tapi Bapak, lihat saja--Look, so many chairs--and no one sitting in them. There are many, many empty chairs, but just one me.“
The man understood that there were many chairs. He understood that 75 percent of the chairs were empty. And yet here, as in America, a rule is a rule, ownership is ownership, the rich are rich and the poor are poor, and non-guests of the Bali Hyatt are not welcome in the Bali Hyatt chairs.
“Okay then, okay.” I rose from my chair, nursing what I hoped would appear to be an excruciatingly painful back. I loaded my pack laboriously.
“Just one thing though,” I said before leaving. “Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea who you‘re talking to?”
“Siapa, Bapak. Who?”
I left some time for the thing to sink in. My chair was empty now, safely reserved for the possibility of a guest, reserved for the rich and the fat, reserved for those who are too lazy to waddle down to the sand anyway, reserved for those who were busy eating, busy drinking, busy sending servants for more; reserved for those who had seen no more of Bali than the hotel swimming pool and sauna and the nice little yellow brick roads that weave oh so elegantly through the grounds.
“I’ll tell you who I am,” I said, “and don’t you forget it, my friend. I am nobody, see? Of no account. I am nobody at all.”
Friday, March 5, 2010
Red Tape
Sometimes we tend to think (or at least I tend to think) that red tape is an American invention--that jumping through various bureaucratic hoops and mazes is part of the expertise of the American way.
Not so, folks, When it comes to red tape, hoops, mazes, duplicates and triplicates, jungles of rules and regulations, we Americans are mere children.
Just try to do something simple here in the far East, such as fly from Bali to Singapore--a mere three hour trip. You may as well be trying to satisfy every law in Hebrew scripture. You may as well be seeking a ticket to Mars.
No, you cannot just go to the ticket office and say you want a roundtrip ticket from Denpassar to Singapore. What foolishness to think it so! Not, not at all. You must first go through a series of intermediaries--lets call them travel lawyers for the sake of essential accuracy. These people will study your situation, gather documents, prepare the documents, take your money, and then send you to the next person in line. These are the people on the departure end of the line. Next you must make arrangements with the people on the arrival end.
The people on the arrival end will gather documents, prepare these for you, study the situation, meet you in Singapore, take your money, and then put you back in a taxi to the airport.
Before even beginning, you must have your documents prepared and stamped by the departure lawyers in order that they can be stamped in Singapore by the arrival lawyers. You must have your picture taken at a private studio, have multiple copies made in three or four sizes. You must pay in rupiah for your tickets, along with tax, then you must pay in Singapore with Singapore dollars for your visa, and on returning to Bali you must pay again, in American money this time, for the privilege of returning.
You must pay for your bags to be carried, for Western people are hardly allowed to carry their own bags. It would seem an insult, and quite a selfish thing in addition.
It is a one day trip. You leave in the morning, you return in the evening. A simple thing indeed--which has somehow cost you several billions of rupiah. One comes home a poor man, an orang miskin, but I can well imagine in advance that one will be very happy to be home again.
Not so, folks, When it comes to red tape, hoops, mazes, duplicates and triplicates, jungles of rules and regulations, we Americans are mere children.
Just try to do something simple here in the far East, such as fly from Bali to Singapore--a mere three hour trip. You may as well be trying to satisfy every law in Hebrew scripture. You may as well be seeking a ticket to Mars.
No, you cannot just go to the ticket office and say you want a roundtrip ticket from Denpassar to Singapore. What foolishness to think it so! Not, not at all. You must first go through a series of intermediaries--lets call them travel lawyers for the sake of essential accuracy. These people will study your situation, gather documents, prepare the documents, take your money, and then send you to the next person in line. These are the people on the departure end of the line. Next you must make arrangements with the people on the arrival end.
The people on the arrival end will gather documents, prepare these for you, study the situation, meet you in Singapore, take your money, and then put you back in a taxi to the airport.
Before even beginning, you must have your documents prepared and stamped by the departure lawyers in order that they can be stamped in Singapore by the arrival lawyers. You must have your picture taken at a private studio, have multiple copies made in three or four sizes. You must pay in rupiah for your tickets, along with tax, then you must pay in Singapore with Singapore dollars for your visa, and on returning to Bali you must pay again, in American money this time, for the privilege of returning.
You must pay for your bags to be carried, for Western people are hardly allowed to carry their own bags. It would seem an insult, and quite a selfish thing in addition.
It is a one day trip. You leave in the morning, you return in the evening. A simple thing indeed--which has somehow cost you several billions of rupiah. One comes home a poor man, an orang miskin, but I can well imagine in advance that one will be very happy to be home again.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
A Three Hour Tour
When I lived in Portland, Oregon I used to get lost on a regular basis--not in strange places, not en route to new destinations, but from one familiar place to another--the grocery store, Starbucks, Sasha’s school, the post office, and such-like.
Now imagine how things are here in Bali, with roads that have no names, streets that twist crazily about, tangled together like paperclips or strings of Christmas lights; where traffic signals are practically non-existent, and where no one stops anyway for the ones that do exist.
Imagine the trouble I have with picking out landmarks among terrain features that are strange to begin with. Ah, there’s a tall palm tree--I will remember that. But then how to separate this particular palm tree from the hundred palm trees on either side? Okay then, there’s a Hindu prayer room. Yes, and there another, and another, and another, all seemingly one and the same.
The best hub of location I have found so far is the Golden Arches (yes, no one escapes Ronald McDonald, no matter how far he runs). It is a light shining in the darkness, a beacon, a lighthouse. I circle and flit about this light on my scooter as if I were a moth, not minding the smoldering of my wings.
I set out for home again, immediately go astray, sucked in by the swirling black hole of asphalt, but then suddenly spy the golden beacon once again. Ah Salvation! The food is not good, but the light is irresistible.
Necessity is not only the mother of invention, but also the mother of competence, as far as scooter riding goes--for the best way to learn to ride a scooter is to get lost on a scooter. There are only three options. You either ride the thing, learning in the process; push the thing home (which you have to idea how to find anyway); or you, and your scooter die under the midday sun like a cowboy and his horse lost in Death Valley.
So it happened yesterday that I took the longest trip ever just to buy my son a hamburger. Goddamn American food! Learn to eat rice, will ya? Three hours it was--and still I have no idea where I went, although I suppose it is possible that I have now seen the entire island of Bali.
Now sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip . . . .
Now imagine how things are here in Bali, with roads that have no names, streets that twist crazily about, tangled together like paperclips or strings of Christmas lights; where traffic signals are practically non-existent, and where no one stops anyway for the ones that do exist.
Imagine the trouble I have with picking out landmarks among terrain features that are strange to begin with. Ah, there’s a tall palm tree--I will remember that. But then how to separate this particular palm tree from the hundred palm trees on either side? Okay then, there’s a Hindu prayer room. Yes, and there another, and another, and another, all seemingly one and the same.
The best hub of location I have found so far is the Golden Arches (yes, no one escapes Ronald McDonald, no matter how far he runs). It is a light shining in the darkness, a beacon, a lighthouse. I circle and flit about this light on my scooter as if I were a moth, not minding the smoldering of my wings.
I set out for home again, immediately go astray, sucked in by the swirling black hole of asphalt, but then suddenly spy the golden beacon once again. Ah Salvation! The food is not good, but the light is irresistible.
Necessity is not only the mother of invention, but also the mother of competence, as far as scooter riding goes--for the best way to learn to ride a scooter is to get lost on a scooter. There are only three options. You either ride the thing, learning in the process; push the thing home (which you have to idea how to find anyway); or you, and your scooter die under the midday sun like a cowboy and his horse lost in Death Valley.
So it happened yesterday that I took the longest trip ever just to buy my son a hamburger. Goddamn American food! Learn to eat rice, will ya? Three hours it was--and still I have no idea where I went, although I suppose it is possible that I have now seen the entire island of Bali.
Now sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip . . . .
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Reiki Master III
I do believe that we are all led throughout life from sickness to health, from question to answer, from corruption to perfection, from being lost to being found. Is it not true that from the earliest time we yearn to somehow return somewhere, or then again to arrive somewhere? Is it not true that the more we gain in consciousness, the farther away we find ourselves?
Slip-slidin’ away, as Paul Simon put it. You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-slidin’ away.
We come to understand that we are not in stasis, but on a journey. We sense that the journey has a destination. Since the actual destination is lost in the fog of all that we do not know, we most often provide our own definitions. Perhaps, one may decide, the point is success on worldly terms. Perhaps the point is , money, comfort, leisure. Whomever has the most toys wins. Maybe this is all about family, or love, or survival of the fittest. Maybe even it is about nothing at all (Sartre, Camus). Maybe it is all vanity, maybe it is senseless (Solomon).
What guide can we have along the way? And if we go astray, what can pull us back, reset the compass, turn the rudder?
How about disease? Is it possible for disease itself to be a cure? We find ourselves in the grasp of illness and wish instantly to be released--but what if disease is sometimes The Power’s idea of health?
Is disease necessarily the bane, or is it sometimes the blessing?
We choose according to the patterns of the world those things that we understand, and yet find ourselves chosen nonetheless, not by permission, not by desire; unasked, unbidden, unwilling, and yet fully apprehended.
Even as we seek magic--the touch of the Reiki Master, the good man’s prayer, the laying on of hands, injected medications, miraculous pharmaceuticals, devastating doses of intravenous chemicals--the true magic that brought the disease remains fiercely contained in the same.
Look then, learn, listen, feel, struggle and grow, surrender, love, persist, and prevail. It is your faith that has made you whole.
Slip-slidin’ away, as Paul Simon put it. You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-slidin’ away.
We come to understand that we are not in stasis, but on a journey. We sense that the journey has a destination. Since the actual destination is lost in the fog of all that we do not know, we most often provide our own definitions. Perhaps, one may decide, the point is success on worldly terms. Perhaps the point is , money, comfort, leisure. Whomever has the most toys wins. Maybe this is all about family, or love, or survival of the fittest. Maybe even it is about nothing at all (Sartre, Camus). Maybe it is all vanity, maybe it is senseless (Solomon).
What guide can we have along the way? And if we go astray, what can pull us back, reset the compass, turn the rudder?
How about disease? Is it possible for disease itself to be a cure? We find ourselves in the grasp of illness and wish instantly to be released--but what if disease is sometimes The Power’s idea of health?
Is disease necessarily the bane, or is it sometimes the blessing?
We choose according to the patterns of the world those things that we understand, and yet find ourselves chosen nonetheless, not by permission, not by desire; unasked, unbidden, unwilling, and yet fully apprehended.
Even as we seek magic--the touch of the Reiki Master, the good man’s prayer, the laying on of hands, injected medications, miraculous pharmaceuticals, devastating doses of intravenous chemicals--the true magic that brought the disease remains fiercely contained in the same.
Look then, learn, listen, feel, struggle and grow, surrender, love, persist, and prevail. It is your faith that has made you whole.
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