Alchemy

Translation. Allegory. I wish my understanding and my skills were greater. 

Identifying the path to fulfillment is a prime paradox. It requires attending to the finite while opening to the infinite. It is struggling to uncover a new language, relevant to self, circumstance - and the moment. 

For a significant number of people, maybe even a majority of folks - if we can get past denial, our lives feel incomplete. Our spiritual, social, political, and economic institutions do not relate to us. 

New translations are needed. Sena Foundation and Quicksilver Times are shared, awakening translations. 

Alchemy is turning the mundane into something precious. Being conscious of the reality of our finite lives while recognizing and opening to love without trying to own it is the heart of the paradox.

This blog post is a miniscule facet, an allegory, for that paradox. Recognize self and circumstance. 

The problem with this post is my limited capacity. I hope that some measure of shared understanding is accessible. 

Thanks for reading it. 

love, 

bill 




Alchemy

So I opened the door. There he was. Standing on the porch in a red-gold light that never could have come from the Bowling Green Electric Co-op, or from the night sky either. Funny how the light caught me almost before he did. Single source I thought. Diffused. But deep and rich.

All gnarled over he was. Long grey hair swaying left and right and him hunched over, towards the doorway – and me. Unmoving. Why did he seem to dance? Grey locks marking time. Or something. 

Grey clothes almost but not quite from yesteryear. Look close and they were even harder to define.

His face was gnarled too. Bumps and crevices where none should ought to be. Grey eyes lit with reflections of the red-gold, or some internal fire.

Deadwood, white, long branch grasped in both hands, tapping now. Measured?

“In…” Deadwood stick pointing towards the doorway, voice as wizened as was he.

I knew better. I thought I knew better.

“No…”

Tip of the deadwood white stick waggled. Not so very far from my face. Could have been, might have been hypnotic.

“No!’

“NO?”

Millisecond. Less. It was enough.

“No?”

He made a tiny clattering noise as he moved down the steps with me silent as a dead whippoorwill just behind him.

I thought I heard him mumbling as we crossed the sidewalk to the curb, or it could have been dry leaves skittering in the late autumn night scattered by an errant breeze or our passing. Flittering thoughts bumped against the edges of my mind and phrase bits whispered. “…thinks he can..”, “…talking, talking, tal…”, “…neeeever…”, and the like.

Kitty-corner ‘cross the street. Diagonal ‘cross the close cropped green of the funeral home – ‘cross from the Methodist Church, next to the house where I live. (Yes, how clichéd for us “Grief Folks” to live so.).

‘Round the entrance, ‘round the corner, pale bricks sharp edged and glowing the reflected red-gold color not found, ever, in nature.

Lining the building’s side, not-nestled atop the blacktop parking lot – but resting, twenty-five feet from the double door where they wheel in the untreated bodies, headstones. Samples.

And he, deadwood white stick tapping again. Against one of the cheaper models.

I thought I heard him creak as he looked back, and up, at me. Bones angry and resistant to the disturbance, complaining. But his eyes looked almost happy, crinkled, more like a poor man’s Santa.

“Look Here…” His voice was parchment crushed.

SCHAEFER. German. Translated. Shepherd. Or Pig Farmer if you don’t like me.

“Enough. You’re not Santa, this isn’t a new age Christmas Carol, and I’m not Scrooge. Fuck You!”

“Ahhhhhhh.” It made a dry whooshing sound. “You. Schaefer. Son of the little man. Otto.”

He was still then for the tiniest delineation of time.

And I was back there again.

At Otto’s bedside.

All the fight outta’ the little man.

Thirty-six hours deep into coma.

My sister’s call, the hurried plans, the turbo-prop flight, the drive to the hospital, all fading into the past before this dying.

I held his hand.

“Daddy.”

Chain-stokes. 

I’m home, Daddy,” squeezing his hand.

Quiet.

Then like a monarch just out from chrysalis, fluttering lashes.

Eyes cloudy, but open now.

And from somewhere so, so deep, Otto swam up and up and up.

He was there. 

And then his eyes gentled. 

Wordlessly the long wounds were healed.

I squeezed his hand again and cried, but he could not move.

A labored breath or two. Surely no more than three. He faded. 

Deep, deep, deep.

I waited all the breaths that came. After an hour he breathed no more.

I stood for a long time with my eyes closed.

The man with the grey beard and clothes and eyes, in the red-gold light, held his deadwood white stick in both hands before me, horizontal, a new horizon.

“You come now…” Not demanding, but not kind.

His hands never moved. But the deadwood white stick fractured in two, an explosion without light.

All was darkness. 

No not all darkness. Light pinpointed above me. Stars in the northern night sky. Below me, under me, dew fresh from the new mown grass damping my arms and thighs. And she below me too, all open anticipatory love. Her arms insistent, downward, deep. The field where we lie, below the C. Reiss Coal Company Mansion, huge, manicured, unused, decadent waiting to add profit to the endless fortune.

Centering then. Down there. Moist and dark and deep beyond understanding. Her hips rising and falling, gentle movements insistent, echoing the eternal rhythm of whispering waves of Lake Michigan close by and attending.

Her hands guiding.

“Are you going to do this now?” she whispers.

And I, of all people, resistant. Because this was different. She came in light. In the first moment. Came to me. Without reason or warrant. This was of a different order.

“Wait, Wait…” I rose up against the tide. Resting on hands deep in the wet grass, elbows locked, head to the sky, seeking balance. “I…I…”

And she led me, as she would for forty-three years following.

Hands gentle on my face, lowering me, then moving in sync down my body ‘til she held me two handed guiding me close.

“Now, Bill… Put it in.”

I did.

I tried to follow, I tried to lead. I loved. She loved. All rhythms modulated. Her movements and mine and the waves and..

Then the approaching explosion promised…tomorrow’s union. The promise of One.

The explosion was all white light.

Blurred. Light seen unclear. Tears. Blinking. Terrible clarity then. A side rail pitted and worn. Bright light off sheets too white to be real. A quiet hand, skin pale and pallid, purple veins so vivid I felt like a voyeur.

Sena. My only grandma. Only grandparent. Stomach cancer. Dying. 

Trying to be grown at thirteen, trying so hard to be the man they wanted me to be. “Big boys don’t cry.” But I did.

Sena lying abed, sunken, almost without substance, the rhythm tortuous.

Not at all the Sena who would rock away the late afternoon in the creaking chair, mending clothes and darning socks over an orange gourd that rattled an odd but familiar rhythm as she sewed. Not the Sena that would dig deep into the pocket of her ever-present apron, always finding a single piece of hard candy when she thought I was being a good boy.

“Ahh Billy,” she would say, “You’re goodr’ ’n gum!”

I would suck on that candy, the sweetness new and beyond description. Almost lose myself, falling into the almost transcendent taste empowered by her love. 

Falling, falling…

Down to the wind swept precipice, sitting back, my hands grasping the sharp edged rock, braced against the dark winds and the grey man, bent and hovering. 

The wind punished, the grey man indifferent, eyes brighter than the intermittent silver light cast by the moon sliver behind roiling clouds. 

“Hooow long?” I think he questioned.

Leaning down to me as if, finally, he was a comfort. He wasn’t. So close now. His eyes grey and bright with…  Was it golden flecks with other hazel colors hiding? 

Gold. Glowing. Warming me.

So warm.

In the golden light.

Filtering through the rafter slits of the smokehouse. In the late summer afternoon. Edith, Alice-Marie, and I in silent supplication.

Just back from the beach, suits damp, skin tingling near burnt from the days sun.

Brave ‘cause we were eight now and could go to the beach - and come home - by ourselves.

Up from Lake Michigan and the hubbub of moms and dads and kids and sand and water so cold, even in mid July, that your skull would crack the first time you were brave enough to dive under.

Going home to Sena, up the alley, noise fading, barefoot, dancing light steps off the blazing cement and sticky tar.

There on the right, long narrow grey-slatted, windowless smoke houses. Debraal’s Fish Shanty. The aroma laid the trail we followed. And we listened closely to hear where the man was working. Choosing just the right smoke house.

Through the door creaking like Inner Sanctum. The door “Eeeeeking” closed behind us.

Another universe silent and golden. The late afternoon sun radiated down through the smoke slits, lighting row after staggered row of golden fish marinating rich and wonderful. Everything golden. The fish. The light. And more. Somehow. 

And silent except for the quiet man who lovingly tended the fish.

Seconds ticked by in the silence.

Finally he looked up.

“Hrrmmmph… You again…” He set the cardboard box half filled with fish on the floor.

“What you want?” Hands on hips.

Silence. Maybe just a bit of shuffling. Heads down.

“Spend all your money at the ice-cream stand?”

Silence.

Not even a shuffle now.

If we’d been looking at  him we’d have seen his eyes smile then. But we were eight, and didn’t see.

He sighed.

“Okay, you each choose one.”

It was a ritual. We each were careful in our search. The most, most golden. The one which the golden light refracted just so. And of course the aroma. We just called it smell.

I found mine, rich and succulent, moist with golden beads of fish oil and smoke. I used both hands to carefully lift it off the hook.

The golden skin felt precious to me and though my mouth watered, and the coming feast beckoned, I remembered on that day - for the first time. The fish I held was the fish I caught out on the North Pier fishing with my mom and Uncle Einar at dawn that morning. I knew it wasn’t really the same fish. My mom took that one home with all the rest. Not the same fish. But it was, you know.

I peeled back the skin so carefully. The flesh beneath was ivory. Lifting the flesh from the backbone was like turning the page of a well loved book. So familiar. So fragile. So sacred.

I ate it.

And the flavor consumed me as I consumed it.

My eyes closed and I was consumed.

In the darkness.

The darkness constricted.

The rhythm was futile.

Breath that never was disappeared in a red haze of pain.

Heartbeats. One huge and rapid. One tiny and fluttering like a frightened sparrow. Noises discordant. Jangled, sharp edged noises, outside, if there was such a word. Organic inside noises red and moist. Murmurings. Clouded voices. 

Irregular rhythms, short screams as punctuation and contra-meter.

And death quietly, disinterested, waiting - and yes I know there is no such reality as waiting.

Moments way beyond measure, and if I could have known, the seconds added one upon the other filling Good Friday to Easter Morn, 1939.

Myriad rhythms. 

And beyond.

Something.

In abeyance. Undetermined. Undecided. But recognizable.

Then rhythms coalesced, the decision developed, and with violence, unearthly power, and cold, cold steel, I was wrenched into the light.  

Which reflected from the tall windows of the house across the street. From the back seat of the police car I could see the back of the officer’s head as he watched the house. Somehow I knew he had been here often before.

The light flickered. 

I was aware of music drifting. Two windows. Bright light. Open and uncurtained. And a white man dancing. Naked.

It was ending I realized. The man sunk slowly and quietly to the floor and the music seemed to blanket him and give him solace, though I didn’t know why I should know that.

I knew it was time to speak to the man.

The officer never even noticed me leaving the car, and as I crossed the street the man rose, holding his clothes and disappeared deep into the house. 

It took me a long time to reach the house.

I tap, tap, tapped on the door in the red-gold light.

So he opened the door. There he was…