A short story about a cup and the meaning of the universe.
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10 years ago
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Cup
“I love you so much.” The voice stands clear within my mind. It is a voice without sound, without words, and void of any imagery. And yet, its beauty overwhelms me. Tears stream down my face, let my vision blur for a moment. The cup in front of me has no particular form or shape. It’s a standard size coffee mug, blue with a tree printed on it, together with the words “Cornell Plantations”. There is nothing special about this cup. It holds no special meaning for me. Nobody special gave it to me. It just stood there on the shelf and I picked it at random to have a cup of tea.
“I love you so much.” This is an impossible exercise. For a writer not to find words to describe something is obviously the end of whatever it is he longs to write about. Ok, let me therefore make an attempt to try to describe it. There is a line in “A Course in Miracles”. It says something like this: “A cup can show you the meaning of the universe.” Having been an avid student of it for around 17 years, I have read this line more than once, of course. Obviously, the application of an idea brings with it a much deeper experience than its intellectual understanding. The outcome of this exercise, though, is a bit unexpected, to say the very least.
While I look at the cup, I am aware of several things at once. Actually, the better word for ‘things’ would be ‘layers’. I am aware of several layers of experiencing the cup within me. Each layer leads to the next and at the same time leads deeper and deeper towards the cup’s true meaning. The first layer sounds something like this: “I don’t care about this cup. It’s just a cup. What’s all the fuzz about? Just leave me alone and drink the tea. It’s a cup, for God’s sake. There’s nothing to even write about. You drink from it, you clean it, you put it back in the shelf. End of story.”
Beneath this obvious one I’m finding another layer though. Hidden initially and only recognizable after looking at and letting go (as much as possible) of the first one. I can barely hold it long enough in my mind to recognize what it is about. It is fear. I look at the cup and I am afraid of it. Ok, I probably shouldn’t read this out loud or let anyone else see this for that matter. I’m afraid of a cup. It’s not that I’m afraid it’s going to do something to me. Obviously it’s not going to suddenly lift up from the table and smash me over the head like a Japanese Kamikaze air plane. “Cup killed writer while he wrote about it.” It’s way more subtle. The fear is not of the cup, I realize. The fear is of its ultimate meaning.
While I write this, something about layers becomes clear to me. In any situation or with any object or even institutions of any kind, whenever there are several layers, each layer protects the next one which protects the next one until the core is reached, which is in turn the ultimate purpose for all the layers. If I’m cold, to protect myself I might wear long underpants which are overlaid by regular jogging pants which may be overlaid by a blanket which may be enveloped by the house I live in. The purpose is my warmth. I’m the core. Each layer protects the layer below and all layers protect the core. This applies to any defense mechanism as well. The more important the core is the more layers of defenses are implemented to protect it.
What the hell does all this have to do with the cup I’m staring at? I’m afraid of the cup. The fear is subtle but it’s there. There is a slight nod in my stomach. I want to just not look at it anymore or draw my attention back to the first layer of “it’s just a cup” but I let the fear stand, welcome it, go into it a little deeper, taste it, experience it and make it my own. And then, after a while, suddenly, from one moment to the next, the fear is gone, making way for something totally unexpected.
“I love you so much.”
“I love you so much.” This is an impossible exercise. For a writer not to find words to describe something is obviously the end of whatever it is he longs to write about. Ok, let me therefore make an attempt to try to describe it. There is a line in “A Course in Miracles”. It says something like this: “A cup can show you the meaning of the universe.” Having been an avid student of it for around 17 years, I have read this line more than once, of course. Obviously, the application of an idea brings with it a much deeper experience than its intellectual understanding. The outcome of this exercise, though, is a bit unexpected, to say the very least.
While I look at the cup, I am aware of several things at once. Actually, the better word for ‘things’ would be ‘layers’. I am aware of several layers of experiencing the cup within me. Each layer leads to the next and at the same time leads deeper and deeper towards the cup’s true meaning. The first layer sounds something like this: “I don’t care about this cup. It’s just a cup. What’s all the fuzz about? Just leave me alone and drink the tea. It’s a cup, for God’s sake. There’s nothing to even write about. You drink from it, you clean it, you put it back in the shelf. End of story.”
Beneath this obvious one I’m finding another layer though. Hidden initially and only recognizable after looking at and letting go (as much as possible) of the first one. I can barely hold it long enough in my mind to recognize what it is about. It is fear. I look at the cup and I am afraid of it. Ok, I probably shouldn’t read this out loud or let anyone else see this for that matter. I’m afraid of a cup. It’s not that I’m afraid it’s going to do something to me. Obviously it’s not going to suddenly lift up from the table and smash me over the head like a Japanese Kamikaze air plane. “Cup killed writer while he wrote about it.” It’s way more subtle. The fear is not of the cup, I realize. The fear is of its ultimate meaning.
While I write this, something about layers becomes clear to me. In any situation or with any object or even institutions of any kind, whenever there are several layers, each layer protects the next one which protects the next one until the core is reached, which is in turn the ultimate purpose for all the layers. If I’m cold, to protect myself I might wear long underpants which are overlaid by regular jogging pants which may be overlaid by a blanket which may be enveloped by the house I live in. The purpose is my warmth. I’m the core. Each layer protects the layer below and all layers protect the core. This applies to any defense mechanism as well. The more important the core is the more layers of defenses are implemented to protect it.
What the hell does all this have to do with the cup I’m staring at? I’m afraid of the cup. The fear is subtle but it’s there. There is a slight nod in my stomach. I want to just not look at it anymore or draw my attention back to the first layer of “it’s just a cup” but I let the fear stand, welcome it, go into it a little deeper, taste it, experience it and make it my own. And then, after a while, suddenly, from one moment to the next, the fear is gone, making way for something totally unexpected.
“I love you so much.”
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Random
Copyright 2009 by Stefan Bolz
Tears drop from the sky like rain
A silent chorus reaches the heavens
The thunderous sound of a butterfly's wings
One single voice is heard throughout eternity
The world can love you only as much as you love the world
A brother can love you only as much as you love him or her
Death is but the thought of life distorted
Love is but the thought of hate restored
I can always only find myself
For you are me - in truth and in illusion both
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
We Have Everything Else
Copyright 2009 by Stefan Bolz
I never wrote this, never brought it down on paper. It was never that clear to me. I had a vague sense of it at times. Quickly forgotten soon thereafter and then unremembered for days at a time. It stood so clear in my mind just five minutes ago and I'm afraid it is already fading fast. I know if I don't catch it now, it will disappear until next time.
There is no other goal or purpose of any relationship we have ever entered in, other then just one single thing: To tell each other, in whatever words, acts, or thoughts are available to us at that moment, that we are forgiven. That nothing you did or I did or that we both failed to do has had any effect at all. This is what we owe each other. Nothing less and nothing more. It is all we need. We have everything else. There is love and there is the call for it. Those are the two emotions of the world.
I lost it again. I remember the words but I have lost the experience. It slipped through my fingers. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I have blocked it out. I have let it go. Not sure when I'm able to take it back again but I know I'm the one doing it. When I have the experience, it is the clearest, most natural state I can imagine and I can't even fathom how it would be without it. And when I give it away, it is as if I never had it in the first place. But I know my heart isn't ready yet . Ready to take it in fully, to keep it as my natural inheritance, to make it my own. It is not yet the only experience I want. Otherwise it would have it. I would have it always.
And so I must wait, wait for myself and for when the time comes when I can no longer live without it.
I never wrote this, never brought it down on paper. It was never that clear to me. I had a vague sense of it at times. Quickly forgotten soon thereafter and then unremembered for days at a time. It stood so clear in my mind just five minutes ago and I'm afraid it is already fading fast. I know if I don't catch it now, it will disappear until next time.
There is no other goal or purpose of any relationship we have ever entered in, other then just one single thing: To tell each other, in whatever words, acts, or thoughts are available to us at that moment, that we are forgiven. That nothing you did or I did or that we both failed to do has had any effect at all. This is what we owe each other. Nothing less and nothing more. It is all we need. We have everything else. There is love and there is the call for it. Those are the two emotions of the world.
I lost it again. I remember the words but I have lost the experience. It slipped through my fingers. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I have blocked it out. I have let it go. Not sure when I'm able to take it back again but I know I'm the one doing it. When I have the experience, it is the clearest, most natural state I can imagine and I can't even fathom how it would be without it. And when I give it away, it is as if I never had it in the first place. But I know my heart isn't ready yet . Ready to take it in fully, to keep it as my natural inheritance, to make it my own. It is not yet the only experience I want. Otherwise it would have it. I would have it always.
And so I must wait, wait for myself and for when the time comes when I can no longer live without it.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Two Lions
Copyright 2009 by Stefan Bolz
Wind howls eerily through the streets. The city is deserted. Wet, broken pavement below dark, abandoned windows that watch like blinded eyes. The sporadic glow of a street lamp creates shadow more than light. I run. The piercing pain in my spine and rib cage is, right now, the least of my problems. As I slip on the wet asphalt and slam into a house wall, exhausted from hours of pursuit, I see that the red glow of my spine radiates through my shirt and jacket and on to the peeling plaster of the house I’m leaning against. My spine. Not only is it glowing bright red, it is pulsating with piercing pain as if a knife is being driven through it over and over. Each movement, each step, each breath brings the pain back to life only to die again moments later.
There are two female lions, dark and grey, as if painted and thereby prepared for the hunt and the kill. Since they appeared in the city, nobody dared to leave their homes. Whoever did, perished. The path from the front door to the car is a life and death gamble, each time anyone attempts it. Many have died. And today is my turn.
For hours I evaded them, as I did in almost every dream I had since I can remember. I was always the hunted, pursued by something or someone, but in the past I always escaped. Today is different. My fear of the two great grey lions is bone chilling. I can sense their authority, their deadly purpose. No mistakes. No regrets. No conscience. Just the clean instinct to kill, to feed their young. And tonight I am their prey. Like the smallest amount of blood attracting sharks over several miles, my glowing spine, my wound, will alert their heightened senses to me; stir their steps with deadly precision in my direction. There is nowhere to go for me. No place to hide. No comfort. No release. Terror took the place of sanity a long time ago it seems. I am avoiding the inevitable. They will find me. And when they do, they will kill me. And release will come only after unbearable pain, after a long tormented battle when my mind finally releases my body just to escape the horror.
As I stumble along the house wall holding on to anything just to keep me from falling down – somewhere in a dark back alley in a city without a name – I suddenly stop. “They will hunt me forever,” I think to myself. “There will be no rest, even in death. I will always be the hunted. I will come back as prey as I have before for eons of time. There will be no end. Unless I end it.” I cannot run anymore. I am not going towards hell. I am in it. Trying to escape the inescapable is the very definition of hell. Under enormous strain I force myself to stand up. The pain in my spine has prevented me for years from standing or walking or running in an upright position. “No,” I hear myself say. “Get up. Stand up. NOW”! I look back into the alley. The lions could be anywhere. My courage sinks again and is almost replaced by the much more familiar sense of terror. Better to just give up. Let it happen. Let them have me. “NO!” I am startled by the force of my own voice. “No!” Slowly, almost against my will, against the memory of every fiber of my being, and still expecting an attack at any moment, I leave the safety and darkness of the house walls and move to the middle of the street. A single light illuminates a circle around me. “Let them come,” I think. “Let them come.”
I move out of the weak beam of light, through the darkness of the back alley and onto a larger street. Car wrecks, abandoned long ago, cover the sides of the street. They are remnants of the horror that has been my life for all too long. My instinct tells me to walk in the shadows, along the walls, stay in hiding. But I do not. The yellow line in the middle of the street is still intact, as if showing me the way. To where, I do not know. The hair in the back of my neck stands up as I round a corner and enter a large, deserted, village square. A deep breath and I start walking towards the middle of the square. Dilapidated houses surround it, bearing silent witness to what is to come. I reach the center. Without turning around I know they are behind me. For only one second I hesitate then I turn around.
Both lions stand at the edge of the square. There is no urgency for them. This is it. They know there is no place for me to go. A low growl. Not a threat. Just a reminder of who is the alpha animal, who will leave this arena alive and who will die. Simple. But not to me. Something has changed. I can feel it. I can feel it in my breath, I can feel it in my bones, I can feel it in the deepest recesses of my soul. Something shifted within me. From the ground, where my glance fled to, right after I saw the lions, I look up, search for their eyes, demand their attention. Their eyes meet mine. I hold steady. I slightly lift my chin and start to walk towards them. There is no thinking now. There is just this moment. There is no past and the future has not been written, does not yet exist anywhere in the universe of time and space.
As I walk towards them, I can feel the glowing of my spine lessening. The pain escapes my body with every step I take. I breathe deeper, quieter. Calmness settles in. The image of a still deep lake penetrates my mind as I look at the lions who are now only a short distance away. When I reach them, they sit down. Even now, their heads are higher above the ground than mine. I look up to them. There is no more fear. For a split second we are equals, part of one pack with nothing but the utmost respect for each other’s being. Then something rises from within me, unequaled in strength and beauty and sheer joy. I let it arise, let it spill out, bridge the gap between me and the two lions, let it touch them, engulf them, enter their hearts. They lie down, agreeing, welcoming me into their world as their leader, the alpha animal.
I take off my jacket and my shirt. The glowing inside my rib cage and my spine is gone. No trace is left of it. Just a vague memory too long since vanished from my mind. One last glance at the lions and I turn my back at them and slowly walk away. The lions lay there, an ancient knowledge restored to our awareness. No words have ever expressed it clearer, no story has ever told it more precise, and no man has ever felt it more comforting in his heart. We are pack.
Wind howls eerily through the streets. The city is deserted. Wet, broken pavement below dark, abandoned windows that watch like blinded eyes. The sporadic glow of a street lamp creates shadow more than light. I run. The piercing pain in my spine and rib cage is, right now, the least of my problems. As I slip on the wet asphalt and slam into a house wall, exhausted from hours of pursuit, I see that the red glow of my spine radiates through my shirt and jacket and on to the peeling plaster of the house I’m leaning against. My spine. Not only is it glowing bright red, it is pulsating with piercing pain as if a knife is being driven through it over and over. Each movement, each step, each breath brings the pain back to life only to die again moments later.
There are two female lions, dark and grey, as if painted and thereby prepared for the hunt and the kill. Since they appeared in the city, nobody dared to leave their homes. Whoever did, perished. The path from the front door to the car is a life and death gamble, each time anyone attempts it. Many have died. And today is my turn.
For hours I evaded them, as I did in almost every dream I had since I can remember. I was always the hunted, pursued by something or someone, but in the past I always escaped. Today is different. My fear of the two great grey lions is bone chilling. I can sense their authority, their deadly purpose. No mistakes. No regrets. No conscience. Just the clean instinct to kill, to feed their young. And tonight I am their prey. Like the smallest amount of blood attracting sharks over several miles, my glowing spine, my wound, will alert their heightened senses to me; stir their steps with deadly precision in my direction. There is nowhere to go for me. No place to hide. No comfort. No release. Terror took the place of sanity a long time ago it seems. I am avoiding the inevitable. They will find me. And when they do, they will kill me. And release will come only after unbearable pain, after a long tormented battle when my mind finally releases my body just to escape the horror.
As I stumble along the house wall holding on to anything just to keep me from falling down – somewhere in a dark back alley in a city without a name – I suddenly stop. “They will hunt me forever,” I think to myself. “There will be no rest, even in death. I will always be the hunted. I will come back as prey as I have before for eons of time. There will be no end. Unless I end it.” I cannot run anymore. I am not going towards hell. I am in it. Trying to escape the inescapable is the very definition of hell. Under enormous strain I force myself to stand up. The pain in my spine has prevented me for years from standing or walking or running in an upright position. “No,” I hear myself say. “Get up. Stand up. NOW”! I look back into the alley. The lions could be anywhere. My courage sinks again and is almost replaced by the much more familiar sense of terror. Better to just give up. Let it happen. Let them have me. “NO!” I am startled by the force of my own voice. “No!” Slowly, almost against my will, against the memory of every fiber of my being, and still expecting an attack at any moment, I leave the safety and darkness of the house walls and move to the middle of the street. A single light illuminates a circle around me. “Let them come,” I think. “Let them come.”
I move out of the weak beam of light, through the darkness of the back alley and onto a larger street. Car wrecks, abandoned long ago, cover the sides of the street. They are remnants of the horror that has been my life for all too long. My instinct tells me to walk in the shadows, along the walls, stay in hiding. But I do not. The yellow line in the middle of the street is still intact, as if showing me the way. To where, I do not know. The hair in the back of my neck stands up as I round a corner and enter a large, deserted, village square. A deep breath and I start walking towards the middle of the square. Dilapidated houses surround it, bearing silent witness to what is to come. I reach the center. Without turning around I know they are behind me. For only one second I hesitate then I turn around.
Both lions stand at the edge of the square. There is no urgency for them. This is it. They know there is no place for me to go. A low growl. Not a threat. Just a reminder of who is the alpha animal, who will leave this arena alive and who will die. Simple. But not to me. Something has changed. I can feel it. I can feel it in my breath, I can feel it in my bones, I can feel it in the deepest recesses of my soul. Something shifted within me. From the ground, where my glance fled to, right after I saw the lions, I look up, search for their eyes, demand their attention. Their eyes meet mine. I hold steady. I slightly lift my chin and start to walk towards them. There is no thinking now. There is just this moment. There is no past and the future has not been written, does not yet exist anywhere in the universe of time and space.
As I walk towards them, I can feel the glowing of my spine lessening. The pain escapes my body with every step I take. I breathe deeper, quieter. Calmness settles in. The image of a still deep lake penetrates my mind as I look at the lions who are now only a short distance away. When I reach them, they sit down. Even now, their heads are higher above the ground than mine. I look up to them. There is no more fear. For a split second we are equals, part of one pack with nothing but the utmost respect for each other’s being. Then something rises from within me, unequaled in strength and beauty and sheer joy. I let it arise, let it spill out, bridge the gap between me and the two lions, let it touch them, engulf them, enter their hearts. They lie down, agreeing, welcoming me into their world as their leader, the alpha animal.
I take off my jacket and my shirt. The glowing inside my rib cage and my spine is gone. No trace is left of it. Just a vague memory too long since vanished from my mind. One last glance at the lions and I turn my back at them and slowly walk away. The lions lay there, an ancient knowledge restored to our awareness. No words have ever expressed it clearer, no story has ever told it more precise, and no man has ever felt it more comforting in his heart. We are pack.
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