Ghosts of Dead America

Sometimes Friendship, Sometimes Something Else.

I've considered myself a conservative. Now the US has elected a socialist for a second term as president, and I'm disconsolate right now. I have an ache in my gut and a sore heart, and I'm angry, and I'm grieving the loss of the man I wanted to be president, because he had qualifications that I felt were missing from the top of US politics.

I no longer want to be friends with some of the people I used to like. I'm burnt out on the media. I'm lonely and isolated, and I am in need of some kind of alchemical transformation.

So I went to Gertrude's house for a little while before I ran errands that would take me to new places. Namely, I want to join an artists' collective. I will get the application today and then start to look at what I'm capable of, and ignore the negative voices, paying attention only to the practicalities but not letting a fake practicality that is really a wimp-out, take hold.

I lay down on Gertrude's lap and I cried out my sadness. I feel my country has been lost to Saul Alinsky's acolytes, and I hate them, and they're rejoicing. I can hear the demonic keening and gloating.

I'd hit the bottom and was in danger of making myself sick if something of my capacity didn't give way. Gertrude said, sit up and let's have some tea, if you can swallow. I'm going to start you in on something I feel you're ready for.

The Blueprint on the Drafting Table

Gertrude sat with me and told me about something I'd been starting to suspect: we are all in a pattern, or a laminated series of truths and tendencies, which when combined, compose us.

But just to say it's a pattern is not to imply that it's perfection. Patterns are good but the rendered product can always use improvement. Or in other words, we are a mesh of patterns that came together at one point of a pulse of energy caught in time. It's not the only way to look at us, but it's one way.

Gertrude read me the pattern, which is what this blog will now be all about, but I won't just rattle off the whole thing. If you want to google it, I got it from the curriculum of Builders of the Adytum, of which I was a member for about fifteen years. I memorized it. I don't think it's proprietary. It's one of those things like the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. It's called the Pattern on the Trestleboard. But Gertrude described it as the Blueprint on the Drafting Table. I can see it in my head and feel it in my bones. She had listened to how messed up I am right now, and this is what she said:

Your Born Connections

Gertrude said, "We are working for the Realization of the Eternal."

I hadn't been paying close attention but I as she spoke, the black of her eyes was like polished obsidian. The hazel of them was like citrine, and the white was like ivory. I stared at them, searching for where her transformation had come from. It seemed to surge from somewhere within her.

"That's so...far away and high above and esoteric. I don't even think I can get near that. Can you give me something closer to shoot for than realization of the eternal?"

She gave a dry laugh and shook her head. Then she looked at me and tried again. "You are going to realize it, one way or another. In this lifetime or another. It's the nature of things. It's why you have this difficult life to live--all of it will beat you into shape and you will be perfecting your realization of it all."

"Oh! right now I am in the throes of an imperfect realization. That's like saying I'm all screwed up, isn't it?"

"No, Lisa. You are talking about your disappointment. From one point of view it's a noble sadness. From another point of view, it's "nanny boo boo, you didn't get what you wanted and now you're whining." But it's really just what it means to be human.

I turned away from her and emptied my tea mug into the sink. I'd had enough and I was leaving. I felt I was being diminished.

She called to me, "wait a minute." "What I was talking about was something different, Lisa. You've put your disappointment into a small little box of right now.

What I'm talking about is your eternal soul, more than just your life right now. You've got to let go of what you can't keep, and your presidential preference is something you can't keep."

I will trade my current ego crisis for perfecting my realization of the internal. I never did have control over any of that presidential, political stuff. No telling how it's going to turn out.

Maybe I was wrong. I doubt it, but if I was wrong I might feel better.

Gertrude finally shows me something useful

Gertrude is real. I thought for awhile that I was just imagining her, creating an image of what I wished for and then trying hard to believe it. Others could not see what I saw, and silly me, I believed their certainty more than I believed myself!

I think it's just that I ignored some of the realities others were not ignoring. Where I could see her and others could not, they could see what surrounded her and couldn't see this old woman I thought was so marvelous.

Gertrude lives in a cluttered, messy, dirty place. There's handwriting on the wall. There's dirt in the cracks. There are skeletons hiding. All that. Maybe I'm lucky I couldn't see it at first. I saw the velvet upholstery but not the cigarette stains. Gertrude hides herself. Why would she do that? If I knew what she knew, I'd come out and try to teach others. She does not offer schooling.

Why not try to say something to the world, Gertrude? That's what I asked. She shrugged and looked down at the ground. I stood there for a long time waiting for words to come out of her mouth.

"It's... They... Everybody..."

In a flash I understood. I think so, anyway. If you put something into words, it isn't the same as the real, the true, the actual. It just doesn't work to try and teach it.

I threw out words after that. I started to spend some time eschewing verbalization of my thoughts. I began to ignore the words of everyone I saw or met or heard on the radio, and then something new came to me. Words really don't mean much. They're just colors coming off a paint brush. The artist is what matters. The intention of the one saying words is all I really need to know.

Some people are just lonely souls like me, seeking companions on this life journey. Other people do have spirit and wisdom to offer but they only know one way to get through, and that is with words. And hell... some people use words because they love talkin'. They get paid. They take up a position and start chewing on it.

I looked back at Gertrude and she had her eyes on me. They are grey eyes, kind of rheumy and the whites of her eyes are a little yellow. But I love her eyes. She was using her eyes to see if I understood her. When she saw that I'd gotten a glimpse of her meaning, the one she wasn't about to try to spit out as words, she smiled a little and relaxed.

Gertrude of the week: Dame Judy Dench. She is beautiful! Her eyes have a serious condition but she, a British dame, is no soft cookie and she can deal with it.