Apocalypse and Return

Apocalypse - Middle English, revelation, Revelation, from Anglo-French apocalipse, from Late Latin apocalypsis, from Greek apokalypsis, from apokalyptein to uncover.  -Webster

While driving yesterday toward a gathering storm in the Sierras, I was struck by the strong sense of other worlds appearing to descend towards the earth with the ominous and majestic storm-clouds.  As they drew closer they seemed to engage with the rough, powerful oaks in some kind of secret battle.  Yet, I could see the oaks were smiling and the stern countenance of the cloud-heads somehow remained inwardly serene.  It was as if the whole thing were a mighty, inexplicable celebration of greater worlds co-existing with the one with which we all are daily involved.

I began to think of my old fantasy of ditching the car and all my stuff, turning towards the green gathering of the woods, the hawk circling over them, the swelling clouds leaning down to “christen” the hill-top kingdoms, and simply walking off and never returning.

I wanted to undertake a worthy adventure away from the ordinary world with all its petty pain and problems and directly engage the splendor and might of the world of the warring oaks and dark, battling clouds.

I’m certain these feelings sprung up, as they often do, from fatigue with the modern world.  In these times it seems that progress is regression, truth is falsehood, lies are good public policy, anger is righteous, and life and consciousness are reducible to chemistry and equations.  Like John Lennon said, “Everybody’s talkin’ and no one says a word, everyone’s smokin’ and no one’s gettin’ high, there’s UFOs over New York and I ain’t too surprised.”

When you reflect as from a great remove in time and space, calmly contemplate it, you see that most of the time we humans are operating in the realm of incomplete perception. Another word for this is “ignorance.” But this lack of certainty doesn’t seem to curtail the pursuit of ideas and practices that leave a swath of destruction across nature and a trail of tears through the lives of so many.

Is the computer a good thing?  Is agribusiness a rational solution to the need to eat? Is torture and undeclared war a path to peace? Is endlessly escalating sensual stimulation through entertainment media, food and FDA-sanctioned psychoactive drugs progress?

It seems that the world is itself on a cocaine high and headed for a ruthless comeuppance.

This is why I sometimes think of walking off into the woods, to bathe in streams, talk with birds and foxes, run from bears, and starve for a legitimate reason instead of starving for a worthier physical life in a lifeless artificial construct.

Are these the musings of a Luddite?  Are these the backwards perspectives of a backwards person?  I know the reader will make his or her own decision.

I also know that deep feeling is born of true movement within.  No matter the images one associates with that feeling, the movement itself continues and eventually bears its own fruit. It’s just like the dark branch dripping with cold February rain.  Within the tree, fires of life remain in a secret inner hearth.  The branch trembles with promise.  As the sun returns to dominance, as the moon regains its clarity in the sky, and as the grasses return from their winter slumber in the earth, the fire within the plumb tree swells in response and suddenly from stark, sere limbs their comes a small bud and then a fragrant blossom. My head grows dizzy in the orchard when the plumb and apple trees have begun their silent dance of rebirth.