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I had no idea that you could walk to the end of the world.
Finally, after hours and hours of walking, Goodness came to me unreservedly.
The ground had turned soft and sandy. I felt how the earth was sinking into me. My eyes had had time to adjust to the brightness of her beauty. Now that I was in front of her, I realized that she had been visible throughout my journey. Too close to see at first.
The more I walked the brighter and more visible she became. She looks amazing, dressed stylishly in black, not a colour I had expected. A furrowed face reveals infinite layers of life that you can see in a single moment.
“Welcome home; the place you have never left.” Her voice is tender. Every word placed carefully into silence.
“You are so alive.” I didn’t mean to speak, but it’s what happens.
“Life’s aliveness shines through us vividly when we remain alive and die in the same moment.”
Her feet start moving. Just a little. The rest of her doesn’t move at all.
A beautiful maroon flower in her hair.
Two feathers.
Somewhere.
“Don’t you miss the other world?” Her brightness catches fire deep inside me. I know there is no way back. It’s nostalgia speaking: I fear losing what I thought I had.
“From this perspective there is no other world. All worlds are included. And yet this place is beyond every world. Your question comes from memory. You are now no longer bound by memory. But you may use your memory freely.”
She pulls a torch from her pocket, creates a circle of light around her and starts dancing. Funny faces. Funny movements.
“Join me.”
We dance.
“From now on you are no longer in experiences; you are in relationship.” This woman could be my grandmother. She could be my daughter. She could be my sister. Or brother. It starts heating up. She becomes my lover.
I cannot help saying it: “I think I’m beginning to love you.”
“I know,” she says. “When you become intimate with what is, Love’s face appears naturally. Irresistibly. From now on, everything with which you are in a relationship will be recognized as love.”
tagged: love connectedness movement dancing sun connectedness life beyond opposites
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 Photo: André Platteel
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He says he has conquered thirteen thousand feathered animals. His words are like birds. I cannot really catch them.
“She is falling. Softly. She loves me. But something says she does not.”
I believe him; I believe that he has fought thirteen thousand feathered animals.
He’s not wearing any shoes. His big toe is thick and blue, as is his ankle. Little scratches here and there. His sweater and trousers are dirty. His face decorated with small scars, from fighting. And feathers in his hair. I envision thirteen thousand feathered animals in a battle with this bare-footed man.
“I had to escape you know; they were after me.”
He sees my questions building, but pretends not to. Salty air hangs in the street.
“If she really asks me to go, I will leave. And I will never come back begging for her love. But she does not tell me to leave. Instead she sends me fighting feathered animals. Look.”
His blond hair is reaching out to the sky. He conjures without hands; a high black hat is lifted from his head, a hat that was not there a second ago; a bird escapes. Not the white pigeon one would expect - just a bird; grey, small and with a funny beak. Not long ago I had dinner with this man. I know him for quite a while. This man is a professional in his discipline, and well respected too.
“When you don’t wear shoes everybody thinks you’re a homeless person. One guy gave me some money, but I have enough of that. I want nothing but her love. For the first time I feel ground.” He stamps his foot.
“Now I understand why God asked Moses to take off his shoes, since he was on Holy Ground. This is Holy Ground.” He stamps again. “And it has never been different.”
His voice becomes stronger.
People walking past are staring at us. Among them are people that I recognise and who I am sure also recognise him. I see them thinking: Has this man gone crazy?
“How many times have I been killed the last seventy-two hours in the chambers of love’s desire? How many times?” He raises his hands heroically. Every second I expect the scenery to collapse. And for the audience to applaud. But he’s not playing a role; I have never seen his eyes so deep and bright.
“I am not a crazy man.” He is clear, he reads minds. “I am hyper. Yes. So, I might look like a crazy man. But that is because all the craziness of the past decades has hit the surface of my system. What have I been doing? First working my butt off to gain more knowledge. But what have I learned? And what has work done for me but enable me to buy something I thought I needed. There was no time for love. There was time for girlfriends, and all that stuff - but no time for love.” + more
tagged: animals love consciousness movement blood doubt Shakespeare mountains
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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Tired barn, leaning backwards, some planks missing / an old farm, feeding cows, my job since I didn’t want to go on a school trip. A mountain, creamy cloud on the top, vanilla / first clouds seen from above, viewed from an airplane window. Moose, at least a dozen, walking on water, religiously / skating on a ditch behind the house, drinking hot chocolate after making a quick circuit. Two men cutting down a tree, the tree turning to wood that will soon go up in fire / a body, suddenly lighter than a second ago. A woman walking with two dogs, ten traces in the snow / my aunt carrying bags of groceries, on her way to make food for us.
In my head I hear the clicking sound of a camera. And just as a digital camera can show pictures taken earlier, my mind projects pictures from long ago, from someone I no longer am, randomly alluding to the pictures I see now.
The train stops. People grab suitcases and climb into coats. Thick coats. Outside, people are waiting, sitting on suitcases or standing next to them, ready to leave for home.
“Scotty.” A woman’s voice. She’s calling to a little boy dressed in red ski pants and a red coat, the latter still unzipped. They don’t match, the coat and the pants; the reds are different. Underneath the coat he has a fleece jacket. He wears glasses. Quite thick ones, turning his eyes into eggs. His hair is white. He is little and probably small for his age. “You’ll catch a cold.” Not a worried voice, an irritated one. Scotty seems to be too excited. His right hand grasps his skis; his grip is strong. He holds a mountain. With his left foot he plays with the snow, plunging it into the white, pulling it out, showing the snow to the sun. After a few seconds the snow starts to melt, dripping on the ground, more yellow now, like porridge. Snow doesn’t like to be described; it wants to be felt.
“Zip it!” An order now. Snow falls, softly, tenderly. Scotty doesn’t hear the voice. He’s seeing himself going down the slopes. His hips make similar movements to those he made moments ago, up the hill. He is sealing his memory. “Scotty.” A man’s voice now. “Do you want to go skiing next year? Then zip your coat.”
The boy tries to zip his coat but doesn’t know where to put his skies. His legs are like rubber bands. The man’s voice continues, blind to Scotty’s efforts: “Shall I smack you?” The words are too far away for Scotty to recognise. The man looks strong. A sportsman? His hair is white, too; cut short. His face is a map of still-to-be-lived sadness. His coat’s zipped.
Scotty sees himself in the future, when he’s become ‘Scott.’ He sees that his father is visiting him and that he leaves his coat on, zipped up. Scotty decides that if the vision comes true, he won’t ask his father to undo his jacket.
Scotty is almost losing his balance trying to do the zip thing. Only his skis hold him in place. A few seconds later he snatches something from his trouser pocket. A stone he’s grabbed, secretly. Where would he have found it? Has he had it for a long time or is it a recent find? It seems to feel familiar to him. But familiarity doesn’t say anything about time. Some things feel instantly familiar.
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 Photo: André Platteel
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