every clock in the house is approximately two minutes fast. 

now, the only reason i can give for this, dear earthworm, is that this house has edged itself slightly into the future.  this being the case, it follows that i should be able to use the slight edge to my advantage.  but, so far, as with so many of my advantages, i haven't worked out how best to make use of this curious anomaly.

you ask, dear earthworm, why art is so often shadowy, even dark?

for myself, art is a place to seek restoration (as a fragmented, and dislocated, being).  it is a kind of sanctuary: a place of wholeness and repose when i cannot find resolution for my soul any other way.  the contained world of a painting is where i discover that what i do - no, what i am - has a purpose. 

my answer being (in a roundabout way, honouring the meander and its fertile wanderings) that art, however shadowy, however dark, is actually solace.  perhaps it is, as well, a kind of bacterium-sized protest at the incoherence of being alive.  the darker it is, the further the painter has ventured down the rabbit-hole, chasing something which disappears and reappears, but can sometimes be persuaded to linger briefly in the confines of form.

moment by moment being here and nowhere

it is my understanding, dear earthworm, that we create reality with our imagination.

yes, we shall fly again: as i remember we did before we began the naming.

Life
which is everywhere
and in everything:
wholeness is your name. 

when this is recognised
we will be of one will
in worldly as in spiritual things. 

give us each day
what we need to survive,
and forgive us our misconceptions
as we forgive the misconceptions of others.

and lead us not into painful confusion
but into wellbeing and love,

for Love is the essence,
the power and the beauty

amen.

good afternoon, my dear earthworm.

not long ago, apropos of everything, a friend of mine said with a sideways smile:

- the grail isn't zen.

are you ahead of me here, or should i explain?  well, let me unfold this a little.

true, the grail knight has the expectation that when the grail is found, the search will be over and all hunger, longing and desire will evaporate and give way to bliss.  yet because the finding of the grail is zen, the grail must remain lost.  if it were found, the grail quest (the justification for the seeker's very existence) would have to be abandoned.

you and i have a grail knight within, don’t we?  we are story tellers, and all story-telling is grail.  there is no story to zen.

once you reach zen, you’ve left the story.

consider that.

my mirror has a dark small animal inside it

sometimes it pokes out its snout just the tip of its nose it's
smelling the world to see if it's safe it's got curious eyes and
swivelling ears it's furry with little white teeth it's afraid of
everything it's particularly afraid of loud noises and bright
lights and it hates being seen it's at its best at night that's
when it come out though it never comes right out just pokes its
nose round the edge of the mirror & sniffs and if it's safe it
sits there quivering a few minutes but the slightest noise will
send it back in

when it's hiding you almost can't see it at all it's the same
colour as the mirror it's not only hiding from me of course but
from the thing inside the mirror the thing it shares the mirror
with the strutting thing it's terrified of the strutting thing
when the strutting thing is doing its stuff the dark small animal
makes itself into something very unimportant and doesn't move at
all it doesn't make a sound

can't see why they have to be in there together it doesn't seem
fair to the dark small animal though i suppose it doesn't matter
to the strutting thing which just carries on doing its i'm me
you're rubbish stuff being a real pain but i suppose it has its
uses must have really when you come to think of it these things
don't get put in the same place by accident do they?
 

there's this grande dame in there too sort of a leftover from
better days she pretends she's alone doesn't take any notice of
anyone else doesn't see what she doesn't want to see but there
you are some people are like that they make the world in their
own image and good luck to them it's a lot more comfortable that
way isn't it?

oh and there's the accountant he calculates everything how long
how wide how frequent how deep he divides everything up and adds
it back together again he's a lot madder than the old dame you
can tell she doesn't like him she snubs him but at least she
admits he's there

musn't forget the grasshopper well who could forget the
grasshopper sometimes it jumps right out of the mirror and can't
find its way back it's always here tomorrow and gone today and
leaping before it looks but it's the only one the dark small
animal isn't afraid of
 

and there's the clown he does his falling-over act and the thing
with the paint but no one laughs any more maybe he needs a new
routine he does his best sometimes he teams up with the bear but
what could be sadder than a performing bear it's tragic really
him and the bear oh and the contortionist too and the painted
lady but there you are that's show business

the mirror does get crowded yes and there are lots of others in
there i haven't mentioned but the trick is to see through them or
at least round them it isn't easy you have to be careful you
don't stir them up or they'll all start -

the small dark animal scurrying for cover the strutting thing
waving its arms the grande dame complaining the accountant
whingeing the grasshopper pinging off the mirror the clown
slapping himself in the face with the brush the bear growling the
contortionist tying herself in knots and the painted lady
bursting into tears

but if you sneak up quietly keep very still let your mind go
loose until the mirror softens you can just make out a face my
face that is my face the one that's been in there for so long
looking out remembering remembering

how peaceful it used to be before the mirror became so full

dear God,

dear?  God?  but the dubious imprecision of my greeting matches perfectly the dubious imprecision of my understanding, so 'dear God' it will have to be.  and indeed at times you do seem most dear, though at other times as blank as this table, and as uncommunicative as my own soul when it is sulking.

my dear, i am going to write to you anyway, though i hardly think you will reply – either because you have overlooked my existence, or because you yourself do not exist – as such.  and that ‘as such’ is burdened with all the irony i can summon, because i am well aware that it is within the ‘as such’ that you are to be found, if you are to be found at all.

well, never mind whether you exist or not.  really, i hardly know whether i exist, even though it is becoming clearer to me (or am i becoming more deluded?) that since i am you – or an infinitesimal fragment of your celestial hugeness, struggling on in an unknown direction for an unstated reason and with the vaguest of procedural instructions - my confusion as to whether or not i exist is certainly yours as well.  

if that sounds a little hostile, you'll accept, won't you, that it is difficult for me to be magnanimous under the circumstances.  buried as i am under the circumstances – in fact, overwhelmed, and yet, also trying to take refuge under the circumstances from all the emptiness which would otherwise devour me.

was this always the deal?  all or nothing at all?  utter profusion or the void?  did it ever occur to you, my dear, that i might one day stand up and speak out, and indeed have a justifiable grievance to express?  oh yes, pure comedy of course: this tiny, belligerent bacterium and its list of ills and grumbles, bellowing upwards in its gnat's voice to a god which it knows about as well as it knows itself – that is, not at all.  but expecting all the same to be taken seriously; expecting at least a courteous reception.

no, but why would you listen?  as broken as you are, with everything flying away from you, everything irretrievable and irredeemable and lost?  surely you must be sitting there with your hands over your ears, your legs drawn up and your face buried in your knees, grieving the absolute loss of meaning?  surely the last thing you need at this moment is to be confronted by yourself, even such an insignificant fragment of yourself, crying out the words you dare not cry out - daring at last to put the ultimate heretical question:

‘what is it all for?’

dear god, what is it all for?

it must be as clear to you (my dear earthworm) as it is to me, that time does not propel itself along one second after another, in perfect step: it is all over the place.  each of its nameless possibilities which we call moments are constantly being shaken out and spread as a canopy of eternal presence and attention over the void.

consider that.