An article by Sha'Tara; a local writer and friend.

Gray rain on White Snow: The Wandering Mind

     [thoughts from     ~burning woman~     by Sha'Tara]
 
Middle of winter and its raining, sometimes heavy, sometimes its just drizzle.  Slowly, so slowly and reluctantly the snow transmutes itself to water and runs off too, into the storm drains and the soil, wherever it finds mole holes and cracks not blocked by frost.  So it goes.  Those of us who know this country well consider ourselves very fortunate today.  Had it been a couple of degrees colder, the higher altitude rain would come pelting down through freezing lower levels and  turn to ice wherever it landed.  Within hours power lines would come crashing down under the weight of ice, or hit by great ice-coated limbs torn from giant cottonwoods by the accumulated weight of ice. 
 
There is power so the fake fireplace is working.  You can sip a cup of coffee and watch rain drops splash off melting ice and black-topped walks and driveways.  What else should one be doing on New Year's day?  Making resolutions?  Hah!  Now I can truthfully say, there's one place I've never been too.  Promises are made for only one reason: to be broken, of course.  If one could keep a promise, one would not have to make it, and if one makes it from the absolute certainty it can be kept, the matter was settled in one's mind before the promise was made. It's like gambling.  If you know you will win at whatever it is you are doing, it's not gambling, whatever it is.  I think it's called 'a job' and there is an expected certainty of a pay check from that. Numbers that can be exchanged for a mortgage, a movie, and made in China gimcracks and for the romantically inclined, a $6000 gold diamond engagement ring that says, I own your body.  It doesn't really work, but they still believe, and believing, they continue to act on it.  It lasts about as long as a polar bear swim, done basically in the nude, but in warm sheets instead of freezing cold water.  I don't know: neither does it for me.
 
Some of us are born under a curse.  We have a mind that remains quite intractable, no matter the lures this world offers.  It won't stop wondering, and as a result it wanders.  I call it the Wandering Mind(WM).  Nothing can ever satisfy the WM.  It has such a short attention span to the things 'of earth' that we, the cursed, are forever 'leaving' whatever's caught our eyes' attention to go chase after our WM. 
 
The downside of this is, we cannot, ever, become famous for doing one thing, even if our IQ (whatever that means) blows away the top of the chart and spikes the meter.  There is nothing 'big enough' to capture the WM long enough to erect a Dubai skyscraper, for example, or paint a Sistine Chapel ceiling, or discover the 'secret' behind the worm hole drive.  We the cursed know we could do those things but why?  We don't need them and those who think they need them, or may profit by doing such, are welcome to it.  Besides, the longer they occupy themselves with their follies, the less energy and time they have to do worse.  Method to madness.
 
There's an upside to the curse.  Obviously, all that chasing after the wind makes you mentally/spiritually strong: great exercise.  You look at all the theoretical stuff the smart and smarter force the sheeple to believe in and pay for, and you know you are free.  And boy, when they come after you, can you run!  All they get for their efforts is a colorful cloud of etheric dust that blinds them.  As you run you naturally run into stuff you didn't know existed.  If you must hide, you must do it where 'they' can't go, so there it is: the Cosmos, in all its crazy, chaotic, infinite vastness of endless possibilities.  Barnum and Bailey, Disney, the Jesuits and NASA can only wish!  All that, and all free.  And you wonder: why can't the sheeple see this?  Well, because they believe and believing means staying close and tight.  They're not under the curse; don't have the WM; don't see the necessity to run while they still can.  Ok, maybe they can't.  Maybe you have to be born with the curse to develop the necessary muscles.  I don't know that either.
 
I have such dreams lately.  Like good wine, dreams improve with time.  Last night I spent over two hours watching a documentary about World War II called 'Apocalypse.'  Graphically horrible.  But in my dreams, all was beautiful, sunny, and happy.  Kids playing with big clumsy happy dogs.  Volkswagen Beetles and small sub-compact pick up trucks to drive and to move stuff around in.  People moving from houses into condos because the houses were too big and could no longer be maintained, so the collectivization for survival.  Not in pain or loss, or under any kind of 'government' type force but all in much rejoicing and fun all around.  Everything material being shrunk down to basic necessity with a corresponding increase in personal freedom and laughter.  I remember three kids, practical jokers, tying a VW beetle to a post, using some stretchy material.  The car lurched forward, then was snapped back—whump!  The driver (me!) wasn't impressed, but from anyone else's viewpoint, it was hilarious.  No damage done, of course: this is a happy dream, remember? Everyone in the dream had thankfully forgotten political correctness and reverent anal retention.  We were irreverent and happy!
 
So, from the horrors of dysfunctional Earthian leadership thinking, the mad hatters who orchestrated WWII (and all, as you can see in this movie, obviously madder than hatters) to the Wandering Mind's solution to false problems. 
 
You see, your 'economic crash' isn't necessary.  It isn't some kind of punishment from God for sinful living (even if I, as myself, would like to think so—I'm no longer myself!).  It's not because resources are running out, or because there are too many people on this planet and it can't support them.  It's just really, really bad management on the part of the managers and abysmal ignorance on the part of the sheeple, creating a dysfunctional global condition which, in disease terms is called greed. 
 
I'll mention just one condition that contributes to the crash: a local everyday occurrence.  Imagine a small piece of very productive farm land, say ten acres in size.  By agri-business economic standards, it is too small to be viable but it's stuck in agricultural land freeze and can't be turned into a Wal-Mart or Shell gas station.  So a couple of people, he a plastic surgeon, she a lawyer, from the City a hundred miles away, buy this land.  These two absentee owners proceed to build for themselves a truly monstrous monster house.  They use it on weekends to entertain their well-heeled friends.  Now the land produces nothing of value, and the monster house creates more pressure on surrounding services and natural habitat.  Most would look at that and envy the two morons. 
 
The Wandering Mind scoffs and moves on.  Beam me up Scotty, no intelligent life down here!
 
Watch out for those colorful clouds of etheric dust: you may encounter more and more of them in Coming Cosmic Comic times. If you don't have the WM, you may do well to equip yourself with protective goggles.  More religion, anyone?  More politics?  More money?  More homeland security?  More war? Just remember this: in the end, your goggles will fail.