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Odin odin@aflx.com

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Books
· Perceptions

· ECHOSIS

· Prosetry at Work

· Said and Unsaid - Vol 1

· 3 WAY MIRROR


Short Stories
· Patience Waning

· Ladle Lines (A prosetry memory)

· A Gentle Man

· Pacing Love's Journey

· Gratitude

· A Sticky Conversation

· Blazing Now and Then

· Vulnerable Captivity

· The Kite That Would Not Bow

· Time


Articles
· War and Peace

· Desperation Breeds Desperation

· Preference Manifest

· Innocent Guilt

· Barbed Isolation

· A Place...

· Sanity's Loss

· Organs Anonymous

· Fatuous Beyond Absurdity

· Truth is One


Poetry
· The Life-long Pernicious Evil

· Cherishing Sounds of Silence

· Understanding the Unexplainable

· Reality of Another Kind

· Finding Trust Again

· Aromalicious Memories

· A Jungle-rain Pastorale

· Sediment Within the Soul

· Life's Enormous Green Chest

· Roadkill Memoriam

         More poetry...

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Special Man
By Odin odin@aflx.com
Last edited: Monday, August 28, 2023
This short story is rated "G" by the Author.
       
Recent stories by Odin odin@aflx.com
· Patience Waning
· Ladle Lines (A prosetry memory)
· A Gentle Man
· Pacing Love's Journey
· Gratitude
· A Sticky Conversation
           >> View all 367
Consciousness provides for the lessons of existence. Some of us allow. Some don’t.

Special Man


How mental the concept,
this birth and death distinction.

Existence is neither created or destroyed,
defiled nor immaculate,
increased nor decreased,
coming nor going,
one nor many.

All merely concepts.

Thus, he saw the true nature of all things,
that there was neither full nor empty,
birth nor death,
becoming nor dissolving.

Standing at the seashore,
he watched the waves rise and fall.
and like the blue water
frothing atop the sea,
he witnessed birthlessness
and deathlessness.

For like the waves,
be they long and short,
high or low,
waves rose and fell,
but the water remained.

His mind recorded
without water,
there could be no waves.
Waves returned to water.
Waves were water.
Water were waves.

He breathed in as the waves rose,
then out as they passed away,
understanding water and waves as one,
transcending man’s notion
of birth and death,
worry, fear or suffering.

Contemplating the wondrous nature of his epiphany,
he knew such wisdom was a liberation from all fear,
worry and suffering.

Being finally beyond
the world of birth and death,
he smiled and strode off.

He was a special man.


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Reviewed by Ronald Hull
Reviewed on August 30, 2023
And that special man was you, with your own theory of universal recycling of everything in infinite cycles… Like waves washing to the shore or thoughts crossing our brains like waves on the ocean, either captured momentarily in our brain or allowed to dissolve at the edge of our consciousness.

Cool story. The story of life in the universe. Watching from the shoreline. Or, as my genius high school friend titled his biography, Watching from the Edge of the Universe.

Ron

Reviewed by Diana Legun
Reviewed on August 29, 2023
If a reader of this ‘Special Man’ were to be unfamiliar with your writings, one could think you were ‘channeling’ here. But this is another sterling piece of your writings, this profound concept in a glorious way has your fingerprints on it. Those readers who have immersed themselves in this school of thought will likely savor the words “birthlessness and deathlessness”. At the finish of this journey of which you write here, I feel the likeness of scenes from the Zendo where Natalie Goldberg {author of ‘Writing Down The Bones’} studied with Katageri (sp?) Roshi. “transcending man’s notion/of birth and death,/worry, fear or suffering.” especially brought back Natalie’s learnings, in her book ‘The Long Quiet Highway,’ being told by her teacher to ‘eat the cold’ when she complained of freezing in the winter. You’ve wrapped so much Zen wisdom into this, with the visualizations uniquely keen: “waves rose and fell,/but the water remained.” I feel that this post will stand out in its importance to anyone trying to ‘liberate’ from fear. That would be me. :) I’m keeping this one close to the chest, Odin. Thank you very much ~~ djl