The bush smoked! Not once, twice. Not only that, about ten minutes later, it did it again, as I stood closer and faced it full on. The first time, I’d just finished shooting photos in an area about fifteen metres from this large yew shrub. I was standing almost facing it, holding my camera, deciding where to go next when it happened. It was a sunny day. It was early afternoon. I thought I was imagining it. I was certain I was seeing things that weren’t there.
I walked closer until I was eight meters away and facing it. I thought, if this isn’t my imagination, do it again. I defied the yew shrub to smoke again. I was staring at it. I waited. I wasn’t going anywhere. It smoked again, same pattern of twice in a row with a slight pause between each puff of smoke. I just stood there for a few minutes trying to digest what I’d seen.
STARES
No one else was around nearby in the cemetery. The yew was not far from the entrance gates and a main street. Thick pale grey smoke enveloped the shrub about three quarters from the top as it headed skyward. There were no cremations that day, no smoke from any source. I checked around and under the bush, plus all areas nearby for a smoke source. Not a thing, nothing. There was no fire, only the smoke.
This is far from the first time I’ve seen something really strange. It’s the first time I’ve seen a smoking shrub. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it meant something. It was some kind of message. Like I’ve said, this isn’t new to me; only the type of delivery was different.
STRANGE
As it goes when I have no idea what is being conveyed exactly, I let it rest in the back of my mind while I focused on other things. I wait until information comes to the surface. Sometimes I’ll share an experience like this with a close friend, someone familiar with this sort of weirdness. I don’t want to have to explain anything to those not walking this path.
I’m here on a contract, or so I figured out a while ago. I have a mission to complete. Stay true to the course, ignore all distractions. I know the deal. I know the arrangement I made.
Ever play a role you didn’t want to? How about a whole lifetime of enough roles to make your head spin senseless? Ever done that? How about recycled lifetimes of lifetimes of roles that you can’t even count? Think about that.
Feel tired yet?
Want to take a break in between acts?
Maybe………
RED REFLECTION
Nope. Back down you go, anchored in again for another go around and ‘round the Ferris wheel chained in for a circus of spinning earthly delights. It is, after all, just another day in “The Garden of Earthly Delights”.
CAGE
As I often heard growing up and will say here, “the jig is up”. I see through the illusion. I see the cage, or rather I feel it. I always have felt it actually. I knew when I was a child. This place, earth, was strange to my child’s eyes.
I felt imprisoned somehow. This place was not my home. I would never have been able to form those sentences at the age that I felt that, I was far too young. It’s the sensory experience of it that formed the picture, from which I extracted these words. That picture has been with me all my life. This ‘world’ isn’t home, never will be. Where’s home? I have no idea, it just isn’t here. I can’t deny what I’ve known inside all of my life.
WORLD
This time around the roundabout service please thank you now take that, it’s been a heavy haul. I know why. I signed up for it. I agreed to the terms of the contract. I had to do that to be here at this time. I must be here at this time. I’ve been waiting for a very long time. I can’t count how long. I can’t remember much. Always wondered why. Now I know. Memory wipes.
THAT VOICE
That smoking shrub? It took me around a month to figure out what it meant. I’d shared with a friend who’s been an incredible teacher. He made a comment a week after I’d told him. Click!
Instant everything falling into place. I started to cry a bit because I knew exactly what that meant, where I was at on my path, and what I’d just accomplished. That was my graduation signal. I’ve fulfilled the terms of my contract. That was October 2020.
I know how many times I’ve been recycled back here only by how tired I am. I don’t mean lack of sleep. I’m weary to the bones beyond what any sleep could ever touch. I can’t explain it exactly, other than to say, I’m in the present looking forward to mission complete. Something new is forming itself inside me and it is nothing like how this 'world' looks or is.
BEYOND ILLUSIONS
Now is the waiting while I finish off a few last things that are necessary. Since I’m unpacking, I’m not keen on adding anything more into a mostly unpacked trunk to lug with me. All of it has to remain here. No distractions. Stay true to the course. That’s why Nine. This time I will fly free forever.
Still some unpacking to do. Still some loose ends to tie up. Still some learning to do. Still to let go what remains. Still to wait for the call. Still almost ready.
(image removed)
The beginning in the end and the end in the beginning.
All photos taken by Nine with a Pentax digital 35mm camera and 90mm Tamron macro lens.
