The Eye of God

11:29 p.m. I am a sun dial that only counts the hours that are serene.

The frantic hours of panic and distraction do not reach me. The frustrations of life in the city, in the suburbs, in the corporate world, I glide through as smoothly as diamond skates on black glass. Those hours are but a few minutes of my day.

But for the hours of serenity, the hours of introspection, the hours of meditation, the hours of digestion, conversation, study, I extend and distend, I lengthen both ends. I slow to appreciate and savor the unfolding wonders. The deeper you look, the greater the mystery. The mountains of a coastline become the cliffs of a fjord, become the crags of a wall, become the weathered cracks of a cave entrance, become ripples in the sand on the cave floor. And on, until the crystalline structure unfolds into its own infinity.

The very slowness can bring its own excitement: one has to move slow to see the orange sun setting impossibly huge with a pale thumbnail moon directly above it; then turning around to see your shadow impossibly long and thin behind; you wave your arms and move your legs in a bandy dance, almost seeing the limbs of the shadow move backwards. The feeling suddenly comes over you that you are on an alien and mysterious planet, Urth, just next door to your own. Looking up into the sky again, you see the eye of god.

These are the hours I most value. The editors and inhibitions are dropped in a moment of wonder and being.

--- LM, 4/1/98