THE COSMIC WELL
Why bother him? The weather has been so dry these past few weeks.
Just at the other end of the room is the meaning of the universe. To be getting it exactly right this time, it's on the ceiling. That's where the daddy long legs came to visit, while I was getting ready to take a shower. We looked at each other, hardly giving it a thought.
That was yesterday.
He wasn't there again at shower time this evening. So, while starting the hot water, yesterday's almost ignored thoughts came back for review. I had looked closely and noticed a leg almost askew. Injured perhaps, or maybe it was just disarranged. Maybe everything doesn't always work perfectly. The small cascade of thoughts, all going by too quickly.
And now justice delayed is justice nonetheless, while turning on the faucet, a flood of dammed up thoughts going along for the ride.
That place up there shows no hint of the visitor, not by any visual examination. Yet with no hint of the event it hosted, it remains special. It is a mental repository with a life of its own, impressed on the ceiling through my field of attention. Interestingly, and most important, all of this happening was unbidden. There was no “me” running the show that took place on its own.
Oh yes – the universe! Even a spider gets explanations that fall short. The other end of the room, compared with the whole universe, might be an annoyance.
So let's start over, in a different place.
A hidden garden that, to any usual visitor, will look exactly the same. Not one blade out of place.
Looking over the fence, “What's new, Jeb?”
“Not much.”
But there's a push from another direction.
“Another dimension?”
Not known for being quizzical, Jeb just deals with whatever comes along. “Haven't you noticed how all the birds showed up at once? The Junco, the doves, robin, even the hummingbird. Straight out of the blue. Do they all live in a commune somewhere?” He shrugs.
The Junco is fluttering down to the cable TV line, which sways slightly. Bits of walnut are on the fence, rating only a desultory peck. On down to the seed feeder, a short hop. One seed. It's kind of hard to believe. Having gotten my attention then, a big swoop over to the bird bath, perching on the rim, and dipping futilely into utter dryness.
Jeb: “Birds are a lot smarter then we think.” He fills the watering can and brings some to the bird bath.
The well in our garage was lined with stones, and deep. The snap of a finger would return an echo, leading to some speculation. Was it deeper on Sundays?
It was not hospitable to mosquitoes. And there was no way that removing the lid would make a change in its dim reflections. Possibly in some unguarded moment it might be an entry to hell.
No earth quake would account for a reflection of leaves fluttering behind my head. The real puzzlement was that no dark outline could be seen, no telltale ears. Hell was probably an act of imagination, to my great relief. And that was the final arbiter.
Our place near San Jose-Los Gatos Road was hundreds of yards from the street which, on Sundays was a source of entertainment. From our porch, we could see a seldom car go by. Maybe the scene at the bottom of the well had something to do with cosmic consciousness.
To back up a bit, this was something Prof had brought up one day as we strolled along the road between his house and our dormitory, two pueblos at Montezuma School for Boys. The road started at The Office. For some reason that was never clear to me, the roof line of The Office curved up at the corner eves, oriental style. Lots of boys went down the road between the two pueblos. He fell in casually along the way and we walked quietly for some distance until at last he said, “I think you have Cosmic Consciousness.” And of course I would know just what he meant. “Oh yeah. If you you go straight down through the earth from here, you'll end up in China.”
He smiled.
Most of the time on my own I was too immersed in the woods to think of cosmic anything. I hadn't heard the word used that way, certainly not in any school work. Birds and garter snakes, one of which bit me in a flash like lightning, monarch butterflies in their migration through the apple orchard, making a dam in the rainy season with stones and twigs, trying to be dazzled by an Indian who came to show us sand painting. Skipping stones across the lake. Cosmic was some kind of movie like we saw in the theater above the dining hall.
Whatever made the leaves tremor was, to steal a loose phrase, a bridge too far. Does getting it exactly right matter?
.
