The soft white pedals of the lily lay upon my lap, broken from its wilted stem. Mary and the partners are both equal components within this world and during this time of unbridled freedom, the individual will becomes a critical force toward creating a New Age. I lift my hand holding the lily pedals above my head and the wind briskly shakes them from my palm, for the Age of Aquarius is but a dream within this world, within this generation, within America. Are we are but fading shadows aimlessly wandering this golden paradise, or rather limitless and free within a wicked and decaying land? The forces, the vibrations, boil and spin wildly my spirit. I become part of the chaos as the precious spiral collapses and I find myself in a cave of blackness, lost, and without the hope of light. Creation explodes, and the choice is mine, who will I be?

We arrived last. I stepped up onto the back of the enclosed truck bed and looked around at twelve others anxiously staring. None of the twelve seated moved. I quickly noticed that dangling feet and packs occupied any remaining space on the seats, and still no one moved. This was the first ominous sound resounding through the dark interior of the truck, a signal thundering through the open sky. Yet, I went against this nagging, penetrating feeling to flee from the tour and Bren and I stacked our bags on the floor to use as seats. The primary focus was getting to Zimbabwe, which was our next departure point to Egypt. After much trepidation, we finally decided to leave on this overland tour from Capetown up through the northwest of South Africa, into Namibia through Botswana and finally ending after 16 days in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. It was the most difficult decision of the trip, in part because it was the most costly, but also because every element is unknown and it's two weeks with the same people and conditions. I gazed intently over the faces from our narrow corner position, and an intense sense of foreboding rippled through my blood, and I knew from past "feelings" this only portended of doom.

The truck was customized to have padded seats in the bed and covered with a metal frame with plastic flaps covering the sides; however, when the flaps were down they precluded a clear view outside. So naturally, they were kept up. So, we embarked northward with the nipping wind violently whipping through the back and kicking up clouds of dust, which made it difficult to even speak without screaming. This would be the heart of our environment for the next 15 days. We maneuvered through the streets of charming Capetown, up the rocky coastline, through miles of rich farmland and finally into the desolation of the desert. As the group settled in confronted by a vast desert in every direction and each other, we introduced ourselves to the only ones who seemed remotely interested in meeting others, Robert from Britain and a middle-aged woman, Marla, from Italy. As we compared travel notes, one of the younger guys in the back began yelling, "We’re taking up a collection for an open bar, so that the booze will be available at all times!"

The small crowd roared and cheered wildly.

"The party tour begins!" someone cried out.

Bren quickly shot me a frigid look of disgust.

After an all-day drive through scenic western South Africa, we stopped near the border of Namibia for the night. For the first of fifteen times, we pitched our two-man tent and prepared for dinner. After the campfire meal, our driver called the group together. Butch was in his early thirties, with sloping shoulders, disheveled curly hair, a scruffy beard and he wore big, loping work boots, untied with no socks.

"Ya know the old bag we got on the tour," he asked rhetorically in disdain, "well she’s been bitchin’ about the wind in the back since we got started, and now she’s got a bloody beef with the tent. She was going to drive us all crazy, so I gave her the boot. She’s off the tour. She came up to me complaining again and I just told her: ‘fuck off mate, ‘cause I’m droppin’ your ass off at the next town’."

The gala group roared with laughter at the antics of their newfound flamboyant buddy.

My chest heaved as I was on the verge of raising my objection when Bren grabbed my arm and pulled me away, "Don’t even say a word! It’s the beginning of the tour. Let’s just keep our mouths shut and see how it goes. No use in making it worse."

"What, just keep my mouth shut and watch those assholes laugh about this. How can you tell someone to just fuck off! She paid her money too, and I’m sure they’re not going to give her a refund either."

"I know babe, but we’ve got two weeks with these guys, trust me it’s for the best."

"What have we gotten ourselves into?"

"I don’t know, but it’s not looking good," Bren said with a rough smile as another howl of laughter echoed through the campground from another rendition of Butch’s encounter with Marla.

I woke to the chilled, stuffy air of the tent and the cry of Butch, "Listen, I’m dropping you off at the next bloody town and that’s all there is to it! You’ve bitched enough for the whole tour!"

I slid out of my sleeping bag and unzipped the flimsy door to the tent when Bren reached up and pulled me back, "Let it go, Bri."

"There’s no reason to treat her like that!"

"I know, but really it’s none of our business. Let it go."

I sighed deeply, "I’m going to go at it with that prick before this is over, I can tell you that much--"

"I have no doubt!" Bren said with a slick smile.

I fell back on my sleeping bag listening to his voice boom over the campground, and as this was the beginning experience with the enigmatic Butch, I heeded Bren’s words of caution. He reminded me of the belligerent cab driver in Delhi, only Butch had power. Marla’s face flashed through my mind, then Mary Matthew’s, and strangely they became one. I felt the desire, the overt need to run to Marla’s rescue, but I trusted Bren. I also knew that as the only Americans on the tour, the others were already looking for our arrogance to surface, and to raise an objection now would undoubtedly be perceived as such. My cry would fall silent. So, with my arms behind my head, I laid motionless, numb, torn by our circumstance and what was right. As I heard Butch’s voice snarling at Marla yet again, I felt myself drifting back toward the darkness, back toward the partners. I saw the sallow man in Penang sitting in the corner, without limbs and starvation in his lifeless eyes; I saw the three boys in Kathmandu begging for survival; and I saw the tiny boy in Nairobi aimlessly wandering the streets for food. Poisoned tears swelled in my eyes, for I realized that I had done nothing for these people, just as I was doing nothing for Marla. I was a taker. I only became a giver when it suited my taste, or appeased my sense of guilt. As I roused the courage to gaze upon the shiny surface of the Grand Canyon walls, stunned I saw in my reflection…Butch.

We crossed into Namibia and the desert followed. We drove along the only signs of civilization—the blacktop that snaked its way through the flat, brown, scorched expanse of the desert. It was barren, desolate, hot and arid, and I bonded instantly with the isolation, the feeling that this was the extent of our world. It was as simple as the landscape, and it was comforting, this desert. I reveled in the desolation for it suited my path, my destiny and the contempt for my sullied reflection. In this unmerciful heat, the sun seemed virulent and destructive; this scorching light was seeking the heart within this flesh. I felt the unruly insanity take over my glassy mind, and in this fragile, unstable condition I saw Marla and Mary joined, and a hand reached out to me with a lily in its palm. In this hot, hazy dream, I knew what it wanted, this pervasive flame, for it scoured the darkness to denude the feast of vanity that swirled within me. Paralyzed, I couldn’t reach out to grab the outstretched hand or the lily, and the void that followed my shadow in Fiji again returned. It violently forced upon my soul that I was nothing, for I was the void. I gave nothing, I extended nothing, I represented nothing, and contrary to the Tioman Monk’s assertion, I learned nothing and taught nothing.

Marla was gone.

***************

We set up camp after a half-day’s drive north at the Hot Springs Resort. The chafing madness immediately ensued again as we found Butch slouched in a chair next to the truck drowning in another beer obviously flying "high" above us, chasing the dragon that twisted within his demented mind. He was staring off in space with a sly smile, controlled by that which he consumed.

"Look at ‘em," Bren said nodding her head toward the Butch.

"Yeah, he’s even more of a zombie than usual," I said with a chuckle, "God only knows what he’s saying."

"Where do you suppose he got that stuff?" Bren curiously wondered.

"I’m wondering the same thing. I think I need to have a little chat with him about this."

Bren didn’t stop me this time.

"Butch, can I talk with you?" I called out walking over toward the truck.

He got up, staggered a bit, and approached me as I waited at the back of the truck.

"Do you have anything more than just this stuff?"

"Oh yeah, I’ve got a few things--"

"Did you buy it here or in SA?"

"Back in Capetown, mate, it’s all good stuff, c’mon try it," he said pulling my shirt back toward it hidden in the food supply.

"No, wait, you mean you transported all that shit across the border?"

"Yeah, it’s no problem, they never stop the truck or search it. It’s all cool."

"Did it ever occur to you that you should ask us before you put us all at risk?"

"Look I’m the captain of this bloody tour, and I don’t have to ask permission from anyone. Besides, I told you it was cool."

"I really envy Marla at this point," I thought ironically.

"Look mate, if makes you feel any better, I’ll take the fucking blame if something happens," Butch cried out into the sky above as if that was the final resolution.

"It’s your shit, you should. What were you going to do, blame it on someone else?" I said in absolute disbelief.

"You need to just cool down, man, it’s no biggie!"

"Yeah, obviously you’ve nothing to lose. Look, you’re putting everyone in this tour at risk!" I said my voice getting louder with each word, "You and I both know if we got pulled over and searched, they’re not going to ask any questions, we’re all done. We could be locked up for a long time before anyone gets even a sniff of our whereabouts. We’re in the middle of nowhere here, and you’re going across remote border crossings too!"

Just then Bren came around to the back of the truck and interrupted.

"Okay, fine, it’s all gone by the Botswana border," he said nonchalantly walking back in his dopey haze.

"We’ll be lucky to make it through this without being thrown in jail or killed, ya know that!" Bren solemnly offered, "Sometimes, I just don’t understand people and the things they do. Something like this could ruin their whole company."

"It’s all just a joke to this guy. God, only knows what would happen if we get pulled over. This is going to be one hell of a long trip," I said as we hiked into the peaceful low-rising mountains to watch the sunset over the hardened plate of dusty brown earth.

This crusty, baked desert seemed endless, and in this timeless place, space flew by; my vision blurred and sounds distant. The group was a like this briskly passing landscape, merely a distorted melding of faces, colors and attitudes. Together, we became living caricatures drawn wildly by a zany street artist. We live together but we're plainly different, and this diversity immediately creates cliques designed to massage away our insecurities. In an environment holding a mixture of the world’s glorious cultures, we retreated to comfort, to our sanctuary of similarities. Do we eradicate, or at least suppress, cultural identities in order to become homogeneous? Do our differences make us feel that vulnerable? In our frailty, our weakness, do we seek to eradicate them, our strength? What was to be a comprehensive tour of the best sights in southern Africa, a time to interact with differing cultures, opinions and perspectives, had now simply turned into a party boat, one designed to maintain this superficial uniformity and security. Implicitly, we had been taught to communicate in obscure symbols to further emphasize our similarities; to always maintain the preconceived societal notions of acceptance and naturally distance, even ostracize, anyone who failed to fit in accordingly. And distressingly, Butch became the ringleader of this, our roving circus.

We stopped at Fish River Canyon, better known as the baby Grand Canyon. Actually, it’s two canyons, one inside the other with the slim line of the Fish River at the base. I peered into this massive gorge of bland brown, and as the sun sucked the life from my body, this canyon seemed just as lifeless. Because, as I sat perilously upon the canyon’s edge and dangled my legs into the sheer depth of this pit in the earth’s crust, I immediately saw my reflection within this Nature. The mirrored reflection in these plain walls was opaque and as I gazed upon this bloated, indistinct outline, I knew that I wasn’t who I thought I was. Marla now plagued me. However, not because of her plight but what she represented—that with those in need I only stepped forward when I had something to gain. I wanted to be a giver, to experience soul growth, to believe and foster faith, but I did so only if I gained just as much in return. I looked over my shoulder back to the group, and I saw that within them was me, and I was no different. The heat of this desert swelled, poised Cobra-like awaiting my next move to strike. I felt the tangible grip of pure insanity moiling within, and I felt inescapably vulnerable, naked in this stifling Nature. The helplessness coursed through my veins and was only pierced by the sheer lunacy of the people around me. Everywhere I looked and every thing I touched, I felt trapped, suffocated by my nothingness, my void.

How could I be one person one moment and another the next; how can my perspective change so abruptly and without warning? This constant ebb and flow was mystifying, for another battle always loomed on the hazy horizon. Ever so subtly, it is taunting me with its undying patience, the being from this gorge in the earth. The pattern, the coincidences, the overwhelming force that was popping up at every turn, this flaming arrow, now is piercing my supple skin. It is freely drawing blood and I have no comprehension how to stop it; uncoagulated, it oozes from my fleshy corpse. However, I cannot release, I am stuck to bear the weight of my corpse as its life is drained. The Truth now preys upon my maggoty body, and with every slow breath, I quickly approach death. Time is merely a continuum of infinite space, and so it holds me in this same spot, and flashes this torturous state of mind through eternity. Why didn’t I help Marla?

Torn, I look up to the blazing sun, and oh, how I yearn for the return of night.

***************

We woke to the sprinkled starry night sky, and while Bren held the flashlight, I dismantled our tent. The best time to see the some of the world’s highest sand dunes was at dawn—this was one of the highlights of the entire tour. After driving for a couple hours, we arrived at the edge of the Namib Desert just as the morning glow began to brighten the black sky. In this peaceful and serene dawn, we drank our misty coffee in the chilled dewy air as the brilliant red dunes mystically appeared upon the horizon. All of earth’s most beautiful creations seem to penetrate my soul, the jungle, the mountains, and the ocean. Now, amongst the asymmetrical, high-rising crimson dunes of the Namib Desert, I knew this place was no different.

We stopped at the largest of the dunes that rose over 600 feet from the valley floor and as a group we raced to the top. As the others scampered back to the bottom, I sat with Bren alone at the top in complete awe of this vast wonderland of wispily sculpted peaks of red sand. I wormed into the sand at the top and looked out over the sprawling expanse of the deep red mountains against the blue domical sky. It struck at the heart as I’ve never before experienced, for it’s a unique part of nature that is utterly penetrating, and like the jungle and the outback of Australia, it’s something that must not only be seen but also felt. As I looked at the tiny dots of the rest of the group making their way back to the truck, I was struck that most of the wildlife and organisms that exist in this harsh environment do so inside the dune itself, unseen from the rest of the world. Within this captivating loose pile of unwanted, lost minerals, within this graveyard of sand, I am reminded that its life lies beneath the surface. In that instant, a question that’s always plagued me was suddenly answered.

"Show yourself, show your intent and purpose. Show your face, the face of that which has created all, face your marvel."

Nothing. Not a sound but the crunching of Bren’s footsteps in the sand as she moved to explore the other side of the dune. Here I lay buried at the top of the one of the largest piles of sand in the world, amongst one of nature’s most magnificent creations, and I was confounded by His failure to offer a sign of His existence. That is, if God were real, unquestionably he would have shown us something significant to prove His existence, because in this world filled with daily angst, pain and doubt, surely He wouldn’t doom us to suffer so. Like my shadow on a sunny day, this question has plagued me undaunted begging to be answered. Yet, now as I sit here in the pillowy softness of the sand, there has never been a more logical explanation for precisely why a God, an all-knowing power or creator of the universe, would not show Himself. Why He indeed would refuse to give us the blueprint for existence, a map to His Kingdom, an overt, indisputable sign of His "reality."

Like the dunes of the Namib Desert, it’s in the unseen that the essence of life is found; the fruits lay beyond what is tangible, beyond what is seen with the naked eye. More than ever before, this has been demonstrated with pinging clarity. It’s challenging the unknown, it’s learning about ourselves under unpredictable circumstances, pushing for answers and persistently pursuing what makes us human. Every element of our human existence guides us to understand who and what we are, while the senses bring to life that which we learn and help to reinforce those lessons within the mind, heart and soul. Then as the mind builds upon these experiences, the spirit grows naturally. As I began to understand in Bali, life’s experiences, when lived through our human senses, are learned and imprinted firmly on our souls—they shout it out for us to understand. However, we will never be capable of discovering these profound lessons, we will never get to utilize our experience as a human being, if we don’t first step from the blinding light into the darkness and face our fears, confront the unknown. We are brought into the light of this world from darkness, and yet our lives every moment thereafter focus on striving toward the darkness for confrontation and hopefully understanding. Much like the Buddhist theory that by suffering with those "corrosive toxins" you better understand the state of mind of happiness, from confronting the darkness we better understand the light of "truth" within ourselves.

Ironically, we long to return to the light of darkness, because it is there that we experience the full force of our being. Our spirit is much like a tree, where our being is the trunk with our branches reaching out and upward from our darkness to the light that supplies its sustenance—the basis for life. The leaves that dangle from our branches are merely the present life of that existence, and having experienced a full cycle, they fall away and once again we leave this world the same way we entered, bare. Physical death is merely the doorway to life, a return to our natural state of being. It’s our time of dormancy, when the leaves have fallen away, when we should reconstruct our being and put in perspective our last experience in the earthly plane.

When we look at our world through the eyes of one single Religion, unfortunately, we all tend to become blinded by it rather than enlightened. On a basic level, Religion today has become merely an organized body of "blind faith." For example, it is the human condition to desire the "easiest path" and usually that includes seeing the world in black and white. Indeed, the Bible in particular, permits us to believe that within its pages exist all the answers—primarily because we desperately want to see it that way. The same can be said for most, if not all, Religions. And it justifies, reinforces, our perception that the world is black and white. However, a universal "truth" to our existence is that this realm is blanketed in a gyre of grayness, and by reading the Bible in literal terms, and applying black and white precepts to a gray, chaotic world, actually serves to push us all further away from "reality." The "reality" for us all is that there is but one absolute Truth and the Religions of the world are merely differing expressions of that Truth. No one single Religion is that absolute Truth, merely one of the many paths to help us discover its essence. Yes, because we can never see or completely understand in full this Truth, but merely work toward its end, its beginning—its core. That is, we can, in this realm of perpetual gray, only hope to discover its golden braches within our souls and follows its crooked, undulating path toward its trunk of Truth. So, the Religions of the world can be seen as interpretive lessons for each of us to discover our own personal truth within the swirling circle of gray.

They are separate fingers of the same hand of Truth.

Do we merely need to close our fingers and make a tight fist to "see" this absolute Truth?

When I think back to the Buddhist philosophy that life’s purpose is to seek happiness, which by its very nature eradicates the daily suffering, it certainly seems to be at least part of the equation, part of our basic purpose. Because in this pursuit of conquering the suffering, if applied daily, the soul is cleansed, which then permits us to "feel" a sense of our purer selves, to be a part of our true existence, one possibly outside this realm. However, it’s not logical that this is our end, our entire purpose. Our ultimate purpose here on earth, may well be then an extension of the enlightened state of Nirvana as in the Buddhist’s paradigm, but seems more in line with the Christian system of belief. The path toward this state of existence here is actually embodied in the composition of our being. Specifically, that our spirit becomes life itself, our mind becomes thought, and the physical body enables us to build this force into a corresponding action. The consequences of that action are ours to bear, and bear alone; this process helps to generate perspective, and so the physical being here on earth becomes our tangible path—one toward our collective destiny as human beings.

The logical pursuit, and one highly fitting, is that each of our destinies here in this plane eventually requires that we live through our own personal crucifixion—to sacrifice for the collective. Following in Jesus’ footsteps could well be our ultimate purpose for it would demonstrate clearly that one has used the tools of free will to their utmost and that the mind, body and spirit have became one in selflessly giving themselves to the betterment of the collective. Jesus died for our sins, so the Bible tells us, and he died for us because of our potential to be something much greater than we were then. There is only one logical answer as to why, and that is, we were to become much like Him, to learn by following his example. If this greater purpose weren’t involved, then he would have merely died in "pity" of us all, no more or less. Without the potential for us to grow, to learn, to become much more than we were, his effort, this sacrifice, his crucifixion rings hollow, and painfully smacks of mere charity. And to this end, the Bible clearly indicates that God was not in a charitable mood this day. No, it makes sense that he saved us to preserve us. As he hung above us, his flesh dangling from the wooden cross, with blood, sweat and tears uncontrollably leaking from his frail body and as the last breath was taken from his human lungs, he held out the faith that one day we would actively seek and find our destiny.

His sacrifice to the same beings that destroyed him, and ironically a people who lacked faith even in their own existence, was the strongest lesson in compassion and love that we will ever find here in this realm. It is only logical, therefore, that he did it with the faith in our ability to discover those elements that made him who he was; that is, to find our destiny and embrace it, and that by doing so, we would then "understand" how to follow his glowing example. We would be guided to toward this unseen goal, one that would naturally fulfill our purpose here in this realm of existence. Indeed, although unseen, it has been incorporated into the "underlying pattern" of this grand scheme, and if we open our souls to its subtle beckoning, it sits plainly before our eyes.

To provide perspective to this pursuit, it’s important we look at the converse.

What would our lives be here if we knew absolutely of the existence of an omnipresent God?

Most of us in the world already take our lives for granted, and when things go awry, we simply look above for it to be remedied. Pray to God and your needs will be answered. We believe that He’ll take care of us; He’ll cradle us during our desperate times and brace our fall. Even if we are wrong and make mistakes, He will forgive us for these sins. This perception buffers our way of thinking; it comforts us to think no matter what we do, He’ll save us. One can only imagine how much worse this plaguing pattern of thought would become if we actually knew of His existence—how much we would simply expect everything to be perfect, to meld seamlessly with our own personal selfish motives. We would become completely dependent and we would never reach out on our own. Yes, we’d become even more self-absorbed and narcissistic than we already are, and we’d never take the first baby step toward the darkness, toward understanding, because we would be endlessly content for God to pick us up and carry us to our desired destination.

Truly, we’d be a sad, pathetic bunch.

I hearken back to Bali, where I thought that our overall purpose was to learn to accept "peace," and frankly based on that, I believe that we simply couldn’t handle a known God. We are still far too primitive spiritually to be able to deal constructively with the path of complete purity, to handle a "known pattern of the universe," and to have all, or at least many, of the answers. Maybe we’d just be disappointed, or maybe as much as He’d explain the inequities of living in our universe, our primitive being still would not be capable of comprehending it—and we’d still look to Him to change, to control the circumstances. Maybe even worse, we’d find out that He wasn’t much different from ourselves, and maybe He just doesn’t have the power we think He does. Still, even after thousands of years of evolution, we are comforted to think of God as some being who created all, indeed, one who can control everything, who stares down on us and manipulates events and helps us find the solutions to our problems. It soothes our souls to think that we are in the "Hands of God," and that he sees all, knows all, and indeed controls all.

Yet, there is absolutely no tangible evidence that such a God exists. None. Rather, the evidence—seen and unseen—only suggests that there exists an entity that has more power than we do, an existence beyond our simple comprehension. Further, to believe that such a God does exist is not faith either. No, such an unsupported thought is merely hope, one that inherently justifies the weakness and fear to look inside. However, instead of the thought of a God who is not all knowing, all pervasive making me feel uncomfortable, it actually excites me, stirs my spirit, allures me, and I zealously long for more. The arbitrariness of the unknown creates an element to the universe that is logical, even when it comes to God. Isn’t this universe composed of endless chaos, perpetual arbitrariness? Therein lies endless motivation, for us, and even more intriguingly, possibly for God. It thrills me to think that God doesn’t have all the answers and that the natural arbitrariness of the universe keeps even Him on his toes. Why? Because if He doesn’t have the answers, then He’s certainly searching, He’s still striving to understand, and in some way we are part of this grand search. It gives us a piece, albeit microscopic, to the puzzle of the universe. We fit. We have a place as human beings. Otherwise, what are we, tools created merely to serve Him? Not only is that an existence I would dare not desire, it seems far too illogical to bear the weight of the truth.

If you believe in the Bible, you believe that God created us in His image. If He did then He’s not much different than us on some base level. It is, therefore, logical to conclude that He has given us the tools, and the circumstances (our existence here on earth) to find the path toward His "type" of existence. He understands His evolution, so He understands what we must to do to achieve ours. He has given us the treasure map, clearly marked and outlined, to guide us to the buried treasure and even the tools to dig it up—that is, in order to share in His remarkable existence. Maybe, just maybe, in this struggle, He has a larger purpose, one in which He waits for us to evolve so that we may one day become companions within His domain and continue a search for something even beyond His current comprehension. Such harmony, such oneness, however, could only be achieved by manifesting purity, by eliminating the conflicts (or impurities), as God himself probably once accomplished. Otherwise, without mutual respect and understanding, we would not ever be worthy of His companionship.

It’s all upon our individual shoulders, therefore, to first find the map, make sense of it, analyze it, and then use it to discover this spiritual treasure of existence. Even more, we’ve been given a resounding example in Jesus who clearly illustrates the path toward this collective destiny. We must realize that only by fulfilling the prophecy of the map completely on our own, without the hand of divine intervention, can we achieve this spiritual unity with the existence of God, in whatever form that may take. It is only through the struggle individually and collectively, together, can we eradicate the conflicts and achieve unity toward our Oneness. Why would any amicable and gracious, an omnipotent one, strip us therefore of that which is an integral, if not the essence, of being human—and that which will enhance our spiritual growth toward our purpose, and maybe even His purpose? Why would he strip us of the darkness, why would he take away the key to our inspiration and the path toward understanding our primitive beings? Why would he strip us of that which makes us stronger, and that which in turn makes Him stronger?

Simply, He wouldn’t.

It certainly seems imprudent, if not simply illogical, to believe that God just popped into existence with knowledge of all. We’ve been taught, we’ve learned that everything evolves: humans, animals, cells, earth, stars, space, and time—everything we know. So, why would the lessons we learn here be any different than that of the Universe, even the parts we don’t know of yet, or cannot even fathom? It would be completely counterproductive to our growth otherwise, for earth is a mere reflection of heaven; that is, earth is really managed by the rules of heaven not by the laws of men. Yes, earth is a shadow of that heavenly dimension, a shadow we cannot see, but can only sense; and we live within this shadow, this darkness. This energy of God’s existence therefore rationally cannot be any different. We must first learn the rules and laws on the sandbox of earth, within the darkness, before we can understand that of the playground and freely expand into the light. God would understand this. He would understand how He achieved spiritual growth, and He certainly would understand how we should too, and in that we must learn to trust, to have faith. Quite possibly, therein, lies our key to spiritual enlightenment—our key to understanding.

In this unknown, in this unseen pattern, we must trust.

This all, of course, presumes that God is an affable, gracious, logical entity. If, however, this weren’t true, undoubtedly He would have given us what most clamor for, an undeniable sign. For in it, we would then surely become His dependents, mired helplessly in his web of control. It’s in our nature to become these mindless laborers in His Kingdom. One quick glance at the United States of America shows clearly the true nature of human beings, to drift toward complacence, to bury our heads in mere hope, to see only what we patently desire to see. Further, this dependency on God would only create even more dependency through our complacence with this perceived control. What purpose would this serve to such a powerful being, to have such dependent beings, in essence, slaves? It wouldn’t. We must be more than that, more than an experiment, slaves or he would have surely revealed Himself to take his dominant role upon the zebra carcass. However, such an absence and the intense feeling of "good," the feelings that take my spirit and soul to a level of comfort and peace, the overwhelming experience of being human—feeling human, all distinctly tell me that our being serves some purpose beyond mere imprisonment or simple subservience. Our existence has to be more than to merely serve this entity, a relationship that would in the process only serve to accentuate this dependency. However, by contrast, true power lies in absolute purity, it lies in the independence of another entity who can then add to the love, the compassion, the grace of another being, an entity who could contribute to God. In essence, give back. We see and understand this in our relationships with other human beings every day. It becomes a relationship based on interdependency, naturally one in which both beings are served and become empowered. It is the shining hallmark of our relationships with each other; so, why would God be any different?

We have for thousands of years, bought into this idea of an all-powerful God, one that we should bow and pray to for our needs. It makes us feel comfortable just being our primitive selves; it provides the easiest path toward making us feel that we are part of something bigger. Even further, we like to think that He meddles in our daily affairs, and this perspective enables us to rationalize away the bad things that occur while allowing us to accept, primarily due to individual choice, the good. However, if God controlled both the good and bad in our lives, what’s the point in living in this realm? And second, it’s simply illogical that we control only the good, while God controls the bad—that is, when something bad occurs, he has some plan behind it (i.e. "God works in mysterious ways"). That’s simply nonsensical—everything we’ve learned demonstrates that there is no easy road, that life doesn’t exist on plane of black and white, that the answers, enlightenment, faith, are not things that are merely given. It would eliminate the arbitrariness to the universe, and it would be a cold, robot-like place if we all knew what lurked around the next corner. I think that we’ve been explicitly told that we must learn. We must strive to find these precious things through the grayness of the rough and oft bumpy road—yes, through living with our imperfections in an imperfect world, but surrounded by the perfection of Nature. We must learn from this sweet struggle.

And yet, here we idly sit, hoping God will save us once again, when there is absolutely not a single sign to justify such hope. Again, we search desperately for the "path of least resistance," and create an imaginary world towards our goal—much like we do within the borders of our own country. He has shown a pervasive gift of hope and faith in our beings by giving us the treasure map and the tools, and oh, what a gift it is. However, to date we’ve done little to justify this divine present of faith. We simply want this "destiny" to be given to us, and so, we fail to take that first step from His cuddling arms. Indeed, His glorious and resounding message seems to be, go on step away, find the essence of your beings, but when you leave my arms, I’ve given you a piece of me, within you lives me, with each step, I follow, with each inhaled breath is one exhaled from me, so step, step to your destiny in the darkness of the unknown.

***************

The group huddled outside the truck and the desert never seemed so vast, so intense and unforgiving. I searched the horizon, no sign of civilization, no towns, no people, no animals, nothing but swirling dust and sand. The flat, cracked road ran off in either direction and into the horizon, but it was eerily empty. We were stranded. Butch had run out of gas, and we were baking in the scorching heat 35 kilometers from the nearest sign of civilization.

"Have another bowl, mate!" I said sarcastically to Bren.

"I guess this is where we’ll be stopping for lunch," Butch remarked without concern for our predicament.

"Don’t worry mates, we’ll just have someone hitch into town and back...it’ll only be a couple hours. No worries."

"Let’s go for a walk, and don’t even say it!" Bren said pulling me away.

As we walked down the barren dirt road toward nowhere, she continued through clenched teeth, "I already know what you’re going to say."

"Nothing this guy does shocks me. So you don’t have to worry, I’ve come to expect it."

"What would your Tioman monk say right now, hmm?" Bren said urging me to see the bright side.

"He’d probably say sneak up on him when he’s in his nightly stupor--"

"C’mon, Bri, I’m being serious."

"You wanna be serious, well I can see running out of gas a few blocks or even a couple kilometers from a town, but 35, that’s absolutely ridiculous; especially when it’s your job to know such things," I began crying out into the void of the desert air.

Bren stopped in her tracks and just starting laughing, "My God, what an idiot he is. It’s almost impressive."

"It would be funny, really, if we hadn’t paid so much money for it, and put it on our credit card no less."

We roamed the desert road desperately attempting to regain perspective, but it failed miserably. And we sauntered back to the idle truck in the same puzzled, sweaty haze. Marla popped into my mind yet again, and this time I knew that I was at another inner crossroad, for now that I had found a precious piece of faith, what would I do with it? Again, the question returned, what would I give up for it? We entered Butch’s fortress, and I was immediately tested as we discovered that lunch had already been scarfed down and nothing remained.

The Swiss guys, Josh and Kent, approached us, "We tried to save you some, but there really wasn’t enough for even seven or eight of us."

"This is getting absurd. Now we don’t have enough food," Bren said now full of fury.

"We think we need to tie Butch up and drag him behind the truck through the desert," Josh joked but with a serious undertone.

"But all of these other fools think this man, this crazy man, is funny. Oh, we have a big problem here," Kent said solemnly in broken English.

"I don’t think they have enough food to feed us through the rest of the trip. I’m afraid this could get worse," Josh said, "he probably spends our food money on his drugs."

"Hey Robert, grab me a beer!" Butch cried out from his sprawling position in the lounge chair.

"Oh and while you’re at it, why don’t you tidy up the truck a little bit," he said to a bellow of laughter from the others.

"See, I told you it’d all work out mates!" he said to the amused remainder of the group.

I hustled onto the truck, alone, and I laid along the seat in the stifling heat. As the sweat quickly mounted, I began to become a greasy addition to the plastic bench. The desert called forth, and the wind violently swirled the dry, tornado of sand through the interior of the truck and the sun attacked. A long lost prisoner I had become, forgotten, left in this soiled dungeon for there was no way out. A thousand shackles bind, paralyzed by the insatiable madness, I fell; I fell from the edge of Fish River Canyon and drifted silently into this black hole of insanity.

***************

The wild kingdom bellowed to the amber moon dangling from an invisible string over the vast midnight black sky. We arrived at the southwest corner of Etosha National Park, and over the course of the next three days we will work our way through its 20,000 square kilometers of wildly diverse and dense wildlife. The Park attracts a plethora of fauna namely because of the Etosha Pan, an immensely vast area of dried, flat plain which occasionally fills with water from the channels and rivers flowing into the Pan. We based camp on the outskirts of the Pan and the surrounding grasslands, which is where the majority of wildlife tend to congregate—in the cover of the grass and wooded area but still within close range of the few watering holes.

We huddled around the crackling campfire eating another scant dinner. The group ate in painful silence as it was becoming obvious that our fears were taking hold—we were running out of food with a full week remaining until Victoria Falls. For most, it was the first heavy realization that what we had paid for was not going to be fulfilled. However, care and discretion was the clear choice of the mainstream group, for now they were caught. They didn’t want to offend their fearless leader but this was countered by the stark realization that they paid for things that would never materialize. After Marla’s banishment, however, Bren and I agreed that we’d have to pick our battles wisely even if it created an internal conflict. We couldn’t be drawn into a battle we couldn’t win, no matter how desperate the situation. Otherwise, we risked putting a damper on the journey, not only for ourselves but the others as well.

I then gazed casually around the campfire, to the familiar faces of the past week and they now seem worn, even frayed. I realize that the group has now freely formed into two independent parts, with Bren and me, Kent and Josh, and Robert who has given up on pleasing everyone, composing one group and the rest including Butch filling out the other. It’s a stark, even sad transformation, especially when I look into the eyes of Robert, who tried so hard to appease the group, but Butch, the megalomaniac leader has humiliated him into submission. The innocent purity of his heart was stabbed ceaselessly by these insensitive, and sometimes brutal, slashes at his being. And something about human nature strikes me hard, that within a group, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you’ll never please everyone, and even more, there will be times when despite your truest efforts, you’ll please no one.

In this group dynamic, the weaker have been jettisoned from the mainstream group, and like the vultures of Kenya, a feeding frenzy has taken place at their expense. Our new friends have become the Zebra carcass. The Swiss feel that it is just not worth fighting over and Robert still holds out the precious hope that he’ll be accepted, so the three of them remain silent. Unfortunately, their unwillingness to fight back incites the mainstream group ever more, and the taunts and gestures toward them continue with an increasing bite. As for this mainstream group, they’ve begun to become restless with one another, and turning on each other seems only a matter of time. I guess when the leader, Butch, climbs off the carcass with his fill, the others will break loose, and they sense it. They seem lost, and I know that as I look at their faces, this journey will only be a blur, a mountainous collage of faces, sights and sounds—nothing more. More than anything else, this plagues me for there is so much to learn and profit from group interaction, but none has been forthcoming, and none seems on the horizon. Because as I look around to the faces, faces from all over the world flickering in the golden glow of the campfire, I’m filled with overwhelming sorrow, a dejection from the choices that have been made by this group. Their uncompromising actions, their selfish motives, the growing distance between us, and I can’t help but see the future of the world in their eyes. It’s a red, fire-hot, poker being driven into my chest, and I know it’s only a matter of time before this comes to a seething head.

For Bren and me, we are simply the American outcasts. We have been openly labeled and prejudged by our nationality and dismissed accordingly. No one in the mainstream group says much to us beyond strained chitchat; as a result, a great wall has been erected between us, and everywhere we travel it slinks its way along between us. On both sides, we feel its penetrating presence. However, we have gone out of our way to help the others, to participate in preparation of the meals, setting up camp, and cleaning up. We don’t join in on their bashing of other cultures and people, and we’ve gone out of our way to ensure an unselfish disposition even amongst such avid and open avariciousness—especially at mealtime. It strikes them hard, I know, for we retard their perception of Americans, and it makes them distinctly uncomfortable. They already know how we feel about their actions toward the others and no words are necessary. They have become disquieted by our presence, they don’t know what to say or do, for we are enigmas playing heavily upon their minds, perplexed by what they perceived of us as Americans and now the opposing reality. So, they grant us space and observe us with twisting necks and curious eyes, waiting; waiting for us to make the move they believe is undoubtedly forthcoming, one that will distinctly mark us Americans, and finally fulfill their ringing perception. For now, for our country, for our personal dignity, we remain conspicuously silent.

***************

The lions and elephants eventually left one by one fading into the black cloud of night, and silence fell absolutely on our floodlit watering hole. We strolled back to our tent pitched in the dusty, desert bowl of the campground, and crawled into our sleeping bags inside our tent, a mere two hundred yards from the savagery of the animal kingdom that ominously surrounded us. Only a three-foot high wall separates us from the unbridled brutality, the chaos, and random desperation. The fiercest beasts on the planet roam but a stone’s throw from our prone position on the unforgiving ground in our tent. The desert calls from the icy night air, and I drift away to the open plains of the Etosha Pan amongst the wild, with the piercing cries of the hyena and the occasional trumpet of the elephants echoing in the distance.

I dream, I float, and I lose me in the carnage, in this formless desert. I see the beginning and the end. Do I see in this, the eyes of God? Is God the underlying pattern? Is this pattern the Way, is it our template for return? Do the colorful quarks that bounce chaotically within us know each other? Do these quarks act and react to one another to create a pattern? Do the wispy strands of the universe act in concert unseen, incomprehensible to us in this realm? Is this unique energy pattern inscribed upon the energy of our souls? Do the subatomic particles of our existence interact, in unknown ways and far beyond our primitive cognition? If earth is a reflection of a heavenly realm, then shouldn’t it be possible that energy can be transferred freely between these realms and dimensions? Is the antimatter of these subatomic particles, a distinct component of this unseen world that impacts our vision of "reality"? Is this energy, a distinct part of God?

My conscious mind sees me, my subconscious mind sees the journey, and my soul’s mind sees the growth of these experiences without time and space. I gaze into the crystal madness of life in this realm, and I remove those experiences that at first inspection seemed arbitrary, which upon deeper scrutiny weren’t coincidental at all, and I line them up in sequence. Do they create a pattern within this chaos? So, if I remove the snare that is finitely me, this conscious mind, and freely permit my subconscious mind and my soul to embrace this pattern, will I find those whales and dolphins, will I visit the ancient ones in their infinite wisdom, will I soar beyond the sleeping cities? Will I become the wave upon the sea instead of the spume left upon the sands of shore?

But it always boomerangs back to the search and discovery, the journey, this precious beginning and end. I dream, I float, and I lose me in the carnage, in this formless desert. It’s in the arbitrariness, the chaos, that we find our motivation, our inspiration, our goal, because it endlessly alters the path, and leaves us with a challenge of curiosity where we must overturn that next rock of our being. To seek, to discover, to embrace, the pattern becomes the enchanting Muse. It is within this arbitrariness, the darkness, therefore that lay the key, the inspiration, the pattern. Even though the weaving of the blanket may change, it remains nonetheless, a blanket. So how far does this interconnectedness, this pattern, extend? If we are, in this earthly realm, inextricably connected with the heavenly realm then what of earth itself? Is the earth inherently a composite of the force of humanity? Are our actions as a collective on the surface of earth inextricably intertwined with the depths of the earth and beyond? So, does earth become a physical reflection of humanity and its corresponding actions—do our collective actions manifest in earth as physical changes? Can our collective actions create a new earth?

Interestingly, and chaotic theory of mathematics bears this out, that within arbitrariness exists a pattern, a sort of predictable behavior. That is, when all external factors are removed from any set, a matrix of arbitrariness or chaos will remain. So, within this blanket of chaos, if you graph any set of numbers, if you align any set of particles, if you take any set of events, all seemingly arbitrary in scope, a pattern will emerge. There is the tantalizing crux of the Tioman monk’s "underlying pattern of the universe"; indeed, there is something tangible each of us can feel that guides us, even though it remains unseen. It embodies the classic contrast of "order" and "design." An "order" simply suggests a set of elements organized with a system, an interconnectedness, while a "design" suggests a distinct pattern, regardless if it’s ordered or not, that is it could be chaotic. That is, within the design of the universe, and within the chaos, there is an "underlying pattern," one that may even underlie the order. Most importantly, within the chaos, generally, there are more of these precious connections than elements. We, as human beings, must be an element to this chaos, to this "underlying pattern," and indeed as such we are connected to all living things—not necessarily as human beings but as the components of our souls and physical being.

However we, especially in America, create a crusty layer of hardened magma upon this natural order, which then raises an unnatural curtain to this side of the universe, to the pattern within ourselves. For fear, indifference, self-absorption, greed and hedonism, control our lives. Naturally, unnatural chaos results. We then become blind men plowing a fruitless crop because our attempt to create an order through labels, random associations and prejudices savagely stings our eyes, our vision and perspective. This thin noxious veil clouds Nature, the intrinsic underlying beauty of natural order; however, the pattern remains albeit buried and our path illuminated if we can remove this unnatural veil. The design manifests in the earthly realm, for it is but a reflection of beyond, and therefore, it is inescapably drawn into the pattern as it was expressed. From the exhaled breath of creation, this pattern is our enlightened path, our pattern for return, and it is inscribed in the material world within us.

It’s remarkable, like the double helix which is the gift of our beginning, and the human body which is the beginning of our existence, this pattern is a piece of the puzzle to the Universe, of which we as human beings are a distinct element. We don’t just exist. This golden spiral emerges, and reflects back to us in so many aspects of Nature: DNA, fingerprints, seashells, growth of certain leaves, and even in whole galaxies. I gaze upon Nature, Mother stands before me and whispers the golden ratio in my perched ear, and I then see that the design of nature is perfect within this golden spiral, although the application is not and may never be. So, as we gaze upon the Canyon walls within we must understand that the form of expression and creativity through the soul is perfect, but our application of it will never be in the earthly plane. Again, we can only hope to evolve toward Truth, for we will never see its wholeness in this realm. The sharply contoured red mounds of the Namib Desert rise before me, and I see in its outstretching arbitrariness a glimpse beneath to its underlying pattern. Once we have discovered this underlying pattern within and embraced it, we will begin to feel a sense of the harmony within the order, the chaos, of this universe.

We will have found the dancing symmetry of being free.

I dream, I float, and I lose me in the carnage, in this formless desert. Silky strings of white line the infinite inky darkness, subatomic particles and molecules dance around me, the newspaper gracefully bends through the air, and in this unity of life is me. The void is instantly eradicated, for this is the antimatter of that nothingness; here within this timeless darkness, in this unknown, lay the answers. I "feel" intrinsically a sense of belonging from the orderly connections within the chaos, and in this I am aware within this unseen world, this dimension, this darkness of the unknown. And in this unknown, we must trust. For once you see and feel the symmetry within the chaos, the soul understands its beginnings, its end, for it understands the basis of life. This pattern is pure ecstasy, for it removes the corrosive toxins, the pervasive fear. It strikes me profoundly atop of this sandy knoll that my personal path is not necessarily God’s, that humanity’s path is not necessarily God’s, but that God’s path, one who shares in and quite possibly created this "underlying pattern," is indeed part of my path, part of our path. I look up to the sky of blue and warmth of the shimmering rays of golden sunlight, and I see it clearly now. I now hold tightly the hand of faith, faith in the unknown, and with it I now accept this magical matrix of arbitrariness.

And oh, how it entices me so.

Copyright © 2000 PbFisher. All rights reserved.