Fields of Mud

Mystical Series : XIII

 

 

 

 

Standing close to a pond and watching the fish swim in the murky waters among the reeds and yam plants was a fascination in me as a child. These days, from time to time, I take a short walk into the backwoods behind my home, and bring a gathering of my emotions to encounter the view of a padi field and river.

 

There's fish, pond snails, some monitor lizards, wild fowls and many varieties of birds. One might even encounter an eagle sometimes but so far, no snakes.

 

I ought to have seen one or two is what my mind tells me. I used to spend long hours walking through the underbush but no, no snakes. I suppose I wanted to engage the strange and curious sensation we store in ourselves, that arises when we see a snake. But so far no chance.

 

I look upwards to the sky to spy a lone eagle gliding, as if in a dream, as he seeks sustenance in the form of food. The tales of Jaimini sometimes gives a curious hint about the vision of eagles and other such birds of prey. The same intimation is made regarding predators of the wild. It is this ..... that the predator looks inside himself to consider the consequences of his actions, before he takes a life to eat.

 

The practice is not unknown in the human experience. We refer to it as conscience and the practice of it goes by the term gnosis, which is a generic sensation of all such encounters within ourselves. But the significance that arises in such an experience points to the way we bring ourselves to interact with issues in the social experience and the consequences of such actions.

 

It is natural to do so, is what I think and I believe it forms an integral part of what we are. In time, such concerns mingle with our passions and impulses and produces a form of sensation in us that we recognize as a conscious relation to issues. Then it grows into something conscientious and then maybe conscience. Its quite a developmental exercise.

 

But at the point where it first began, I feel the same odd sense of having encountered a snake in the woods. Strange. I wonder if it would make more of a difference and if so, why? It would, in my perception explain why god made the world.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Cole Hayley]

A beautiful write. My favorite of the day, even the week. Its wise and eternal, but its hardhitting and personal. A brillant piece.