Coke & Nuts

The death bed

I had consumed some nuts at one time … when it set off a convulsion of coughing … that began to affect my breathing. Then it got worse … and the coughing knocked out my upper chest inhalation … fell to a spot close to the diaphragm … in the strained manner of gasping for air. My throat produced a sound … like air being released from balloons. Thinking that I ought to take a coke or something … I took some steps towards the 7-11 nearby … but it suddenly stopped.

 

I was thinking later that coke is probably made from dates. The color is the same … it even taste like dates … and creates the same flavor on the mind … as consuming dates. Its incredibly strange isn't it … what a close brush with death … does to a man's insight? Coke of course continues to maintain that its a trade secret … and has raised considerable controversy over its formula. Death and secrets ... what a close association of ideas.

 

Some years ago … I was at the bedside of my sister's grandfather-in-law … as he lay on his death bed. He was a grand old man … big … tall … and given to every strength of fighting … for his breath … in the sounds of the event … similar to my experience with nuts. He was that way … way into the night … but passed on before morning. In my experience … I had raised my head to the sky … in the instinctive reaction … of seeking God's help … when it suddenly stopped. I guess it helped that I was on my feet.

 

If its not going to raise the specter of morbidity … I'd like to reflect on the issues I encountered in the experience … especially as it relates to mind and the passions. In the gasps for air … I noticed the way the passions … had brought themselves into identification with mind … in the natural connection that the body has with the brain. Its a relationship … I came to express better … as the friendship between the male and the female.

 

The Indic tradition … has always had that subtle sense of reference to the great mother … as the companion of man in life. The thesis appears to be that … man is typically all head … and its the woman who masterminds the opportunity in creation … to make it possible for the man to come to himself as the life. So Indic men … exhibit this dry humor about women … and are always joking about the vital role of women … in the life of creation.

 

I remember as a child … how my mother would point me in that direction … of the special role of women. It was a sensation that merged with my child-based understanding … about women  … and I found myself growing in the appreciation … with dreams … and imagination … that eventually produced a mild effeminate nature in my teen. My older brother … in spotting the way I was growing up … got me to work with weights … and the muscle build-up moderated me.

 

So we continued with the jokes … especially with a girlfriend … who is quite intense about the arts that are involved. In a key part of the relationship … the woman is perceived to be presenting in the life of the man … a series of challenges … that tests his mettle as male. In emerging from these tests … the man comes into a development of his mind and body consistent with the best standards the world has to offer. Its a bit of what the Aryans and Olympians … pursued as their life's goals.

 

Certainly the jokes … revolved around the male successes at meeting their challenges … as if to say … ' She's hasn't got me yet ' … ' Or she has to try better than that.' But the effect of the jokes had a greater significance … that what we had realized. For the man … it was a way of playing down his fears … but for the fem … it signaled that … he hasn't had enough. It simply taunted her … to try harder the next time … and of course that's the time … she clipped his wings in mid-flight … and he dashed onto the ground.

 

In the diminishing of the eros experience that follows … the man perceives himself as … not firing all his cylinders … an experience of diminished capacity … similar to … ' dead man walking.' And the life that he seeks thereafter … goes in search of the feminine principle … to first make sure she's all right … for she also dies along with him. So the deferment to feminine qualities that we speak of … is to save the female … for her fertility … productivity … and continuity of life.

 

Thereafter the male … commences the series of steps … to assure her of his own ability … to man the boat … in the face of life's new challenges. Its certainly a … c**k and bull thing … in our cultures … that rises in the sedate neighborhood of our lives … to which we have to give more attention. Its of course a little more than worrying that we are not up to the latest trends in fashion … or getting down because she brought down a skyscraper or two. Wash it down with a coke!

 

The legends relate the story of Zeus and his girlfriend on the side … Io. Zeus had changed her form to a heifer … to escape detection by Hera.  However Hera … bugged Io with a tsetse fly … until she ran off to Egypt. I broke that connection myself … when I raised my head to the heavens … and got the convulsions to stop. Its an obsession we have with the passions … to accompany the brilliance of the mind … as a point of admiration for our intelligence. We do have to grow beyond that.

 

I had some nuts again today … and took some coke with it. I figured there's no need to fear the messenger … for the incredible nature of the message … from the fem in the life. And I've stopped taunting her. Its like what my father says sometimes … ' Its a long road … and you ought to focus on getting there in one piece.'