As a young man growing up in the wild, desolate plains, I used to stand in my Grandfather's backyard, looking out over miles and miles of endless prairie, stretching away in all directions for as far as the eye could see. It was at once disturbing and comforting, and triggered the desire to see far places, and to find out what else was out there beyond those vast horizons.
There were many unexplained events that transpired over the course of my early childhood years, and the mysteries only deepened as I grew older. The small town where I grew up was at one point a headquarters on the famed XIT Ranch, owned by an English Land Syndicate, which received almost the entire Panhandle of Texas in exchange for building the capitol in Austin. The ghosts of those cowboys roamed that country freely, firing my imagination with wild yarns and tales that eventually became stories. And in the real world, many of the headline events which would engulf the world, had their beginnings not far from where I hit the ground.
Trinity Site, where they touched off the first Atomic Bomb, was approximately 175 miles as the crow flies from my home. In 1947, the Sky Riders came to examine what was going on, and went down outside Roswell, New Mexico, about 125 air miles away. I was old enough to register the events in some way, knowing there was something of import to be remembered. Down the line, those memories came back strong and sure, like signposts along an unknown road, pointing the way toward something that would be of importance.
There were plenty of incidents and events that all seemed to rush together, muddling the picture for awhile, but I remember my Grandfather talking about driving his first motorcar, and seeing his first airplane. He and my Grandmother also experienced World War I, and the Great Depression, and had two sons who went away to serve in World War II. He was on the ground when his grandson went off to a war in an exotic land in Indo-China.
He used to tell me stories about living on the Great River, the Mississippi, and courting my Grandmother in a horse and buggy. He could recall flying in an airplane for the first time, and having modern medical procedures save his life, and seeing the Apollo Astronauts set down on the moon. His mind was as a child's at the last, and I saw through his eyes as he began to slowly discover the real meaning of our everyday lives, which is simply to open up to all the possibilities.
Charlie Norton, an old cowboy friend from Sierra Blanca, Texas, once told me a story about seeing odd lights in the sky, and wondering what that might mean in terms of the weather that would affect his cattle. He got on a horse almost every day of his life, and took care of the animals he was responsible for, and when he died, he had two of his Mexican hands come take him from the coffin in the church, and they buried him with his old ponies, out in the Chihuahuan Desert, where he wanted to be. Charlie knew little of the outside world, beyond the price of feed or cattle, but he knew one of the most well guarded secrets of all, and that is you must learn to be here now.
A friend of mine was roaming around once near Chama, New Mexico, and was walking down a little mountain stream, and came on a clearing with a large outcropping of rock, and decided to sit down and rest. When he got there, he saw a blue, paperback book, just laying there in the sun, in the middle of nowhere. He picked it up, of course, and took it with him. It opened him up to the possibilities that we all get every day of our life.
It was Ram Dass, "Be Here Now".
There are an endless number of those road signs that we get every day.
We just need to learn how to see.
I sat on an armored elephant in early February, 1968, and watched two Buddhist monks walking along a road, their faces serene, even in the midst of a terrible battle that was going on all around them, and wondered what it was they knew that I didn't. Later on that same day, we crossed their path again, and one of them handed me a tiny temple bell, and showed me how to ring it so that it only chimed a single note at a time. He smiled at me, and I carried that bell through the rest of the war, and all the way up until this present moment. Everyday, I ring it as that monk taught me, one note at a time. For a small moment during the day, I remember the lesson: Be here now.
Sailing in the Caribbean, on parts of what was once called the Spanish Main, I heard and read of fabulous pirates treasures that were to be had, if you had a map, or knew the secrets, and were willing to look. Those stories of treasure filled my head as a kid, and I read "Treasure Island" a hundred times, and was sure that if I could find Captain Flint's hidden gold and jewels, life would be wonderful, and all the questions answered. When I appeared on the scene of where those stories came from, I got another look at the different ways to go about finding the door that would let you into the meaning of the Secret, where everything is explained, and it all finally makes sense.
Mr. Isadore was a walking encyclopedia of information about the islands, and he lived in the house that Camille Pissarro, the father of the Impressionist painters, had grown up in, that overlooked Charlotte Amalie harbor. He knew of La Trompouse, the pirate ship supposedly full of gold that was scuttled by her captain to keep the treasure from being stolen by the then governor of the island. Thieves stealing from thieves, he would say, and Mr. Isadore would rock back in his chair and laugh as he told me the story. He also told me of sitting in the twilight at Christmas Cove, and seeing the ghosts of old buccaneers rowing ashore in a ghostly skiff, to find a place to bury their terrible treasures, soaked in blood, and marred with the darkest side of human nature. That, he said, was the price you paid.
What goes around comes around.
That's a law that is as sure as sunrise.
Mr. Isadore carried a shopping bag from the family business, full of money, because he believed in pirates, and did not trust banks. No one ever bothered him, for they all thought he was crazy.
Mr. Isadore knew where all the pirate gold on the Spanish Main was buried, but everyone thought he was crazy, and no one ever bothered to ask.
Like the fabled Dragon's Trove. It is not the trinkets that are in the dragon's lair, but the knowledge of how you get there that is the secret.
It is the Five Sided Chinese Mirror.
A fable, a tale told around the fire, a breath of spring in the deepest part of winter, a breeze from a tropical paradise when you are lost in the heart of a desert.
It is the song the Dwarf hummed when he crossed the Great River, Calix Stay, and the same song that is echoed from the Highest Realms of Windameir, that River of Sound that will call us all back Home.
It is the voice of a friend on a dark night, when you are alone.
It is the heartbeat of a lover next to you in that soft darkness.
It is the profound quietness of your soul when it reaches out through the Mystery of it all, and touches the face of the heavens, and you know the truth of it, which has always been, be here now.
The road sign of the Cosmos, as simple as that.
Be here now.
And stay in the Light.
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