This material is slightly edited from something I wrote five years ago — and I stand by it today.
Part 1: Miss Michaele’s Metaphor Bag
My first task is to become shameless & fearless – without sacrificing normal tact & caution.
Some years ago, I had a dream that opens out my future all the way to the vast horizon:
I was behind the scenes at a circus. No performance was scheduled that day, but there was plenty going on: practice, set-building, etc. The atmosphere was calmly industrious. A working vacation, and I do mean vacation, yet no one was idle.
This is a circus where each performer was also some kind of technician – plumber, carpenter, mechanic, etc. – some kind of skilled manual laborer. Not as a separate day job, but while rehearsing or performing. To be a clown or acrobat was to be a carpenter, plumber, or mechanic.
This is my perception: to a materialist, a magic worker is a freak, a clown who cannot be placed on the same level as people who make real contributions to society. But spirit makes no distinction – cannot make any distinction – because all it can see is the skill, the investment of time, effort and thought, and the soul’s dependence on them. These freaks and clowns are the soul’s carpenters, plumbers and mechanics. We depend on them in precisely the same way.
And that is my vocation.
Once again, just as I begin to feel like a journeyman, the pinnacle I approach turns out to be another foothold on the mountain, and I am an apprentice again. But the ground is firm underfoot. Each foothold is an infinite crossroads on numberless paths. Each of these semi-invisible paths is A Certain Way – so long as I remember that a clown is a carpenter.
And speaking of calm industry: that’s what my altar feels like when the power is running: all manner of thing shall be well. As calmly productive as a clean kitchen with a good dinner in the oven.
At my core is a loud little girl in a fairy costume (magenta with purple & silver sequins). All she needs is teaching – free access to my adult intelligence. Once she knows the things I know, then I’ll know that I know.
Part 2: Miss Michaele’s Fountain of Delight
In my more expansive moments, I daydream of:
When I have thoroughly explored two or three Certain Ways, gifted folk who come to me will prosper: strange poetry will come back into style; the masses will convince themselves they understand the work of the next Allen Ginsburg. The next Mozart will die rich, satisfied with days.
The poor will begin their journey to prosperity by discovering side-doors and back windows that let golden sunlight in. They’ll start getting rich even before the money appears. Social aid and pleasure will fall out of the sky. Their minds will be gilded with good ideas, their hearts stuffed with the currency of confidence. Luck will cut the checks; Cause and Effect will sign them.
Those rose-colored glasses are too fragile for everyday use. Who needs them, anyway, when you have the clear gaze of the Divine Circus?
Every day, I greet my friends with this question: “Are you Christmas conscious?”
Say Yes.