Forever is a long, long time

Phil Burpee

Phil Burpee, Columnist

I knew an old timer once who thought people should get done what they needed to get done sooner rather than later. "You're a long time dead," he'd say. "Ain't no later when it's too late." Hard to argue with that kind of logic. Of course he wasn't talking about changing the oil or getting a hair-cut. What he meant was that things of particular importance had a habit of not getting done - either because they were too difficult, too seemingly inconsequential, or that they might somehow demand an admission of stubborn dunderheadedness. And this is no cheesy bucket list either - big deal if you jump out of a plane or dance naked amongst the flamingos in the Etosha wetlands. Such things are mere titillation and self-gratification. The things that need doing are infinitely more subtle than this. They are of the order of perhaps stopping once to listen to the sound a raven's wing makes as it slides by on a still morning - sshhh sshhh sshhh. They are of the order of looking up to see that Jupiter and Venus are embraced in a great, swirling dance. They are of the order of beholding that your life's partner is a miracle in your life. And they are of the order of emptying your clamorous thoughts, and realizing for once that it is the small voice that speaks the truth.

When the Boxing Day tsunami hit Thailand a few years ago, there was a particularly compelling video image from the beach at Phuket - maybe you remember it. Somebody was filming from up on a hill down towards the beach. The water had receded several hundred metres revealing a vast expanse of beguilingly empty sand. A lone figure, a man, had been drawn out onto the flats, no doubt intrigued by the curiosity of it all - or, if you like, maybe drawn to some subconscious encounter with his own fate. He had gone way out, way too far to run back from anything faster than a big turtle, and then in the distance came a bleak and appalling spectre of the most massive proportions - the camera was far enough back to catch the scale. Rushing towards the man in his boxer shorts was a huge, roiling wall of water ten or fifteen metres high, moving at speed across the sand. And there he stood...and there he stood....and there he stood. And there he stood stalk-still facing the Thing as it rushed down upon him - arms at his side, motionless, looking for all the world somehow weirdly calm and resolute. Well, maybe he was merely paralysed with fear and had no other agenda beyond that. But it was the image that held the power of the moment. For indeed, just what was the headspace of this person? And for the purposes of this commentary, here's what I like to think it was.

I think he had already entered his eternity, pierced the veil of the here and now, and loosed all his attachments. Time itself is, of course, a linear construct, and only has power inasmuch as it is tethered to perceptions of the past and expectations of the future. Once those brackets are removed, Time itself is revealed as the meaningless fabrication that it is. I think the entire Universe suddenly flooded into this man's brain, and he found himself expanding somewhere slightly beyond the speed of Light to the farthest frontiers. I have to think he was liberated from all suppositions, emptied, exalted, and borne up on sleek and shining wings. And such angels of transport are in the employ of no parochial deity, predating all gods. They have always been. In a quiet moment you might hear one flit past - sshhh sshhh sshhh............

On the other hand, sure, maybe the poor bastard had just filled his pants and was motoring through his Hail Marys - certainly as plausible as my take on the situation. But the thing of it was that this man had come to find himself perched, very graphically, on the Great Brink - staring out, as it were, into the Void. For thousands of years, of course, adventurers of the mind and spirit have consciously journeyed to the threshold of annihilation in order to glimpse eternity, such as Dante's descent into the Inferno and thence beyond into Paradise in search of Beatrice, who is Wisdom. Such is the journey in search of the Greater Self that transcends the isolation and poverty of the prison that is our feeling of separation from the dazzlingly beautiful world that surrounds us - all that baggage that anchors us to delusion - like it goes in the old Elvis Costello song: - "Everything means less than zero...."

Hmmm - well, we live in a world that noisily conspires to insulate us from such sublime realizations. We wallow in a pernicious materialism that keeps us grimly focused on acquisition and achievement. And this extends beyond commercial culture to include religious motifs that would have us collecting snippets of merit like so many Boy Scout badges, and all the while seeking the intervention of some Outside Force by way of emancipation. But emancipation from what? For it is within the glory of the moment that lies true access to the eternal - as with William Blake's injunction: -

sshhh sshhh sshhh…………

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour."

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There is no question that we are at a point in our history when we are needful of the best and the brightest of our philosophical heritage. The gods we carry with us into this difficult and challenging future are old and worn. Jehovah, who sets brother against brother. Mammon, who demands our worship of bloated wealth. Mars, who relishes blood and carnage. Mephistopheles, who delights in the broken soul. Shiva, who exults in destruction. And prophets, messiahs and bodhisattvas too numerous to mention who all claim a 'special relationship' with the core element of the Cosmos. Worn out bunk.

The magic is free. Behold the majesty of your life - all those zillions of ancient atoms come together briefly in the grand organization that is you. Part the veil and allow yourself the child's astonishment. Offer a hand. Allow a tear. Stand before the wave. And, in a quiet moment, listen - and feel perhaps the brush of that shining wing - sshhh sshhh sshhh.........

Forever is a long, long time.

Phil Burpee

March 17, 2012