Irony of ironies: my well is dry this morning.
The wind rips around us under damp metallic skies. Junipers roar on the ridges. Chimes clang in the little courtyard.
This afternoon I have an appointment in town to meet a herbalist I know to buy four ounces of ceanothus tincture. I ran out a year ago and I'm really needing it now. Does ceanothus grow in North Carolina, I wonder? I'll have to check.
***
Interesting meditation journey this morning. I started in grass, as usual, walking this time over dunes toward the wet sand of a shoreline. East coast feel. Gray, restless, but not malevolent water. Walked some distance south, ocean on my left, toward a jut of rocky land with a lighthouse atop. At the base I confronted a steep stony cliff. It was a slow climb, but not arduous.
A shiny, upscale automobile was parked in the gravel next to the lighthouse door. (This makes me smile.) I entered the building and stood in a dim foyer. In a little room to the right the same burly, flannel-shirted Pentacle king who accompanied me in the snow journey months ago sat in an armchair, reading under a circle of yellow lamplight. He kept his back to me. He knew I was there, but it was of little significance. He was keeper and protector of the place. Of me, even.
A shaft of light descended onto wooden steps to my left. I began to climb the spiral stairs. They were well-worn but scrubbed clean, dry. On the landing at the top I turned toward the sea. Not very far out an opaque fog veiled the horizon. I kept my eyes on the water, willfully ignoring the view behind me, which I knew I must face but feared to see. Drank some hot tea from a china cup, nibbled a small cookie. Took a deep breath. Turned around to look out the landward windows.
It was horrible.
Charred withered destroyed smoking landscape. Looming over it an evil presence that filled the sky, black, bat-like, slit-eyes glowing red. Disney-esque. Gah! (as a friend likes to say).
And I don't know whether anyone or anything exists out past the wall of fog to "benefit" from the lighthouse light. I don't know whether the destruction at my back is a view to civilization's apocalyptic future or simply my own hairy personal past. I only know, feel, that as long as I stay in this "clean, well-lighted place" I'll be safe.
***
I've sold my VHS tape of the director's cut of The Last Picture Show to a doctor in South Africa.
The world is very strange. (My world, anyway.)
11:51:00 AM 
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