Read The Tsar's Dwarf (Hawthorne Books)

Read The Tsar's Dwarf (Hawthorne Books)
"A curious and wonderful work of great human value by a Danish master." Sebastian Barry, Man Booker finalist (Click on the picture to go to the book's Amazon page)

Thursday, August 4, 2016

In an Ancient Forest in Oregon (Where Nirvana Is Just a Short Cut Away)



I love the silence that falls from trees. I'm not sure I can live without this majestic void where everything is possible, and where the sound of the world is crucified and everything dissolves, reincarnates, breathes.

Suddenly you hear the sound of wings, a symphony of ants marching through the grass; a squirrel staring at you through the leaves followed by stillness. It's two seconds of Paradise you want to hold on to, so you can forget your mind monsters - doctor appointments, the vapid insults from September, 2002, those mails you shouldn't have written yesterday. Now an inner voice cuts through the white noise, descending from angels and devas, or perhaps it's just another podcast trapped in your subconscious?

Then silence again, this eternal stillness where nothing and everything matter. You can hear your heart beat through your T-shirt - and the world's heart, too, as if you and everything were part of it, and you are, we all are.

You slowly close your eyes and the world disappears. Your breath goes deeper into your lungs, chest, and stomach, into the ocean that's the ancient you. You're with the gods now, Nirvana is just a short cut away, Enlightenment appears as a gentle breeze that's about to engulf you; then a sudden longing for gelato and blow jobs, and you want them now, they can't wait ... but those longings disappear as well in the sagebrush, the wild bleeding hearts, and into the secret forest you thought belonged to fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

Dusk breaks through the maple trees. Every branch becomes golden, as if it's lit up from within. Goosebumps travel up your legs because everything is so holy and sacred that you want to cry - the light blue sky, the joy that rises out of bird song, the cravings that spice up your life. On your way out of the forest, you run into a family with a pitbull that smiles at you. You're alive.