ALLEGORIZE YOUR LIFE

My private Ancestry.com says I am descended in part from Hieronymus Bosch and last night the ghosts of his genes played host to my subconscious in an all-night dream, or dream-state. The point of this dream was to teach me how to re-sanctify my life; that what is secular is simply sacred objects enervated by habit and indifference to a point where they can no longer serve as amulet or talisman or even lucky rabbit's foot.

The dream began in a deserted shopping mall where those who frequented it did so for a purpose I could not fathom or divine. So I decided to follow a small group of visitors to see where they could be going. They walked for what seemed like miles of empty corridors until they reached the entrance of what, it turned out, was an amusement park. Or so I thought it in my desiccated mental state.

In reality, the park was a training center for some kind of knight- or ninja-hood. Each ride was part of a training whose goal was some kind of life-skill adding up, at some point, to life-proficiency I had either forgotten or given up hope of ever attaining. I remember strapping in to a roller coaster and being told by the ticket taker to not be fooled by its excitement into mistaking it for a joy ride. "Do not mistake the pleasure of the experience for its meaning." There were nods of agreement from the few others in my car. At first, I thought he was being rather puritanical, but the ride itself taught me that pleasure was merely a doorway into other dimensions and textures.

At a steep water slide, I quickly learned that seeking thrills would have endangered my life and that I was to feel a clam in the midst of high-bombardment stimuli. And so it went, ride after ride, always finding a different meaning and contentment from those I was used to.

The last ride led to a park exit and the realization that there was no way to return to it. I was out on a busy city street where I was to "apply" the knowledge and lessons I had learned in the park.

There was such a welter of sights and sounds that I felt confused and lost. How, I cried out, was I to manage this chaos?

"You must allegorize your life," a voice inside, yet everywhere, commanded. Immediately, I understood that an allegorized life was one of perceptual alacrity, the likes of which poets had been trying to teach me my whole life since first reading Jack Kerouac in high school. If I had learned anything in the last decade it was that, given the circumstance, a red wheelbarrow was a grail: that the object was simply an archetype of deepest need and highest use.

GOD IS THE NAME OF EVERYTHING THAT SPEAKS TO YOU
It was then I felt the presence of a Guide. This Guide spoke through intuition. Hence everything I experienced served as a conduit for this intuition.

Suddenly the street was empty.  The Guide explained that the stage was emptied as a prelude to learning. "Nothing is lost," it said, repeating with certainty, "Nothing." Then the Guide said I would be given a series of illustrations that would teach me how to navigate the most teeming of circumstances. Suddenly I saw what seemed like King Arthur raise Excalibur (ex-caliber) in the air and "seem" to drop it. As it was just about to touch the ground, it turned into a backpack, which was picked up by a bystander who appeared out of nowhere. "Thanks," the bystander said. "I thought I had lost it." By then, Arthur had disappeared and the bystander walked off into thin air.

Immediately, a second illustration began, involving a golden cup--obviously a grail--hovering in mid air. It, too, seemed to be falling to earth when suddenly it turned into a paper cup in a child's hand who was drinking soda from it with a straw. The child, too, disappeared.

"Do you catch my drift?" the Guide asked. I answered in a lame affirmative, the way I often do to my wife when she asks me about something to which she knows I have not been listening. "Now face the world in a new way."

FROM WAYWARD TOWARD WAY'S WARD
Poet Gary Snyder writes, "The Way followed leads for ever. In one second, it is crossed and left behind forever." That is why Zen Masters keep saying, "The Way is not a way." Follow No-Mind and No-Way.

For the first time in my life, these admonitions were perceptual not conceptual in nature and I could walk a way where each thing at hand lends a hand and need not lead any farther than that since the world is founded in a trust based on the adequacy of the moment. This is a kind of transcendent existentialism where essence is existence and vice-versa.

Remember when you admired some child's first baby steps? Well, I took my first adult steps in my dream last night. I lived in a world where everything serves as guidance. As such the Way is the Present and acts as a ward (in the sense of, say, a Swiss Embassy) for our security and safety. I wish I had words to describe my first walk down the Main Street that seemed like entertainment, education and erudition all at once. I have never felt so self-sufficient--almost an avatar of self-reliance. I can only hope, with the intensity of prayer, that I have been discharged into a world where I possess unforgettable acumen and alacrity. More in the days ahead.