Floating or Falling: The Tale of a Great Life Crossing

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Here’s something a little different, a fictionalized story of my own life. You may find resonance with your own canyon crossings. For a version with music and sound, listen to the recording.

In we go.

A man is crossing a sandy, stony plane. As he passes, long-tailed mice with huge ears hop behind wiry bushes who are as thrifty with water as a posse of poor widows abandoned by their children are with their coppers.

The boy is thrifty too.

His energies run beneath his skin, burrowed in his bones.

It's been such a long journey.

And just when he's getting swing in his stride, and learning to avoid the little cactus balls hidden all about, he stops short, kicking pebbles down into a canyon so deep that the bottom is lost to dark mist.

He steps back, looks across. Of course, his trail continues on the far side. As usual, he could turn back, though he's not convinced that the land wouldn't shift to confound him on back here again. Or some parallel place.

Also as usual, there are people between him and the canyon's far side, skating on the air above the great drop as thought playing on invisible ice.

He is no longer fooled by their grace. Now he sees the hitches in their movements, the quavers, the dropping down a foot before rising triumphantly again. The dust embedded in their clothes, the rouge covering wrinkles and red scars.

F**k it, he says. Then bless me, my lord, and something about universal abundance. A couple words for Odin, for Zeus. Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, Coyote, Raven, Cailleach and the Creator and Creatrix while he's at it.

Then he steps out.

It's even further down than it looked. The fall is slow, like a leaf. The wind is silky and succulent on his skin, full of moisture. A river runs beneath him, roaring up the walls, though he can’t see it yet.

The fall is so slow that on his way down, he has time to consider his entire journey, from start until now. The creatures who helped and thwarted him. The half dozen other canyons he's crossed. He even manages to release envy for those b******s skating up above. Or loosen it, anyway.

And of course, when he lands, it is on the near side of the river.

Fording it is wet, precarious work.The far canyon wall looks like it will be a hell of a climb. The last ones sure were.

He takes a few breaths and starts up.

He's getting stronger.

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