Getting It

His truck gently bumps the parking barrier with its beefy front tires. He feels the slightest jolt travel up the steering column to the wheel he holds. Here at last, he thinks.

The morning is still cool and the sky to the east is just beginning to lighten behind the sharp ridge of the Rincon Mountains. Pink ribbons of cloud shimmer on the baby blue backdrop as he grabs his book bag from the seat next to him. It is heavy with a laptop, student papers, a three-ring binder full of spreadsheets that serve as his record of student grades. In it there are also a journal, several dry-erase markers of different colors -- red, green, blue, black. There are bills in envelopes that need to be paid, a checkbook, assorted pens, one copy of the most recent Sun Magazine.  It's all good stuff, but is just dead weight right now. He is here for something other than doing his job.

He has come here to sift through the noise of his life, the sink into a chord that resonates deep in the well of silence that he can hear only at this hour, when he is most awake.

He closes the dented door of the old truck. It was broadsided a while ago, but he has yet to spruce it up with socially acceptable body work. The paint is oxidized and a faint trace of rust has begun to creep around the edges of the exposed metal. Wounds.

He unlocks the first gate, passes through, locks it again from the inside. He then unlocks the door to the sacred chamber. He pauses, takes off his shoes, focuses as well as he can, bows, and then enters. He is joined by an animal who greets him. Its fur is thick and the animal is strong. He lives here and welcomes all those who come to search.

The animal trots alongside him to place where he sets down the bag of worker, the weight of livelihood. He then sits, closes his eyes, and lets all of the chaff of scrambling in this world fall away. He waits for the chord to come. He is learning to be patient. He doesn't always reach it, though is certain that is there, down deep between the folds of thought and habit. He lets himself sink into a deeper and deeper awareness.

He is awake but utterly still and calm when it comes to him, or he opens enough to it. Its resonance runs through him like a wire of light. It is there he sees the way, the path, gleaming road of his destiny. It something felt more than spoken, something known better than understood. It is woven of gifts inherited in this life, the guiding principles he has known all along but forgotten when the din of necessity scrambles his coherence.

He enters the resonance and feels its message through the most elemental bones and blood of his senses. It is this you have been looking for he hears. He finds a few words to tie together as a way to carry the sense with him when he has to leave. This is not his place to live for now. He can visit, but has to travel out into the pain of forgetting and compromise. It is his destiny, his curriculum for this life. He must string together the story that best pulses with the chord he can hear only in the quietest of moments, the precise second that the sun splits the darkness over the ridge of the mountains to the east.

He sees that the sharpness of his anger only hinders his peace. He decides to take down the billboard of complaint he has grown so fond of broadcasting. Yes, it has earned him some attention, but the chord it strikes is a malignant note. It's up to him to replace it with stronger note of direction he knows will keep him aligned. He knows that seeing the choice is not something found easily. It is the result of conditions he has been given. He only vaguely understands, but the gift is there, as undeniable as the rush of first and certain love. 

He is the luckiest man on Earth.