5a. Buffet and Milton; 5b. Grandma story

Good morning, Ms. H. here. As this is published Sunday morning, Mr. Orndorff is thinking metaphysics and another line from Jimmy Buffet's "Fruitcakes" lyrics. 

"Paradise, lost and found

Paradise, take a look around"

 

Only Orndorff thought – Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained; what great lines from John Milton as he was moving down to, "that's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.' 

 

What were Milton's Paradise Lost lines? 

 

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Book One

The Argument

One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. [ 255 ]
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least 
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: [ 260 ]
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n.

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What modern relevancy is read above? A simple rebellion against the wearing of a mask for the betterment of one's self and herorhis family, friend or neighbor is the mind in its own place attempting to make a hell for others, for what matter where, "I defiant against the common good; I will be still the same, at least in this country we may reign secure, and to reign is my choice against the common good, because here in this country I can be free." Milton, a human being, was the writer. The Satan in Paradis Lost is also a man defiant without showing compassion, empathy, or remorse. We can make a Hell of Heaven or create a better place, perhaps not Heaven as Milton's Angel suggest, but a better, more humane place on Earth for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. That's how I, Ms. Havisham, sees it. It is a thin line indeed, but it is in the will, first to be kinder to ourselves as well as kinder to our family, friends, and neighbors. Kindness and friendship are built-in. Trust, however, is not. Trust has to be earned. Anyone with a good solid friend knows this. It is no different in the world. – Ms. H.

Nature trusts roots. Homo sapiens apparently do not trust their roots, or they have forgotten what they are. Friendship and sharing are first. Homo sapiens can survive without sharing or trust, but by any good measure, the human spirit cannot. In Grandma's story, the reader can see this first hand. Dead or alive, some things do not change. Here is a second revised chapter. – Grandma E. 

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CHAPTER TWO

Grandma traces Eve's DNA through various shamans of old. Why shamans? The shaman or storyteller understood what I call trancephysics. Any reader who finds herorhimself immersed in a good book, film, or play discovers for herorhimself – engagement in an altered reality.

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This second story is told by a descendent of the old man mentioned in the first chapter, the shaman who told his audience they could be out in the stars and here on Earth at the same time. He traveled to the Place of the Dead too. Funny that the listener who asked the question would die first, but she did. The shaman lived another ten years after she died. The woman drowned in a then nameless river; she had been his granddaughter.

A direct female descendant of hers traveled from what is now northern Italy to Spain. This was about ten thousand years ago. Within the next thousand years of generations, she had found herself on the British Isles with people now called Basques. A few had settled on in lower Western Britain. As the families grew, some moved on to Ireland. Others to Scotland and Wales. More than five thousand years later, a shaman appeared who had some tall tales centered on Mother Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, and human nature.

This particular shaman spent a lot of time walking the woods and daydreaming north of Salisbury Plain and southeast of Scotland. The shaman dreamed of a new story. He was five when he first had the dream, but it wasn't there when he awoke. The next night he dreamed it again and thought about it for the next fifteen years. The vision settled in on a rebellion in the Place of the Dead. This is what he told the tribe:

"The cold, icy fingers of the Dead want to feel their way back home, our Mother. The Dead did not have to go to the Stars in Heaven or even to the Moon. The Dead are among us because the Dead live within our ancestors and us."

This shaman relates this to the others and says, "If you cremate the Dead, their bones will be blackened like the night. They will not have to see their bodies rotting, and the animals won't dig them up. The quicker they will be a part of Mother again, and best of all, they will have no icy cold fingers reaching out to us the Living from beyond the grave."

He continues, "You can close a burial spot with a stone. Stones don't move so easily as the spirits do."

This shaman also became interested in crystals. He found more than one cave with crystal. He surmises crystal is the skull bone of Mother Earth. This unique crystal can produce a vibration I feel can in his fingertips. A small piece of crystal in my left hand creates empathy with whom or what I touch with my right hand. With the crystal in one hand, I can sense a movement within another stone held in his other hand. No one in the clan knew this wasn't possible, so it became real when others witnessed it and tried it for themselves.

The stones never move, but people claimed that you could sense the stone moving within itself if others carry a crystal within the left hand and another stone in the right. 

The shaman then suggests that human beings carry a spirit, as do unique crystals from the cave. This was the logic. Someone in the clan indicates that eggs are fragile stones, and eggs can appear dead on the outside but be living on the inside. Thus people can be living on the outside but feel dead on the inside. Crystals and eggs have something in common with human beings, and even human bones and stones have something in common, you see.

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Grandma smiles and winks. The crystal works its sympathetic magic on human beings. It worked for the shaman, so he told it as a true story. Stones are like bones. You line them up just right, and they lie. That's the truth of it.

Grandma glanced beyond the dark sky above. The white in her eyes could tell you her dark pupils were disappearing inside that earthy head of hers. I have a secret, says Grandma to the Reader; I am the Consciousness on which the shaman dance to understand their nature.

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Methinks that one of the differences between a living human consciousness and one that is physically dead is that, for once, nothing is fake. – Ms. H.