I am Dru. I stand at the doorway of the Chamber of Great Darkness. I stand alone, in the half-light. I am not afraid. I know that I shall soon be rid of all the frowns and tears. Here in the darkness, a soft finger touches my cheek and a gentle voice asks if I am ready.

We wait for the thin line of the Moon Clock to move above the doorway. When it is at its highest point it will be time to enter.

Druid, you gave me my name. You told me to search for the Blue Chalice. You told me to make myself thirsty so that I could drink all the miraculous liquid it contained. Now I must tell you of my journey. As soon as I have told you, I will forget it forever. The life of..........! Already I have forgotten my other name. The place? It flickers in my mind as the moon-line creeps up into the upright. A square house. Red bricks. Windows. A grey roof shining in the rain. It always rained so we had to stay inside with the doors and windows shut tight. The roof tight.

A blond unhappy woman....I can’t remember her name...would pull pieces of cloth across the windows to keep out the Dark and the Moon. I can hear all the sounds in the tiny house now. Noise. Shouting. Crying. Naughty laughter. Serious talking. Television always rumbling away. Snoring... Oh yes! He was always snoring. Always sitting in a chair with his eyes shutting, his head drooping. The blond woman always poking him, crying.

There were other children I think. A dog, cats? And me. Sitting at the top of the stairs with tears rolling down my cheeks, listening to them shouting at each other. The clatter of something thrown against the wall. Me. Coming between them. Making mistakes. Making a mess of everything.

He would shout and I would shout back. He would pull me across the floor. Then she would cry. Me. Begging them to stop arguing, to stop talking about money. I did not want all those shiny bicycles and helicopters that really flew. Me. Watching the car get bigger and shinier. Automatic windows. Me. Crawling around on my hands and knees. Them trying to get me to stand up. I felt safer on four legs. But they wanted me to be respectable. Someone with big straight shoulders. Me. I hated being that Boy! Wow! The memory is fading fast.

This is my last chance. I walked on the face of the Earth feeling scared. Feeling that everyone was unhappy because of me. Frowns. Tears. The nights were long and I was alone

The next thing I remember is you Druid coming to me in the moonlight one night and making me smile. You helped me to find a cure for this unhappiness. You spoke to me in the dark. You spoke in capitals across the moon.

MAZA MA RAZAMA.

You opened all the windows and doors and taught me about the sky. I took off my pyjamas and walked through the moonlight......Yes, I see now that there is not much time!

But there are more bad things. The blond woman would make me feel things. She was afraid of everything I ate, everything I watched on the TV, all my friends. And he would come and disagree with her. She would slam another door and scream. He would tell me that I must be ‘a man.’

The moonline is almost upright now.

“Tell me little Dru, how did you find the blue chalice?”

I couldn’t breathe one night. The doctor came and made me breathe oxygen from a cylinder. I fell asleep and it was then that I first saw the chalice. I knew there was a magical land where I could live my way. I knew that drinking from that Blue Chalice would take away all the fear.

So little time left. I know!....

But, I must tell you about the two people who helped me to find the chalice. They were psychologists or something like that. The blond woman and the snoring man took me to them because I couldn’t breathe or sleep. I was pale, thin. I felt as if I was dying. The doctor at the hospital told me that if I didn’t take all the medicines and breathe in oxygen from the big black cylinder, that I would die. I was scared.

The psychologists were both women. I asked them what ‘a psychologist’ was, and they told me that was just a fancy name, and that I would soon see what they could do. I knew then that they were living a magical life and that they would show me the chalice in time.

One day the two psychologists and me built a tower. We made it out of nothing but a pile of old newspapers and glue. While we sat rolling tight tubes from the paper beautiful sounds filled the room. Delicious smoke which smelled of lemons and roses burned in the corners of the rooms. The tighter we rolled the tubes, the stronger the tower would be.

Look at the moon-line now! There is only time to tell you that we finished this beautiful tower and we went one day to a small lake. The wind was asleep and the sky was a jewel, and we carefully launched the tower. It floated. Tall, strong, reaching up to touch the blue facets of sky.

I stood on the bank holding on to its ropes, letting out the slack slowly. As it moved into the middle of the water, its reflection was perfect. I looked and suddenly realised that I could not see the surface line of the water. The tower was twice as tall. Then the ropes tugged. I held more tightly. Then I tugged again more strongly. And suddenly I was pulled into the water.

In the middle of the lake, the tower stopped. It was quite still. I knew it was time. I let the ropes go and there, shining and shimmering, was the Blue Chalice. It was inside the tower. I climbed up on to the floats looking back at my two enthusiastic guides, but they had gone. I pushed between the gaps and got into the central space of the structure. And clasped my hands around the chalice.

It is time now. I know. Those are the important things. But I have a last question. Will you answer it?

“Yes, little Dru. What is it?”

Will going into the Great Chamber of Darkness be like dying?

“Perhaps. Everything must die before it can be born again. You are not afraid of growing again, are you? Little Dru, you knew that the Land of Frowns and Tears was not for you!

Come. It is time. Step forward when the door is drawn back. You are brave. Swallow in the great darkness. Breathe it up. Let it in through your skin for this is the final preparation.”

I am Dru. I am suspended here in this Great Chamber. I can stretch my arms up above my head and there is nothing. I can stretch my legs down beneath me and there is nothing. I can open my eyes and shut them again, and there is no difference. There is no need for words because my ears and my whole body, and this whole chamber is filled with those beautiful sounds again. I can feed on them. I can breathe them in. I listen with my whole body. My blood is replaced with thick black darkness and the beautiful diamonds and rubies of sound.

“In a moment, little Dru, the great darkness will end and there before your eyes, you will see the blue chalice. You will reach out and drink every drop of the magic liquid in it, without stopping. The moment you have finished, the chalice will be removed and you will begin your journey. I will join you again but for now, you are on your own.

There is one more thing you need to know. It is this. When you have drunk from the chalice there will be no time, no seconds or hours, no days or years. I will come back, but now you are on your own.”

But what do you look like? How will I know you?

“You will know me. Fear not.”

I am Dru. I cannot remember fear. I am being slowly lowered into a gigantic chamber of lights and colours and even more beautiful sounds. Slowly. Slowly. My eyes getting wider and wider. So many dazzling things. The Nine Spinning Moons. The Great Forest of Crystals. The Green Goddess surrounded by her army of blue and red horn players. I cannot count the waterfalls, spilling out water which is full of rainbows.

A million lights shine and flicker. Tiny comets of green and amber shoot up through tall towers and domes. Flocks of huge pink birds take off and then land again all together. There are rich dark corners here which I long to explore, and mats of soft fur which I long to nuzzle into and run my fingers along.

The Mighty Triple King smiles at me as I pass. His leashes of leopards growl playfully. Big circles of stones stand with black ravens roosting on top of them. There are jewel mines and castles, and a white lady holding a rose. I reach out and touch her dress. And as I go down and down, I can smell honey and cinnamon, log smoke and strawberries, fresh cut grass and bubble bath, perfume and oranges, chocolate cake and bonfires.

Soon I reach the bottom. I see someone standing there. Tall. A great black beard. Blue eyes like torches. And I know that it is Druid. I shout and wave to him and he holds out his arms with their baggy sleeves of sea green. He wears long green robes and a tall tower hat. I cannot wait to tell him of my journey. But there are still more things to see.

“Welcome, little Dru. Your journey has begun. I can see you are enjoying it.”

This cave is fantastic. What is it called?

“Why this is called Dru's Animal! Did you not recognise the Green Goddess or the Triple King?”

Who are they? Druid smiles and points high up to where the Green Goddess sits on her throne.

“She is your heart, little Dru. See her horn players making her heart beat with their notes? See them blowing their magic down into the great forest of crystals? That is where you breathe. See the crystals are changing colour with the music?”

And the Triple King? Who is he?

“He is the Lord of Dru’s stories and paintings, and the keeper of Dru’s animal. Together the Green Goddess and the Triple King rule your animal. They share everything in complete balance. In time, you too will learn to balance yourself like them.”

Druid, I don’t understand exactly.

“Never mind, little Dru. There is so much to learn about. Come! We must begin, for in time, when you have learned all there is to know about yourself, you will travel back through the Great Chamber of Darkness, to help me to take other children to drink from the Blue Chalice. There is so much to do because there is so much unhappiness and loneliness and fear, and only by seeking the Blue Chalice can they be saved.”

So, after Druid had taken off his enormous green gown and his tower hat, he held little Dru's hand and they set off on the long journey to explore and learn everything about Dru’s Animal. To make sure that they had been to every corner and seen and smelled and touched and heard and tasted everything, they left behind their footprints and their fingerprints.

MAZA MA RAZAMA COZ

What does this mean Druid?

“It is one of the most important things we must teach to the children who live in the Land of Frowns and Tears. It means, ‘Drink the Light of the Moon.’”

˜

One day, Dru went back when he had learned all he could about himself and his animal. He entered once more the Chamber of Great Darkness and waited for the moon clock to be pointing in the lowest position. And one day, he returned to the red brick house and took hold of the hands of the blond unhappy woman and the snoring man. He helped them to open all the windows coaxing them to walk out into the moonlight, and quite soon it stopped raining in the Land of Frowns and Tears.

Druid was pleased to see that Little Dru had begun to talk to others about towers.

I am Dru. I love you Dru.

Sipping Rhone wine under the flounces

of the massive Lime-flower tree

delectable aromas and intoxicating scents

trouble me unimaginably!

The wine at its best

the flowers at their peak

and yet my life’s absorption in

what fills my senses is being tugged at

its tension overstretched like used muslin.

The perfection of sky balanced on untouched forests

almost eludes me at this time

the gist of each of your precious words

dripping in the heaping flowers at my feet

for someone is calling me from

the white marble of Montpellier.

A mere dream in our shuttered salon—

alpine logs in the stove eavesdropping—

commands me to descend our mountain hairpins

the weekly bus alive with grape-pickers

suitcases slotted between purple stained baskets

to the North African haven of Montpellier.

You demand why and who and how I must go down from

this ultimate haven of Cathars, Catholics, shepherds,

but the gist of your question vanishes

in the evening sizzle of biftek

buried in an armful of Bay and vine twigs

for someone is calling me from

the vivid painted timbers of Montpellier.

The fierce row along the boards at bedtime—

your coarse tears extinguishing the candles

unbalancing the stable slab of incense—

propel me out of your faithless fleshy cloisters.

You hurl bells

burn sutras in your ashtray

denounce my path to this ‘borrowed’ deity Buddha

making last-ditch interrogations under a strong light.

But the gist of your spite is sucked

into the Lama’s Himalayan eyes

transformed in the flutter of his butter lamps

dredged over the ample of his saffron robes

as he welcomes me to the wooden temple in

a suburban orchard in Montpellier.

‘‘You heard my calling. I knew you would come in this very life.’’

You seem thrilled to meet again, though I cannot be sure. Nothing’s certain here in terms of feelings; faces and eyes are no gage. You’re busy reading the air as we greet each other formally; we bow deeply to show utter respect, you tipping forward smoothly from the high block heels of your sandals—geta; me, heavily and low-slung from the earth.

You have never left these easterly lands, refusing to burden your parents with worry over dangerous contamination from distant cultures, golden lands of dollar and Deutsch mark, lands of free expression and individuality.

Did you put aside feelings of curiosity, a longing for exotic adventure? Or did they never surface because the pool was either too deep or too shallow? It seems impossible to measure its depth because there is no expression, no dialogue designed for such things while swimming in this monoculture—only one language, one heart, only one pool.

You have come of age and yet been slow to sample life, preferring the local festivals at shrines with their red gates to wish for good health and prosperity. You wade through cool water in your summer kimono to ring the rope bell, clapping your hands twice to ask for benefit. You prefer your part-time job at the noodle shop, and your miniscule apartment like a cupboard where you live on your bed because there is no floor space for a table and chairs, or even to kneel on ‘earth,’ your most natural posture. You worship and pledge yourself to your god-like teachers of traditional kimono dancing and shamisen (Japanese banjo), vowing to care for them until they die.

We enter the French Brasserie in a small Kyoto basement shopping centre, the subway nearby, the main national Banks above, to loud applause and wide smiles. You are geisha, gentle entertainer of professional men, and I, honorary foreigner, ungentle educator of apprentices to western ways.

Your full kimono and wooden clogs contrast with my denim blue and red Birkenstocks; your perfectly oval white china face with my irregular round pink; your full lips sculpted in carmine with my narrow soft plants of flesh.

I ask you if you would like to sit opposite or by the side of me. You lower your eyes looking to the left, unable to choose, baffled by such a request. I stride forward and establish the ‘opposite’ seating plan—my choice, because I’m not reading the air, just breathing it, gratis.

The menu comes: in French for me, and in Japanese-French for you. We talk about it in Japanese-English. A Japanese monk, some say the only original genius of Japan, created a system of signs which renders all foreign words within the Japanese sound system called katakana. Consequently, you are shocked at my non-katakana pronunciation of French dish names. Smiling, you beg me to be the next genius to bring this marvellous system up to date, palms together in gassho—Japanese namaste.

You want to try Greek fish ‘marinated.’ You know what the term means, but how could you ever be prepared for the taste? You place a large shiny silver fork carefully, uneasily in your red art mouth, and avert your eyes downwards again to read. There! No expression, no remote signal of that space between translation and human feeling or reactions. I wait many seconds for your verdict as you read the taste, the texture, me watching you suspended, illiterate.

Yes, you know the word ‘marinated,’ but imagination is based on varied experience, on width and flexibility. Japanese foods are deliberately chaste in flavour: you say white rice is your very favourite food when to me it is completely tasteless. Your literature is incomprehensible to me, and mine to you, and yet we share the same air.

I eat my liver paté spreading it skilfully on roughly-torn French bread, sipping my red wine from a tall stem while you leaf through your catalogues, trying to file this alien taste of Greece. Then suddenly, the darkness of your eyes’ sky tempers my pale blue ocean, and you scream out, “oishiiiiii!”—‘delicious!’ You have finished the book and the ending is joyful.

I wonder if I can apply to study on an air-reading course, but you doubt it.

We leave to more applause and deep bows. I want to touch you somehow, but you have measured the distance between us expertly, so I cannot reach. I feel you reading me and know we will again be intimate on electronic pages, you from your room on an island bed, and me from my spacious campus office.

This evening I had to take a train; a train to the unknown. I am "unemployed," "middle-aged," "woman," and "foreigner" in this country. My numerous epithets could weigh heavily on my mind, but I seem able to observe them as labels on commodities. "No money. No job" is another way I would have described myself at this point in time in the past but not now. These are words to describe someone else it seems. Perhaps someone deceased.

I am enchanted by the countryside as we pass through it in the early evening, although it is not my country; I am not of this hot red earth, or this waveless ocean our rails pass along the edge of. And I am not of these people. I speculate about this word "enchantment" and wonder if it is something we feel when we experience novelty because I cannot imagine myself using it to describe my own land.

Even though I have made this trip many times, tonight it seems as if I have no idea where I am going, and I perceive the countryside and indeed the whole experience as if my memory of it has been erased. I feel like a cat exploring her established territory always as if it is the first time–the first paw gingerly in the water with wide eyes and a sense of being prepared for anything to happen. Even though I have prowled the precincts of employment during the last year, I do not have answers to a lot of questions about how I may find a job here. My eyes are still wide: my senses on full alert.

We pass by lots of vineyards and oyster beds: I know these phenomena only as a tourist and a gastronome. The people on the train with me do not speak my language mostly, though I speak theirs as a foreigner, always a foreigner. And it suddenly occurs to me as we rush through the pink light of the spring evening that I may die on this journey. In fact, in a way, I do.

Tonight, I feel special compassion for myself because I have spent a lot of time looking for something which I do not have the technique to find, or so I think. One goes through many motions of writing endless letters of application, the wording and presentation of which is absolutely crucial. Then following them up with phone calls fielded by ferocious civil servants who detect a slight foreign accent and immediately reject the application.

In the south of France, if you want a job it depends on who you know, not what. Although it is well known as "Le Pays des Papiers"– the country of bureaucracy, par excellence, when it comes to jobs, if you have a brother or a cousin or a concubine in a post, usually ‘he’ is sure to get you a job in his department. If you don’t, well you are trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle.

This could make me feel bad, helpless, impotent, from time to time, and today I admit momentarily resisting getting this train to come to a city I do not know well, in order to find a job I do not know the nature of. I wanted to stay at home, to carry on working in the mountain garden I have tamed, planting out spring flowers and bulbs, in hot sunshine and under a sumptuous blue sky. I wanted to practice kneeling in front of my small altar surrounded by stacks of sutras and discourses, comfortable in my native environment. However, by tearing myself away from where I feel most comfortable, I was able to experience death in quite a dramatic way.

I have spent several years in this state of joblessness and I see clearly how uncomfortable it makes people around me. My mother is anxious, wondering how I can possibly get through a single day without having a job. Others take pity on me, trying to disguise the despair in their eyes. What they do not seem to realize is that I know that I could live in the forest, that nature would nourish me, and that in a way I do live there. I crouch beneath a tree, a large leaf for an umbrella when it rains hard, a small cave for shelter when the wind blows.

In fact, I go through these job-seeking motions solely to make others comfortable and in the hope that I will be led to a situation where I can bring light into the world, can slide below superficial behaviours. I am in no way aware of striving for "status" or "salary" or even "career development." The worry beads, it seems, continue to be passed through the worn fingers of the proletariat.

The train passes large expanses of silver water on a strong land bridge, impenetrable to storms and tempests, curving around this alluring coastline known internationally as the Cote D’Azure. In the middle of these dazzling fabrics laid out across the earth is a tiny island. No roads can reach it although I can see a number of houses there that look inhabited.

I marvel at how the householders come and go, how they find a hospital or a supermarket to meet all their needs. I catch sight of the oyster beds and seafood nets and I work out that they probably sell their oyster and seafood harvests to enable them to live. But then I speculate that maybe before the time of money and markets, they lived entirely from oysters and seafood on their tiny island, rowing ashore in rough boats to bring back barrels of red wine to accompany their island feasts.

This island gem is flat, crowded with buildings butting up to each other—a disc of dry land. It looks as if it could easily get washed away in a storm and yet the inhabitants have probably lived there for many generations and no doubt prospered. Such is the human spirit and the glamorous nutritional properties of oysters!

In the distance, the mountains are still capped with snow like sketches on a blue-grey pad of paper; a rose-pink sun is a saucer balancing on top of the highest peak. This setting sun has the miraculous ability to cast its colour like a dye across the water fabrics and littorals, and even across the train and our faces as we look out. I can feel its radiance and a sense of shimmering beauty as it plays on the hurtling metal tube of the train covered in the graffiti of youthful "Latin" anger. It even changes the nature of that graffiti with its radiance. It is lovely, and I am moved to smile a broad pink smile in solidarity.

Fortunately for us mobile spectators, the inland lakes and the shallows of the ocean itself are dotted with huge flocks of wild birds feeding and breeding, safe from the meddling of humans. One of the species is the flamingo, which spends the mild winters here. These gentle birds are an exotic site with their long legs and pink curved necks, striding in a leisurely way through the shallows, fishing. They are exotic in Europe and therefore bound to attract a certain attention, and yet there is something else innately eye-catching about their pinkness and their grace. Perhaps they are symbolic of our natural pure state. Then, with a shock, I suddenly realise they are no longer pink! They seem to be white or cream coloured! This greatly surprises me! I look more closely. The realisation that they have lost their native colour is the signal of a death, the death of a false view.

You see, the mind gets so easily attached to things it encounters in life. But this attachment is what prevents us from contacting our inner wisdom. These wonderful flames of birds, beautiful as I have always acknowledged that they are, have been keeping my mind alive officiously. Now, as I understand that they are not as I saw them last, I am able to witness a death, the death of the craving of my mind for sameness. These flamingos snap me into the abrupt knowing that I have developed a bad habit of living in a fully human way only occasionally instead of every moment; that I am mostly squandering my precious human existence by sleep-walking.

As it goes down, the sun takes with it the sea pink of these birds and turns us travelers into flamingo pink waders on a littoral train line. And at the same time, my life as a pitiable unemployed woman, my joblessness, makes me see myself in a new way. Maybe the setting sun has also taken away my job-fullness leaving me devoid of its usual colour? And now it is my responsibility to spread my unique human light and to write and to teach people about flamingos.

The light of day comes and goes from my personal theatre.

Likewise, objects and people wax and wane, while I watch from the gallery. This appearance and evanescence may affect me in two ways

but I am free only to choose one of them.

Either I can swallow the beauty I see as it glimmers and gurgles,

calmly enjoying, marvelling, weeping, smiling in the centre of the moment and moving smoothly without flinching on to the next scene, looking and listening in absolute trust because I know it is running for only a limited season and that the essence of love propelled me to this theatre and will convey me back to the ether high above the lit streets when the show is over.

Alternatively, I can hold the beauty in my mouth, refusing to let it go, to swallow it, wanting to immortalize it and make it permanent,

to possess it so that no-one else can have it.

The emotions that arise as a result of the stimulus are negative, inverted, flinching so that they separate me away from everyone else in the world, from my race and from the natural world. They are rooted in my fear that the supply of beauty will end, and so, I must create my own stores because I have no shred of trust in reality.

My love essence has brought me this far smoothly but I choose to sabotage it so that I do not have to leave the theatre, simply throwing it aside as spent fuel.

Which will you choose?

There are many misunderstandings about karma. People make it into what they like. They often portray it as a Law, something irrefutable, something given by a great mystical World saviour, Buddha.

But Karma according to the ancient Indian tradition for thousands of years before Buddha Gautama, is not a law because there is no lawmaker. Neither is it scientific because it is not a phenomenon outside the human body which can be measured, dissected, held to account, because science is not complete without internal knowing.

Karma is the nature of all existence. In fact, it is existence itself. In existence and nature it is true that if you sow a seed, at some point its centre will force outwards and sprout. It could be almost immediately if the conditions are perfect for the ground and moisture but it could also be months or years later. But it is true to say that it will germinate. The germination is the result of the seed and so it is possible to say that there are conditions in the world and they produce results.

We each have a nature, our true nature, and so each crime or contradiction against it is recorded in our unconscious—the storehouse of not only your entire existence but also that of your ancestors. Some call this storehouse a book, so everything that is contrary to your True Nature is written of the book of you and creates a reaction. It may be guilt or unworthiness, insecurity or self-condemnation—the names of these uncomfortable feelings are of no consequence. Think of them as a closing of a small window or extinguishing of a small light inside you. They create a blockage to the smooth flow of your energy because in our original natural state we were totally available, nothing was held back – thus we were and still are completely pure. Negative Karma, which we can potentially create every moment, is like static causing things to stick.

If you lie then you can be certain that many other lies will follow. If you speak one truth then many other truths will follow. Because we are special humans in progress from animals to super-beings then goodness registers as a credit and evil as a discredit.

Karma is the epitome of human hope which we have in our peripheral vision at all times as we create ourselves. The choice is ours as we are our own creators: either we create grace or disgrace. But it is strange, an anomaly, that those who have accumulated so much disgrace are in the majority and those who create only grace are in a minority.

Karma is continuously produced in the process of human life. The results are simultaneous and it is easy to observe in practice. If you smile at a stranger, they will probably smile back and reach out with a glowing word. The smile returned is the response to or result of the smile offered. Conversely, if you raise a fist at someone, they will probably raise one back or rush away from you terrified. The fist returned or the fleeing is the reaction to or the result of the fist you raised.

Karma is precious life and every thought, word and deed that we have.

Look at your life. Examine it closely. What makes you happy? What makes you sad? What do you desire? What do you avoid?

If you do not watch your life carefully to see how you are using each precious moment, then you are living in a state of hypnosis. To eliminate such swings in your emotions just accept that most of your suffering is self-induced because you are not accepting that change is inevitable. Change and love are the only two certainties in life.

What are the causes of your states of happiness or unhappiness? Most suffering comes from craving for life to be other than it is. Accept that life is as it is and all things are impermanent. Embrace each experience as it occurs and be ready for the next.

How can we prevent suffering? By dropping limited ideas and perceptions about ourselves and others around us. Experiences can be unlearned, can be detached from. We can live life as the pure energy that we are.

To be completely enduring happy we must abandon expectations about the way we live. This is the correct perspective on our short human lives, and to get this perspective, just close your eyes and breathe. Meditation and attention to your breath will make you aware, and awareness is the key to enlightenment.

’You must wear white garments from now on.

Kick away shoes and know earth with your feet’

gift words are sprinkled lightly through this very life

on the schizoid lips of drunkards

in a sharp hand slap on my cheek

on the sanctum of the master’s tongue-

a stranger speaking destiny

on seemingly un-kissed lips

the kiss sought out in

the smooth flap of

mouths of truth against each other.

you see, words have ever and all been uttered

the gabbling carousel turning without cease

the entire supply sprinkled in planet rings

with the Big Bang.

But are we ready to hear them

over tea, secreted among platitudes

and the incongruousness of thought and speech—

cups and saucers which do not match?

After all, the higher self does not take tea

with the sugar of insincerity.

Its real tuned ears are able to catch

words on the muzzle of every species of wooden horse.

’I must wear white garments from now on.

I will kick away shoes and know the earth with my feet.’

Goodness is a universal principle, either on its own terms or in contrast to what is not goodness; in other words, human beings need both the positive and the negative so that we can clearly see the universal appeal of goodness and its great truth, as well as striving towards living by its codes. Goodness is and has been the supreme aspiration of most religious and spiritual traditions throughout the history of humanity.

It could be said that everything and everyone we encounter throughout our lives bears crucial messages for our spiritual progress if only we know how to notice them, interpret them and then choose to apply them. Imagine a comprehensive curriculum devised for your spiritual development throughout the whole of your life, laid out before you. It is a blueprint, and if we follow its dimensions, we have the opportunity to become a strong enlightened being who has transformed human shortcomings, learned from our mistakes, and so returned to our original innocence or goodness. It would seem that many of us have lost sight of the flawless loving nature we are endowed with for our term as human beings.

The Church of Love laid down the dimensions of such a blueprint in 1244 in medieval Europe. Its creed is a masterpiece of balance and harmony all resting on the foundation of pure goodness. The Cathars, known as Les Bons or Les Parfaits, took absolute refuge in the pure and positive light of God, a spiritual God. Their creed has great relevance to life today—an era beleaguered by social decline, war and natural calamities and estrangement from the great truth.

To summarize that creed, the participants needed no physical church because understanding was their venue. Membership came down to simply knowing they belonged there. They had no ambition, only an unconditional wish to serve. Boundaries and nationalisms were deemed unloving; no walk of life, no race, colour, creed, religion, or class was a barrier. All teachers of all ages were revered if they had shown the truth of love. The principal practice was to live the truth of love in all of their being.

‘Those who are, know.’ This is perhaps the cornerstone of their manifesto. In other words, if they allowed themselves to simply be, they would know everything they needed to know. This was amplified by the Cathar commitment to not teaching or instructing intellectually in order to enrich or edify, but simply allowing a return to a natural flawless state of being. There were no teachers or hierarchies in the Church of Love as there was equality between all people. There was no discrimination between lay and clergy, member or non-member because they believed that every life constituted the way to return to God.

In the wake of environmental deterioration in today’s world, we modern people have turned to ecology and prevention measures. But 700 years ago, the Cathars were fully aware of their responsibility to the planet Earth, seeing it as an organism of which humans were part, along the lines of the Gaia hypothesis. So, they called for a ‘supreme transmutation,’ or the conscious change of the self-serving ego, into a reintegration with the whole, in other words, the universe.

Cathars recognized each other only by their good deeds, and by their eyes, which were filled with love. They loved everyone and everything in silence while living normally in their communities. There were no rewards to offer in exchange for practice or good works, except the condition of full joy in simply being and loving. They listened to everyone around them, and the planet, and never felt fear or shame. Neither did they have any secrets or mysteries. The only initiation was a true understanding of the power of love, and the recognition that if humans changed, then the world would change.

This blueprint is fundamentally over-flowing with goodness. There is no doubt at all that the Cathars took refuge in the pure positive light of God, while immersed in the human world of suffering, and worked tirelessly to extricate those ensnared by the so-called devil’s tricks and delusions.

Almost twenty years ago, I had the great privilege to live for several years in a tiny village in the remote eastern Pyrenees, on the Mediterranean side of this gigantic mountain frontier between France and Spain, in western Europe. This region is known as Languedoc-Roussillon. It was a simple life, mostly sequestered away from the media and other such worldly distractions. I was a practising Buddhist at the time, but entirely on my own, ironically without either sangha or teacher.

It was a heavenly location, with unhindered views of untouched primaeval forests and stunning peaks. The village was medieval, largely abandoned by young people who had moved to the cities to make a living, and mostly in ruins.

My long days were spent restoring and cultivating a sizeable medieval garden to try to provide all the food we needed and making the carcass of an old farmhouse more habitable. Early mornings were spent exercising on the sandy roads once trodden by Les Bons, nowadays used as shortcuts by shepherds and their flocks and vineyard workers.

I would go as far as to say that my personal spiritual blueprint had designated that I was transported to these mountains to tread the footsteps of the Cathars as they fled from the relentless hounding of the Church of Rome, or ‘of wolves’ as they saw it. They were pronounced heretics because of their creed and their refusal to be embraced by the Catholic Church.

I dreamed many Cathar dreams, both subtle and gross, during my time there, and came firmly to believe that my ancestors had been Cathars. To my absolute delight, this was later confirmed in the conditions of their promised revival and the tracing of my maternal family tree back to medieval Spanish lace-makers who moved around the region.

The history of the Cathars remains mostly unknown. They left little trace of their existence until the time they were finally rounded up and eradicated because their presence was mostly unnoticed as they were not a visible religious group. To grasp their definition of goodness, we must understand their legacy from the Essenes, the first generation of Christians of the Dead Sea, who viewed the world of humans as a battleground between heaven and hell. This struggle was represented in each human being. In other words, the spirits of truth and falsehood were in constant conflict inside the human heart: Good versus Evil and good triumphed. I believe this struggle is universal and timeless.

As I reached deeply into the lives of Les Bons each of my own days became a triumph of good over evil. The thin veil of my death, which they believed was the sole thing separating beings of flesh from the spiritual world, the visible from the invisible, threatened to blow away at any moment. I found that my life lived in this belief was light and joyful and that indeed I had everything I needed to realize such joy inside me.

If we examine their creed above in this light, we can see that evil could be represented by the opposites of all its tenets, for instance, lack of understanding, exclusion and elitism, rivalry, ruthless ambition, nationalism, sectarianism, relying entirely on intellectual ways of thinking, etc.

Les Parfait (the Perfect), another name they were known by, lived inconspicuously amongst their communities working usually as weavers, but behind the scenes they were devoted to purifying all beings by administering the Consolamentum—a kind of baptismal rite given to those who aspired to become a Perfect, or sought liberation in the face of death. They lived in a state of moral perfection and were admired for it by dignitaries of the Roman Church, such as Bernard de Clairvaux, (1090-1153) But they enraged the establishment of Rome because they denied the pillars of the Catholic Church—holy baptism, the crucifixion, procreation, confession. They regarded the human body as merely a transit vehicle for the spirit, irredeemable and vile, whereas the Catholics adulated it as Christian art in general exemplifies.

To Les Bons, the ‘paraphernalia’ instituted by the Roman Church, accessible to all its members at a price, was deliberately cultivating evil and sin and miring worshippers in the material world ever more deeply. As they believed in original goodness, they believed that we all had the capability of returning to that state of divinity by transforming the negative into the positive. Christ to the Cathars, as to the Essenes, was a spiritual Christ, universal and glorious exactly because there was no vile body, no trap for evil to creep into.

According to Les Bons, we humans were manifest as flesh exactly so that we could transcend the suffering world and return to our spiritual origin. Thus, death was simply a fine veil which could easily be lifted so that the visible and the invisible would become one once more.

The village of Montaillou, in the province of Ariege in southern France, became the sole window through which we could view Catharism, by virtue of the testimonies given to and recorded by the Bishop of Palmiers, between the years 1318-1325. The whole village community, 250 inhabitants, fell under suspicion of harbouring Cathars, and so receiving the Consolamentum and were duly interrogated, tortured and incarcerated if they confessed. I visited the remains of this village often and felt the horror of the prolonged interrogations.

Metempsychosis—the belief that at the moment of death a soul could migrate into another body or animal to go on learning spiritual lessons, was accepted in the Catholic view of the omniscience of God. For Les Bons however, it promoted forgiveness, an essential element of goodness, naturally. The following testimony, given by Bernard Bélibaste, a well-known Cathar later burned at the stake, exemplifies this:

When a man steals away someone else’s possessions or commits evil, that man is none other than an evil spirit which enters into him: this spirit makes him commit sins and makes him abandon the good life for the wicked. Everything is full of souls. All the air is full of good and evil spirits. Except when a spirit has been dwelling in the body of a dead person who when he was alive was just and good, the spirit which has just escaped from a dead body is always anxious to be reincarnated. For the evil spirits in the air burn that spirit when it is among them; so, they force it to enter into some body of flesh, whether of man or beast; because as long as a human spirit is at rest in a body of flesh, the evil spirits in the air cannot burn it or torment it.

Béatrice de Planissoles, a minor aristocrat who fled from the valleys of the lusty friars to the high mountains to become a Parfait, confessed:

Pierre Clergue (known as a Parfait) told me that both man and woman can freely commit any sin they like during their life. And do whatever they please in this world. Provided only that at the end they are received into the sect or into the faith of the good Christians. Then they are saved and absolved of all the sins they have committed in their life…..thanks to the laying on of hands of these good Christians, as it is received on the brink of death.

And forgiveness depended on faith, as Guillaume Austatz, stated:

Those who have possessions in the present life can have only evil in the other world. Conversely, those who have evil in the present life will have only good in the future life.

According to my experience with the descendants of Cathars I met during my time in Languedoc, and as there are no extant Cathar texts, I have written an impressionistic account to try to capture ‘goodness’ as expressed in the lives of Les Bons, as follows: Fabrisse de Caramany, is a householder of the village, and August an itinerant Parfait. She is talking in secret to her favourite rock, Ram Rock:

The floor of the threshing yard was strewn with perfectly winnowed barley that day. The first harvest; its ripe creamy grains gathered in the thick flounces of mountain sunshine. Mmmmm! Do you know that dry earthy scent which comes off it?

August went on squatting, the wet-earth back of his robe perfectly at home in the enclosed courtyard full of our crop. He could not resist playing with the grains, watching them intensely as if a thousand rosaries had been broken there. And in a bright silence between us, as I brushed aside a strand of hair which had blown into my eyes, and he ran his long olive fingers over an arc pattern of grains he was making, he said, “Each grain has an original blessing,” and looked at me full, his head slightly bowed, “like you.”

He trained his shining eyes down again on the grains saying, “and me.” Behind him, a pair of grey and white wagtails boldly pecked, and I shooed them away with a sharp intake of breath, which unnerved him.

“Those wagtails are real scavengers,” I said, irritated by them. You know, I was irritated by their opportunism, always ready to rush in and thieve, and at the same time, feeling my cheeks a little hotter than usual in the presence of this Parfait.

He smiled and said, “You have done the work of removing the husks for them. Look! They are pleased.” And at that moment a single hen wagtail moved towards him and pecked at the grain he offered her in the palm of his hand. He looked for many moments deep into the eyes of this twitchy silvery bird, in a kind of trance like soothsayers lapse into.

Then he said, “God is here in the flapping feathery spirit.” He continued in silence to scrutinize it and then turned away to look at me sideways again.

‘And God is here in these full lips, and on the sweet breath of Fabrisse de Caramany.’

As mentioned, Les Bons were branded ‘heretics’ and tortured unmercifully and burned alive. The Catholics even redeployed all of their armies fighting the bloody crusades in the Holy Lands to single-mindedly stamp out the Cathars. Perhaps the Church of Rome was afraid of their sincerity and courage; threatened by their confidence and quiet goodness, and their utter dedication to an invisible God. They needed nothing, no stone church, no sacraments, no exotic incense or candles imported at great expense from Rome. In the inhospitable high mountains, Les Bons could thrive and fulfil their mission with stealth; whereas the indulged friars and dissipated canons were intolerant of harsh conditions and deprivation of any kind.

Human beings have a tendency to search for something outside themselves, beguiled by other places and envious of other people, when all the time we have all we need for complete happiness inside us. It needs only activation. It is so simple to love unconditionally and live to the full; finding joy in the joy of others and supporting them in their sorrow.

We have the capability of accumulating virtue with every human breath we take, and constantly repenting our mistaken deeds, views and thoughts, and those of our ancestors. The Cathars prepared for the future in a realistic way: future lives depending on the causes we are making in this very second with our thoughts, our words and our actions.

We do not need to make any personal choices if we listen carefully to the messages all around us. All we have to do is to let the fear, discrimination and power-seeking fall away like a chrysalis to free the butterfly of goodness and innocence, our true nature, our divine nature.

Finally, the Cathars made a prophecy, before their extermination, that a new era of Catharism would be staged by those born in the 1940s and 1950s, 700 years later. I was born in the 1950s and found myself by what seemed chance at the time in the place of their final decline. It was not by chance. Today, I consider myself a Cathar aspiring to live by their creed of goodness and love.

Life is glorious if we see each human being embodying a Church of Love, walking on the face of our foundation, the planet of Love.

Nirvana Linden https://www.lindenthorp.com

your orchids are glad tumours of buds

long-closed by some pinch of the air

they open, keen angels, to my violence.

Soft stoppers on the rages of colour

are flicked along with stones down the scarp.

The on-come of the crockery of your climax

tramples the frames of your spared spectacles

and the astronomical roup and dizzy of

your scream is unfastened, utter,

to shake to hell the Hebrew of your throat.

you are felled, gorgeous-buried within the sky

and the cavern floor of your eyes.

In time, rash with full blooms of quiescence

here on the broad back of the scar and my hand

you ask me simply ‘Where am I?’