Thursday, January 03, 2008

Emerald Cloud






















A teacher rose from a stick of incense this morning.

The brand is called Chui Woon, translated to be Emerald Cloud. It�s made from figwort, elecampane and clove. It�s designed to smooth and purify, relax and induce a sense of well-being.

I lit Emerald Cloud with a match that came from a box adorned with a Galapagos�s black finch on the cover. The finch is symbolic of diversity and new experiences. The blackbird represents the mystic and knowing of the self. Galapagos is an exotic island with unusual wild life. Some of those animals are going extinct.

The cold air in the room was like drifting snow only invisible. I don�t have enough insulation to keep winter from coming inside and circling the alter of Tara, Buddha, Prajnaparamita, Mary, Rinpoche, candles, water bowls, crystals, feathers and beads.

I sat down and wrapped my shoulders in wool. That's when it happened. The smoke rose like it always does but it was different this time. The smoke was a woman dancing. But that�s not right. She was a �he� and a �she� but then again, there was no gender.

Gender doesn�t exist, the smoke said, only that�s not right either. The smoke didn�t speak. Language doesn�t exist, it told me, do you really think you can be confined, bound or defined by vowels and consonants?

And then I stopped thinking and watched it dance as one long circling stream, going wide to the right and then wider to the left. It arched and arced and held itself together loosely. Then it rose higher still, turning on itself as if falling from a great height and then it was gone�the way a flame on a candle is gone after a birthday child makes her wish.

Emerging again, the smoke was one long line, rising to the ceiling, cutting up to the foot of Green Tara hanging on the wall. Tara was painted on the silk of that Thanka by a Tibetan refugee burned out of his home by the Chinese. This Tara has one hand out to offer help, another hand at her heart. The Green Tara is two things: she is always in meditation, she is always offering help.

A bright orange ember burns down the stick of Emerald Cloud and from the hottest point, the smoke divides into two lines. It goes wide, holding together and in between the main lines of smoke, more smoke curls at the center and then the whole thing turns on itself in great, wide swirls.

It is smoke.
It is a cloud.
And then it is invisible, yet again.

There is a teaching that goes: without pure vision it is very difficult to encounter a pure reality.

The ember burns fast and soon the smoke will die. This knowing stops my breath. I want to see all I can of this story of elements coming together and then falling apart, I want to stay in this pure reality of nothing forever but my wanting does not change what is.

The stick burns away, the ember goes cold and the smoke dies into what it was to begin with. Illusion.

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