The Marigolds Sing Pt. 3

There’s a somber, melancholic rage hidden in the beauties of gushing waterfalls. The fragrant deluge, the grand reception of glimmering waters, majestic in its prowess, wailing and howling, crushing moss against rocks, enforcing the carelessness of her agile mass on the soil and rocks, as they clamor about and out of her way. Catapulted forward, rambunctious in the way that she lunges on, rushing to meet the rigid edges of the earth. Fleeing the dark to conquer the light. Sunshine.

Flirty. Gregarious in the way she affectionately caresses the grass in her path, brushing and teasing the rock-laden river banks that sulk in careworn stasis as the powerful, resolute force flits past, raking lithe pebbles, supple silt and resilient stone with her. She is here to move boulders, to move mountains. Harboring the fugitives of nature, the stones, the soil, in a valiant rebellion against the static duties of streambeds, corralling her neighbors to jump off the ledge. Never tepid. Never tepid.

Regal in the way she gushes on and beyond with her comrades, cascading merrily, off the tectonic crusts of the world.

Then almost as if you hear the grand waters scream. As they fall, the salty waters race against the confines of space and time, yearning to reach the apex of excitement, the sonorous timbre of her fall, as she smoothly screams against the waves of gravity. Nature’s most exquisite rollercoaster.

Misty blues, enrobed in the sweet smell of petrichor, aromas that curiously reach upward, towards the glistening rays of the sun. Enrapturing the observing mind, captivating in the way it commands attention, beguiling in all its glory and melancholic rage, like the tears of an angry mother watching her child misbehave. Illustrious in the way that this emotional rollercoaster careens and tumbles, freewheeling against the laws of nature, into a stillness required of sanity, the fall into a stunning silence of ebbing motion, the feeling of a dying excitement, petered out to a plaintive existence. Portending the next waves of anger, disappointment, and joy that will thrill or shrill, eroding the silence of peace.

We were always by a body of water, Michael and I. No matter where we traveled the world, we were always so warmly intertwined in the way that would make Venus and Aphrodite cry. The sort of selfless love that would veer us up, our souls, into the vast stillness of the universe, and into the same warped swirl of love and hate that I felt in that dream with Sir William.

I’ve been thinking about that dream quite a lot. Why do the Marigolds sing?

Why not the memory of the waterfall visits with Michael? Why the frozen pond? Out of all the places we’ve visited in the world, why the frozen pond? And is it a coincidence that for every encounter with Sir William, I see the same set of pink and purple smoke, random green lights, like the matrix, and a vast amount of foliage and floral abundance wrapped together in the magic of fairies, stardust, and marigolds’ song?

I’ve been pondering on the lessons from Sir William, this seraphic magical lion that lives in my roommates basement. Who seems to be taking a liking to me. Always whiling away near me, always trying to be close. Sometimes, with a keen sense of knowing myself better than I know myself. This idea of the universe’s intertwined mystery, the idea that so many things in this world, in this universe, are far more interconnected than we care to believe. How this creature, perhaps a god of sorts. I am not sure. But this capacity to enter my dreams, to cultivate in me a sense of wonderment with life’s greatest mysteries is either a curse or a blessing. Whatever it is, it must surely be ethereal, celestial, perhaps even sacred.

In that he can exist in my mind, and access my thoughts, I started to wonder if the vast universe is just a gargantuan petri dish of magic, love, light, hate, and darkness. What if we all existed in someone’s mind? A fantasy dreamed up by the highest order of being, with the capacity to exist in all aspects of time and space? And if we are truly but only a speck in His grand, cosmic drama, perhaps all the tragedies in our lives are a form of justice beyond our comprehension, all the happiest moments an act of blessing? But what if the opposite was also true? What if all the happiness we experience is inherited from the grace of our ancestors, and all the pain and suffering we experience serves a grander purpose? What if in One’s Mind must exist hate, for there to be love, in the same way that death exists in order to breathe life. What if we are all just recycled souls, repeatedly sent back to this Earth for a second, third, fourth... five millionth chance at perfection? What if Hell is really just a clear annihilation, or a soul’s demotion into being sent back as a static rock. A tree. A Mountain. A flower. Something beautiful who has lost freedom, no longer allowed free will. Something that exists beautifully but cannot move, in perpetual stewardship of the good.

Or maybe not.

I suppose, in thinking of this world, as a One Mind consciousness, maybe we can say all of our actions were predetermined, maybe our compressed moment of relevance, the brief miracle of life, is the opportunity to chase our wildest dreams beyond the limitations of man-made expectations. What if on a relative level, our interpretation of tragedy, losing a job, not having control, is part of a One Mind steering the ship of our souls towards something more productive of happiness. What if then, suffering is a precondition of happiness itself. Not a tragedy but an opportunity to pass on happiness and wisdom to the future generation that inherits Earth’s beauty? What if tragedy precipitates cosmic duties. An election to the honor of crucial stewardship to the larger interconnected whole?

In this vein of being open to tragedy, tragedy as opportunity, maybe this is what Sir William meant when he said “Growth”. I recall being devastated by the death of my mother. And this conversation with Sir William has shown me a better perspective. What if her death was a sacrifice to awaken a higher consciousness within the family she left behind. In the same vein, she was spared from suffering the insalubrious cost of old age. Perhaps for me it felt like a cruel punishment, but for her it was a way to stifle suffering, and finally embark on a restful sojourn into the highest depths of the cosmos, wonders that abound beyond the realities of life’s physical form, traversing the physical limitations of the human form here on Earth. Perhaps, all the tears I cried, all the times I cursed my life, and prayed to be taken with her was all a showcase of juvenile selfishness. One can’t ever be so certain about oneself at twenty-four after all.

Her death instilled in me the purpose of finishing my studies. It also made me fawn over the duties of motherhood, hoping that the One Mind will bless me with the miracle of seeing my mother again, in this lifetime. I promised I’d be good, and to grant me this humble wish if I studied diligently, and graduated with honors.

And so less than two years after I graduated, honors and all, I became pregnant.

I named her Celeste. Meaning heavenly, meaning ‘of the stars’, meaning my prayers were answered and I got my mother back. The relationship with her father, eight years of agony, finally expired and Celeste’s arrival brought about the clarity one needs to slice the death into a toxicity one should have never tolerated in the first place. The strange, unsettling cognizance that to date a narcissist implies that you are always in a competition you did not elect to be a part of. I always end up with men who are jealous of me. Only the One Mind consciousness can really answer this, the riddle of this I will never understand, fully.

Now when Celeste was born, those wide curious eyes, the wailing pink face, infuriated with the medically-induced eviction, demanding the justice of comfort she is howling on about. Screaming with the insanity of the cruel world cooing over her, HOW COULD YOU!? IT WAS SO NICE AND WARM IN THERE! I AM SO COLD!

At ten pounds, the heftiness of her cherubic cheeks, the squishiness of her pale skin, scrambling to adjust its color to the current golden hues that time has given her. She was so small, yet resolute in the way she demanded to be warm. She was bawling, screaming almost endlessly until they placed her next to me.

When her eyes met my gaze for the first time, an abrupt sense of calm overwhelmed her. I could swear, at this very moment, this quizzical look is one of recognition. She looks confused, concerned, still. Perhaps bubbling within her a deep realization, a scary one, that we’ve come full circle after all. This moment is snapped, trapped in a photo memory of our first encounter. But briefly after the flashing lights of the camera retreats, she stares at me a few minutes more. Fixated. Then the firm grasp of realization overcomes here, eyes darting about side to side for a few seconds more, followed by a more purposeful wail at the misfortune that she has been welcomed back to Earth in my care.

Welcome back, Mother, we will call you, Celeste.