Hologram Thoughts

A true story.

It was late afternoon, and clouds had been building from the northwest all day. The heat from the Oklahoma plains had pushed the clouds high earlier in the day, but what had once been a mass of white thunderheads had become a low-lying jumble of gray and black clouds. I could smell the rains as the winds picked up. The storms were coming.

Laying on a billowy green couch I read a book about spiritual transformation to myself, but when I found a passage about dragonflies, I had to read it aloud to my daughters. I called for them and they piled onto the couch with me. The scene was two men walking on a wooded hillside as dragonflies zoomed around them. The pages mentioned that dragonflies are actually wood spirits that want to come close to us, to be seen and played with.

My daughters loved this visual, especially the little ones. We talked about it for a couple of minutes, and they they went back to playing in their rooms. A bit later there was a furious lightning strike in the distance, and the thunder brought the girls back in to the living room. We decided to go outside and feel the energy before the rains came to wash the world clean.

Outside we looked around for a few minutes. You could see the different temperatures colliding in the air. A kaleidoscope of monochromatic colors was flowing and falling over itself in the air above our green lawn. My son joined us, and soon we were laying on the lawn, looking at the clouds as they neared. I laid back on the cool grass and watched the clouds swirling to the northwest.

My littlest daughter soon asked me a question.

“What are those?” she asked pointing into the skies.

I had to focus on something lower than the clouds, something I had missed until now. There, under the storm clouds, was a stream of tiny black dots. For a moment or two I could not understand what I was seeing, but then my son said, “Dragonflies!”

Suddenly I could see them in focus. Thousands of dragonflies were flying away from the coming rains. They were moving diagonally across our lawn, from the northwest to the southeast. It was amazing.

“They are faeiries aren’t they?” one of my daughters asked looking into the sky with amazement.

“They must be, right?” I said without looking down.

“I want them to come down here. I want them to play with us,” she said, clearly thinking about the story I had just read to her.

My son smiled and shook his head a little bit.

“How would you call them down to us?” I asked sitting up beside her.

She smiled, sat up and pulled her legs in Indian-style, and then began to chant as she has heard me do.

“Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung,” as she was doing this her little eyes closed and she called out to the river of dragonflies above us.

Soon, magically, the dragonflies did find their way to the ground. All around now were buzzing dragonflies flitting from here to there. In the trees, around the roses, between us and before us.

One large green and purple dragonfly flew up to my daughter and seemed to float in the air before her face for a moment. And then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The dragonflies were back above the trees, continuing on their journey. But, my children and I will always know that we were visited by the faeiries.

There is a kingdom called Sukhavati, the Realm of Bliss, it is land of light and magic, prayer and chanting, knowledge and compassion.  Within it there dwells a young prince.  His wears regal bejeweled gowns, but they are no more distinguished than the next prince’s gown.  His crown shines in the light of the butter lamps, but no brighter than any one of his brother’s crowns.  He feels simple, he feels unremarkable.

Tonight he sits, quietly watching his tea steep.  Steam rises off the decorated clay pot, and the tea leaves slowly fall into the boiled water. His cup is ornately painted with a scene of bamboo and wind.  He closes his eyes, clears his mind.  Focusing on nothing he realizes that he is not alone.  From across the cavernous temple echoes the sound of an old monk,  slowly chanting to himself.  His tones are careful and sure, he has practiced for an eternity to learn the correct intonation, to make a true and correct offering.

Is that my lot in life? The young prince wonders to himself.  Am I destined to be an old man, alone, chanting to the empty temple in the middle hours of the night?

The chanting echoes one last moment, and a deafening silence encroaches upon the young prince’s ears.

“Sit tall, my young prince,” the old monk says quietly sitting directly before the young prince.  “Breathe a full, deep breath into your chest.  Within your chest beats a heart that has the energy of a million suns at its call.  In your veins there is a liquid flowing that is more precious than any molten metal, any stream or river.  Why do you not know your worth?”

Ashamed, the young prince looks down to the tea.  A second cup now sits besides his.  The second cup is a simple bamboo cup; no gilding, no paint, no jewels. Plain in every way.

“My cup is simple, you are right.” The monk closes his eyes and pulls his hands into his thick winter robes, protection from the night’s chill.  “But does it not hold the tea as well as yours?  Does it not serve me as well as your cup?  And if it is lost to me, or if it were to lay broken on the ground at my feet, could I not find another to take the place of this cup?”

The young prince watches the monk for a timeless moment.  He is familiar, he is known to the young prince, but he doesn’t know who he is.

“Does your cup not long to be adorned, monk?  Does it not wish to sparkle in the light, with jewels and metals?  Does it not want to be noticed?”

The monk pours tea in to the prince’s cup, and then in to his own.  He lifts his cup to his mouth, and breathes in the aroma of the tea.

“Does the lily wish to be a rose?  Does the lion wish to be a snow leopard?  What if I told you that there was once a flower that grew strong and tall out over a running stream, and that this flower wished to be a fish swimming in the water?”

The prince closes his eyes, seeing this flower in his head, and realizes that the flower is the fish.  The fish eats the flower and so then the flower becomes one with the fish.

The young prince opens his eyes to tell the monk, only to find himself sitting alone in the temple.  He looks down and sees his cup is gone, and in its place there is only a simple bamboo cup.

i watched this video and tears came to my eyes. i am crying.  crying.

our world is so screwed up.

we dont have the money to teach arts in schools, because we need to build arsenals.

we make weapons to destroy, instead of music to heal.
we strive to kill, when instead we should strive to give each child a home and comfort.
we make food into fuel, when we could feed the poor.

all of this could change. if you want to see children smile, to end suffering, to make war a thing only read about in our history books, then you have to be the first person to say so. others only count when you count yourself.

i dont want my son to see war.  i never want my daughters to know the fear that daughters all around the world know when armies approach. my children, your children, all children deserve better.

i deserve better.

you deserve better.