Three Thumbs

There’s a rule and two others that I found while navigating the Ramon Crater. Back in Boulder there was a devil’s thumb, but this was different. In the crater I rediscovered three of them, rules of thumb, rules to live by, and rules that were meant. The devil is fantasy, I always suspected, but the cultural paradigms sent down in time would never relent! So, in the crater, I stuck my head in the desert, into the sands of time, and I learned as much as I could, till mostly I was spent. And spent I was, coming up from the barren lands down below, on the globe we live upon. I kept learning long after sundown, the rules to live by … and, until now, not making a sound.

Rule one I learned from my father, as we hiked in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the highlands of California. We arrived at a campsite daily, with packs upon our backs, to find that others had left things behind. My family was small, only four with my mother and brother, but we learned that leaving a place better than when we came was the goal, and rule number one. Pack it in, pack it out, only took care of one’s-self.  We needed to move beyond to make the world better than when we came, so we left each place better than we found it, by packing out others’ garbage as well.

Rule two I taught myself, as all rules should eventually become. I have a fear of heights that has developed over time. My palms sweat when I think of a climb, and I tremble when thinking about the depth of the surface below. Times in the past have given me vertigo, the world spinning ‘round, never stopping, and leaving me cringing and clinging to anything found. The only way that I’ve envisioned to overcome the irrational cringe as it appears, is to chant to myself that it doesn’t really matter. I talk to myself, and caress myself … enforcing my mind over matter.

Rule three was learned much later, from my brother, Uncle Abba, as we sat around the Shabbos table. We spoke, one and all, of a higher consciousness, a better self to lead others. We spoke of a world where each individual seeks to know all. We spoke of a mind-space where the world could be contained, and where each person’s realm could contain others. The line of thought always brought us, sitting at the table, to the awareness that we are all one, and that we must work together. I learned that to be whole I needed to incorporate the views from others; I understood, at the end of each meal, that I needed to be ‘Rosh Gadol.’

Conclusions signal an end, but I believe this is only the beginning. With so much apathy coming down now, we feel the pain, as if the end was already here, and aligned with our inner being. We ask ourselves, always, why ME, with a capital Y, as we fly down the carnival ride we can’t believe we paid to ride. We plummet down the trails we leave, ’round and ‘round, but to know the end is only to stop falling down. To know who we are is a task undone, we slip down until we drown, but … in life we sing as we descend. I say we should listen to ourselves thinking, and stop drooping into the unknown, the undead. Be Rosh Gadol! Take stock and take advantage! You can do it! It’s only mind over matter!! Just be sure to help others clean up the mess they leave behind, that way, TOGETHER one and all, we can shine!!! um... wut woot!