The Eleven Day Tale: Day 7

The Seventh Epiphany: “...a Library in Purgatory.”

You are walking on a shore every day. No matter if you are coastal or landlocked, your geographic location has nothing to do with this place. Yes, do imagine this strand of beach. It is the length of your life, stretching South to North, birth to "end" (Death; transition; I know not. Yet.). This strand, it has tides on both sides. To your left the breakers bubble and foam, and to your right also, they do the same. This strand is yours and yours alone -- this is your thinking space.

The seventh epiphany is one of common sense, but, as with many common sense characteristics, it is neglected by all too many all too often: inhabit and utilize your thinking space.

As the roil of the surf crashes to your left and right and you place your perpetual steps along the sand toward the next moment of your life, the rhythm of the tides dictates a rhythm of life, and how it will challenge you. Sometimes -- at double low tide -- there is plenty of room for experimentation and error; you have enough lateral room to cartwheel and dance, spin, twirl, and cavort, drawing names and images, spells and recipes in the sand. But then, sometimes, the tides do rise high, and they rise together, and you must fight drowning even at the most centered point of your strand. Sometimes these life tides – seemingly random, always faultless, and very deadly – can appear to be conspiring to drag you into the riptide, where you can be lost in the chains of undertow. This is not so -- the chaos of life bring as much purposefulness to bear on you as you do on it; it just weighs more. Lots more.

The strand, that is your thinking space – and you must protect it from these tides. How? The history and magic of moon worship and true-blue ‘lunacy’ now come to call, as you enact Step One of Part One of the Seventh Epiphany: Create a moon, your own moon, in the sky, your own sky, immense and immeasurable above your strand. Make your moon powerful and great, make it able to stand the seas straight up on their ends. You must make a moon that can shift the weight of the world.

Step Two is, of course: Control Your Moon. This is your space, your strand that you are protecting. And this is your moon. You decide its rhythm, and you hold the tides at bay. Then your thinking space is free from these tides of life that so often threaten to scour it away.

So. Why must such steps be taken?

Everything that happens to us gets catalogued in our minds as falling somewhere between a Heaven and a Hell that are created by us, uniquely, to suit each our own individual paradigm: Sleepless last night – insomnia, or no worries about waking up? That thousand dollar check – did you deposit or withdraw? It is 60 degrees outside – is it July or January? This morning, did you get a blown tire, or a blow job? Everything that happens tips the needle on our meters and decides the next moment of our day; and though most things might seem bad (blown tire) or a boon (depositing a thousand dollar check), the context and severity of course come down to our observation, interpretation, and reaction to the 'pieces' that surround the circumstance.

Our thinking space is our purgatory – it is our common ground, where we can center ourselves while the foaming tides batter away. Here, in our thinking space, is where we must build a library with the power of nothing more than our own mental muscle. (This is a facet of every Epiphany: Never underestimate the strength of your own mind.)

This creation is our key to homeostasis. It is where we can catalog all that occurs, all that we know, all that we wonder, and all knowledge that is vital for our survival, sanity, and joy. It is the house of our fantasy worlds, and the haven of our waking life.

This is the lesson of access. This is where you must utilize all that you know – and, especially, understand what you do not. As the life tides roil around you, this is where you will retreat, to your strand, your Thinking Space, your Purgatory Library, with your moon full and high by your own design, holding all that batters you at bay. It is here that you can then check the Encyclopedia of Common Sense, or the Dictionary of What Should I Do Now, or the most important volume, your own, self-scribed Catalog of Experiences (hopefully thick and richly detailed!), and judge what it is you are encountering, crack the secret to its effect on you and its power over you (note: nothing effects us without having power over us), and then square your shoulders and Deal With It.

This place, this Thinking Space, this is your limbo. You can decide if it is nothing more than a palimpsest of grey on grey on endless shades of grey, or if it is rich with the spectrum of who you are, were, and will be.

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