OtterSpring1.10-Revelations
The fundamental difficulty with any form of enlightenment seems to hover around the issue of coping. Any Jehu can stare into the eye of God, but not everyone can avoid blinding themselves with the experience. Mindfulness might bring any number of blinding revelations, none of which improve perception, absent some barely-describable ability to discern while experiencing. Full immersion too easily produces drowning sensations.
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.9-Ghosts
I can never feel certain that my eyes aren't lying to me, that I see what's there rather than what used to be there, the ghosts sometimes overwhelming my senses. I imagine my great great grandparents inside that little house that so long ago held them. Lower Main, once shoulder to shoulder taverns and bordellos now features more new construction than old. Shadows predominate.
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.8-Job
OtterSpring1.7-HometownParadox
In spite of my heart-felt conviction, I began plotting my escape from this lovely little valley well before my seventeenth birthday, and I've been largely successful in my efforts to find other places to live, if not set down even remotely permanent-feeling roots. I have, instead, lived most of my adult life as a non-resident evangelist for the place I could not bear to live.
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.6-Shards
She inherited her terror, bequeathed by her mother, and, I suppose, her mother's mother before her. A long family history of histrionics, strong-willed females exacting tribute they intended to resolve something. Whatever that something might have been, not even they ever knew for sure.
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.5-Leadersnit
"So, how was that?" I asked.
"You know those experiences where everything you hear just seems to mean so much, but after, you can't describe what happened?"
"Of course."
"It was like that."
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.4-Speakable
I start my consulting engagements by asking the prospective client what cannot be talked about. I explain that as an alien within their system, I could easily start yakking about forbidden topics and thereby instantly undermine my credibility. Many respond by insisting that anyone can talk about anything there, which we both recognize as absolutely unlikely, but every client's first responsibility has always been to at least try to undermine anyone they hire to help. How else could any client hope to retain their self-respect?
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.3-Franklinly
Franklin turned out to become one of the few unconditionally positive influences in The Grand Otter's life then, for he taught her to open up just when the world seemed to insist that she just had to shut down or die. At fourteen-going-on-twenty-three, she could arrogantly ignore almost any good advice, but Franklin, side-stepping the usual defense mechanisms, invited her to open up no more than that girl guitar insisted. Girl guitars carry an insistence all their own.
Slip over here for more ...OtterSpring1.2-Clutching
We start with the motor off, playing through shifting scenarios, intending to start imprinting that invisible gear arrangement schematic. After sixty years of stick shift driving, that pattern remains a minor mystery to me, and this blind spot becomes obvious as I set to failing to explain it. While each gear holds a specific position, finding that position relies upon more intuition, more feel, than I can explain. I realize that I have never felt completey confident I've found a gear until that gear engages.
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