Well, I'm back, and I hope that's a good thing. :)

I'm changing up almost everything about the show, making it less "me" and more "you", more often, and more relevant.

Today there'll be some music by the UK Group Telling the Bees, and Steve D...evaney of Drop Black Sky. I'm going to point you towards a pagan podcast dealing with loneliness and make note of some news on the religion front. I'll bring you up to date on what's happening at Blackberry Circle and an upcoming Mayfest. We're going to pull a card from the DruidCraft Oracle, and I'm going to try and relate erect nipples to finding oil and to divination in general.

So, sit back and listen. I hope you enjoy the show.

    The Tops Blow Away

    The sun is not as strong as the wind is today, on Padre Island. It is early in the summer, the best time of year to play in shallow water and mock the gulfen waves.  I stand on the loose dry sand of the beachfront. The first row of sand dunes rise behind and the gentle waves roll in from the Gulf and break across sand bars before me. I lose myself in the roll and play of salt water.

    After a while I turn and look to the boys. Number 1 son is waist-deep in the trough between sand bars, where the big fish feed.  A mullet jumps, startling him.  His simple joy in playing with the waves changes instantly.  A moment ago he was happy and now he is truly terrified and he races to me, to his rock and his safety. I hold him in my arms and he lays his head against my shoulder. He is so tall now.

    Those who don’t know my older son always wonder at his childlike emotions, unacceptable in a double-digit boy. They don’t understand the life he lives, the scary world all around him.  Half his life was spent as just another abandoned child, in an orphanage where one small room was his whole world for five years. This half, this life that we share now is defined by his illness, the bipolar nature that drives him to extremes. It drives us as well, to desperate searches for simple pleasures that so many people take for granted. We come here to Padre Island in search of those simple pleasures, stalking childhood memories for our sons.  The island is a perfect place for memories.

    Number 2 son has come to us now and puffs up his little chest. He is sure to take advantage of the scare, to tease his older brother. It is just too good a chance to miss and my older son is the perfect target for childhood malice.

    “Stupid #1 Son, afraid of a little fish! We got goldfish bigger than that!”

    Another moment passes and the fists are flying. I step in to protect them, one from the other. Number 2 is tough, but he only lived several years in the orphanage. He didn’t learn to fight like his older brother did, just to survive, but #2 is no piker. He gives as good as he gets.

    Later, after I have separated the boys and glared away the stares of nearby bathers, I explain to #1. “Little mullet swim with you,”  I say, “chasing littler fish still. It is like a game they play, and sometimes the bigger fish play also. When they do, the mullet jump in fear and fly away.”

    “Like me, Dad?” he asks.

    “Like you.” I say with a grin. “Like you my son.” and he smiles and laughs with me.

    After a while #1 son is ready to go back into the water and #2 is there waiting for him. Number 1 pretends not to be afraid, and #2 pretends to be a mullet, flailing wildly at the surf and screaming in fishy fear. Number 1 picks him up and ploughs the water with his head, calling for sharks to come and get it. It is time to step in, yet again. I am not surprised; the boys fight with all the regularity of waves beating the shore. Their shouts and screams are always there, wearing away at any brief moment of peace of mind that I can find.

    Still, we go on, and day by day our lives unfold, like waves rolling onto shore.

    #

    Three more days have gone by and we have built memories from them. Sooner or later the tops of the memories will fade, but the roots of our time on Padre Island will survive, even if only in the undergrounds of our conscious minds. #2 son will grow up and move on and build a life of his own. Number 1 may never grow emotionally, or become more aceptable even as his body ages. We just don’t know. The doctors cannot tell us what will come. They can only make vague guesses and predict the worst that can be; the HMO’s do not pay for the dispensation of hope. It is up to us to find it, on the island, in our memories or perhaps in the soft pale gleam of a perfect seashell at day’s end.

    On this dark and lonely drive back home I have finally found peace for a few hours. My musings have sustained me and I take comfort in the thought that the islands that bound this gulf will endure in one form or another, that they and my boys have their places in my world. For now, that is enough for me.

This episode was a long time coming. It is very personal and accordingly difficult to present.  However, here it is. I hope you enjoy it. It is good to be back.

Show Notes

Topic

Name: Earth & Magick #4 - Heart of Stone
Index: 0:00

Intro

Topic:Introduction to this Episode
Index:0:06

Narrative

Topic: Heart of Stone
Index: 0:42

Music

Artist: John Boswell

Song:We Are All Connected
Index: 23:22

Comments & Outro

Topic: Symphony of Science and Plans for Future Podcasts
Index: 27:30

Music

Artist: Oona McOuat
Song:Excerpt from Drowsy Maggie
Index: 28:42

Narrative

It is late at night as I make my way home. I'm driving southeast through the Ouchita mountains. I'll turn back north, later. This route gives me more time to think and I am comforted by the mountains' dark presence. I'll do all my grieving overnight and let the wind wipe the tears from my face. This is my time to cry so that I can be strong when I need to be, at home. I'll be there when the crooked mountains give way to flat-topped hills and a great river that winds its way among them. I spent the last several days withdrawing from university and arranging my affairs. Everything I own is packed in my pickup; I leave only my dreams behind. "Dad is ill, son. It is terminal. The doctors say he has only a few months left. He wants you here." I'm not surprised that it was Mom who asked me to come home. Dad would never ask me himself. That would be too personal.

I've crossed the Ouchita Mountains. Lake Ouchita lies at their heart, a rare window into the past. The rock that defines the lake is greatly contorted, bent and shaped by ancient pressures and then thrust towards the sky. The State has placed marker buoys at special places around the lake and with their handbook and a boat we can peer into the ancient world, at our ease on the lake and with no reason to hurry. Geologists come here from all over the States to study the display. The lake is unique in the access it offers to a twisted heartland writ in stone. There is nowhere else on this continent to see such a public display of private strain. Farther north the wild contortions of the Ouachitas give way to more gently folded rock and the occasional table-top mountain. This is "True Grit" country, where Mount Nebo overlooks Dardanelle and a girl's quest for justice began. Fort Smith is miles away and the only hanging judges still around pound pulpits now, not gavels. Home is here. Crow Mountain looks down over the Arkansas River Valley and our house rides the ridge. Dad chose this place to retire. He never said, but I can imagine that he also loved it for its wild beauty.

As I pull into the gravel driveway I am surprised at how tall the cedars have grown. Dad and I planted them together -- a rare example of cooperation without judgment -- a momentary lapse in the struggle between us. We communicated via works and never said the words. I wait for sunrise to step out of my truck and back into this world. I won't wake my parents up. Better to just sit here in the sweet pre-dawn air until they rise. It will give me time to think. I have been away for years and do not know what to expect. Dad has changed, they say. He is more kind now and more open. It took this final illness, though, to even get him to ask for me. This dying is uncharted territory for us all.

Arkansas was the first place I saw my father at a loss, not in total command of his world. It was the first place I had a woman and the first place I made one cry. Of all the countries we lived in, it was the most strange. The land was beautiful but the people were stunted. They had no joy in life, it seemed, and no place in their lives for strangers. I was still young when I went there and fell in love with the hills. I thought that the locals should feel as I did, thankful every moment of their waking lives for the wild beauty. So strange to learn the opposite, to see for myself the despair that fed intolerance and religion in equal measures and tainted human lives. Most of all, Arkansas was the first place I learned to question the ways around me. The deep stone brought to the sky, the philosophy of geology and the earth's secret histories taught me to look beyond the ebbs and surges of human history, to place Man and his works in their proper place. I no longer thought that the world revolved around us, that we were made in any god's image and that God was made in ours. I was no longer the center of my universe.

I have been home a month now and Dad is weaker every day. He is even more quiet than ever before and rarely speaks to us. I know it hurts him that the rest of his family would not come to say goodbye. Three brothers, another son and two daughters all caught up in their own lives and too busy share time with him now. They cannot overlook the past. They can only react to it. Mom and I take care of Dad as best we can. We try to ease his pain but it is clear that soon he will have to give in; he will go to the hospital to ease his dying. It will be hard to ask him to leave home for one last time. He has made the sunroom his place and looks over the land he retired to. He has only had a few years to enjoy it. What is he thinking? Is he afraid of dying? I wouldn't know; I've never been privy to his thoughts. On the phone again, I make one last try to reach Dad's eldest brother. He is the family patriarch and if he comes, the others will. So I try one more time -- one more time to get them to respond. Dad never tried so hard to see me. I don't understand why he wants to see them so badly and I am jealous, but still I try.

"Dad wants to see his brother. Is that too much to ask? It's not like you don't have the money to come!" That was the wrong thing to say. The eldest is busy, I am told; he's going to be the lead speaker at his church's convention. Call again once the funeral date is set. He'll try to attend and he might even be willing to speak. So, a fuse is lit in my mind. It burns. I've always known that I could be like this, filled with rage, ready to explode, just like my father.

A week later I am in the hospital, sitting up with Dad. He asked me to go back to school, and I enrolled again in some shit math class just to be able to tell him that I haven't really quit. Days I am in school and working any jobs that I can to pay the bills I know will come. Nights are with Dad. We don't speak and he watches TV some -- more now than ever before. I do my lessons and help him when he needs it. We share silence and determination, but not words. Dad knows he's in his last few weeks. I've tried several times to get him to talk to me, to really talk to me for once, but he won't.

After a while I pick up the bedpan and help him once again. At least he doesn't have to endure the awful cheeriness that nurses project. I know he appreciates my effort, even if he doesn't say so. He has always been a most private man, and more proud than private, so he won't go until I am there. He holds it all day long and it angers the nurses. It is the only thing that cheers him up. I am proud of him that he shows that much spirit. I would do the same.

Tonight the pain is finally too much for Dad to bear. He cries silently and does not sleep at all. After midnight he raises a hand and I go to his side. His voice is just a thread of sound over the equipment that monitors him, and I lay my hand on his breast as I put my ear to his mouth to hear.

"Kill me. Use the pillow. They'll never know. I've held out till now, but kill me please."

After a while, when he sees that I cannot, he says "Damn you." and turns his face away.

The fuse burns on. It is all I can feel now. I picture my heart as stone to control the rage, but I find that even stone feels pain and anger and outrage in the dark, when no one else is around.

I dread the next evening and I can only hope that the new drugs are easing my father's pain. It took hours of badgering the doctor until he gave in, but finally they gave Dad the 'cocktail'. It is some godawful mix of alcohol and amphetamines. If he were healthy, it would kill him, but he's dying and even if it kills him quicker, at least it will stop the pain. I was too much the coward to release him. I have to drug him to ease his pain and my guilt. He has no one now. Even his oldest son has failed him and he will not look at me, and I cannot look away. Mom must have sensed my despair. She came to give me time off. I spend it with friends who know it is best to just sit there, idly chatting as the clock winds down. After a while I leave for the hospital. Mom needs her rest as well, and if Dad is sleeping I can just sit there quietly and watch him.

I am at the nurse's station signing in when I hear the screams begin. I know my father's voice, even if I've never heard it this way before, and I rush to his room. A fat little man comes rushing out of the room and almost knocks me down, but I am too shocked by what I see to care. It is chaos in the room. Dad is down on the floor and there is blood on his arm. Mom is down as well but is trying to hold his hand to calm him. Dad pushes her away. He fights us all and screams again, "I'm still alive! Don't bury me. I'm still alive! Damn you. I'm still alive!" And now I'm crying as I hold him down while the nurses work to stop the blood where he tore his IV out. He is dead within the hour. He fought to the end, still frightened, terrified of us all. When I close his eyes I tell him I am so sorry, but he cannot hear me now. I should have killed my Dad when he asked.

Later I take Mom home and finally get her to sleep. Then I return to the hospital to handle the 'disposition of the remains'. The staff are in a rush to move Dad to the morgue, and that and the way the nurses act arouse my suspicion. I ask and ask and after a while the nurses admit their mistake. They let that little fat man in, that Baptist preacher. They let him in even though we had said 'no visitors, and especially no preachers'. It wasn't that much to ask and Dad demanded it.

Once the nurses started talking I learn still more. I learn how Mom didn't immediately throw the preacher out -- that makes me smile, she has ever been the image of courtesy -- but let him talk. He was quiet at first but then rose to his self-appointed task.

"I'm here to give this poor man comfort." he said, "I will lead him to Jesus."

The preacher's voice rose and rose until even the nurses down the hall could hear him. Mom tried to quiet him he grabbed her hands and would not let go. He was in full cry, "God help this poor man with one foot in the grave! God help him!". The preacher yelled and Dad woke and thought he had been buried alive.

The fuse has burned all away and I am leaving the hospital to find that preacher man and punish him. The nurses try to stop me, but I know who this preacher must be and I know where to find him. I had seen him before, hanging around the hospital. He is notorious for that, and for living in the biggest house in town.

The police catch up to me as I am dragging the preacher out of his house. In my rage it seems fitting that he apologize to my Dad, dead or not. I haven't given further thought to what to do next, but I won't hurt him much. He has already peed himself in public and that and an apology are enough, for now. It takes all the rest of the night to get the police to agree, but they finally listen to me and check with the hospital. They have to admit that I have reason to be angry, although they are hesitant to believe that a preacher should be held accountable. No one holds the holy accountable, in Arkansas.

I am there when we bury Dad. The police and the preacher and I have reached an 'accommodation'. Without that agreement I would be in jail and the preacher's role would be public. The police are there also, but at a distance. They watch me now.

The preacher is not there. He has left to convert the heathen in some other place and I gave my word not to go after him. It hurt to make that accommodation, but it allowed me to be here today when my mother needed me. Dad's oldest brother is there. He speaks. He and Mom leave together and on the way home he serves notice on a 50-year old debt that my father had incurred. The only way to pay up is to sell the house. He encourages Mom to do so, and she cries. My uncle tells her he always admired her figure.

When I get home, I find out. He won't be coming back again. Not ever. I am lucky that the police were not there. It would be too much for them to overlook. My uncle is holy, too.

As you go north from the River Valley, the Boston Mountains rise up and dominate the sky. They are heavily wooded and hide many secrets in their hollow hills. They are the last expression of the Appalachian orogeny, that grand collision with Africa that threw the eastern mountains up. The Mississippi separates the Boston Mountains from their Smoky brothers now, but the resemblance is plain to see. Annie's Chapel is hidden in those hills. The old clapboard church rises white and tall with its centuries - rickety old spire reaching straight to heaven. The faithful still congregate there, in one small room, to praise their god. The pulpit is sturdy Arkansas walnut. It must be strong to withstand the pounding it takes on Sundays.

Across the road Annie's Chapel Cemetery rises up a hillside. Civil War vets are buried below, and my father above. He lies under a pine tree and looks north, as he did when he lay in his sunroom those last days. A simple granite stone records him in few words.

Twenty years later I stand before my Dad. Down below my wife waits with my boys. They know to leave me alone. I will return to them when I am ready. They know I will cry and I think they must wonder at my weakness. They don't know the rage that still fills me. I struggle to contain it but cannot. I try to speak to my father, but softly so that my children cannot hear. I try and cannot and my memories crowd me. They draw me back to when it happened and I cry to chase the memories away and to keep from screaming aloud.

Later I gather my family and we leave. Dad is left behind to drowse in the heat and pine-scented air of an Arkansas summer day. There are no more chores for him, no burdens left to bear and no bills to pay. He is at peace -- his time has come and gone. He rests in stone and will become part of the land, and I will go on as best I can. Tears will do no good today.

We came to Arkansas on vacation. We spent time in the River Valley and on Mount Nebo where the air is sweet and clear. We'll work our way south through these hollow hills into older terrain. The deep-rooted rocks that form the Ouachitas will fill my boys' eyes and they will shout and play in the waters of Lake Ouachita in their shadow. These rocks, these deformed beds of ancient sand were formed deep underground, under tremendous pressure, and it shows. Even the quartz crystals in the stone are deformed, but they are strained in ways that only some of us can see.

I have, finally, looked closely at myself, scrutinized my own faults and twisted life. It is time to give up the rage now, time to forgive and to reconcile the old pressures and older sorrows. It is time to say last words to my Dad while my wife and sons enjoy the lake waters. I turn to face north then -- to face my father in memory as I did not in life -- and speak directly to him one last time. I forgive him for asking me to kill him; I end the one-sided conversation of our lives.