Kissed by a Dolphin

Once a Bear and a Dolphin became aware of one another and it was a most strange scenario. She would cry out in joy several times in one hour and he would hear her from his cave or in the air when he would trapise down to the stream come Spring. Bear was not moved by much, in fact little excited him. And though he could be polite, the truth was that his interest in the affairs of life was minimal, his journeys were not ambitious ones.

He did enjoy the sound of Dolphin careening through the meshwork of sky, bouncing off clouds and riding his thick fur. It was a comfort to him at times to hear her spurtings, the whole forest would shudder with elation. She knew how to bring the Sea onto the Land where he dwelt, that great expanse of the Infinite into his magnet halls, the rock-matter of his solid world. He had come to accept her into his life, albeit from what others may deem great distance, and her calls though they seldom brought a hearty smile to him, her calls did assure him that there was more to life than what he had known.

Bear lived within the great encyclopedia of evolution and the cave-etchings of Time he knew better than any. He had great humility and acceptance for Time and saw it as a thing of great Beauty. It was a special role he had been given by the Great Spirit, to help all the other beings and spirits roll along and to know where they stood in any moment. For many creatures were so committed to the Playtime their wilderness thrived and thrived across the strokes of measure, and it was Bear that said in his bold Stance… “You are there where you are, in this forest. But what of the other great Geography?... What cave do you truly dwell in today?.... What is your location, dear brothers and sisters, in the field of eternity?”.

All of them would take notice and soon they would find, with their Playtime, a sure footing and a new axis to turn upon. For in truth, the centre was the only thing that stayed the same, and to achieve that remarkable feat it had to change constantly. It was Bear that understood this great peculiarity of the universe and the part which Time had to play in this. All the creatures loved him dearly and knew that when he slept he was best left alone!

Indeed it was the virtue of deep sleep that showed the world how to dream. Everything came out of Dream, even the great hunting abilites of the creatures, including that sacred ability to hunt a dream or a vision, first arose from this great formless swirl. Bear was a great monolith, dependable as the Great Spirit itself and though he was not really an exhibitionist, many creatures would frequent his cave gallery and nestle in his caring brown fuzz of glow.

It was a long time indeed that had passed before he even recognized the call of Dolphin. Being so far away from him in the Sea with Time working a little differently there, her joyous call was firstly faint on the stony walls of his mind. He didn’t know exaclty what it was or what it meant since it was a language he had never heard before. He couldn’t seem to understand it and for a long time this made Bear very sad. For he felt he understood about Life almost everything, and though he did not lose himself in the trivialities of life like the hundred leaves of a tree, he sought the great Root of everything and thus could bring the multiplicity of things always down to the few. He had a tremendous mind and his memory worked even in sleep, as the lookers-by may have thought him dull.

The call of Dolphin had made him sad. He did not know why, he knew the Great Spirit had sent something to remind him of the Mystery that is in all Moments. But the sound of Dolphin had confused him and he knew that perhaps he needed a new way to think, maybe even his own centre would need to shift a little to accommodate this new way of being. For as he had known the great riddle of the shifting centre of everything, as the eddy of time and significance, he had somehow forgotten to include himself in the great Dance of the Universe. He had known himself as a luminary, unchanging dry, like a steady sequin upon the lush velvet drape of shimmering night-sky.

He fell, and surrendered, right to the end, but upward into a mountain he seemed to be driven. He was sad and for the first time in his long life he felt deeply Alone. He was with the All and Everything yet surrounded by nothing of what he felt fondness for. He had only one great Passion in life, and it was somewhat of a paradox that it was a sober one, that being who he was in presence alone served sufficient. His great passion for the unmoving within the dance of age and slow-penned mythology made him, in a way, happy. He felt little need to dance. Yet now his destiny required something of him, a new tongue to unravel, and depressed he was not knowing where in his full body was this deciphering heart.

The call of Dophin seemed louder in his small ears every day and as he sank further in his sadness even Spring made him not the venturing out Bear. As he sank so he rose within the mountain and its peak was like a short and painful glove around his long history. Dolphin sang like the smatterings of a pepper-gun upon the sleepy film of his eyes though ravaged with kindness. His great Passion simmered inside his huge belly and his mind became taunted with pictures of his former buddies. Now he saw only that the world feared him and they did not really want to know about the cycles of things or the footprints they would somehow have to skim on their shores. Now he just saw tremendous fear, jungles all denned in with harsh flat rock that did not sing.

He cried for the lost heritage of his fellows and then his tears and great pain seemed to drift up the inner wall of his cave to seek their release like lava. At the top, the Dolphin song was one of pure joy and he had known joy, sometimes laughter would entice him out and the great tides of a willing community would cleanse him. The Dolphin song, so joyous, unkempt. It was almost like the great Rebel to his destiny, that among his still passions there was an uprush, a steel-driven jump out of himself and the image that had been on the wall of his cave to remind him was now splattered with spray. The pigments, the yellow chalk and ochre schools of dots make loose rings co-mingling with the endless tears in his mammoth time-space, purring gently down his broken hearted bear-face.

“I feel guilt as large as my domain, that how could knowledge play with itself, question itself, not care, not care… how could I just not care anymore? I once loved my life, now this song gets me high to its fervour and I fear the sweetness of my honey is sour.”

The Dolphin song, somehow like he’d never heard, changing like the river flows, as if nothing slotted in his mind. There was something of it like the wind blows, as if the soft alleviation of force would leave him wracked with a chest ache, and he would feel the true weight of all his moving power; the too-much-tenderness which causes him to weep in the presence of another one who “gets it”. He heard Dolphin crying out so loud this time it split his heart to shards, he picked up with teary trembling paws the piece that turned to recognizable scent; Dolphin’s love-drowned call.

Her song was not of words, like hymns, even as her sonar blinked the blanket of her love still made him itch. The Dolphin made a pact with him and all his muddled mercy-pleas forgotten in the swim.

“I don’t remember you” he finally said though in his heart and gut the moment sealed itself inside the sanctity of their knowing. “I finally speak to you after hearing you so long as something outside of myself. Almost like an irritation, I do not know what language you speak, though with joy, and ease, and romance. I know of these things, I have seen all things, all things and every thing. But please your joy, what is it, it is different to my Passion, can I hear it, truly hear it? Can I understand it, drink the broth of sense and Time? Is it right for Bear to dance like you, in the Sea, with so much mirth, this song of great virtue you sing, these waves you ride, so many things you say in one hour, jumping without rest when for me even one lifetime is almost too much to digest?”

And she answered, Dolphin blithe she was and happy like a child with wings. The Dolphin spoke and wrapped them both in a great angelic lullaby and said something of his burrowing, his great well, the depths he had soared to.

And she said, “But what of these leaves, these limbs and branches, that all the sand on all the beaches in all the world was made just for us! Just for us to play in, that even as I jump in water and love my home, in joyish surprise of every moment, even such wet-dwellers as I also cruise on land through my song and find refuge in your hearts, all hearts sensitive and strong as yours. And when you do not hear me, or recognise me, or understand me, or play with me, I don’t be sad. I don’t sing sad songs, I sing even happier ones! As you dig yourself in Life’s mystique and find the answers all can use, so I rise and sing my tears down the rainbow’s lapping side until they find themselves tapping hopeful tides to prayer upon the gossamer drum of your ears.”

And Bear, from his sandy sad abrasiveness found the full circulation in his blood that noursihed his everlasting sinew, that made milky his fat enough for he himself to absorb. He felt within, with Dophin’s love and the silent motion of his inner dove; acceptance of her timeless grin and something of the milky kindness of love he had never known in the cavaties underneath his stellar skin. That joy of Life, of looking new, and signing all the truths undying, that there was one who sang like this, forever new, and basking in the lovely promise of tomorrow’s sunlight breaking through. Dolphin made a click of tongue and washed her eyes with water, and down the mountain like a chimeny guest she gave his eyes a glitter. Bear looked up from within the mountain of her jump, keen to tell her stories, stories she so loved even when the queens are scary, or when the horses whinny up.

From in the mountain of her jump, he whispered on her silver skin all kinds of love, his own brand, his Bear Love. From sitting still to talking deep to walks inspired by a sleep, he saw her Dreaming, pretty at last pretty that even she had never known. But tears stopped, the mountain jumped and his sad, not limp, was sitting up. He felt her tears and there were many, of that unrecognizable throwing-off of love as if it were some tiresome rug, which he had also done many times enough. Her tears about the thorny spears of guilt that creatures all go through, when love is love, and good is good without moralising it; Dolphin wine best drunk without a cup. That all she wanted was just to be heard, and to stop talking just a little when the world would “get it”, that awesome revealing fate-removing love that made when dance, that took one up.

And Dolphin’s joy was Dolphin’s tears and all the sorrow was sweet as blue. The rain never took her though all the rituals of Love’s grey nought, because not in nets would she be caught nor in words would she be thought. All her joy was all enough, and laughter though old Bear need not keep up, but thirsty in his honey chamber Bear was dreaming of her Jump, and for both… the newborn pilgrim slow in caves of Timing, and the angel sent to keep men’s love from dying; for both of them, their Love rested, a song well sought.

Copyright. 2009.
Do NOT Twitter this piece or you will be Loved to Death, and if you’re the type of weasel who would do such a thing in the first place I daresay Love would be a rather scary experience for you.

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Tags:

bear, dolphin, fargen miracle, grace and jim marshal