whisper_in_the_night lacunas coil it came as a suprise, without warning. i was walking alone, as usual, deep inside my own thoughts, as even more usual, down the twisting streets of the city. it was already dark and there was a heavy police presence out. i think i counted four cruisers in half an hour. such sheer volume was peculiar, especially in my part of the city. no notables lived here, and the cuban embassy is not the most active. i paid little mind to this, except when i was stared down by angry men and women in their white cars and blue uniforms. it was like they wanted an excuse to get out of their cars and treat me like dirt. i kept walking, trying to get off the streets into the parks. there i could go undisturbed in the darkness. you always hear stories about the dangers of a city at night before you move. and then when you get there you realize that they are either all lies, or that you are just lucky. i think there may be a middle ground. anyways as i made my way onto the trail that followed the canal around the lake i heard a whisper. it was coming from behind me, from the shadows of the cranberry trees. why there are dozens of variations of cranberry trees in this park i dont know, but i walked into their deep darkness anyways. i heard the whipser again. it was speaking softly, urgently. i was taken by the voice. i'd heard it earlier in the day at a coffee shop i handed my resume in at. the barista had long, shiny auburn hair, a nice full smile, and the kind of personality that would overwhelm me and leave me in a daze after a converseration. her voice grew more urgent as i approached. "hey, come here.. im beneath the royal galaium." i can't tell crabapple trees apart by looking at them, so i simply followed the voice. in no time i was infront of her. "hello" she whipsered quietly, the moonlight glinting off her eyes. "i saw a shape and felt safe, so i called. sit down with me." since i always long for someone to talk to when im out on my walks, i sat down cross legged with my back against a pennsyvanian red. she sat down against her royal galaium and looked up at the stars. the city blocked out most of the silent watchers, but we could easily make out the dippers, and what looked like an inverted orion. "look at these stars," she said without turning her head, "they speak so softly to us but we never listen. here in the city it is even harder to hear them. but they are always talking. always. last night polaris told me about brahmin." she stopped talking and looked at me. her eyes found mind and probed my soul, seeing how much i was ready for. i lost myself in her hazel pupils. i felt as if i could see the world being shaped and reshaped by the invisible hands of time. "brahmin flows through us all. some call it Yahweh, others God, and you, you are more familiar with it as nature. well, polaris told me about nature last night. she sung through the cap of the city and only gave up when dawn came. "did you know that each rock holds within it the power of the ages? that to unlock time you would have to uncreate it? the flow through each of us pushes our cells forward. it is in the death of each cell, the deterioration of each chromosome that time moves forward. in this process we age, the world ages, and we can live." she looked back up at the stars, forcefully disengaging me from her eyes. i felt the shock instantly as a tear streamed down my face. my soul felt as if it would break. "we can stop the deterioration. polaris told me this. but do we want to? what would it do to us? if we stopped aging, stopped dying and being reborn - you know by our age we have been reborn completely about five times - we stop thinking. our brain ceases to function. a perfectly healthy body and a perfectly healthy brain cannot coexist with reason or thought. "water is always flowing, but when it stops it becomes sterile. the sterility does not so much produce new things as it creates a pool for all the old to dwell in. if you dwell in the past your intellect and mental capacities will destroy themselves." she stood up and motioned me to follow her. i watched as she weaved her way through the trees, her legs moving silently within her long khakhi skirt. standing i lurched between the trees behind her. when she reached a tall oak with a pond beside it she stopped and sat on a rock. i sat beside her. "this pond is alive. it keeps dying and it keeps being reborn. the water is always new, yet it holds a similar shape. you see at the bottom, there the old waters stay. some of that water has been there longer than we have been alive. that is how the human soul is. if we stop the superficial changes, we become superficial by allowing the old to build up. but it we allow all of the old to wash away we become like the stream, always changing." i could feel her energies overflowing into me. her body had slowly leaned in to mine, and her warmth flowed through both of us. my right hand was frozen. i felt as if my copper ring had turned the entire hand green, but she reached over and took it in her hand, which also had a copper ring. without making eye contact she continued. "so by finding the balance between the old and the new, by becoming like this pond, we can become one with the whole yet remain individuals. the stars teach other leasons, but they must each come individually." she stopped and blinked a few times as if leaving a trance. her smile changed from being calm and soothing to being full of energy and life. "hello," she said, "my name is blythe." 040613 what's it to you? who go blather from