Harmony Verna's Blog: Zen Bits

Upon a solitary hill, the great tower stood alone and robust, layered in heavy stones and sutured with ancient grout. The man who occupied the monolith was proud of his home, of what he had built: strong walls, security, safety, and wealth. Kings and queens visited the grand structure, their expression clear with admiration while people of the low lands gazed from afar with envy and awe. The man often spent hours staring out his high windows very satisfied by his own creation.

One day a maiden, hair of gold and tiny as a wisp, appeared out of the pearly mist. She saw him in the window and waved. The gesture took the man by surprise and when he waved back, his movement was awkward and unnatural.

The woman plucked a red poppy and placed it behind her ear. “Why do you sit in that tower?” she called up to the man.

“Why?” He echoed, her impertinence annoying him. “Why would I not?”

“Because it is cold,” she answered. “You do not feel the sun or hear the birds. I do not like your tower, sir. I find it quite ugly actually.” Her sweetness washed over the words for no cruelty laced them.

The man’s jaw dropped and his voice rose. “My lady, this tower is safe. It is strong and secure. I am visited by royalty. Within these walls, I have art by the great masters. I have silver trays overflowing with jewels and gold coins. What, prey tell, do you have?”

“Freedom.” The wind blew her silken hair around her neck. “Joy. Beauty. Happiness. Passion.”

He shook his head and chuckled before closing the curtains. "Foolish girl," he mumbled. "She knows nothing about life."

The next day, the maiden returned. “Come out and sit with me,” she called out.

He rolled his eyes and dismissed her. “I am working.” The man shifted his body from the window but from the corner of his sight, he watched her, the warmth and trail of her presence heating his skin. Suddenly, the ground shook and he braced against his chair. A large stone tumbled from the wall and landed at his feet. The fear rose swift and fierce. He quickly pushed the rock back into place and shoved his chair against it.

On the third day, the maiden appeared again. She was dressed in white and sparkled as dew. She sat among the deer and stroked their ears. The man felt a pressing against his chest, a surge of warmth within his limbs. The woman glanced at him, a sly grin upon her lips but he turned away, held his head between his hands. She should not look at me in such a way! The world shook fiercely again. The tower swayed, dust rained down and the rocks pressed from the strong walls and showered his fine tables and priceless art.

He stormed to the window. “Go! Do not come here another day!” he shouted to the woman. “My tower is breaking because of your spell!”

She rose from the deer, stood taller than before, a tower in human form. “You create a prison from dust and stone and blame me for crumbling it. You dwell in structures while I dwell in life.”

“Your life is not real!” he yelled. “You live in the mist under rainbows. You do not understand the way of this world, of reality.”

“Do you find your walls more beautiful than me?” she asked, her voice lean and stately as a lioness.

Oh, this woman! She made no sense. “Why do you speak in riddles?” he begged. “Why do you curse my home and torment my head?”

“I speak in truth, sir. It is only your mind that twists it.” She smiled one last time. “I scare you because I ask the questions you will not ask yourself.”

“Just go,” he ordered. And she did, for good. She was not a woman who would look back.

The maiden did not return. The man cursed her and watched for her at the same time. The pain in his chest grew and stung, made his features tight and his muscles heavy. "Come back," his soul whispered but the meadows remained silent and still.

The man sat on the floor of his great tower. The gold coins and jewels appeared tarnished. The faces in the fine oil paintings mocked him. The rock walls were grey, hard and dead. "Come back," he whispered from his depths. The tower shook roughly with the words but this time he didn’t care. "Come back." The ceiling cracked, the stairs dissolved into powder. He closed his eyes and fell into the darkness. The dust stung his eyes, shards of rock bit his skin, the noise deafening. The man was jostled and tossed, bloodied and bruised as the tower broke beneath and around him. He slipped into unconsciousness.

Until he woke. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and then closed them again as the full sun set its beams upon him. The tower was gone. The gold was buried, the art destroyed. The pressure in his chest evaporated. He knew kings and queens would never visit him again and he laughed. He touched the grass and heard the birds from their nests. His heart swelled and fluttered as if with wings.

He stood - wobbly at first but then stronger. He had nothing to offer. He had nothing left but the grass and the flowers and the swirling, sparkling light. His heart soared, the chains broken from a tethered life. He faced the sun and headed into the mist to find the one who set him free.


Zen Bit: The mind builds walls – the heart tears them down.

There was a time when they were one.

Long, long, long ago, the great man and great woman were as one being, standing side by side in equality - strength, power, truth, authenticity, infinite and divine love – a melded heart and shared soul.

But then, over days and over countless years, a gray began to emerge in the world. Subtle and insidious it flowed and darkened, gained strength, left the skin prickled with premonition. The stomach became heavy with a change that could not be seen. And then, it was upon them. The darkness rose as a tsunami, pushed the great man and the great woman apart, buried their utopia in dross.

The divine feminine was targeted first. Her gentle nature was punished. Her healing voice silenced. Her very nature, the womb of creation and love, suppressed by unspeakable traumas – lifetime after lifetime after lifetime.

The divine masculine witnessed in horror as his beloved was torn apart, dismantled from his soul and from this world. His garden had been clipped of roses and all that remained were the tangled thorns. The great man fell to his knees in despair, the pain too deep to endure. His eyes turned black, his body stone. He built weapons to slash at the darkness, to attack that which took the light. He crafted armor to protect his body. He wore the strongest breastplate to cover his heart and carried a shield to keep the grief and the wounds from breaking him in two.

The wars began. They covered every continent, invaded every life. Endless centuries of torture, persecution, maiming and killing. The atrocities defended with a myriad of excuses: religion, righteousness, honor. But it was all pain…a world fighting against its own injuries as a trapped animal chews its limb for freedom.

Thousands and thousands of years later, the wars changed. They morphed from the bloody battlefields to the corporate and material world. Swords were replaced with money, status, power, big cars and houses, political rhetoric. A battle all the same. A deep deadening. Around and around, lost. Weapons were down but the armor remained, welded tight into the psyche. Hearts hid from feeling anything that touched upon memories of loss.

And then it happened. As slowly as the darkness had entered, it began to leave. The divine feminine felt the call first, felt her soul cracking from within, her power emerging, her light pushing forth again. All that had been taken from her rose and the grief was fresh and raw but she clawed through it, dug and crawled from her place of hiding and stood in truth and strength again.

Tenderly, she reached out to her beloved, the divine masculine, her wounded warrior. But his scars were too deep. He ran. He ran from the gentle touch, the soft words of love that ripped at his soul. The pain of losing her, the pain of being helpless as she was dragged from him and nearly destroyed, was too much and so he ran. The fear was too great. All that had been lost. All the pain and suffering of a millennia followed her and he hid behind his shield for protection.

Until the breastplate and the armor began to choke him. The hard edges of the metal cut into his muscle, left him agitated and uncomfortable. He tried to run but his legs grew heavy, stuck in sludge. “Just leave me be,” he begged.

But the great love and tenderness followed him silently. His beloved sat before him, placed her hands upon his wounds and kissed his scars. She unclasped his armor, removed the breastplate and pushed aside the shield. And this great man fell into her arms and wept into her neck. He mourned for her loss and the darkness that had followed, for his acts of savagery and the wars that he had raged while blind with pain. And she smiled into his tears, rested her palm atop the quaking heart, let the white light shine gold into his being.

His tears dried. His heart breathed. He was free now. The battles, the wars, were over.

She took his hand and they rose together again – as one.


Note: Man/woman/masculine/feminine in this article are not meant to denote gender. As incarnate beings, we carry the energies of both the divine masculine and divine feminine though one may be more dominant than the other in a life experience. Wholeness and healing is reached when these energies are balanced and integrated fully.

Under the deep onyx of the new moon, she curled into the shadows – a void within the void. She bent her knees to her chest and embraced them firmly against her breast. Her face was tight with dried tears, her breathing strained and halted.

Fear emerged – a long known friend and foe to her. They sat close to one another, Fear mirroring her posture exactly. Fear reached for her hand and held it tight until their fingers entwined.

“I have brought you here to say goodbye,” she said.

“You don’t want to do that, my love,” Fear replied. “There are things you don’t understand.”

“I am ready to say goodbye.”

Then, Fear spoke quietly to her, lovingly so. “My dearest, I have seen you on every journey of your soul,” Fear explained. “I have seen the lives of heartbreak, of war, of humiliation and despair. I have seen your body writhe in agony. I have seen you awash in tears and blood. I have seen the grief and the bone breaking loss.” Fear paused. “That, dear one, is why I came to you so long ago.”

Fear squeezed her hand in pulses as she began to shake. “I came to protect you, my love. I came to warn you of dangers and to keep you quiet and disguised. I came to shield you from those who wished you harm. I came to you because I could no longer bear to see you suffer.” Fear took a deep inhale. “And I succeeded. Not always, but many times, I did succeed. I kept you hidden so they would not see you. If they didn’t see you, hear you, then you were safe.”

Fear released the hand and waited for her to speak.

“You have done me a great service, dear Fear. This I know,” she said softly. “I know the suffering you speak of very well. At times, the memories well up within me and nearly break the fibers of my heart, my very being.”

She turned to Fear now and stared directly. “I thank you, dear Fear, for your warnings, for your whispers and shrieks of protection. But I wish to be free now. I wish to say goodbye.”

Fear cried, “Who will protect you if I go?”

“I am safe.”

“Who will warn you of dangers?”

“I am safe.”

“Who will keep the pain away?”

“I am safe.”

And within the stillness and silence of that deep new moon, Fear finally stood and nodded. “You have been brave, my dear. You have faced me without doubt.” Fear smiled calmly and with sudden pride. “Now, you are safe.” Fear let the truth sink in and became bright. “Indeed, my love, you are safe. And, you are free.”

Fear blew a kiss to his beloved. A final kiss. A final gift as he left her beneath the glow of a million twinkling stars.

Hugh cursed the noise rustling outside the tent and buried his ears in the worn blanket. “Damn dingoes louder than a pack a horses,” he growled into the stump that used to be his arm.

The cold had vanished in deep slumber, but now crowded and chilled from all sides. Hugh pulled the moth-eaten blanket closer, tried to ignore the sounds of cracking sticks, and clamped his eyes to work back to the warmth of sleep. Snapping twigs morphed to sharp crackles. Shadows danced through the skinned shade of his eyelids.

“Shit!” Hugh jolted upright as the canvas brightened and yellowed. He pulled his bedroll to his chest, stumbled out the flaps to the waiting inferno. But, the night was calm, cold and crisp - quiet.

White eyes glowed above a campfire. “Eh, Hugh,” said the black face.

“Christ Almighty!” Hugh pounded his heart. “Thought the whole bush was ablaze.”

Nearly invisible against the dark sky, the black face was still, the white eyes seeming to dance and float by themselves. The man warmed his rough, worn hands by the fire, then turned the palms up to the beige underside. “Cold t’night,” he stated.

“No shit, Balun.” Hugh shivered. “Yeh ain’t even wearin’ a shirt.”

The black man shrugged, flip-flopped his long fingers over the flames. Hugh threw the blanket at the Aborigine then settled next to the fire. Felt good. Saved him the trouble of making one in the morning. He dug in his pack, pulled out a shaft of dried sausage. “Yeh ’ungry?”

Balun took the slice of dried meat, chewed it slowly between his teeth.

“What the hell yeh doin’ walkin’ ’round the middle a the night?” Hugh asked.

“Walkin’ in the night. Walkin’ in the day. Same thing, eh? Jist walkin’.”

“’Cept it’s bloody freezin’! Where’s yer shirt, man?”

“Sun come out an’ get too hot. Take it off. Then night comes, put it on. Next day sun come back out. Get tired puttin’ it on an’ off. Jist kept it off.”

Hugh laughed and bit straight from the sausage, shook his head. “Always talkin’ in riddles, Balun.”

“Ain’t no riddles, Hugh. Simple stuff, yeh see?”

“No, I don’t. But I ain’t the one that gotta walk ’round half-naked.” Hugh’s teeth chattered. Balun took off the blanket and held it out. “Naw, I’m good. Keep it,” he said and tightened his arms to his chest.

“Yeh workin?” Balun asked.

“Naw.” Hugh watched the flames, his words slowing with their flicker. “Can't pick ore wiv one arm.”

The black man stretched his trousered legs, warmed his bare feet near the ashes.

“Christ, man!” Hugh slapped his knee. “Yer feet is huge!”

Balun bent his leg to inspect a foot. His straight teeth beamed, showed white like tiny bars of soap. “Big as a roo’s, eh?”

“Got that right.”

The men fell into silence, watched the waltz of the fire. Twigs burned orange, broke and crumbled into neat piles of smoldering ashes. Sparks snapped, shot in the air from the oil in the gum bark. White smoke drifted and warmed the nose and settled at the back of the throat, mingled with the taste of cured meat. Then, behind the fire, Balun rose and balled up the blanket, handed it back.

“Leavin’?” Hugh asked. Balun nodded

Hugh waved away the blanket. “Take it wiv yeh.”

“Naw, gets hot wiv the sun, ’member?”

“Suit yerself. See ya, Balun.”

Without another word, the black man drifted and vanished into the night. Hugh stayed by the fire, flip-flopped his palms over the flames as Balun had done. Beyond the flames, the imprint of the native’s heels and rump still dented the red earth.

“Walkin’ ’round wivout a shirt in winter,” he mumbled to himself. “Damn fool.”

The cold bush stretched wide, wrapped shadows around his shoulders. Hugh tightened the blanket, clutched his crippled half-arm to his ribs. He missed his arm, the wholeness of it. A dingo howled mournfully across the plain. His eyes flickered to the spot where Bulan had sat, settled there for a moment. And he missed his friend.

She screamed.

No sound emerged from the strangled throat. It was the scream of nightmares, the ones that are drowned in silence, smothered under air as thick as water.

She screamed but no one heard. She stood among them but still they did not hear her. Their ears were not open. Their hearts were closed.

She had fear and so the sound would not come. The wounds were too deep - a millennia of torture, humiliation and persecution. Her voice, her words, her light and power extinguished each time. It was not safe to be seen and so she hid.

But the scream inside her said she could no longer hide. Her fear had become a coat of hornets. Intolerable. Insufferable. Suffocating. The need to be heard was getting stronger than the terror.

The next day, she emerged among them again and screamed – again. This time a few heard. They recognized the pain of their own suppression. They remembered an ancient calling. Yes, they heard the scream but they also knew fear and so they turned away from the howl, turned away from their own wounds.

But it had been enough. A spark. An opening. Soon they too would be unable to hide.

On the third day, she arose and her throat was clear. She was a wolf and a lion. Her light was bright and unyielding. She had met her fear, eye to eye, scream for scream until it crumbled in her arms like a hurt child and she kissed it. She thanked the terror for trying to keep her safe and let it go.

Now, she entered the crowded streets. The sky was wide and blue, unfiltered. The sun warmed her crown. She spread her arms and lifted her chest. She did not care if they stared or even if they heard.

She opened her lips and screamed. But instead of a cry of despair, a song emerged and flew with feathered wings across the world. And the notes and tones turned to light. Flowers opened. Birds danced and sang between the medleys. The Earth sighed and rested her burdens, purred. The trees stood straighter, prouder.

Those that heard her would never be the same. Some would join her and scream by her side in strength and healing. Some would run and hide and curse as their own lack and pain sprouted to be remembered. And others would feel the beginning cracks of their own screams, of their own coat of hornets that would eventually lead them home.

But - all would be changed.

The priest peered down the street, the gas lamps just beginning to light above the cobblestones. Away from tight quarters of the rectory, his scope of vision opened and took in every man and woman that passed. A tall, lean man with tight cravat nodded to him. "Father, I have done great wrongs," said his nod.

A woman, arm laced in her beau’s, turned guiltily from the priest but he heard her shame: "Father, forgive me, for I have known lust."

He heard the thoughts, the sins of every passing person. "Father, you are strong and I am weak." "Father, you know God and I do not."

Their thoughts made him sick and he hid from their eyes and their nods. Hypocrite. Hypocrite. Hypocrite - the words thumped in his chest as a pulse.

A storekeeper locked his door for the evening, greeted the wayward priest. “Evening, Father! Just closing up. Can I help you with something?”

“I need some clothes,” he answered suddenly.

The man scratched his head. “What kind you looking for?”

Saliva filled his mouth. “Just plain clothes. Work clothes. Pants, a shirt. That’s it.”

“Sure. Come in.”

The priest paid for the clothes with church dollars and changed in the back room while the owner read the newspaper, his eyes bobbing over tiny spectacles at the tip of his nose. The man put the paper down. “Well, you look like a different man altogether, Father! Guess a priest deserves a holiday like anyone else.”

He was a man now, not a priest and he packed his soutane in a brown paper bag and left the store, the sound of the storeowner fumbling with keys wafting behind. The eyes and thoughts were gone now and he blended into the streets and the town like any other human and with the anonymity he felt invisible and lightened, the burdens left stuck in the black clothes crumpled in the bag.

He entered the Simsbury Hotel, crossed the lobby to the restaurant and sat at the bar. He ordered steak and potatoes and bread and wine. The steak was almost rare and thick, the knife blade hiding in the flesh with each cut. He was starving, hungrier than he had ever remembered. He carved through the fat and soaked up the blood with bread and let the juices drip down his chin onto his shirt and no one blinked an eyed. He drank his wine and asked for another and no brow was raised. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and he was no different than any of the other blurred men along the counter who smelled of gravy and stale drink. And when his stomach was bloated, he paid for the meal with church dollars and went out the hotel again.

The streets were quiet now and the air chilled. He rolled down the sleeves of the linen work shirt and let them stay unbuttoned at the wrist, then shoved his hands in the trouser pockets, the crumbled bag with clothes tucked in the crook of his arm. His neck felt cold and naked without the collar and he rubbed it with his hands over and over again. He didn’t know where he was going and he didn’t care, he just walked from one street to another and then back around to the first.

A dog barked from a side alley. Other barks joined until a man shouted. A yelp cut the night and the air hung quiet again. The streets wrapped in black except for a few gas lamps. He couldn’t hear the crickets or the night birds or the sea and their void accentuated his own. He was tired of walking, tired of the quiet. The meat sat thick in his stomach and cramped his side. He turned to find his way back to the hotel.

As he passed a row of short houses, a woman’s voice carried from the darkness. “The air feels lonely tonight, doesn’t it?”

The man stopped and turned toward the voice.

“Strange thing about the city. All these people, all this noise and still the loneliness creeps in.” The voice spoke from the shadows of a tilted verandah hidden behind two lean cypress trees. “Funny how it only comes out at night, the loneliness. I guess in the daylight people are too busy to listen to the emptiness.”

A woman emerged hazily from the recess and leaned over the peeling banister. “I’ve been watching you coming up and down the street.” She moved to the edge of the steps. She was heavy-set. The top buttons of her dress were undone and the crease of her bosom curved like a black moon. The lamplight tinged her blond hair green. “Come on in, son,” she said gently. “You won’t feel lonesome here, that’s a promise. We’ll make you feel warm again.”

His feet moved without his will to the broken squares of slate between the cypress then creaked up the three bowed steps as he followed the voice, his body seeking the warm glow of the lamps behind the heavy curtains, drawing him in like a moth.

She took his hand and led him through the door and he did not protest as she drew him up the carpeted stairs, threadbare in the center from traffic. Different scents of heavy toilet water – lilac, rose, jasmine – mingled and grew around him and his head dizzied in their garden.

He paid her with church dollars. She lowered him to the bed and he watched her ankles as stockings, lace, corset and skirt fell around them. She handled him delicately and knowingly as only a veteran of the profession could. He panted and writhed atop faded sheets with nose pressed against her perfumed neck. Then, with a wincing cry, he released equally in ecstasy and despair then fell into her worn and handled breasts and wept like a child.

A man rushes past, his back stooped and crooked. A cat trots behind, the sagging belly dancing side to side before her inner kitten sends her sprinting. The man tumbles over the cat, screams like a cartoon character and falls to the ground.

"Sir, are you okay?" I put my hand on the bent back, help his shoulders to rise.

His body shakes, laughs under my fingertips. "Damn cat knocks me down five times a day!"

He pats the dust off his flannel shirt, chuckles the whole time. The cat settles into her pouch of fat and licks a front paw. "I think she does it on purpose. Got a sense of humor, this one." The man shakes his head and scratches the cat's arched back.

"Can I take you somewhere?" I ask while inspecting him for injuries. "You seem to be in quite a hurry."

"Ahhhh!" His mouth stays open even after the sound ends. "I am indeed. Off to see my favorite place." He cocks his head. "Come with me and I'll show it to you."

"I don't know..."

But he was already moving, waving me forward. "Come on, dear. Ain't far. You'll see beauty there, promise. Raw and pure beauty, I tell ya."

The cat rubs against my calf, squints at me. I can tell she wants to trip my feet, send me flying into the dirt just like the old man. A flea bounces against my skin. I follow them just to keep the bugs off.

The three of us walk over a moss rimmed path, through a splash of pines, down a slope until we reach a weather-beaten picket fence. "Here it is!" The old man waves his hands as if diamonds sprout from the field.

My stomach doesn't feel right. The farm is in decay. Brown hens peck muddy ground. Chicken poop drapes every worn post. Seed shells litter in moldy clumps. An old tan can overflows with fetid water. Behind the broken corn husks, a robot stands, rusted red, freckled in white bird poop. Twisted wires hang from the limbs like spider veins.

"Here, take some." The man holds out his hand and sprinkles yellow kernels into my palm.

I want to turn back, but now I have handful of chicken feed and a swarm of hens around my feet. I toss the corn one at a time. The birds crowd, cluck until the noise takes over the world. A feather climbs the air and tickles my nose. I sneeze. The cat rubs against my ankle, plops on its back, the fatty rolls melting over her ribs. The wind blows through the robot, makes his joints sigh, then shudder as if in ecstasy. I laugh then. My new heels are filthy. I'm standing next to a crazy man and his fat cat. I laugh harder. The robot's neck is bent, the open sockets stare at the sun like he can see it. A chicken pokes at my pinky toe. My sides hurt, tears stream down my face. A flea bites my foot. I laugh so hard I nearly fall forward as I scratch.

The old man looks at me, his eyes wide and wet, his skin radiant, his laughter so fierce that it's silent. "Didn't I tell ya?" he waves a finger at me. "Didn't I say you'd see beauty here?"

The man's face stretches with smiles from his eyes to his chin. The sun's rays poke under his skin, push outward, eclipses the chicken poop and metal man behind the corn. "Yes." I answer, my own face warm and shining as I stare across a field of sprouted diamonds. "Raw and pure."

The smoke is thick, clouds my vision; the heat inches up my arms and legs.

Leving appears through the haze, doesn’t seem to see the smoke or feel the flames. He smiles and holds out a hand. “Come with me.” I take his fingers, the old knuckles balled, the skin stretched tight and shiny.

The ground slopes upward and he takes the hill in easy, smooth strides, smelling the air like it's cologne, not toxic plumes. I stop, press my palms against my knees and cough. My eyes sting. “I just need a minute,” I say.

Leving waits, puts his hands loosely behind his back, stares up the mountain. “How are things?” he asks.

“Hard.” The word closes my throat, settles heavy in my marrow.

He nods, his whole face soft and warm. “We should keep going then.”

I'm too tired to move, but I do, one foot forward and then the other. The way is steep now. Rocks jut from weeds. My chest hurts with the elevation. I scramble on knees and hands, half crawling, half climbing. My nails break. Leving moves as if the rise is merely flat land.

We reach the summit. It’s even here. Grass is vibrant and deep, knitted so close not a speck of dirt is visible between blades. Crickets hum, make the earth purr like a kitten. A willow tree is centered, the thin limbs riding on the zephyrs, as gentle as hairs blowing across a cheek. The sun is open. The sky is blue – only blue.

I don’t need to catch my breath. The air is clean. I sit in the grass. Now the sun’s warmth inches up my arms and legs. My vision is clear.

Leving sits next to me, peers into the horizon. “What do you see?” he asks me.

I look down at the valley. My torn fingers throb, my chest is heavy again. “Smoke. War. Despair. Flames.”

His face does not move. “What else do you see?"

I look up. The sun spreads across my forehead and down my nose. I smile. “Sky. Peace. Joy. Warmth.”

Now he looks at me. “Which is real?”

“They’re both real,” I answer.

“Now,” Leving stands to go. “You must choose – live in smoke or rise above.”