Cheese & _______

I was born a harp that has a whole complement of strings from bass to treble. Before my lute-crisis, when my bass and treble sides were both together upon my frame, many of my strings were badly out-of-tune because I had been played-upon hard and cruelly re-arranged, with the lower-pitched strings suffering worst - I learned to think of my bass-strings as very, very bad things. By the time of my lute-crisis, I was playing more on the midrange and treble strings. I chose to view the midrange strings as treble ones. And I re-tuned many of the bass strings to higher-than-proper pitches, while mercilessly muting the rest of them. I wanted terribly to become a new instrument -a lute- one with only treble strings. I thought I was this other instrument, and I even tried to cut-away my bass strings. But I knew my frame would always be that of a harp whatever I did. After arguing with the Great Luthier, I promised I would not bend the frame out-of-line and use a different so...

There's a kind of white moth, I don't know what kind, that glimmers by mid-May in the forest, just as the pink mocassin flowers are rising. If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more. And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking at this and that. If I stopped the pain was unbearable. If I stopped and thought, maybe the world can't be saved, the pain was unbearable. Finally, I noticed enough. All around me in the forest the white moths floated. How long do they live, fluttering in and out of the shadows? You aren't much, I said one day to my reflection in a green pond, and grinned. The wings of the moths catch the sunlight and burn so brightly. At night, sometimes, they slip between the pink lobes of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn, motionless in those dark halls of honey

When the Creator is active within a person, that person is discovering or creating a more adequate sense of Self. At best, this new identity leads to a more fulfilling and effective life. At worst, it is simply an experiment, and the person retreats or goes back to the drawing board to start over.

Assuming that the soul is not a thing, science is unlikely to prove its existence anytime soon. Yet the experience inspiring the word is entirely real. We speak of "the life of the mind", consciousness, psyche, the spirit.. "she's a free spirit".. And though people die their essence lives on - in words, deeds, qualities they gave to the people who knew and loved them.. There is something - a "soul-print" that connects us instantly to who and what they were. In terms of the broader context.. We know that life seems infinitely variable, and have begun to understand it in terms of systems, a vast web of inter-connectivity. Life is creative. It solves problems. It adapts. *Something is calling forth a higher degree of order. I believe this something, this larger whole, is the mystery that which we call the soul belongs to. by Francesca