Afternoon moon in Guadalajara, Spain early 1990s. |
Afternoon Moon
by John Kaminski
About that thing you may have lost
along the way
Back when was around 13, on those days
when I was not terrorizing the neighborhood on my very fast bicycle,
probably most often when I was walking home from school, I always
marveled at the afternoon moon, big white disc shining through the
gleaming blue sky on a glittering sunny day.
Usually I noticed it right by St.
Mary's Church, about a half mile south of our house, which had a nice
green lawn and stone walls we could play on as we passed by it this
way or that. All the data I had collected to this point in my
supposedly developing brain had moon stuff neatly filed with night
stuff, so the question naturally arose in my mind, "What the
heck is the moon doing out during the day?"
But while there was something somehow
wrong about it, something was also very right about it, very
miraculous and mysterious, yes, something was very right about the
moon's presence dancing without paying any notice whatsoever to the
much brighter (but not that much brighter) Sun in the same sky
communicated to me something of a brave spirit, not afraid to show
who she was despite the presence of the Man with the Big Light. After
all it was his sky, and she was parading across it, stealing the
show, as it were, at least on some level in a little boy's brain,
which was still a decade away from asking itself if it had ever had a
real conversation with anyone.
Remembrance of this trivial fact in a
long life many decades after the fact, through a prismic
understanding of the tangents it ignited, sees this event now as a
painting in the mind, with the regular and regal and unstoppable
procession of the white queen through the day sky in the presence
golden king of our solar system meant that all was well, as long as
the queen came around regularly as the Sun just sat there and smiled
contentedly.
In the memory of this scene, I am
usually running happily, or riding a very fast bicycle, with an
overwhelming feeling that everything was good and right in this
world, if only could you understand why the beautiful moon, every now
and then, appeared during the day.
· ·
For these and other, deeper reasons,
right around this time, no earlier than 12 but no later than 14, I
decided that I wouldn't grow up. It was based on what I saw all the
adults around me doing. They were constantly forgetting that there is
so much more to life than making money, and hiding behind the excuse
of having to make it to the extent that they simply forgot, or were
somehow forced to forget, what life is all about.
I remember thinking, I don't want to be
like them. With them it's always about appearing to be tougher than
the other guy, or wearing the right kind of makeup to steal some boy
from some girl. It didn't occur to me way back then that there were
environments and families that were beyond that kind of cookie cutter
lifestyle that we had in the 1950s, when everybody believed what they
heard on TV, and nobody even contemplated any version of revolution
because life in the Wasp suburbs of Boston was so excellently
beautiful. The playground was around the corner and the lake was not
very far away.
Always on television it was about
killing and money. I preferred listening to the river, and seeing how
animals, specifically caterpillars, were so comfortable in their
luxurious homes that people driving by fast in big cars thought were
just bushes. When I saw my first caterpillar wriggle out and go
airborne, I knew what the moon had told me was true. I saw it many
years in the photos from the Hubble space telescope, same process,
different level.
I don't recall the specific punishment
that ultimately threw me over the edge about all this and caused me
to run away from home repeatedly, but long before that I was telling
friends, "I don't want to be like them" and as I look
around today, tears well in my eyes, and it is no satisfaction that I
was right on the button so many frustrating years ago.
I don't want be like you, my fellow
human beings. I have always wanted to be something more, something
kinder.
I had realized that children see
something that adults have forgotten how to see — namely, their own
dreams. And I have vowed — and kept that vow — to never let go of
that vision of what really is that only a child can see for real.
· ·
My life has come full circle in this
self-made career of firing psychopolitical nukes into the
cybersphere. I couldn't communicate with my parents then and I can't
communicate with my readers now. Friends pat me on the back and say,
oh, it's just that people have become too dumbed down, and certainly
that is true on a certain level, but this propagandized malaise that
is about to make so many of us go extinct at this time is even more
disillusioning that that.
I've invented all these psychological
concepts — all of which work wonderfully, BTW — to allow us to
see all the things we've been missing, notably the subtle Jewish
totalitarian coma that has descended over our minds for the past
hundred years, where each aspect of our existence has been
commandeered by some Jewish entrepreneur, who links up with the
worldwide Jewish network and drives all the competition to despair
and, very often, suicide, with stacked decks, fixed deals and trick
contracts.
And as the religious zealots prove
every day with their futile broadsides at their chosen enemy
denomination, nothing ever gets accomplished on this level. This con
has gone on since the dawn of time. But kids don't do it until adults
teach them how to do it, and this is exactly where the downward
spiral begins.
Humanity must be turned from a death
cult into a life cult.
There is only one attitude that can
save the world, that can prevent human society from destroying itself
and everything it loves with its own pretensions.
And it would only take one thing, one
little twist of the perceptual apparatus and the emotional balance
beam.
That one thing?
Instead of teaching children, we should
learn from them.
Instead of molding them into worker
bees and parrot professors, we should let them guide us, because they
— and only they — know the way home, and that's where we want to
go.
That thing you lost along the way? They
still have it. It's the most important thing anybody ever owns. Far
too many of us let it slip away too long ago.
Oh sure, sure, you say they're just
regurgitating what we their parents have told them, right?
The answer would be ... precisely! As
in the eyes of your children, In their answer, you have what you told
them refined by their dreams. You have what you always hoped for made
visible.
Too few parents realize — along with
all those others who realize then forget it — that these are the
most important words you will ever hear in your life, as well as your
marching orders for the future.
They are still connected to the dream
that you had that ultimately made them, and their dreams will
ultimately make you. Be sure and follow along at home. This is the
road to peace. Did you ever know a kid who prefers war? The only ones
who do were taught to do so by their parents.
If you're ever asked where you heard
this information, you can say that you heard it on one particularly
beautiful day from the afternoon moon.
If you ever ask her about it, she's
quite likely to remember you.
P.S. Thanks John for the very nice article... and having me recall my afternoon moon in Guadalajara, Spain. Visit John's blog here.