The Free Radical

“Try to stay in the middle.”

I know that voice. It was Richard Sebastian, that Buzzard character from my Muse Trilogy. He’s been keeping a very close eye on me for more than a month already. Sometimes he deliberately casts his shadow at my feet as he soars in the sky above, just to get my attention. “The middle of what?” I asked.

“‘As above, so below… and in the middle too,'” he quoted. “It’s kind of the middle of… well… everything. You, as individual human beings are the ‘below.’ The universe at large is the ‘above.’ Can you figure out where the ‘middle’ might be?”

Fair question. I could only think of one answer that might fit. “The Earth, Gaia?”

“Very good,” congratulated Richard. “At this moment in time, human beings all over the planet are being mercilessly impulsed to find ‘final solutions’ to all of the ‘lit fuses’ in their lives. Whatever has remained unresolved for a lifetime, or even lifetimes, is demanding resolution now. Obviously, such resolutions cannot be found looking backward. The answers didn’t lie in the past in the past, so whyever would they now? The old ways of doing things will simply detonate the explosion, effectively removing the problem from momentary existence… not really a solution at all. Leaping too far ahead or afield, as well, removes problems from their appropriate context. Thinking which takes problems above the clouds, beyond the sky, to lay them at the feet of God, shirks responsibility. You are the prime creator of your own entanglements… but there is ample help here for you.

“We’re all in this together. You have become so used to solitude and loneliness, you forget about the Earth. Absurd, I know, but so many utterly forget the planet they walk upon… as though she doesn’t exist. Seek her friendship and her wise counsel is automatic. So many of your intransigent problems simply vanish in the context of a unified Earth.

“Take the middle way. There’s a reason why my middle toe looks exactly like the Buddha!”