THE USUAL NOTE FROM LB: From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2010, Gwen the Beautiful and I were the proud and often exhausted owners of a beautiful Ozarks property we called Cloud Creek Ranch.
In many ways, the ranch was paradise. But it was a paradise with a price that started going up before we even knew it existed. Here’s another Monday musing about our adventure and the lessons we learned.
Oh, and if y’all detect any irony, please believe me when I say it comes straight from the universe and not your kindly Uncle Larry B.
by Larry Brody
In the musical play, Gypsy, stage mother Mama Rose fires up her daughter by singing the show-stopping song, “I Had a Dream.”
As performed by some of the greatest actresses to strut their stuff on Broadway, this number is all fire and passion and hope and desire. The ultimate expression of what’s going on in Mama Rose’s heart.
Last night, I had a dream, and although it didn’t have music, my dream also was filled with fire and passion and hope and desire.
The ultimate expression of what was going on in my heart?
Or maybe—and I say this with all the flames I can make myself burst into—the ultimate expression of the Universe itself.
I sure as Paradise hope it was the Universe, anyway.
Because although we used to talk all the time, the Universe and I, in words, in feelings, in overwhelmingly mystical events, and, of course, in dreams, my big all-encompassing buddy has been MIA from my life for awhile. Immediate events in the here and now have taken up the time we used to spend together in the infinite. The unusual quiet had me feeling a little down, but last night changed everything.
In last night’s dream, I was an angel. As an angel, I was visiting a literal host of men and women who meant a great deal to me. Men and women in search of the truth about themselves and their lives and their places in the general Order Of Things. No, not only their places. They actively were seeking to know what the Order itself was.
In addition to their quest, these men and women had one other thing in common.
They were all fictional.
Every one.
So I stood and I sat and I walked and I ran and I drove and I sailed and I flew, one on one, with Sherlock Holmes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grace Hannadarko, the Doctor, Captain Nemo, Dr. Manhattan, Lois Lane, and about a gajillion other TV and film and comic book heroes simultaneously, and I told them, in the words each needed to hear, what the Universe was all about.
“Imagine, if you will,” I said (or variations to that effect), “a micro-organism so small it’s sub-atomic. It reproduces by simply dividing itself, and not only does each of the organisms have its own simple awareness and identity, they also are linked so that together they form one larger overall being I’ll call the Grand Spirit.
“Imagine that the prime directive of the individuals is to keep dividing and growing and dividing and linking together into groups that recombine with each other in every possible way and form all kinds of larger and larger beings including the Grand Spirit. Now imagine that each of those beings they combine into has its own awareness and identity and also the ability to become part of the awareness and identity of the G.S.”
Some of the heroes I talked to about this nodded and agreed. Others disagreed, sometimes violently. But I kept talking because I was an angel, and angels aren’t easily dissuaded.
“Imagine that over eons of time, these beings link together to form everything we call the universe. They’re the galaxies, stars, planets. They’re the Andromedans, humans, Martians, dogs, horses, cars, knives, forks, guns, chiggers, wind. They’re also the combination of all these things. The Grand Spirit.
“The universe.
“Now throw into this mix the fact that, being an entity with an awareness and identity, the G.S. has a goal. That goal is to exist throughout all space and time and create one moment of perfection. One single, eternal moment of bliss.
“That’s the Order Of Things. And our place in the Order is to strive just as hard for our perfection as the Grand Spirit is. And to know that regardless of whatever obstacles and pain and suffering get in the way, we’ll attain it. In that same perfect, all-encompassing moment the Grand Spirit creates.”
“Why’re you telling me?” each of the heroes asked. “I’m just a character in a story. I’m not even real.”
“Sure you are,” I said. “That’s the great wonder of a Universe where everything’s cut from the same cloth. Everything is real.”
And as I said that, I woke up, and called out. “Universe! Is it true? Was that dream real?”
“Absolutely,” said the Universe. “As real as Clark Kent.”
