PROMPT BONUS QUESTION

The Sun Is Always In Reach

It is just a good vibration away

Introduction and Digression

The bonus question reminded me of a prompt from Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) back in December, who is a fucking pain in the ass to tag, because her Medium ID is nothing like her name. Mine used to suffer from that as well. My ID was soulutions17043. I recently changed it to marcus17043 after reading this story by Holly Kellums about ID’s that do not easily correspond to our names:

To all my fellow writers, who know about the URL, thank you for making it easy for me to support you. To all who may not have known, I am sorry for that time I gave up on tagging you. I promise I tried. I simply didn’t know you substituted an E for a 3 in your username.

The Prompts

Lucy wrote a wonderful poem in response to a poem prompt tag-your-it chain by and from Rochelle Silva, to wit:

Prompt: What do you feel when you look at the sky?

Rochelle’s beautiful poem began:

I sang of the star which was, “Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky”.

This just reminded me of another piece of mine:

Back to Lucy’s poem, which reads in part:

When I look at the sky, this is the first thing I feel — to imagine how it might be to touch the sky, seemingly impossible and vaster than I can ever imagine.

Diana’s prompt:

How do you reach higher for the sun?

My answer — I do not have to reach high.

In Delray I would wake before dawn and go running barefoot on the beach with the moon, Venus and Orion keeping me company, feeling connected to the universe. Realization of connection to the universe — that is why I cried with Meredith.

That was from my December 2013 Self-Portrait published in KTHT this past December.

So, the feeling regarding touching the sky that Lucy and I share is connection thereto.

Now, that my glider has risen as high in the sky as physics and my need to breathe allow, let’s dive!

My first thought about the impossibility of touching the sky was that we touch it, we breathe it, every day, as the atmospheric zone we inhabit is part of the sky. That very logical interpretative answer turns out to be literally false. I looked up the definition of “sky” in my deep-dive-companion

— always with me whether diving from heights or to depths — and am delighted that my initial thought was wrong:

The vault of heaven; the upper atmosphere, place of weather; Heaven, the dwelling place of God.

I touch God and God touches me every day.

“Excuse me, while I kiss the sky.” — Jimi Hendrix

I am purposely not connecting all the dots to the thoughts of “it’s actually easy if you know where to look.” One of the greatest teachers of life lessons I had the pleasure of being a student of was my uncle when his Dr. Jeckyl had Mr. Hyde in check. One of the best lessons I learned with regard to imparting knowledge to another in a document is to let them complete the thought for themselves — it provides them with a sense of accomplishment and saves the teacher from being a preacher. If they don’t get it, the wise will ask.

Now, about the subtitle to today’s story. Dr. Preeti Singh wrote to me last night:

String theory with all its up to 11-dimensional multiverse machinations and variations boils down to every particle in the universe being made up of Planck-length (that’s 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 016 meters) strings, and what distinguishes one from another is their vibration, like the notes of a bow pulling across a violin. I published this here in KTHT at the beginning of January:

I replied to Preeti with:

Thank you for bearing with me and my INTP Christmas Tree Brain Magical Mystery Tour through the space-time continuum.

In Rama I create,

Marcus