Transcending Doubt

A quest renewed

Prologue

What do you do when your quest to find that which was lost is met with obstacles and delays that are marked not in days or weeks or months, but in years? Nine years to be exact and another dead end. Has your mouth ever been dry with the charcoal taste of hope burned to ash? Would you still continue? Could you? These were the questions that haunted me.

Natural World

Doubts crawled into my mind again as did despair. Friends and allies began to ask questions about the costs and whether the quest was worth the toll. Financial costs, emotional costs, and health costs were adding up. I could offer no rational response. There was no reason to continue with the quest. Yet I also could not let it go. The tension between moving forward and stopping itself became exhausting. I was tempted to avoid everyone just to avoid the questions and the tension they created.

I needed to escape. I headed to the Platform for sanctuary. With my cortado by my side, I pulled out my notebook. I reflected on a conversation I had with Stavros one evening. He was telling me that our ancestors did not value logic and reason alone. They also valued mythos in equal measure. They considered them complementary paths of understanding that together allowed us to navigate the reality and mystery of life. Logic was essential for understanding the material world and surviving in it, but it could not help us transcend our limits and our pain. It could also be abused and twisted when devoid of spirit. One can rationalize anything if one tries hard enough. Mythos spoke to universal truths. It provided a ladder to divinity so that we could transcend our limitations of form and experience our true essence. But ladders only work if they stay connected to the ground. “Logic,” he concluded, “can lead to knowledge and knowledge is power. Mythos opens us to communion and communion is wisdom. Imagine now what happens when you combine them.”

Dreamtime

I am in Crete. I am walking on the boardwalk facing the setting sun. The waves were rolling in gently as the wind had faded into a gentle refreshing caress. The sea was alight with the sun’s reflection and each wave sparkled and glittered in its exchange with the sun. I walk by couples and families out for an evening stroll. Their sun-shrouded faces could not hide their mirth as I ambled by them. Suddenly, a school of flying fish breaches the surface of the sea with fin-wings akimbo. They soar through the air transcending their nature to salute the sun and sky.

I rouse up to a nonrational truth. There is no rational reason to pursue the quest; there is only the necessity of love and transcendence.

The tension is gone. The shadows of doubt give way to the light of clarity. William Blake once wrote that if the sun and moon had any doubts, their light would go out. I understood at this moment the sun and the moon’s certainty. You do not question your nature; you simply unfold it.

I order a second cortado. I study the cross I see in my notebook. The horizontal line finishes with the words: Material — logic, individual, survival, and fear. On top of the vertical line are the words: Sacred — mythos, unity, transcend, and love. At the intersection of the two lines is the word LIFE.

Another fragment of the larger narrative I am writing that travels borders of mind and time and space. Piece by piece they will eventually come together to form the bowl that contains the story of the quest.

For reference I spoke about the Platform and cortados here:

And I wrote about flying fish here:

A previous story that involved Stavros:

If you explore my catalogue of stories and poetry you will find many other fragments of the bowl.