That reminds me

People tell me their stories and I listen. I guess that is the real reason that I am here on this planet.  To listen. Wherever I go, I listen to the stories of others. Stories of the ineffable, the sad, the recriminatory, the desperate, the whispered nuances of other secrets too dreadful to tell. 


For some reason the snake story that follows reminds me of this one. 

It was told by a woman in her eighties. She was still beautiful. Elegantly dressed and graceful in spite of her arthritis. We had been talking about depression and the impact it can have on a life. She remembered that after her husband left her for a younger woman in her fifties,she withdrew from the world into an alternate world of pain and misery.

It was as if the spiritual and mental pain manifested itself in her body and she developed one of those chronic pain filled diseases that seem designed to make suffering the entire world. It was a terrible time filled with loss and no hope for a different future.

She found a little comfort in church service, and the spiritual community that she belonged to ...and one day she had what she believed to be a vision. 

She found herself at the edge of a great lake, sitting on the sand watching the waves come in gently, peacefully. All at once the feeling came over her that she could end it all by just wading into that beautiful peaceful landscape and let the waves take her. Somehow she felt that if she did that there would be no more pain. 

As she glanced to her left she saw a man about her age, sitting on what seemed to be a throne of some kind. He was tall, handsome and very elegantly dressed. Perfectly poised, he was smiling very gently at her. He told her that if she did what she was thinking there would be no pain. That there would be nothing. That nothingness would claim her and that would be the end.

The end of suffering. 

It was tempting. He seemed to have all the right reasons to go ahead and let the waves claim her, to sink into nothingness. He was very convincing. 

Somehow she realized that he was the Devil, which surprised her because she never expected him to be so elegantly dressed, or so seemingly caring. 

She pulled back, knowing that the nothingness was a trap of some kind. That the pain had its purpose, that it needed to be worked through. She decided not to enter the waves, but to go on with whatever lay before her. And then he disappeared and she was left alone on the beach. 

I have never forgotten the picture she drew of the Devil being an elegant, seemingly graceful person who offers an easy way forward towards nothingness, towards a vast emptiness. 

Oddly her vision of the Devil has stayed with me through my own battles.

Tales of the Other

People tell me their stories and I listen. I guess that is the real reason that I am here on this planet. To listen. Where ever I go, I listen to the stories of the ineffable, the sad, the recriminatory, the desperate, the whispered nuances of other secrets too dreadful to tell. 

This first story is one I have to get off my chest. I don't want to think about it any more.

I was helping a fellow find something for his fish tank. It turns out that it wasn't a fish tank after all. It was a tank for a big python. 

The python's owner was short, swarthy and built like a weight lifter. He had huge forearms with a fair bit of dark coarse looking hair. Dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt he looked as if he could be a construction worker.  He was trying to build sliding glass doors so that the python could go in and out of the tank more easily without hurting its head. 

As I listened to his story he revealed that this particular snake was about 200 pounds. My eyebrows must have gone up a bit for then he said;

"Yup, she could eat me"

"Oh?"

"Yes, I have about 5 pythons but she is the biggest"

"What do you do with them?" I asked.

"I raise them for their eggs"

"For what?"

"Oh I sell them, I make a pretty good living at it too. I made about $35,000 last year just on the eggs."

I began to wonder who exactly wants to raise something so very dangerous. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Anyway I am hoping that this isn't one of my neighbours or yours. But you just never know what people are doing in the privacy of their homes.