UP UP UP it’s *this* moment
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What The Alligator Snapping Turtle Has To Do With Life Cultivation Beyond the tannin-stained black water of the Suwannee River and nowhere stood the Suwannee Springs Bridge, also called the Bridge to Nowhere, adorned with colorful paint and hundreds of locks bearing undying stories of love and longing on its railings, like a living collage made of graffiti, abandoned and tucked away in the forests of the Pensacola wetlands. Fifty feet down the river, blending with the moss-hung oak roots, an alligator snapping turtle lay motionless and in wait, its cavernous jaw wide open, a worm-like appendage atop its tongue luring unsuspecting prey, like a flame calling to a moth. Seventeen-year-old Robin, for once distracted by the rare sight of a snapping turtle in daylight, wiped a tear off his ashen face and put the padlock engraved with "Locked together forever, Emely & Robin", back into his cargo trousers. He quickly glided from the riverbank after the snapper. Thick and tight and full of branches, easy to get stuck and drown, Robin followed the nocturnal animal deeper into the murky waters, underneath a huge tree fall, all dark, creepy, and cold, until the turtle disappeared into the unknown depths of a cavern, its mouth shimmering in shades of blue and indigo. The azure flames of the hidden entrance to the Spring River Witch’s underwater cave weren’t well known outside the little town of Life Oak, and only a handful of locals knew of the witch’s dark pacts, allowing her to return lost loved ones. (Fans of Faustian bargains and the cultivation of the soul, without doubt, will be in joyful anticipation of this tale and the exploration of the uncanny fear of the pain of loss with its suffocating self-cheat of taking a worse gamble over a sure and natural loss. This human phenomenon and the extreme measures we take to avert the pain of loss must be explicitly understood in its cruelty, or nothing wonderful could come of Robin Donovan’s story). "Who is the target reader and who is this book for?" Maryrose Wood’s question is directed at me (my fiction writing mentor since 2024). "Ahh, well. You know, there is this boy, he’s seventeen years old and his girlfriend dies in a gang initiation ritual by his cruel uncle, the gang leader, after his Dad died two years ago. He's not allowed to date girls outside the gang, and someone found out he does. It's either she risks her life becoming a gang member or...You know, she’s all he got after his big brother left town for the military, leaving him behind with his uncle. So what does he have without her? Who will he be after she’s gone? He can’t let go of her. He just can't." "Okay, can you tell me what your book is about in one sentence?" "It's a Faustian bargain story, where this witch lives in town and she can bring people back from the dead. And so he makes this Devil’s bargain with her; he sells his soul for her life." "Let me stop you right here, Mirjam." We are so eager to focus on the fancy spins and wanting to finish the villa that we avoid the construction site. But this is what you need to come up with first, before you start at all. Are you building a deck, a bridge, a house? You can't build something if you don't know what you want to build. You must have the right premise to build a story; otherwise you have nothing. Why do you think there is a theoretical system in Ren Xue Life Cultivation? The theories are for explaining the law of the universe and life. They are your foundation for the cultivation of your life. They provide the path and the tools. So, did you get the eternal human question Robin Donovan’s story is about? The one I was unable to give in one sentence above? It's not a trivial one. Do you think Robin can trust? Can we? When we don’t truly understand what’s happening, can we truly trust? What does trust mean to us? It’s important to have a better understanding of what trust is. Can we embrace undifferentiated what comes our way? Can we follow nature? And what is natural, anyway? It is important to know what "nature" and "natural" mean in this context. For now, we can see nature as the embodiment of the wisdom of the universe, going with the laws, going with the law of change. If we can’t go with change, we are disturbing our life; we are creating suffering. So is not going with the change bad? No. What is this resistance then? It is growth. It is the potential movement of growth. Why and where is this resistance coming from? It comes from life. It comes from nature. Nature sends this resistance. It wants us to manifest trust inside of us. Nature is telling us where we are at. Not trusting. This is a messenger. Now it's up to you to determine which direction you choose. Will it be the moth consumed by the flames, or the salamander stepping into the flames and coming out unscathed? What we need so that we can face the barriers to trust is trust. Where do we find trust? In the heart. You ready, salamander? XOM Mirjam Blank |