AN IMAGINARY TALE

Imagining what could be:

So different than what will be

A dilemma of will power

vs passively accepting the inevitable.

Imagination is rooted in truth telling dreams

Therein possibilities start in paranormal DNA where

life begins, thrives, expands , ends.

Each decision, life challenging event,  heroic victories

is embedded in our grey matter

Incalculatable  algorithmic equations  spin, turn,  evolve

to create fantasy plots of which Broadway playwrights

are nigh envious.

Imaginative scenarios reside outside our control.

The purpose to which we employ these sometimes

unexplainable tales become our legacy.

Acting On Our Beliefs and Values – A MessageFramed in History

The keeper of memories at Brandywine

Hidden away near the Brandywine Battlefield

A rugged stone mill stands sentry .

Two hundred years of water tracing

24/7 turning the paddles and buckets

Which give force to the tiny grinding mill again and again.

 

Steady, throughout the harsh Penns Woods winters.

Steady, when the stream turns to a trickle.

Steady, when its primary purpose is replaced  by gas powered machines.

 

There is an aura about this place. A mirror, a memory tape.

Like other places of history and locales of human events

The mill has heard the generational stories  of its neighbors

Its warriors, its heroes, its common folk who worked the land.

Its neighbors in the apartment blocks and IT parks nearby

Its yet unborn .

 

What is “it” about places throughout the world where people

Have sacrificed for their beliefs and values?

What is “it” about the international need to respect and revere

These places of honor ?

 

By the same token, what is it about Civil War battlefields which are

now home to parking lots and the Golden Arches?

Or  the Warsaw Ghetto where one searches for the markers of that WWII tragedy?

The killing forests of Eastern Europe – hidden from view, not disclosed.

Or the  catacombs in Paris.

 

What single iridescent   thread runs through these places remembered and those forgotten/destroyed?

Is there a common theme ?

 

From the common mill at Brandywine, to the catacombs, we remember that the treatment of each

Is a continuing reflection of our values.  What Is important? What is sacred? What is meaningful

to each and every culture, nation, and political demarcation line?  Herein lies the back story for what is

preserved or abandoned.

 

No matter our station in life, we have a commonality with the mill at Brandywine. 

Steady as life goes, we all have our memories, our life changing events.

We celebrate life’s victories like the Colonials at Brandywine. 

We keep on keeping on. 

 

The values we place on our beliefs  act are a platform  for our life changing decisions.  Do we value the

past such as the sacred ground at Brandywine? Or do we alternatively dismiss our personal

history as just another day to be endured on this earth?

 

Choices come to us sometimes quietly. In the small private moments of our inner soul.  A whisper.

A dream.  A premonition.  Our interpretation of a look from someone we know.

Forming  our values, our beliefs, our creed. 

 

Our interpretation of even fleeting moments  may be profound.  The permutations permanent.

 Reflecting our values, a whispered  yes or no  becomes the hallmark  of who we are

 and the continued, repetitive  voice in our inner being.

 

 Our acknowledgement of the goodness of others..the Harold Johnsons and Mother Theresas

 of this word reflect what we value as important: what is life sustaining. Do we pick up the

challenge and continue their missions?

.

Our rejection of those who take advantage of the poor, the humble, those with lesser abilities:

a reflection of our values – do we act or walk on the other side of the road?

 

Can you identify your values, beliefs, and creed?  Enjoy….

Silence:Hiding The Past..Pushing Away the Lessons of History

Silence, Hiding the Past … Pushing Away the Lessons of History

Layers of north facing dark green moss hide glacier formed stones silently strewn on the woodlot floor
Sleeping for generations they are part of history not best forgotten
Unmarked by historic markers or disfigured by well trodden paths,
This land is purposely ignored by generations of locals and camera toting foreigners

Shielded from sight by tall white birches and gnarling raspberry bushes
The horrors that happened here cause even the death ravens to be absent.
This is not a unique plot of undisturbed earth.. it has many brothers and sisters.
Here the Germans and then the Russians brought their captives to die
And to be purposely lost to the world’s consciousness forever

After more than seven decades, a dark, ever present pall of death hangs in the atmosphere.
Inhale and smell it: exhale and choke on the gagging entrails of innocents sent to their end.
Sunlight glints through the trees – sparingly: as if nature purposely avoids exposing
the truth about man’s inhumanity to man.
Tiptoeing on the rocks, walking carefully so as not to fall and have the dirt of this place under ones finger
nails, one feels the silent surge of souls long gone beneath each step.
The psychic vibes reach up, touch the soles and send icy chills to the roots of our Christian values..

Visitors to this den of death are spellbound, quiet, horrifically mesmerized.
Tombstones, markers, remembrance flowers – none in evidence
Parking lots, visitors centers, crosses, Stars of David- none in evidence

Wizened, wary, frightened looks of locals now in their 80’s and 90’s tell more than
their hushed responses to inquiries of “ what happened here”?
The hollow looks in the depths of their eyes reveal nothing, and everything
Their memory tapes hear the guttural sound of troop trucks, staccato shooting squad gunfire, the
slicing of earth for latrine like mass graves
The graves of children, torn from their mother’s breasts, killed because they would remember the
holocaust of Jews, Christians, the elite, the educated, the future of a nation.
Yes, this is real. This is the story of many silent, never to be forgotten fields of death in Eastern Europe.