N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 0 8

KEVIN HAYES

The Resurrection Of My Love

passing thru woods that had once been familiar to me, I find that I have been

absent from them so long, I can no longer remember the way, a failure of memory that

leaves me wandering lost over territory that has become strange unable to recover the path

that will lead me home, the path I burn to know since no other home will suffice. . .

suddenly, in the distance, I see dark smoke rising & spreading thick across the sky, a sign

that no doubt means a fire has broken out in the forest & raged out of control & I go

running towards it seized with an irresistible curiosity to discover what is burning, an

irresistible curiosity that strikes me as an enigma until I reach the clearing where I witness

& recognize that the source of the fire is the home I seek, a spectacle that shows me my

attempt to retrieve the home that has been lost is futile teaching me that I have no choice

now other than to move on. . .I travel as quickly as I can wanting to leave the forest

behind me & soon I emerge from it continuing my journey across open land, land that

initially offers me nothing of significance tempting me to stop & linger but land that also

presents me with no snares or obstacles to slow my progress as I flee the annihilation of

all the intimate things that had once been mine. . .

at last I reach the shore of the continent I have inhabited since the day that I was

born & I find an abandoned boat, a boat that despite its abandonment proves to be

seaworthy after my close examination of it, so I leap on board its deck & sail out onto the

ocean content to let the winds take me where they choose to take me since I have no

experience at navigation & no fixed destination in mind. . .the wind is nothing more than a

faint breath entering the world to catch my sail & to take me always in the same constant

direction, the direction I had been fated to know even before I was born from the

beginning of time, the direction I am glad to follow since I expect it will reveal wonders

that I had never previously witnessed except in the fleeting depths of my dreams, depths

that would never yield their secrets to me, no matter how much effort I made to plunge

down to seize them. . .I sail for weeks without sight of land, an experience that causes me

mounting amazement as the days pass since I grow to understand that the seas are far

more vast than I had ever imagined them to be, so vast that I begin to fear that there is no

land to discover other than the one I left, a fear that haunts my dreams with the void I

believe my world to be, a fear that is confirmed when I wake up every morning & look

across the ocean all the way to the horizon only to witness nothing once more. . .

gradually, I lose all hope that I will ever find the new land I seek, but, long after I

have ceased to harbor any expectation, as I am idly gazing out across the ocean while I am

eating breakfast, I see something green rising in the distance, something that does not

appear to be water, so I interrupt my meal & rush to the wheel of my boat turning it &

navigating to investigate the something green. . .as I approach my destination, I wonder if

it is nothing more than a delusion, a trick of the eye cultivated by my own frustrated

desire, but I continue the voyage even though I doubt the existence of new land until I

reach the shore & my feet stand upon it persuaded by the solid ground that the ocean is

not the void I had feared it to be when I wandered across it so long. . .eager to explore the

island I have come to discover, an eagerness intensified because previous to the discovery,

I had given it up as impossible, I move across the territory quickly as my legs will carry

me exercising no degree of caution at all confident that the world I have found will prove

to be better than the one I left. . .

I become familiar with the territory as I move across it luminous in the day of

glory the sun sheds down from the sky cultivating the land to welcome me now that I

have come to know it, a cool breeze murmuring thru the radiant air that surrounds me on

all sides kissing my flesh as it passes issuing a tender invitation to me encouraging me to

stay here in this place urging me to make it my new home promising it will be more than

able to replace the home I lost. . .my exploration of this territory reveals no trace of

human presence or civilization, but the wilderness is so hospitable it needs no cultivation

to provide me with what I need for easy survival, the branches of every tree loaded with

fruit offering a harvest of abundant sweetness to satisfy me, offering me the feast

necessary to celebrate the day of glory I have come to know. . .even after night has fallen,

the land is still immersed in subtle light as the moon & a thousand stars shine down upon

it & exhausted from the labor of exploration, I lay down to sleep in the heart of that silver

radiance needing no shelter more than it because the environment I now inhabit has

proven to be so mild, no wild things in this jungle that might pose any threat. . .

once I fall asleep, I descend into the world of dream, a world that bears no

resemblance to the paradise that surrounds me & promises to become my perfect new

home, a place where I can stay & rest satisfied at last, my dream haunted by images of

apocalypse corrupting & destroying the land that has graced me with absolute bliss

driving me to take to my ship a rootless outcast adrift on the ocean once more. . .when I

wake up, the early morning sun has begun to ignite another day of glory & the

environment offers me even more of its endless bounty than it had the day before, but the

memory of the apocalypse I had seen in my dream clouds my conscious mind &

interferes with my ability to perceive the paradise I inhabit, a bitter fact that renders my

paradise nonexistent for me, so I prefer to flee rather than to remain in the presence of a

paradise I cannot have. . .I take to the ocean once more leaving paradise behind me even

though I could have kept inhabiting it, even though I could have made it my home, certain

that whatever bliss I managed to enjoy there would prove to be most transient believing

my dream to be authentic revelation wanting to avoid witness of the inevitable moment

when the corruption & the destruction of my paradise would come embracing my life as a

fugitive never able to remain a resident of heaven knowing that I would be an outcast

adrift on the ocean until death came to release me from the hell of consciousness that had

sunk its hooks most deep into me. . .

after I have sailed far enough so that I can no longer spot any trace of land behind

me, then & only then do I reconsider the concept of flight realizing that the paradise I

abandoned still exists even though the cloud that had spread across my mind had

prevented me from perceiving it, so I turn the boat around determined to return to the

land I had discovered, to penetrate the cloud & to drive it away, to establish intimate

connection with my paradise once more. . .a storm breaks across the ocean & I have to

struggle to keep my boat on course, an objective I at last manage to achieve when the land

I desire becomes visible in the distance & I approach it with ecstasy mounting the closer

to it I come sailing on until I reach the shore & my feet touch ground once more, a return

made sweeter because I had to fight to complete it. . .despite my best effort to renew

connection with the paradise I know has been provided for me here & now, I find myself

plagued by the memory of my apocalyptic dream, a dream that had been influenced by

the fire that had destroyed my initial home, a memory that still interferes with my ability

to see the abundant grace the environment cultivates for me. . .

tempted to reverse the decision I had made to return, tempted to take to my ship

& flee to the ocean once more, I make the decision to stand firm instead hoping that my

eyes will learn to penetrate the shadows of apocalypse that have penetrated them & there

in the fire that had destroyed my lost home, I see something else I witnessed, something

else that I found impossible to recognize so I buried it deep, the memory of the face I lost,

the face of the one who died in the fire I accidentally managed to survive simply because I

happened not to be home when the fire started. . .this face rises in my mind again & I

cannot simply turn away from it as if it is the face of a stranger, a truth I learn to my

bitter knowledge because I try to turn away, but the effort proves to be quite futile

transfixed as I am by the face that has appeared in the heart of the fire, the face that was

lost when I buried it returning from the dead coming back to me. . .I keep my eyes wide

open riveting my attention upon the face that has returned & as I sustain this focus, the

fire that has surrounded the face vanishes & instead the face inhabits the paradise my

voyage had brought me to discover, a paradise I am once more able to perceive now that I

have embraced the deeper loss that had haunted me, a paradise that has graced me with

the resurrection of my love. . .