“N
ever forget where you come from, brother!”
Janek’s determined voice wakes me from one dream to another.
Bo and Janek appear to have switched their competition forum from chess to a verbal, hot-tempered discussion.
“Where I come from? I come from planet earth… brother!”
Bo slowly pushes the chessboard away.
I try to connect with my body but there’s a very fine line. On the verge of non-existent. An open space of vibrating life better describes the truth I currently perceive.
A shapeless shape.
I also try to relate to the feeling of frustration prevailing around the table next to my sleeping place below.
A kind of lesser feeling, a filled emptiness.
With no TV, telephone, computer, internet and with Mother Nature as my intimate companion during these past weeks, I experience total satisfaction.
Peace has arrived. Or, it has always been there. The restlessness is gone, had nothing on which to survive. For restlessness’s fire is in constant need of new coal to keep on burning.
I am awakened yet again by Janek’s loud voice, this time awakened from my daydream.
“Oh come on, ‘Buddha Boy’, quit provoking me! You must know that your soul belongs to something. Some place, some religion, some family…”
It grows quiet. The only thing I hear is the wind whispering in my ears and Bo’s water bottle rolling round the table.
“My soul is truly far from here. And as to religion, I feel no affiliation to any such. That which resonates with truth is, for me, the seed of love which is the underlying foundation of religions. All religions are based in love, but love needs no religion.”
For the first time since they began this discussion, Janek has no answer. He looks at Bo as he sits with legs crossed, back straight, sharing the wisdom of his heart.
I don’t know if it is the lamp dangling over the table or if it is in fact so that Bo now has a light about him I’ve not previously noticed.
The light of the heart that has been allowed to come forth after Bo’s hard testing on the boat.
The nickname ‘Buddha Boy’ that Janek has provocatively called him during the voyage now seems to correspond with where he finds himself in his open condition, completely in contact with the heart, with the self.
Janek seems, in turn, to be provoked by Bo’s not slouching nor being silenced, by not scratching his head between dreads, by not entering an engaged discussion.
He now sits immobile with his eyes closed.
Something inside me is drawn to what he radiates. Something that has long grown within, that also wants to survive and grow stronger, more stable.
A stability which refuses to be disturbed by ego’s delusions, distractions, absurdism or thoughts’ mental disturbance.
A stability strong enough to dare to stand up for the heart’s wisdom and love. A stability transparent enough to allow the winds of life to blow right through its form.
With a practiced hand I get the help of the bookcase to my right when getting myself up from the bench.
Space appears to have sufficient capacity for pain now, yet a kind of complaining sound still escapes from my mouth.
Janek turns round. He is still too cemented in his mind to instinctively offer to help me up.
Bo looks up with one eye from across the table and wonders if I am alright.
I nod, put his water bottle in the holder on the table meant for drinks and go to sit beside him.
Saltwater runs out of my nose.
Janek quickly gets up. The door to his cabin slams shut after him.
The rain patters above us.
The hatch to above opens and Nora climbs down. She takes off her wet jacket, dries her hair on a towel, sits down across from where Janek sat earlier and observes us.
“My initial interpretation of the situation was that one of you lost at chess and left a bad mood after yourself. But my intuitive feeling says this is no onerous silence you’re in.”
“Can you hear the silence, Nora?” Bo asks the question with eyes still closed.
She looks at me with somewhat raised eyebrows and shrugs questioningly with her shoulders.
“I believe Bo wonders if you can hear the ‘voice’ only heard in silence… and from your interpretation of our situation, it seems you can.”
I pause a moment before continuing.
“For the voice of silence is the voice of intuition.”