The Intellectual Club

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”Where were we? Ah... the meaning of life.”

Sighs.

“We are always there, about the meaning of life. And as always, you strayed from the topic.”

“Now, that’s not fair. Sometimes it’s you who is sidetracking.”

Smiles, in silent admission. Takes a sip of the warm coffee, enjoys the aroma.

”But OK, where exactly, about the meaning of life, were we when I strayed from the topic?”

“I don’t quite remember. It’s been a while.”

“But… it was two weeks ago, like always, wasn’t it?”

”No, it wasn’t. The last time you couldn’t make it. You had to take your son to some… football game, or whatever.”

Makes a face in acquiescence, grabs the spoon and stirs the coffee, to mix the added sugar.

“You sound a bit accusing. You know I have to take care of my kids.”

“Yes, but it’s strange that you must be the one driving every time.” Rolls eyes. “But maybe that is the meaning of life to you, driving to football games?”

”Being with my kids is definitely a part of the meaning of life to me. Maybe that’s hard for you to…”

Strikes a match, lights a cigarette. Blows out smoke.

Coughs, rather forced.

”You shouldn’t smoke so much.”

”You know that’s the reason we sit outside, even during winter, to allow me to smoke.”

“Maybe that’s the meaning of life to you, smoking?”

“Oh, not again!” An arrow of smoke shoots past the head. “Surely that was where you sidetracked, as you always do. That I smoke too much.”

”I’m saying it because I care about you!”

Raises the chin slightly, in defiance.

“I enjoy smoking, and what meaning is there in my life if I can’t do things I enjoy? And besides, what does it matter? I don’t have any kids and I won’t be having any either.”

An expression of suffering, gazes at the coffee pot.

Smiles again, smoothing things over.

“Sitting here with you is also a part of the meaning of my life.”

“For me too. A very important part. That’s why I...” Cuts short, tosses the head as if to scatter disturbing thoughts in there. “I don’t know how I would cope without these moments. They… you… are like new oxygen feeding my brain.”

”Oxygen? Not smoke?” Head slanting. ”I’m sorry. I appreciate that you care... somehow.”

“Now I recall where we were! The chicken or the egg, which one came first?”

Waits, then:

”And you said the egg, and then I wanted to know why you believe that, but then...”

“Then I lit a cigarette and you started nagging about that. It’s the shape, naturally.”

Frowns, pours some more coffee, adds sugar, stirs.

“The shape? How do you mean?”

“Well, think for yourself. Out there, somewhere in the Nothingness… the original shape was floating. I can’t see the shape of a chicken out there in the Nothingness, it would be completely weird. But an egg, no problem.”

A faint smile.

”Then all that remains is the question of which came first, the egg or the sperm.”

The Mountain

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The mountain. The lone mountain. The unchanging mountain. The constant in our existence. The safe foundation

.

What does the mountain think? Does the mountain think? Does it have a soul? A soul deep asleep? A soul, a conscience, that measures time not in minutes, hours and years but in thousands, millions, billions of years. Is one minute to us a thousand years to the mountain, or a million?

Mountain in Green, by Andy Lord.

So, what does the mountain think when it ”sees”, senses, the myriads of events, fast as lightning, that pass by its perimeter? How much can it perceive? A plant shoots out of the ground, grows into a tall tree… and just about when the mountain has got used to having it there, a violent storm – that to the mountain is just a light breeze – arrives and brings down the tree.

How does the mountain react to those tiny beings who scurry on and off around it, who construct small matchboxes and walk in and out of them, faster than the mountain can register; boxes which are torn down or fall into decay long before the mountain has got to know them? And the beings themselves… who hasten around in frenzy without any obvious goal or meaning.

Once in a great big while one of them will stop, will take time to sit down and observe the mountain. The mountain will notice, although it happens with neck-breaking speed, how one of the small creatures seeks shelter by the mountain; seeks shadow during a hot summer’s day, or lee on a windy winter’s night. Just like when the birds find a crevice high up to build their nest, with a clear view and where the winds provide a runway for flying.

The mountain notes this with a glimpse of satisfaction, when its less stationary cousins not only help themselves to the services of the mountain but also express their gratitude. When the tree whispers the mountain’s name in the wind, when the eagle spreads its wings and thanks the cliff for its assistance, when the man sinks down into the shade and with satisfaction leans his little body against the mountain’s huge one, then the mountain knows that these temporary guests can apprehend a sense of community, of solidarity, a feeling that they all have their place and their mission in the All.

The Supper

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To behold the body of a beautiful woman is like entering a gothic cathedral and being filled with reverence before the deity.

The softness of her shape…

The harmony of her lines…

The grace of her movements…

The Supper by Andy Lord.

 In the beginning was the Mother Goddess.

She was the creating power, the caring and loving power.

From her body came the life-giving liquid like an eternal, rippling river, and it nourished mankind.

She ruled the villages of the early humans, directed male strength and adrenaline towards tracking and hunting down animals necessary to feed the people, or towards constructing buildings to sleep in.

She made the crucial decisions, because she was the Wise one, who understood how everything was connected together, understood that all living things – plant, animal and man – are parts of the same system and therefore depend on each other.

Not everyone followed her advice, and she didn’t want to take away the free will of man. Because if she did, man would be reduced to a mechanical puppet, and that wasn’t her intention. But freedom came with a price.

Aggressive males challenged her, questioned her leadership. When they joined forces, and continuously made each other take yet another step, they became so powerful and frightening that they made other humans submit to their will. And the Mother Goddess took a step back, just because she didn’t want to reduce her people to mechanical puppets.

The strong, double edged sword that is the free will threw out mankind from the original Garden of Eden, to an existence with rivalling warrior gods who felt a perpetual need to try their strength against each other. The fight for domination became more important than ruling for the benefit of everyone.

The Mother Goddess didn’t disappear. She was still there, in the wings, to assure that she creating, caring and loving values weren’t completely taken away from mankind.

She lived on as ruler of the Druids’ Avalon, but her power diminished steadily.

She lived on as a wise woman, skilled in medicine, but all too often she ended up being burnt at the stake.

She lived on as the Madonna, humbly revered as the one power balancing the strong male god.

Not even the fierce, male centered cultures of the Lutherans and Moslems could completely stop her from exerting her influence.

Because free will also came with the power to evolve, to rise from the animal stage, not just physically but also mentally and spiritually.

And the life-giving milk is still gushing like a strong river from her body.

Where the Hell am I going?

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The wandering, the road, seems endless. Maybe because that’s exactly what it is.

Endless and, sometimes, meaningless.

But… in the light of the magnifying glass it’s not the road or the wandering itself that is meaningless, it’s the way it’s supposed – as it seems – to be carried out.

Swedish author Mikael Niemi was on to something important when he, in his novel Populärmusik från Vittula (eng. Popular music from Vittula), described the life of a Laestadian as an endless uphill walk. A life where pain itself is the essence, is what gives the wanderer his rank or status. Deprivation and asceticism are the building blocks with which the faithful one builds his ladder to Heaven.

The medieval flagellants who whipped themselves with barbed iron chains were but the ultimate consequence of the yoke that for centuries, yes millennia has been put upon the shoulders of the faithful one – not by god, but by those who have claimed to interpret the word of god. Fear the Lord! Walk the hard and narrow road, because the broad one leads to Hell!

And many are the poor souls, sheltered in bodies, that have followed the dictates from the priests, the mullahs, the scribes.

And the struggle for survival has often been so hard, so tiresome that it has devoured all energy from the faithful one. He hasn’t had the strength to sit down and reflect upon the absurdness of what’s demanded of him, to ask the decisive questions, to add two and two together and make the analysis.

Because he who is capable of lifting his gaze, of removing – if only for a short while – the yoke from his shoulders and straighten out into his full length, and listen to his brother from another place on the earth, will quickly realize that there is something wrong here.

Because he who observes his brother from another place on the earth, can very clearly see how his brother is wandering an equally hard and narrow road, but the observer can see that the road his brother is walking, goes straight down to Hell.

And if the observer had been able to put himself inside his brother’s body and soul, and from there watch himself on his narrow road, he would to his dismay find that also that road, his own, leads to Hell.

Where the Hell am I Going? by Andy Lord

Because in their urge to fetter the people, to gain complete control over them and assure itself of their tithe, the church – no matter if it claims to follow Jesus or Mohammed – has identified as its most important principle that thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Heresy has been raised to become the ultimate sin, the only unforgiveable sin, the sin that with absolute certainty will send the sinner to the eternal fire.

And here we have the paradox. For the one staggering on along the narrow road of the Christian priest will inevitably end up in the Muslims’ Hell. And the one who painstakingly advance on the equally narrow road of the Muslim mullah will with the same absolute certainty find himself in the Christians’ Hell.

Which leads us to the natural follow-up question: If all roads lead to Hell – one hell or the other – why not choose to walk the broad road instead, and have some fun on the way?

Dawn of Dystopia

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There were those who warned.

Early.

And later.

Many wrote, well and clearly worded articles or spontaneous posts in social media, that we had to do something.

Yes, gradually there were almost nobody who hadn’t heard the warnings.

Still nothing happened.

The typhoons along the Tropic of Cancer started to come… not just during late Summer and Fall but, soon, all year round.

The consuming fires in Australia got worse by every Summer.

New York and Boston were cut off in a terrible snow storm – in May. In Arctic Europe snow melted in the beginning of March. Skiing competitions were cancelled.

Still nothing happened.

Fiji… Samoa… Vanuatu… the Maldives… disappeared.

The countries of South occupied the rostrum in the UN building, Angelina Jolie travelled across the world giving inflammatory speeches.

But nothing happened. The oil continued to flow in the fuel tanks. The cole continued to warm the buildings. The advertising agencies continued to produce cheerful commercials or jingles that were running, day and night, on television and radio:

Consume more! Buy now, pay later!

Dawn of Dystopia, by Andy Lord

Then one day… a tiny rivulet started to wind its way southwest from the Siberian steppes. A rivulet of poisonous matters that had been frozen into the tundra for thousands of years.

At the same time, a 2000 kilometers wide, ten kilometers thick block of ice came off the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. It moved northeast with the water currents and melted along the way.

From opposite directions they came – the melting water and the methane river, and they crashed right into the heart of civilization.

Then, only then, when the white man’s home and cultural heritage lay in ruins, the leaders and those who were in command reacted.

Then, when it was clear that it was their own population who would be forced to flee – with no cars, no electricity, no food or accomodation – a small group was appointed to lead the search for new land.

The members of the group were equipped with the old, still functioning weapons, fetched from their hiding places, and with the ancient knowledge that secretly had been transmitted, by oral tradition, from mother to daughter.

They got unexpected assistance from the proud but shy people of the large pastoral forests, when they set out, in the Dawn of Dystopia.

Andy Lord