by Penny Perlman
Visions in my mind's eye of rocks. Sentences forming in my head and breaking down.... down into rocks.
A fellow patient in a psychiatric hospital is a baker by trade. He has put rocks into the cookies and is fired. My friend, while hypomanic, puts small rocks on a tray and serves them to company as hors d'oeuvres to the amused confusion of all.
The Japanese have rock gardens and stack rocks of all sizes three high in the forests and along roadsides for all to admire. The Native Americans have sacred rocks. They use rocks in rituals.
And I, I have visions of rocks. Words and thoughts form in my mind like a square sheet and crumble into tan, dust-colored rocks and boulders. Time changes. It grinds s-l-o-w-l-y by. The words crumble in my head as they are being formed. I feel the pressure and force of the rocks breaking throughout my whole being.
Years later I mention this vision to Judith, a self-proclaimed mystic. She too has had visions of rocks. She tells me the rocks represent ground... the sacred, pure ground of the soul, which is breaking through into the realm of form. This needs to be understood and integrated into a person's daily life.
If I had mentioned this vision/feeling to the attending psychiatrist in the hospital, my medications would have been upped. We have to control these "hallucinations", you know.
Have you ever had a thought totally focused, clear, true, and in the flow with no judgment attached?
It always makes me want to pick up a pebble and put it in my pocket as a reminder.
September 1995.
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