AWAKENING IN THE TULIP FIELDS OF ZANDILAND

[Howard McQueen]

Note: This is my first foray into pseudo fantasy-fiction. The intent is to stay true to the felt-feelings and let those weave the story …

© 2009 Howard McQueen | [e-mail]

Mmmmm.

I am gently awakening up towards the surface of life.
I smell a deep fragrance.
I sense that I am exquisitely comfortable in my body.
Absent are the nagging aches and pains.
Hmmm, I don’t feel like I have my PJ on or sheets covering me.
NOPE, not gonna open my eyes just yet.
I breathe deeply and my chest rises and I am not on bed linens
My head moves and I find it is cradled in something soft and slightly loamy.
There are still notes from the magic flute of last night replaying in my head.
This fragrance is so_ooO very intoxicating.
I open my eyes
and discover I am lying in a freshly mulched flower bed, surrounded by many tulips.
How did this come about?
Inquisitively I raise up my chin and my hands press deeply into the ultra-rich loamy soil.
From two feet above ground now, I survey this situation.
I am surrounded by bright, multi-colored tulips as far as my eyes can carry me.
The sky is this translucent, rich, almost iridescent vanilla.
In the distance, it appears that there is something hanging, perhaps moving.
Thank goodness my glasses are still round my neck.
I reach up to wipe my eyes and I discover my face, hands, and arms are partially caked with the deep browns and golds of the richest mulch - something to be encountered only in a dream.
No wonder these tulips are flourishing and at their peak. .
On go the glasses and I raise myself up on one knee
And now I see I am surrounded by tens of thousands of blooming tulips all bowing down their heads in my direction.
I grin deeply and feel a bit tipsy, like I am being held in some magnetic epicentric-ity.
This triggers a remembering, in a vague, dreamy sort of way. I was giddily smitten at Jeannie Zandi's gathering last night.
How did I get here?
What is here?
Hmmmmm. The words Divas of the Heart arise.

I stand up. Indeed, I have no clothes on, except the blotchy mulch that clings to me from head to toe.
This will do just fine, for now.

There are tulips literally saturated everywhere and every single one is in the perfect crispness of bloom. They form swathes of colors, the larger pattern reflections call deep inside me and touch symbols that stir a warm inquisitiveness -- images arise like rising effervescence, revealing subtle patterns that then slowly fade away.
Mmmmm, a gentle breeze carries the waif of a new scent, just as exotic and pungent as the one before.
I can see a windmill, way off in the distance – Holland, California, Taos, The tulips of ZandiLand? – OK, we'll go with this naming - ZandiLand.
I have no cell phone, no ipod, no watch, no currency, no id
Wow! I pause to marvel at this lacking of everything external and worldly,
and am set warmly aglow, a bubbling over ebullience, and discover “its all ok”.
I remember a word, predicament, but this holds no emotional content.
I remember the words, alone, lonely, but these words as well find no home to land.
A small formation of butterfly swing by, weaving theirintimately felt welcoming as their wings brush my skin as they spiral around me and depart.
I marvel that I've never seen butterflies in formation. What the ?
I realize that ever since I woke up, I have been living the rhythm of feeling perfectly in harmony with my body and everything else.

Hmmmm. Check, check. Is this a dream?
Yes, and No resonates within.
Hmmmm.

The perfect harmony remains intact, without a single crack.
And what I feel now is the sheer delight of floating gently in the unresolved paradox.
Why should any answer from the mind matter in any way whatsoever.
This harmonious, felt sense of inner dialog,
is radiating, it feels, like, out from my heart.
I take a deep breath, and yet another again
and I know I am breathing more deeply than normal.
Perhaps I am taking in enriched tulip oxygen!
Giggle and snort – I just made that up.
A gigantic grin becomes plastered over my face, radiating and gushing hilarity and joy.
Now I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the words that have jumped out and quivering about, speak and resonant a vivid, blissful ecstasy.

I pause.

I allow my mind to publish this very briefest of story lines and it writes
"Perhaps I''ve been drugged and road-tripped,"

and then I take the reigns back and finish off the verse
"and I hope that no one returning expects to find my ass, ha!"

Hmmm. Why can’t I raise up even the slightest vibration of fear or anxiety?
I am just so completely connected to this unwavering, felt-depth of experience,
this connectedness to natural beauty and the rhythm of this world I find myself dropping into!

(to be continued … Go to Part 2 of Awakening in the Tulip Fields of Zandiland