 “LIMPETS”© Copyright 3-28-2006 By Dana Shino, The Purple Phoenix, LLC www.thepurplephoenix.com I groped for consciousness on the morning of February 22, 2006 with a song trailing along in my head. This is not unusual for me to wake with dreams and songs still wispily attached, streaming like a colorful rainbow of ribbons blowing in the breeze. Some days, I relinquish them and they recede into the misty irretrievable waters of dreamscape. Other days, I coax them to come along with me, a strand of smoky thread tied in a bow to my pinky finger as I gently tug it along, ‘tsking,’ asking it to show itself in the morning light like a shy fairy standing on the edge of my bed glistening with sparkling filigree wings. The footsteps of consciousness crush the glade of gems left behind in dreamland, disintegrating the bridge between this land and that, evaporating thin gossamers against the tread of day. But this particular morning, the song was stronger than usual, beckoning me barefoot along a Spring grassy, tufted path, singing, singing and ‘tra-la-la’ singing. This only meant one thing: pay attention. So, I cradled the tune’s memory in the basket of my awareness, trying not to crush its splendid petals with my thought. Yet letting it run over and over in my mind like the pad-pad-pad patter of children’s fleshy new feet on wood floors, eager to see parent love flourish through a door. When I knew the tune was suspended perfectly in my mind’s ear, I played the hide-and-go-seek of song after song on my stereo until I found its twin. There I held the gem from dreamscape, brushing my hands over it as I would my palms softly sifting over the heads of ripened wheat grass waving in balminess. The song was “Opae E,” a traditional Hawaiian piece sung by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, otherwise known as IZ (...izzeee). The corners of the song resembled a place we’ve all traveled through, and the palm branches of it waved to me from the soft pillowing tones undulating and resonating out of IZ’s presence. The song tells of Hawaiian legend, a maiden from Kahakulaoa, Maui, kidnapped by an eel. Her brother attempts rescue after rescue asking first the `Opae (shrimp), then the Pupu (seashell), then the Pipipi (mollusk) and then the Kupe `e (snail). Each of these sea creatures in turn refuse to help the boy, and his sister is closer and closer to being eaten by this giant eel. Finally, a group of Opihi (limpet) help by clamping themselves over the eel’s eyes, and the brother rescues his sister. (Music CD: “Alone in IZ World,” Song #8, “Opae E”) (Website for lyrics and translation: http://www.huapala.org/O/Opai_E.html). The slick, fleshy, lithe eel embodies the most primordial of essences, existing nearly from the beginnings of time. In Japanese lore, eels are messengers of the Gods. Fundamentally, eels emerge from the great waters, rising out of this element’s cleansing properties. (Penguin Book of Symbols). IZ’s song of “Opae E” sang to me of messages from the Gods from the beginning of time, rising out of the cleansing, ready to swallow me (or us) whole, were it not for the tiny limpet. The limpet is such an obscure sea creature. There are few references to it other than details about its marine features: “it’s a gastropod mollusk with a simple flattened, conical shell, found in cooler waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. They feed on algae, always returning to the same spot at high tide. Its muscular foot clings so powerfully that limpets are found in wave-swept areas where few other forms of life can survive.” (Website: http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/limpet). It is stunning the emotional and spiritual distances each of us journey on each particular day. Every morsel and pocket of emotional light sheds perceptions on our shadows and the shadows around us, revealing unparalleled distinction and clarity upon our personal truths. Loops of wisdom hide in the everyday mundane. Our ritualistic patterns become dances of universal songs, magnified to the heavens in ways we cannot understand in the tightly held tangibility of our fists. There are things that tumble out of the darkness and startle us into waking to our light as well as to our now. These become our prizes that we humanly want to embrace. But the holding dissolves the prize, like a gem lost back into the dreamscapes, irretrievable. In our inability to physically hold the intangible, we call the prize ‘fickle,’ blaming it as it evades and moves. Somewhere inside of us, we believe that in tangibly capturing the intangible gems, we will be safe. That in the holding and grasping, something will be retained that can spare us. But in truth, the grip of holding kills. The true nature of capturing lighted gems is not in the grasp of right and wrong, beginning or end, but in letting go and resonating in present moment alongside the gem. When the gods from the beginning of time come calling with messages, rising out of the cleansing waters, it is in each of us to have the faith of the limpet, not only to strongly hold in the waves, but to remain ever present to receive.  Your contributions help support The Purple Phoenix Press.
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