Lotus Flower

"Yoga is the control of the ideas in the mind," said the bearded Abraham squatting before the clay pot that represented Oggy's ignorance and the broken wine jug that represented Oggy's tempted flesh and the honeysuckle blossom that represented a lotus blossom that represented Oggy's potential for enlightenment. "Yoga is another variation of Vipassana, or clarity of vision, focus, control. Oggy? What sayeth thee?"



Oggy reeled in the discomfort caused by 28 hours kneeling before these three artifacts. Where was the Food Not Bombs meal? Who was picking up the cardboard boxes of turnips and carrots? Would the vegetables rot in the dumpsters or would someone save them? His arm was still badly bruised from the latest attack by Bella. But hadn't he deserved her abuse? Didn't he provoke her with his insensitive remarks about global warming and the cause of the partition between India and Pakistan in 1948? Oh, if he could only take back his discourse about the political failures following World War II.
Oggy's knees throbbed and his scrawny arms, besieged by mosquitoes and riddled with poison oak, bruised and scratched by Bella's fury held his upper body in an erect position as the wise and decisive Abraham had directed.
"Master, I am confused and perplexed."
"Yes, your mind is like a wounded monkey falling through the branches of the Bodhi tree, grasping at the thorny limbs with bleeding hands. Yoga is the answer. Not the word, but the practice and not the practice but the concept and not the concept but the idea. And once you have mastered the idea then you must forget the idea. You must renounce the idea. And then you will master the idea. What say thee?"
"Master, I can no longer feel my legs."
"What legs do you speak of? You are crippled. I have seen the wounds you carry on this flea trap of a body."
"Master, my belly is empty."
It was. Oggy's belly roared with indigestion and lack of proteins, his digestive juices already feeding on the thin layer of fat in his ass.
"And when your mind is as empty as your belly then you will be as worthy of this clay pot as the winos I see you play music with."
"They are spirited and ply my faith with broken promises."
"They are demons on a mission to your soulless gypsy lover."
"Bella?"
"No, your monkey brain."
"Master?"
"Are you in pain?"
 "Yes. So much pain."
"Then you are as earth bound as this broken wine jug. You are a drop of blood on the needle of the doomed."
Indeed, the junkies of River Street exchanged their heroin needles for clean ones beneath the stone bridge by the Frisbee Golf course, muttering, weeping in tears as Bella's mom danced her worn shorts off her bony waist and the little mouths along their forearms cried like little birds to be fed .
"I am," Oggy admitted, weeping, confused.
"Repeat after me...Jesus walked the high road and came down with a cold beer.
Oggy croaked, "Master?"
"Repeat!"
Abraham's thunderous voice scared the trolls and elves living in the cloistered realm beyond the Tweaker kingdom.
"Jesus walked the high road and came down with a cold beer."
Oggy beamed. He had done as his master asked. Abraham, on the other hand, scowled.
"Why do you repeat such nonsense?"
"Master? Because...you...?"
"DO YOU SEE THE ANT ON YOUR SOUL?" yelled Abraham.
"No," replied Oggy, honestly.
"Then the Ant has won!"
Oggy's head spun until the trails of his beard whipped the air into a tornado of philosophical perplexity. The elves of the forest watched from the safety of their Redwood palaces. To intervene would violate the elven tradition so they remained silent and cleaned their own papery wings in peace as the rain began to drip through the canopy.
Oggy shivered.
"Your body is empty. Your mind is brand new."
"My body is empty. My mind is brand new."

Through the forest the sound of voices singing echoed along with the elves magic harmony. The junkies had their acid dreams and rode heroin horses through fields of sticky poppies. The Jackal whooped into the face of the coming storm. The fruit and nut oasis project was there in the pages of Oggy's notebook and would one day change the world.