The Golden Words, Opium, and my dog Charlie

The big vacant lot, Weed, California, July 4, 2008: I was walking with my dogs, and I got to talking to my dog Charlie, who is young and impulsive. He’s a great listener. I can say any kind of nonsense and he’s still interested.

But I was talking to Charlie and I asked him if he liked poetry. He didn’t answer, being a dog, and I asked him if he like Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He didn’t answer that either.

But it got me to musing about that story. Do you remember how Coleridge was an opium smoker?

Well, he was.

And there he was, high as a kite, and in his mind’s eye he saw this really swell poem, and he went to write it down. It’s really quite wonderful. Has several paragraphs, and the first one goes like this …

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”

But at that moment, a guy to whom Coleridge owed money came banging on the door! Interrupted our Samuel, and that was the end of the swell poem.

Bummer.

And while I was walking along with Charlie, who ran to chase some birds, I was thinking how we’re all searching for the … Golden Words.

The Golden Words that will bring us the love of our life. The Golden Words that will banish all our fears forever. The Golden Words that will magically unlock the riches of the internet.

Kind of like ‘Open, Sesame,’ for Ali Baba.

But when the currents of life toss you about, you know how often the quest for these Golden Words can toss us right in among the Forty Theives!

Oh, gosh, it can be confusing.

I’ve felt completely flabbergasted sometimes. Not because there’s any shortage of information. In fact, there’s too much!

There’s gems and glimmering gold all around us, as we go through life, but it’s like glimpsing a treasure while everyone around you is yelling.

Don’t you sometimes wish for something just simple and clear?

Something just simple?

Something clear?

Unlike Mr. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, seems like it’s just swell to be clear-headed, and sometimes I think that maintaining a good sense of balance, a feeling of calm, and a clear vision may be the entire trick to living a wonderful life.

And if, sometimes, we’re all searching for the Golden Words … well, there’s a little artist in all of us.