The Healer and the Noodle Box (draft)

You’ve gotta see my guy, he’s just—

     Phil interrupts himself, slurping from his noodle box, full of noodles, delicious noodles.

     —fucking amazing, he’s like a doctor, but from deep in the woods, with all crazy magic tricks and voodoo ‘n shit.  I’m not really down with the names they use for what he does.

     A healer? a very sweet, rosy-cheeked young woman queries.  Very sweet, indeed.

     Yeah, that’s it, like a healer, but he does like cancer and all that too.  Diabetes, tumors, psychotic problems.

     —you mean psychological problems?

     Yeah, those.  But whatever you need, really.  He’s kind of whole in his approach.  Anyway, I don’t really know about the medical terms, he’s just a guy dressed up all funny who gives you a special drink and sometimes blows smoke on you.  It can go for ages.  It’s like a big therapy session, in a group.  Or I think you can do it alone too.  Lots of colours.  Different each time, hey.

     May the maiden watches Phil, fresh from the forest, devour whatever’s left in the box.  The box seems to never end; there seem to be an endless amount of noodles, or maybe all the noodles in the box are just infinite in length and Phil is pulling viciously at them, tearing them apart only to find more and more noodles.  Though that wouldn’t explain the also-not-quite-finite amounts of sauce, or vegetables for that matter.

     When I first went I was another person.  Well, everyone says that about heaps fo experiences, don’t they?; but obviously when I say those words I am alluding to a fairly immense change, as opposed to the constant change that’s happening, or a middle-sized change.  A big one.  Sort of like you’re either in a little prang with your car, or you’re in a fuckin’ accident, you dig?

     Becoming slightly excited and even more animated, Phil almost knocks the noddle box over.  Not that it would really matter, apart from the slight inconvenience of wiping up the spill.  Which Phil probably wouldn’t do anyway.

     May releases signals that unequivocally convey understanding; they cross the room slowly and enter Phil’s perceptive field through means indescribable with words.  Intuition.  He understands, without rational verbal explanation, that May understands.  This form of communication, it seems, is a given between Phil and May.  An alien life form, if ever there were one apart from the reptilian bluebloods roaming the earth already.

     Phil continues ecstatically:

     Anyway, I had all these ideas that I clung on to.  Which I still do, I guess.  But I feel more or less fully away of them, or the clinging to them; hell, some I don’t really want to let go of right now—I’d fucking lose it.  Ideas; so god damn powerful.  Everything is an idea.  Literally, too; the concept ‘everything’—an idea.  We work with ideas all day, throwing ideas and basing our actions on so many ideas, extensions of them, systems of them and ultimately entire paradigms of illusory ideological consistency.  Think of a paradigm, May—what is it?  A set of ideas.  Patterns.  Formulations based on recurring things.  Of course.  And of course sometimes that kind of thing can work and maybe even needs to be, is a necessary process in how things roll on.

     Evidently, the maiden named May interjects, sweeping her soft, warm hands across herself in a gesture that suggests look around! But done in such a perfect way that poor Phil has trouble hearing the words and simply raises a loving eyebrow and smiles at the pulsating ball of beauty before him.  Before continuing.

     Of course, baby.  Of course.  But what about when people come to see paradigmatic systems as the one concrete reality, as a given?  Sure, most people would say that notion is silly, that no one is really chained to an idea or set of ideas.  Bollocks!  Everyone is.  I know I am.  Look around.  The big, fatherly hand of science slaps us on the arse every day, and we say hit me harder, Daddy, I like it.  Teach me more and more about the world of things causing other things to create events.  Sure, that’s how it goes.

     A tinge of discomfort as Phil rolls his eyes, almost sick from the ideas he’s addressing.

     May leans back and gazes out a window; the window has thin, lacey curtains and the light shines through in a rather heavenly fashion onto her reflective expression; she senses this and is aware of her image at that moment, of her being in the light, thinking, pondering, feeling her heart beat and all the romance that surrounds it.  Males, she thinks quietly to herself, will always love to ramble on about things, to become ruffled over them, even if it really is just a slight disturbance; it takes them a long time and a lot of words to find the simplicity inherent in momentary existence.  Understandably.  Females, too; though we tend to have a head start.  Depending on how you see things.

     She smiles and is all ears.  Genuinely.

     The ultimate truth, if there is one, is this, Phil announces with more than a touch of humor.

     Phil stops, the room falls into this.  This, right now.  Can you feel this?  Stop a moment; or start.  That’s it.  How do you feel?  You can feel it all the time.  Don’t think anymore.  Stop reading this.  Move your eyes away and then stop, right at the end of this sentence; and close them.  This.  Feeling.

     He goes on nonchalantly, still smiling comically.

     But there doesn’t need to be.  Words, all words.  You hear of kundalini yoga masters who simply don’t tell people about where they go to in their meditations—you know, like other planets, other realms where trans-dimensional beings dwell, who they speak to and all that.  Why?  Not because they are being secretive; not that ego crap, that ‘this experience is mine and you can’t see it or hear about it,’ not that shit.  They simply feel no need.  They won’t be believed anyway; and half the time we start to open our mouths about things, people become skeptical, then you feel the need to defend yourself, even if there’s a level of trust between people.  What is trust, anyway?  I can say, ‘Well, don’t you trust me?  You love me, why wouldn’t you trust me?’  But they’re just words.  Is anything ever so simple?  Maybe in some contexts.  What if I throw you through that window?  Sure, I love you and you love me, but fuck, if I did it over and over and kept saying, ‘Trust me!  Trust me!’, well that’d be like an excuse for abuse.  Am I aware of my actions to the extent that I can just tell someone else to trust me?  Do I even trust myself?  Am I intelligent enough, in a non-intellectual sense, to be able to make that call with full force?  Jesus, all these ideas.  You don’t need a political system to control with ideas, really; we do it to each other every day.  Subjugation, attempts to have everyone be or appear to be or make them to be the fine little images we make of them.  It can be god damn overwhelming at times.

     May leans forward, clearly interested, but with a different angle in mind.

     Phil, tell me more about the man from the woods?  Are their women healers too?  It sounds like a nice circle.  You don’t mind me calling it that, do you?  I mean, it doesn’t have to be a clique; a circle is a nicer way of being together, because there’s always room for more people and it’s warm because, well, you’d think there’d be a fire in the middle.  A big one if there are lots of people, too.

     Like a little girl, May seems to drift off into the imagery she’s describing, as though feeling it at this very moment.  Her hands come together, almost in prayer.  Namaste, universo.

     Hmm, I’m not sure about how many female healers there are, Phil says almost to himself, until, after a few moments, sweet May returns.  The whole healing thing has a very patriarchal history.  It’s a shame.  There are women healers now, but not many.  But women are healers as they are—even the ones that have been raised with masculine values you see pretty much every day.  But I mainly see this one guy.  I’m more comfortable with men, it’s the way I was raised; again, a god damn shame, really; and a product of history that will probably change.  It’s amazing how much your childhood lays out the patterns for your life, in a sense.  But I have to grow out of this one old suit to start using all the others.  A woman might see too deep, throw shit at me I’m not ready for.  It’s deep in there somewhere, you know.  Fucking perilous holes all over this psyche, apparently.

     May raises an eyebrow and he immediately knows he’s being playfully reproached, light-heartedly of course, for going on another little tangent about his own fuzzy little self—he was meant to be talking about the healers and the circle and continually he comes back to himself; but of course the reproach is fun, a game; she bares her teeth like a bear and giggles a manic giggle.  It’d probably be scary to most people.

     To be in love, to be deeply in the thick of it, can be a lot of fun.  You get to break silly little rules and poke fun without even trying.  And there’s always someone to play with.

     Well, Phil went on, this guy guided me through the session, in some way.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing imperative about his role—that’s not to say I didn’t kind of need the guy there, but he’s not it; he’s a guide.  A mediator.  It’s the magic he uses that heals; the spirits themselves—which are within us, too.

     A breeze moves the white lacey curtains and the light moves somehow, the room changes and there is a pause in the world, some time to gather your things, check the warehouse, smell for the weather.  Whatever it is that the moment calls for.  Maybe a glance at your own eyeballs in the mirror or, if you’re in a daring mood, right into the black pupils.

     After waiting, Phil goes on.

     See May, even though people get caught up in the whole teacher thing, they have a fairly important role.  Especially because we’re sort of heavy into the shit, now—humans, that is.  Well, the world, but humans as a species is kind of at the root of it…for humans.  I think you get me.  Anyway, the healer is the guide, the mediator; the medicine is the healer.  He’s just the medicine man (he says with a wink).  Hard to explain a bit.  I get a little sticky-stuck here…see, it’s like, all this stuff happens, like a clearing of the system—a laxative, sort of, for the whole being.  Not just for the spirit, the soul—not like that.  It’s entire.  Because that’s all there is: an entire human as part of an entire extended universe right now.  But the human, as an interconnected being, can become burdened, clogged, in need of some blasting.  Just like your organs, but when we clear out, say, our intestines, we see it and arguably experience it as ‘only’ a physical thing.  We don’t connect a lot of the dots where there is always potential for (almost infinite) connection.  The medicine clears it all out, gives you a glimpse of the infinite potential that you are, allows you to talk and interact with worlds and worlds of gods and beings and figures and even gives you a very hearty laugh or two.  You also become gravely ill, limitlessly terrified; the whole shebang.  Never been so terrified, never been so ecstatically joyful and full of love.  But it’s not the experience itself, really—though that’s where the meaty part is—but that entire extended process, right up to, well, right now.  I am the healing, standing in front of you.  I feel like I need a few thousand years if I want to process that kind of thing intellectually!  It’s all feeling and it’s in me right now, still, like it was before.  Hell, maybe the whole thing’s just a big reminder of what everyone’s always forgetting: our-Self.  You can put it into words if you want, but you can’t really.  Again, that very statement can be applied to everything, but obviously I am emphasising it here because I have no more words that can point towards its nature—maybe a more well-read man would.  God, these noodles are delicious!

     The noodles, in fact, were infinite.  They were made in a special noodle hut, far out at sea, somewhere near the Polynesian islands, and sent overseas.  Even the vegetables renewed themselves.  Phil was so hungry, so fucking hungry that the noodles, vegetables and sauces would all last for as long as he wanted.  And they tasted delicious.  May almost glowered with envy; play-acting of course, because she knew that if she wanted some she could have some—but also had the feeling that she couldn’t quite enjoy the noodles the way Phil was.  Like a monster, she thought.  A rambling monster man, unleashed from the grips of the deep forest.

     I love the way you ramble, Phil.  So this has helped you?  Is that the bottom line?  Is that question even necessary?

     Stopping a moment, Phil became deadly serious and stared at May a stare of cold steel.  But then smiled jokingly and kept eating his noodles, even more ferociously than before.

     Let’s go to the stream later, Mister.  I want to see us reflected in the water.

     A beautiful and rhythmic pause.

     Everything is perfect, here, in this moment; in all moments.  It’s fine.  It always was.  The healing is an illusion, in a way; it’s a system of ideas in itself, once the words get out of hand.  I have probably just created lots of ideas for you, but really it’s all nonsense.  It is what it is.  And it’s not isolated.  You can go and ‘heal’ yourself, but the healing is for all, no matter who’s doing it.  It’s a part of their extended being, not just a part of their single, individual being.  What’s the point in saying what I  learnt or been taught?  It’s all pulsating and evolving and devolving—maybe just re-volving.  We heal together, like a planet or an ecosystem.  Things all exist together.  It’s all just…ah, I feel the words failing.  Can you feel me though?  I’d rather talk about feeling.  Or maybe I should just feel?

     Two smiles in the room.  No hurry.  Patience, all time, essences felt.  White light in a dark room with an angel and a ravenous man, fresh from the woods, wild-eyed and in an extroverted way.  Feasting on a box of Infinity Noodles, from a store on a corner where a master noodle-chef rambles incessantly behind the noodle bar, on and on in a foreign tongue, about many things that pass by and pass by; the wisdom of thousands of years rapped from this man, down into the box.  Safe and warm noodle box.  Very tasty nood-oh.

     Finally, Phil puts the noodle box down.  May leans over and giggling stares down into the box, then at Phil with a huge smile on her face, even bigger when she sees Phil smiling too.  She can hear the rambling noodle chef, on and on and on he rambles, taps out words, wisdom, knowledge, feeling and essence and laughter and that distinct Asian humor, laughing because he’s playing a great big trick on you and he knows it.

     She gets right down close to the lid of the noodle box and peaks right in, right into the depths of it.

No noodles.  Just an empty box.