Introduction

Michael--so begins this blog of your "reflective birthday present" for years 2004 & 2005. I'm basically going to be typing the document in on a piecemeal basis, pressing lunch hours into the process as I go through the journal and create the Mirror a bit at a time.

It's always interesting to think about mirrors, for they reflect back all of ourselves, don't they? But even so, some mirrors attempt at creating a perfect reflection, and others are so distorted as to bounce back meaningless information. I do try to put it all together, "warts-and-all," though creating this mirror has been as much about self-reflecting as it has been on fashioning something for you to look into and to see yourself anew. In any case, this was how I began the Mirror on November 24, 2004:

(Yes I actually did write in a green like this!) (Today is November 24, 2004. It's after 2 AM. 2: 17 Am. And the card I drew for today is The Fool, and I notice that this writing sparkles.

HO HO HO! Just had to add the red to put me in a FESTIVE XMAS SPIRIT Happy Winter Solstice.

I need also to llok at this blue pen as well, with its sparkles, because I think of those blue Xmas lights in my home... Though this purple also seems relevant for some snowy reason. And of course, how could I leave out this gold color. It's so Michael, actually. Hmmm... I need to write in this gold color, alternating with the Green, because teal is a Scorpio color. This gold is also a Scorpio/Sag color. Fall color. Tharee's also orange, is it orange-orange or red-orange--seems more red-orange to me. Seems a Tuarus color then. Orange-Red & Rust are Taurus colors, and in fact this color may be the perfect one to start writing whatever comes to mind re: Michael's play/story/poem/musical or whatever. (But let me write one sentence in this Pisces color for it's who I am.)

Now that I've taken the FROOT LOOPS approach... Onward.

Michael's Gifts (I'll have to wait to use that gold pen until I've written a couple of pages...)

For me the biggest gift Michael gives me when we talk is insight. He can hear my story, hear my patterns and gently, for the most part, let me know what he hears. He also struggles with a lot of the same stuff. But sometimes he's Harry Potter and I"m Ron/Hermione and other times I'm H.P. and he plays Hermione/Ron to me. We balance each other out. Sometimes we even go through a similar experience at exactly the same time, and we can give each other the benefit of unfolding material awareness. But what I sense right now is that Michael's gift is re-translating one's experience back to a person from a spiritually beneficial point-of-view.

Michael shows up too, when he says he will. It's important to write down the seemingly trfiling gifts, but consistency and follow-through bring a measure of groundedness into our friendship and they build on my own abilities in this area. (God it sounds like I"m writing a Performance Evaluation--ick!)

Michael validates my feelings too, and he can hear when I need to just say "I feel _" and know that the only axn I needed to take was to verbalize what I was feeling. He also has the ability to accept others as they are and he helps me to bring that out in myself, helps to bring it out in others. MIchael who knows he's not unteachable, though like any human being prone to irritabiltiy at odd times, he doesn't always like it. He can be petulant and even snotty at times (though usually not with me).

Every character in this work will be mIchael of course. They will embody different aspects of him.

OK... Getting a couple of ideas. I'm thinking of an American Hogwarts Deep in the Wisconsin Wilderness. "Misskota" or "Minnegansin." The Minnegansin School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although Michael has a California aspect too. There's also his Omaha birthplace and Colorado years. Is it better to have the school in the Mountains or on the Prairie? (Or perhaps a locale that is both?)

This is just an idea, and it feels wrong, all wrong. It's too KJ Rowling, not Michael at all. The School should it exist, would be on another plane, in a journeyland.

"The Journeyland School," in the Lower World, perhaps. Or one of the MIddle-to-lower worlds.

In Ancient Greece, Michael & I were the first fellows to underwrite the DIonysia festival of plays. I see Michael with Cerridwen actually, in a Toga with a laurel wreath on his head, glowing and shimmering. Polymathos and Anabachos. Interesting the names. I was Anabachos, he Polymathos. Hm... I can't really see myself in that life. Perhaps I fell into the shadows, or probably I shielded him, his blazing light, revealing it only to a few people because I was scared of what would happen if it all were to be exposed. I taught him to release only so much, as much out of my own fear of being eclipsed as for the genuine fear for his life. He had so many talents and abilities, he aroused a lot of jealousy and we had our own fights, but I was nothing if not honest. I never hid my envy, tried to convert it into something else that would be useful. But I was also a realist and had witnessed another golden youth--my brother, I think--as he was gliding through his life until he riled the worng person. And Polymathos and Anabachos were surrounded by "the wrong persons." We implicitly understood our place in the gangsterocracy that masqueraded as an open agora of ideas. We knew exactly what was what, but that didn't stop us from dreaming. Polymathos, Aeskylos and Trzimenes were the first three writers--Polymathos under the assured name "Troichus." It would have been unseemly for the PRoducer to have also written one of the plays. The Oresteia wasn't our favorite of Esk's. We were partial to his Prometheus plays. But the Oresteia "put us on the map."

Michael has had many gifts, as have I. In this lifetime he has multiple gifts.

11/25 Pick-Me-Up 12:30 A.M.

Michael I'm not quite in my space yet, I have to write down his name. Michael. A warm feeling washes over me -- kindred spirit, fellow journeyman, peer, teacher, student all rolled in one. Tonight also, my dominant feeling is LONELINESS. I really would like to connect with someon. I'm longing to give love. I'm longing to receive love. To circuit love back and forth through this body,a nd so this is what I have to work with.

A compass. On some level I am writing 360 degrees of Michael. Sort of. Each degree juts off into thousands of worlds.