Kirsten Mustain, Author

Summer has shifted into its golden phase here on Dragonback Bluff ? right on the edge of autumn and far too hot for sanity.

I have realized of late that I cannot beat the morning glories after all. I am no match for the subtle power of invisibly burgeoning vines. Each morning more have sprouted in the rose bed to replace the ones I uprooted last night. They have stolen with silent stealth the stone footpath around the frog pond and wound their tendrils around the petunias and snapdragons.

If I leave this place they will surely cover the house and dismantle it stone by stone. Last night a spider built a huge web across my doorway ? an amazing feat for such a small eight-legged creature (okay, small compared to a rhinoceros ? rather large, actually, for a spider) to complete in such a short amount of time. A lovely pattern of gossamer, which was destined to be broken apart when the door swung open this morning and two dogs and two cats who would not let me sleep in burst onto the patio. It has been weeks since my last post, mostly due to the fact that I give all my time and energy to a job that does not even pay my bills.

In recent months I have felt that the path my life has taken has been leading me in the wrong direction, mostly due to the Grove Sun. Currently I am knocking at the door of freedom and waiting most impatiently for it to open.

My dear friend JB assures me that one is never really off one's path. He suggested that my sight has merely been obscured by the darkness of this particular stretch of road, and one day I will look up and see that my destination has been in front of me all along. He is a very wise man and there is a knowing at my center that says he is right. But it doesn't always seem so when I am in that miserable office.

My good friend GE recently asked me recently if I had any "superstitions." "Superstitions?" I asked.

"Yeah, things you believe that you know can't be true but you believe them anyway," he said.

"No," I replied.

Superstition is irrational. I have tried to rid myself of irrational beliefs, though others might think many of my beliefs are irrational. To me my beliefs are imminently rational. I don't believe things I know are not true, but I do believe things that other people probably think are not true.

GE illustrated by telling me about another friend of his, "Hooks," (not her real name, I suspect) who thinks it is a good omen if you see a hawk perched on say, a telephone pole. The hawk can't be flying ? it has to be perched.

In that case, I told him, I do have some superstitions. I just never thought of them as such. I believe that certain birds (and other various animals and objects) appearing at certain times tell me something about the currents that are influencing my life. Archetypal energies ? symbols ? the outer world reflecting the inner consciousness. The hawk has an existence ? a consciousness all its own. But it is part of the larger consciousness, just as we all are. And when I see the hawk, it is a reflection of something within my own consciousness as well as a reflection of the collective consciousness (as Jung called it) and the hawk's consciousness.

Lots of people might drive by the same spot and never see the hawk perched upon the pole. It does not exist in their consciousness and is, therefore, not an omen for them.

To me, if I see it, it is an omen of something that is happening in my own consciousness ? a subtle reminder of a certain type of energy or aspect of my existence.

The cosmos, the planet we inhabit, it is all consciousness. Existence is consciousness. It seems to follow that if this is true, then everything we encounter in the world is a reflection of consciousness. The morning glories. The spider web. The Grove Sun. The hawk. The excellent friends. Even McDonalds, GE.

And if the Grove Sun is merely a constructed constraint in the creator's consciousness, there has to be a way to break it open and get to the other side.