THE MIGHTY MEZ OF THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS ASKS THE I CHING: "HOW CAN I OVERCOME RESENTMENTS DURING PTSD?" THE ANSWER, THOUGH OBSCURE, POINTS THE WAY... MEZ MULLS IT OVER, ALONG WITH DREAMS AND SONGS.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a pervasive topic of conversation these days, and recently it’s been on my mind a lot as I endeavor to move past grief. It’s been over 5 years since my life partner departed suddenly - so suddenly that when it was happening, and for a long time after, I completely denied its reality. We know that death comes for us all, and no matter what age you are it’s probably best to prepare yourself, to make friends with the Reaper, and get ready to surrender to his scythe - (I heard that George Harrison used to rehearse his passing); Sarah Bernhardt slept in a coffin… but, very few of us are truly prepared, even at some pretty advanced ages - my father wasn’t reconciled to his fate even when it came at 96. The last phone conversation we had as he waited to be seen at the emergency room was fraught with annoyed bewilderment at being held there against his will.It seems to be the primary topic of conversation that Rich and I are apt to discuss on any given day, and he has expressed frustration at my reticence to volunteer the dour details of my slide towards the inevitable, but really, why harp on it? Why dwell on the depressing aspects of life while you can still laugh ironically at those same concerns? Eat, drink, and be merry, I say. Of course, if you have to constantly watch your sodium and cholesterol while considering the lethal effects of the cocktail you’re sipping, your options for fun will be limited. Anyway, back to PTSD… This week it’s been front and center of my consciousness because I recently consumed two items of popular culture that feature it - one 60 years old, the other recently released - namely, Rod Serling’s short lived 1965 television series, The Loner, starring Lloyd Bridges, and Christopher Nolan’s freshly minted sword and sandal epic, The Odyssey. In both, the main character struggles with PTSD - Bridges’ character in the aftermath of the Civil War, and Odysseus from his part in the atrocities recounted in the Iliad. Both men have experienced horrific and emotionally crippling events; they roam vistas rife with unremitting violence, and long to find home. Rod Serling transplanted his WW2 experiences to the Western genre, and audiences weren’t ready for it’s moral meditations, ill suited to an escapist medium. Regarding the Odyssey, Jon Stewart has reflected that it seems like a sequel to Oppenheimer, Nolan’s rueful depiction of that protagonist’s bequest of a doomsday weapon to arm mankind with the power to destroy itself. Echoes of PTSD resound everywhere - inside each of us, in the chaos all around, and throughout our popular culture. And, today I asked the oracle how to find peace with it. QUESTION: HOW CAN I OVERCOME RESENTMENT?The Oracle answered with Hexagrams 51  (Provoking), and 31 (Cutting)Let’s examine those, along with  a dream diary passage, and  a song, “Cairns” composed during that time…Chemayne used to collect stones that appealed to her. She would then cover them in varnish to make them glisten. After she died there were tons of them, and I started giving them away as gifts. One friend was so taken with them that he took a bunch and built some amazing cairns, a term which I hadn’t been familiar with, but which filled me with hope and pride for their future home. The following song “Cairns” evokes that appreciation. CAIRNS (Bill Mesnik)Stones banded by layers of timeStacking stone upon stone upon stoneCreates a monumentA tower sublimeMarking timeThese cairns of stoneChorus:Fly away through Arches in the desertTo a windswept morning beachWhere the sun glistens on the pebblesAs you soarSwiftlyOut of reach You left no lost communicationBefore your flight to the unknownJust some orphansWith no destinationLying lonely in our homeI’ll stack stone upon stone upon stoneAnd mark the trail of timeFor some wanderer To wonder onWho left this cairn behind?