The Lazy Cherub Enigma: Seven Bulls,No Dragons, and the Sound of No Music in Kok-Jiayk

Friday 5 September 2014

Seven Bulls,No Dragons, and the Sound of No Music in Kok-Jiayk

So about this place called Seven Bulls, Valley of Dragons, Vale of Flowers. A place where the road is not meant to be well travelled. A place where bridges and vehicles have an uneasy alliance. A magical place – in all its forms.

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On the mountain lives a dog. He isn’t really a dog. He is a God. He has wise eyes and he stares at you until he sees right through your heart. He collects pine cones from travellers who take the time to look for him behind the shed. You bring him a pine cone and toss it. He leaps and catches it. He lays it at your feet. You begin the process again. He never misses. Ever. He is fierce but with you and a pine cone he is love and joy. He likes it when you toss the pine cone high above his head even though he can only jump the length of a three foot rope anchoring him under the tree. I suspect he is tethered there because he is too smart for his own good. He is a God in a German Shepard’s clothing. He endures his imprisonment with quiet dignity. I come to say good bye. He runs behind the tree and brings me our pine cone. <I always remember you> I never forget you…

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He sits by the fire and tells me he is a lawyer. It wasn’t his first choice and it won’t be his last. He wants to make a difference. He wants to help people. He’s not sure how but he knows he is ready to let law go. He says he is at that place where he is ok alone and doesn’t care what other people think. He doesn’t have anything to prove. He loves cats and secretly wishes he could have one in his office because he spends more time there than at home. He asks me about what I do – or use to do – and I tell him. He asked me why I stopped. I tell him it was because I cared too much. He asks me if I plan to start again when I get home. I tell him no. “But you can’t do Nothing!” (says the man who spent 20 minutes telling me he does not want to be judged or put in a box) “Nothing is boring! You must do something!” “Actually,” I reply, “doing NO-thing and being in an honest state of vulnerability is the best thing I could be doing right now.” He takes a long drink from his mug of vodka and stares into the fire. I look up at a sea of stars that would make Carl Sagan weep. No-thing more need be said…

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We walk in the valley of pristine trees and green pastures. We cross the rickity bridges to the cave by the stream. We can only go so far as we have no light. We walk as far as we can until the darkness swallows us and we know we must turn back. We pause by the river and sit on rocks already occupied by snails and flamboyantly colored lichen. We silently apologize for the intrusion. We make our way past a few yurt camps and the animals they graze. There is not enough up here to feed everyone. Occassionaly we are jolted out of our awareness by the sound of an old military vehicle returning from an illegal logging mission. We think this afternoon would be a good time to try for the glacier. We walk farther up the valley away from the camps. The grass is thinner. So are the horses. A mare drops to the ground and dies. Her foal whimpers beside her. I feel the warmth leave her. Skin like paper. Bones like twigs. The flies are only now noticing. The foal looks at me helpless. He is so tiny and thin… We walk a little farther. We cry. We decide to turn back. A man with a stick and a noose is trying to catch the horse child <Probably should have tried that before you took the axe to Mother’s neck> Simon says she was disembowled by the time he walked by. Nothing more need be said.