Who will you follow and where will you go. Up or down, which way. Forwards or backwards in an infinite universe, where the very concept of direction has no meaning.

Will you listen, perchance, to a holy man or prophet. Does philosopher or mage have the answers you seek, a fool even.

Or an inner voice perhaps, as you wander the water marshes. The cry of gulls, the shriek of the buzzards, the paddling ducks. Overhead the dull grey of winter skies soothes and complements, a light, pattering rain adding its quiet voice to those of all else around you.

Are you tired of life maybe, or just its struggles and inanities. Do you weary of the earth and skies or is it the tedium of your species which wears you down.

Everywhere there is noise and yet a signal seems nowhere to be found. Unless from within. Yes, there perhaps lie the answers you seek, in the emptiness and clarity of your own mind. It is all so simple and yet what artifice we have created.

Leave the guile of man, renounce his web of clever tricks, his mechanized toys and manifold distractions. No man has the answer to all and yet we must seek. Does any man have the key, the code the wand which will unlock even a small part of the mystery. Perhaps such a man exists but he will be deeply hidden.

Conceivably he may be found somewhere, this mage who has unearthed the story of life. But if you seek him you must know where to look. He is in the world but not of it. If he gives expression to his secrets, his voice will be small and he will not ask for payment.

Perhaps his voice is to be found in music or art. He may be singing a line of mournful plainsong or plucking a stringed instrument while others sing the lyrics and notes of John Dowland. Come again, he says, sweet love doth now invite.

He may be found perhaps in ancient stained glass or the more modern beauty of the pre-Raphaelites.

Or are you he, and hiding in plain sight. Yes, yes I think that must be right. The small glimmer within which knows right from wrong, good from bad. Go inwards, be silent in the tumult. Shut off the turbulence and ferment and seek meaning within.

Somehow on better days the answers emerge. A great clarity and calm settles upon the mind and gnosis seems so very close.

Break with silence, re-unite yourself with tempestuous humanity and such lucidity will shimmer and fade. The gossamer thread of true meaning is not to be found amongst the big people.

And did the countenance divine shine forth in those quiet and watery pastures by the sea. If so, the trick is to remain there, in metaphor at least.

Which way. Within.