Baseball Mandala

[Steelhead]

While Bonnie sleeps, I'll speak of mandalas. Imagine the "infield" as a
mandela, the pitcher's mound it's Holy Center--a spot that is an
origin-point, a pad from which the ball is first launched, the initial
force, and a force aimed at attaining strikes (kills in WWII parlance),
individual deaths, a no-hitter, a perfect game, zeros across the
scoreboard, the absolute Zero, a kind of athletic genocide. Like the 00000
Rocket.

The counterforce, then is the batter, who seeks a second launching, a
launching in reverse, a launching that seeks to transcend the confines of
the park's gravity, it's geographical and temporal space-to, in a sense
assert the life force. (00001?)

In baseball, the offense (or Counterforce or the Left) makes only leftward
turns, sinister moves, following the baselines, which are made of chalk or
lime (an alkaline substance used to "bleach" or dissolve corpses), this is
the path home, as direct as Theseus's string. It has been pointed out that
this motion is counterclock-wise, a reversal of time, a journey, in fact,
into a kind of dreamtime, into the underworld, and into the unconscious. As
Jung points out: Leftward turns are the only way to approach the Holy
Center. It is also the way to venture through a labyrinth--make only left
turns.

The quoted passage at pg. 508 sends us back in the text, an analepis.  It
is Pointsman's dream, a scary dream for someone so used to taking rightward
turns into the hyperconsciousness, the bright reality of death:  "You set
out to the left. (Usually in these dreams of home you prefer the landscape
to the right-broad night-lawns, towered over by ancient walnut trees, a
hill, a wooden fence, hollow-eyed horses in a field, a cemetary...Your
task, in these dreams, is often to cross--under the trees, through the
shadows-before something happens.  Often you go into the fallow field just
below the graveyard, full of autumn brambles and rabbitts, where the
gypsies live. Sometimes you fly.  But you can never rise above a certain
height. You may feel yourself being slowed, coming inexorably to a halt:
not the keen terror of falling, only an interdiction, from which there is
no appeal [note the near repitition of the phrase from Pirate's dream pg. 4
(a judgment from which...)--this passage serves as a bridge forward and
backward in the Text)...as the landscape begins to dim out...you
know...that...) But this evening, this six o'clock of the round light, you
have set out leftward instead.  With you is a girl identified as your wife,
though you were never married, have never seen her before yet have known
her for years. She doesn't speak.  It's just after a rain. Everything
glimmers, edges are extremely clear, illumination is low and very pure.
Small clusters of white flowers peep out wherever you look. Everything
blooms. You catch another glimpse of the round light, following its
downward slant, a brief blink on and off. Despite the apparent freshness,
recent rain, flower-life, the scene disturbs you. You try to pick up some
fresh odor to correspond to what you see, but cannot. Everything is silent,
odorless. Because of the light's behavior something is going to happen, and
you can only wait [see again Pirate's dream]. The landscape shines. Wetness
on the pavement. Settling a warm kind of hood around the back of your neck
and shoulders, you are about to remark to your wife, "This is the most
sinister time of evening." But there's a better word than "sinister." You
search for it. It is someone's name. It waits behind the twilight, the
clarity, the white flowers. There comes a light tapping at the door." (pg.
137-138)

Pointsman is awakened by Thomas Gwenhidwy, who informs him of Spectro's
death. Later Pointsman dreams of himself as Theseus wandering a labyrinth
to slew the Minotaur.

Steely