Kamisaka Sekka
Longevity Dance
(1910s-20s)

"…after a period of swirling smoke obscuring past along with potential."

Wenatchee, Washington, the self-proclaimed Apple Capitol of the World, turned out to provide the perfect backdrop for The Muse’s fell swoop and resulting Prosperity transformation. It was ungodly hot there that week, with forest and range fires encircling and intermittent strong winds relentlessly pumping obscuring smoke. The surrounding foothills, brutal barren mountains to my eye, faded in and out of focus, in and out of apparent presence, appearing mostly ghostly rather than in any way substantial. I had previously spent no time in the area, so it served as a near-perfect blank canvas upon which to represent whatever I might imagine about our future and present. Following The Muse’s BreakPoint, I imagined plenty but of little substance. Our accustomed Prosperities had abandoned us there in this curiously welcoming wasteland, opening us to suggestions of replacements.

Our imaginations were encumbered by all we had experienced before. No previous experience helps very much when encountering innocence again. It’s back to Go without collecting the accustomed two hundred dollars, and roll the dice again. Expectations prove less than useless, though the residues of all our previous Prosperities couldn’t help but at least attempt to influence our choices. We had been rendered almost Clueless, if only Cluelessness brought anything in any way useful to the party. It imagined it could usefully imagine emerging adaptations, but even those proved to be just Ghostlies in that context. The first challenge involved just completing The Muse’s surgeries. Once we’d reached acceptance on that part of the puzzle, additional mysteries appeared as if through nearly impenetrable smoky haze. Like the mountains, which would suddenly pop into existence out of swirling smoke, possibilities manifested without any accompanying resolving answers, just challenges.

Forging fresh Prosperities proves taxing. It’s one of those activities that won’t resolve but also cannot be quieted. It doesn’t matter how loud you turn up the television; that unresolvable future remains implacid, incessently haunting. Ghosts inhabit more than unresolved pasts. They also moonlight in presently unresolvable presents and futures, swirling like smoke, obscuring surrounding topography. One might be beneath hostile mountains or beside welcoming pastures, but no resolution manages to break through the surrounding swirl. Much manages to slip through, though, and not all of it terrifying. The time seems ripe enough for trying on possible futures, for engaging in thought experiments: remembering whens and projecting recently unimaginable possibles, none of which yet resolve into anything terribly tangible. The absence of critical information seems to be the culprit until it also comes to seem to be the savior in Ghostlies’ disguise.

Whatever comes next seems bound to come, whether or not The Muse or I grant it our permission. We might understand by now, but don’t seem to comprehend yet, that volition seems an unlikely transformational element in this situation. Replacement Prosperities might be essentially certain, though the precise nature of their composition must, I suppose, remain gratefully unknowable for now. This couldn’t possibly be the time to know or even to reliably predict, for this time has suddenly, surprisingly, apparently turned into pruning season, fire season, a time of loss and unachievable recovery, a time to hunker down and dream or hunker up and scream. What will be might one day actually become, but apparently only after a time haunted by Ghostlies and the usual accompanying terrors. Much might be lost, or even more might be found once these Ghostlies’ smoke clears.

Our benefactors also continue to swirl around us, obscuring some of the more unsettling mysteries and revealing a few of the more reassuring ones. We are not without resources, not the least of which resulted from our lifetimes of coping. We’ve lost Prosperities before, both gratefully and begrudgingly, and we seem fully capable of fooling ourselves into believing again that we might certainly stumble into more than adequate replacements for the ones most recently lost. We were already haunted before this latest fire started. We’ve experienced swirling smoke before, along with the accompanying prospect of terrible, unimaginable loss, and still succeeded in stumbling upon some acceptable replacement Prosperities, though they never once successfully replaced what we’d lost. Those lost Prosperities served as reminders of branches pruned, forests burned, trajectories turned, and lessons imperfectly learned. No future ever adequately recovers or contains any past. Futures contain Ghostlies instead, offering haunting choices and disquieting realizations that always seem unlikely to ever adequately atone for anything forced to stay behind. Yet Prosperity revisits, albeit in different guises, after a period of swirling smoke obscuring past along with potential.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz