Red-hot pokers
Photo of a clump of red-hot pokers (Kniphofia), with some shingle and pylons in the background, and a blue sky with a few white clouds above.
You’re probably thinking this is a photo of a large patch of red hot pokers in the striking shingle landscape of Romney Marshes, and you’re right, it is. As beautiful as this photo is, the real magic happens at night in the presence of a real live Seeker, whereby in response to an ardent and sincere question posed by said Seeker, the pokers shoot up into the night sky and explode like fireworks to spread the answer to the question across the night sky.
The reader may well notice that a lot of my stories document real life instances of prescience, prophecy, and prediction. I should explain that this is because I find life very confusing and have therefore been a Seeker since I was a child. Ergo, my sensitivities are particularly attuned to moments in which I can cop a plead for a little bit of clarity, and so that is why I know what goes on in Romney Marsh at night.
Anyway, what’s wonderful about the pokers is that after they’ve spread their sparkly tasseography across the sky, they offer you an immediate chance to consolidate your learnings and to prove your sincerity and devotion to your path. Often with fortune telling tools, you have to fumble about in the world afterwards, looking for opportunities to follow through. Not so with the pokers. They are significantly more generous than that.
So yes, once the light show is over, you are invited to move closer to the bed of pokers and to make music from their heads. Effectively, you should bat them gently with your hand so that they knock up against each other like chimes. After a few, hesitant knocks, the wise Seeker will throw their whole tripartite self—body, soul, mind—into creating a song of the universe.
I would like to stress the import of your dedication to this song. It is no good feeling embarrassed or going “oh, I’m not much of a musician, me!” You absolutely must give it your best shot and to hell with any judgemental idiot who might be listening. It doesn’t matter if you lack rhythm and if your song is a bunch of disjointed and discordant ‘bongs’, the point is to make your glorious, individual, and most reverent of songs, since there is literally no one else who could make it.
Reader, hear me when I say that the only failure is if you lack soul as you play, for to lack soul in this instance is to be half-hearted. And to be half-hearted is to express a fundamental lack of gratitude, and no one likes that, especially magical red hot pokers who’ve just exploded a message in the sky for you. So sing your song, no matter the style, no matter the (dis)chord. Sing it as hard as you might so that your prophecy will come 100% true. Without this payment of your sincerity, you will find only a partial fulfilment of what was promised. A hint here, a toenail there, maybe as much as a mugful on Sunday mornings. However, you will never get close enough to experience the true promise the pokers gave to you, which is a form of individually-styled and perfectly curated bliss.