Mammoth Cave

High anxiety and claustrophobia have always been a part of my personal truth for as long as I can remember. When I first arrived in NYC back in 1979, I was not only overwhelmed by the scale of its buildings, bridges, and tunnels, but I was flabbergasted by the height of the skyscrapers, and the mindset of their occupants. Throughout the fourteen years of working in Seventh Ave schmatta business, I never felt comfortable riding an elevator, nor I was ever totally at peace working in a high-rise in Manhattan.

In my latest travel to Kentucky, I was faced with a new challenging situation; going down the Mammoth Caves.

I tried every excuse to prevent this haunting challenge, but all roads eventually lead me to the cave's entrance, with red lights blinking in my mind; whatcha gonna do now? I was forced to taste my own medicine; expand the comfort zone.

At the information desk, deciding on which tour I should take, a park ranger walked over to help me in this uncomfortable life threatening choice. His sense of humor was helpful! He explained the different choices on the menu, the depth and duration of different tours, and their points of interest.

Frozen Niagara resonated with me best. A two hour journey known as 'the misery of the big, and agony of the tall people' leads to stalagmite and stalactite formation. Two hundred and fifty narrow steps deep down the dark caves formed by underground rivers and above ground sink-holes over millions of years after the last ice-age. The caves host various living organisms. Baths are the predominant residents of this underground world. Blind fish with transparent bodies swim in the rivers surviving up to two years without food. Cave crickets have lost their eyes in the process of evolution since they have never been exposed to the light of the day.

"What is the meaning of time for blind creatures, clueless of light?" I was thinking.

With ticket in hand, I walked toward the bus that was about to take us to the entrance of the cave. There, the tour guide gave us a brief history of the geology and formation of the caves. She was not motivating! Once done, she asked if there were any questions?

"Had anyone ever died in the cave?" I asked. She responded bluntly: "Yes. But not since I have been working here."

"And how long have you been working here?" Another visitor asked.

"Since January 2017." The tour guide responded.

Her answers were not comforting by any means, and definitely not what I was hoping to hear. Alas, shortly after, I was on the bus heading to the cave's entrance.

A few minutes later we arrived at a door. A steel door with locks and bolts that appeared to be an entrance to a vault or an underground shelter. Kind of like in the sci-fi stories of the doom and gloom days. About seventy people ranging from six to eighty years old began marching down the narrow and winding path down under. The cave was illuminated and the path was secured by railings which made the experience a little less terrifying; if one was able to clear the mind of preconceived notions, and see the experience for what it is; there is no safety! Any second a loose piece of limestone can give in, blocking the path. And that was not the worst science fiction time traveling scenario I was writing in my mind at that moment.

First I traveled to the past where I was preset as a caveman. A half gorilla half human creature seeking shelter in the cave. That was no fun.

Then I traveled to the future where I was a trans-human/ hybrid. That worked well for me. I could easily envision pathetic delusional humans trying to act as gods and goddesses; fooling themselves, believing in their own lies, advocating environmental protection conspiracy theories, pretending to care for life on the planet, while nature is taking its course entering the new ice age. The next ice age happens regardless, covering most of the planet, ultimately eliminating the grand delusion of the uncivilized dysfunctional societies, established in war games. As the primitive humans pray to God, stone walls, black cubes, and bloody cross, the trans-humans, and the hybrids will survive and be the successors of the primitive humans. A new awareness regarding the existence of creative consciousness will rise from the ashes of the perennial philosophy. A beautiful operative civilization, established in peace, will emerge in the light of knowledge, wisdom of experience, and strength of technical innovations, assisting the evolution of primitive humans to loving aliens adapting to the new environment. An illuminated new world will emerge in the underground, as well as on top of the icy white planet.

Suddenly I heard a voice speaking to me saying; Martians live inside! And so are many other civilized creatures who have dissolved the disillusionment of separation and permanence of their existence in the third dimension.

Suddenly, an ecstatic state of mind took me over as we reached the end of our journey from darkness to light, seeing the revolving exit door. I shouted; there is light at the end of the tunnel. The wise guy in front of me shouted; if you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are in trouble. As I walked through the revolving door, it dawned on me; regardless of how I tried to justify for or interpret the most destructive science fiction horror story ever composed by primitive humans is the original book of Genesis. Seriously speaking; the most ridiculous rhetoric ever seen in the historical documentation of the primitive, delusional, wild, dysfunctional, uncivilized, self-serving species known as humans who walked upright on the blue planet is:

"In six days God created the heaven and the earth."

And of course; if you can't laugh about this, it's of no use.