Sacred Geometry

by robert schaefer

I once knew a man who wanted to solve all of the problems of the world through numbers, he told me that St. Bernard defined God as “length, width, height and depth,� he believed that if he could just find the right equation, that his simple code could be applied to all things and it would all just fall into place and harmony would prevail.

It was based on the theory that all things were created equal and so, at their cores, everything would respond to the same stimuli in roughly the same way and therefore if he could just figure out that golden equation, he would be able to broadcast it from the airwaves and we would all turn into happy airline attendants with cheek chunk chirpy smiles and a pockets full of dry roasted peanuts in individually packaged foil bags. And then we would all walk around with little silver trays and politely offer cocktails to each other to make the long flight more comfortable. I think that guy is dead now - poisoned by his own enthusiasm; he drank it straight from the bottle. Me, I’ve always looked for truth in the hand-rubbed surfaces of beaten gold.

My face always seems distorted when I peer into its depths and then I see myself looking back from inside and I look trapped in there, but well-tanned and with a ruddy glow to my complexion. I wave to myself and try to be polite, and from inside I wave back, but it’s hard to see if I’m smiling, especially with the green halo over my head, which looks to be made of heavy glass and threatens to come crashing down at any moment.

Green glass halos always leave a nasty mark when they come crashing down, unlike the ones you get from Bloomingdales on 5^th Avenue – those are much better quality -- and come with a money-back guarantee -- but what a difference in price! I asked the saleslady about it when I bought my first one and you could tell she was new, she didn’t really know much about them: I suspect she got her job because she was quite a looker and so guys like me would simply nod their heads a lot and plaster stupid smiles on our faces no matter what answer she gave us. Anyway, I asked her about the difference between a halo bought in a fancy department store and the ones you can get at the Super Wal-Mart and she said that theirs were not produced in huge sweatshops overseas and were 100% genuine, American made. So I asked her what would happen if I wore a Chinese version, would it make me more like the Buddha? And she said she would have to ask her manager and then she disappeared and she never came back, which was a shame because I would have liked to have asked her out, but then the salesgirls never want to go out with the customers unless they have already worked out the question of green glass halos and golden reflections on their own.