My first dream in the Voice cycle occurred over 23 years ago. I cannot publish the particulars of that dream in this blog, and I find it painful and frightening to remember, but the declaration of the voice was “We are the society of Darwin, and we will get you.” Needless to say, the world at large is this society, our society, that bustles about with no knowledge of the truths in golf. It is industrialized grazing and predation, where the machines take over the role of natural forces and cycles. It bloats people and finds many ways to keep them away from golf. There is no more nature unbound and we must now find it within whether on a private fairway or in a virtual golf pavilion. The paths I carve, on the fair ways I tread, I see a perfect circle, and nothing do I dread.

We all come to face the beast at some point in our lives, whether figurative or literal. There is the Blue Monster at Doral. Every course has a long par five to tempt the lengthy. My second dream from 18 years ago starts as a struggle to climb a cliff to reach a vista over a vasty plain. I am aided in this struggle by several able companions. We reach the plateau, and climbing up, we see a giant beast, four-legged with a slug-like sheen, corpulent and supported by timbers which restrain it. It had a stout neck and a maw that was wide like a hammerhead but rounded and meatier. It’s mouth gaped passively. There were towers, numbering five, each ending in a diving platform. Thousands if not millions of men and women queued in valley below, each rising up one of the towers and jumping into the mouth of the beast. One of my companions turned to me and said in that otherworldly voice, “who can resist the beast?” My other companions made the decision to descend and join those endless lines. Small mobs dressed like Roman soldiers roved the valley finding people who hadn’t made up their minds and dragging them into one of the lines. I stood on the precipice with a choice.

This is the question when faced with a seemingly insuperable opposing force. To join the crowd, to resist, or to flee (to fight another day). Golf offers an infinite variety of responses to this question. Pride, desire for glory, these trick you into one of the lines.

There are five golfing towers of misfortune: lying to yourself, lying on your scorecard, lying about your handicap, rolling the ball to improve your lie, and giving yourself putts. Given 600 yards to the green, you can hit four 7-irons and good putt. Two putt it or miss the green and chip it close, and leave with a bogey, you can live to fight another day (or another hole).

Golf is about leaving the golf course with your integrity intact. It’s about being honest about your daily labors. It’s about giving yourself to the process knowing that the process is an enlightening one.

I had a dream several weeks ago. It was the third in a series of dreams I have had since sophomore year in college. The second one occurred in the year after graduating from college, and an 18 year interval has passed. This most recent dream placed me in a beach-side resort. I was helping my mother down to the beach from the tower we were at, and my family was on the beach already. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people on that beach. Then a cry came up and people started running. Some ran away from the water, others ran to the water. Three waterspouts arose, sucking up the people. I could clearly see their bodies and faces spinning like dust in one of those fancy cyclonic vacuums. I wondered if they could breath if their heads broke the water. A great sadness came over me. I heard a voice, not of this world, asking me a question, but I can’t remember it now. The first time I heard that voice over twenty years ago, it said “We are the society of Darwin (a firm declaration).” The second time it said, “Who can resist the beast? (asked rhetorically?)” This third time, it said something that left me sad, I woke weeping, and in those moments after I woke, when I remembered what was said, I wanted to do something, but now I can’t remember, because I fell back to sleep.

Looking back, I think that the three tempests represent the three things that trap people: desire or want, addiction or attachment, and finally pride or narcissism. These are the hazards that we face everyday.

What’s up for today? Life being a metaphor for golf, today is a 348 yard par 4 with a drive over water that edges the whole right side of the fairway, dogleg right with trees and sand on top of the turn’s knuckle, the whole outer curve being OB, being bounded by ancient temple ruins. Approach protected by a thousand year old baobab tree that will block anything lower than fifty feet. If you’re big enough, you can drive the green, but anything less than perfect, you’re taking a stroke.