About All Ways Open is a publication aiming to tell small stories about place: stories about pigeons and mountain ranges, stories both real and imagined. It's an experiment in opening writing outwards, directing readers towards visual histories and archives. We aim to think in triplicate: to consider past / present / future, visual / written / read, self / friend /community. In this game of telephone, we always begin with an archival image, which a writer interprets, which an artist then reinterprets. Each time the meaning shifts, changes, opens.

All Ways Open is open for submissions.

▲ “Zalim entering the tomb wherein Mainin was blasted,” unnumbered plate in Phylos the Thibetan (dict. Frederick Spencer Oliver), An Earth Dweller’s Return (Lemurian Press, 1940; repr., Borden, 1969), p. 286, box 5, Nichols Metaphysical and New Age Collection, Creekmore Special Collections, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville.
▲ Ajeet Khalsa

Zalim enters the tomb where Manin is 

Ajeet Khalsa
Mary Laube

I await the morning and slowly and surely draw back this heavy stone. What shall I find in the dreaded place, a dead body? A skeleton, myself, mutilated and withdrawn? The rock face snickers at me, with its feathered head. 

Why did I come here? 

What have I found entering into this delight of heaven and hell? 

What do I need to learn at this mournful place? Why do I enter the tomb that was blasted, what have I done to pursue this dead body? 

Is it my Self that I seek in this tomb, it must be! I sneak in, and stay, I sit on the cold floor, breathing in the smell of dust and death, which is pleasant. 

For what is death but life? And what is life, but dying, day after day until we die no more. 

What are stones, but the earth beckoning us home, and what of the trees, that is our healing? 

Mainin, I know you from birth, we have breathed the same air, we have suckled from the mother’s breast, we have played along the waterfall, and we have drunk from the fountain of youth, and now, I see you entering into the tomb and wonder why do you wander? What are you seeking? 

Why must the seeking never cease? What for are you searching? Where will it lead you and when will it stop you? If you blast open the cave and finally find the body that you wish were still breathing, will it satisfy your cravings or will it send you deeper into despair? 

What is it with the life-form that continually asks, prods, picks, and blasts open? Let us stand still and rustle in the breeze! Let us remember to walk the aimless path. Now is the time to learn this technique of living. We may forget otherwise, but be awake enough now to begin this simple life. 

Alight my friend! Alight to the sunshine and move from the grave to the fields and meadows! Alight my friend from death to light, activate your inner knowing; and desire to conquer life!