ir a principal |
Ir a lateral
The blemishes that I have never left
do not deny me my rejection,
For to no end, of love am I bereft
and no choice I make is but reflection.
The tailspin through the augur peace
I've traveled seeking rest.
None have given me the least
translation, no such kind gest.
Yet it must be for a reason that I lay
my hands upon the slate as clean -
I cannot fathom a further price to pay
but for my fears to merely seem.
Can you imagine, how it feels, the day you decide to walk on by, past excuses, past the little cowards of encouragement, through the wispy veil of fear, and out into the light? There, where the rain reminds you of rebirth and not the gloom of past days kept sickeningly frozen, you'd finally see me. Not with your eyes, but with your breath. Not with your ears, but with the thousandths of inches of spaces in between your freckles. You'll realise that death parted us not, but that we forgot to laugh our puerile confusion away. I'm smiling as I write this. I remember what it was like, before we lost ourselves to who we weren't. Funny moment. Funny timelessness. Inoubliable, yet it passed and the skies felt grey when drops dropped from it. What happened?
What happened to us?
I am here, in the sentiment of the day, experiencing fullness to the rim yet patiently waiting to overflow; for you, to come beyond the doors. To smile. A genuine regard never looks at something, but beyond it. When you look him in the eyes, you but gaze into me. You hate him. And you fight for him because you want him close to you, you want to prolong the pain. Just days ago, you willed peace, and it was given you, the feeling that you are. And you still are. What happened that made you look away from the mirror? Did you see a glint in his eyes, a fabled attraction, the hallucinatory guise of attack, about to pounce? Were you scared? Were you doubtful of his trust in you, or yours in him?
This is a crisis of faith. You and the magical window. I talk about reflections, them being everywhere. Sometimes you look and see them, then a shiny surface again scares you. Because you don't see yourself in it.
But you're in them, I know this, yet it makes you want to run aground, push back the ocean so you can hide away from it. Fear isn't real. What you are afraid of, this enemy that you perceive you are, is not there. But you hate him. That's what it sounds like. But if you looked not into his eyes but beyond them, you'd find yourself there, but without the timorous visage.
You don't trust him because you don't see you're him. You lose faith in God because you forget He's there. You choose not to listen. You choose not to see. You choose not to be who you are, because, love scares you. You are so petrified of being hurt by what cannot hurt. You stone man, you can walk because your feet are not frozen. You can sing because your tongue is not still. You can speak because your breath has motion.
It's not any of these things that makes you alive, though. You know.
Faith. And Love. And Joy. And Harmony. And Peace. Sweet Peace. It is all here, where we are.
Let me show you.
Sometime you just gotta let yourself fall to pieces, if only to find out who you are underneath the rubble. Yes, it hurts to be, you can hear your heart creak as you take in a procrastinated breath of air. You hit the point of disorientation, where the way home is no longer the way you're going, and you're desperate to find a place of security, a rock maybe, where you can sit or lean and think and make sense of the senselessness that is what's happened. Questions arise, moment by moment pass and further the calamity edges away towards the horizon. Soon you'll be able to see the outlines of disaster as they zoom out into view, and your expression will turn ashen. Disbelief and belief are here, each having their own opinion as to what happened, nearing the orgasmic second of release where they can tell you what they think. And you'll listen, and it likely won't make sense. How could this happen? Life is questioned, justice too. On the chair, later, life will be interrogated at gunpoint. But before that, the dust has to at least settle a little bit, so as to reveal the clouds in the sky, though they may be many, at least they will be discernible against the background of grey. So, put it together, one puzzle piece at a time. Don't worry about trying to do it right but fearing you may do it wrong. Just see where the little bits fit. Gradually, details emerge, leading to the truth. Here, you have the option to turn away, or to face it. The previous is but a road that eventually leads to the latter.
Eventually, after tears, pain, realisation, comes the awareness of the ever-present stream of peace, just gurgling, silent, within. Then, there still may be tears and pain. But at least you'll know that you won't have lost yourself among the ruins. Open your palms and place them cupped in the river, and feel peace between your pores, ruminate and heal. Your wounds are not forever. Your peace, however, is, and it will be with you so long as you choose to keep it. Hold on, for what you hold dearest within, you cannot lose without.
Tools are on the floor, strewn. Pick up those sticks, those houses in the making, and build a bridge to a boy's heart. He needs the shelter, too. He needs to find peace within himself without a wolf blowing out another birthday out of his internal calendar.
It's a world out there. No,
It looks like there's a world out there and yet,
and yet,
He feels it here.
And he's wondering why?
There might be laughter. There will be, by the end.
You could say
summer means a million things
but summer's gone and waiting,
feels like tomorrow's thinking
like this morning's sitting.
You thought it could
but wait it couldn't
yet somehow it did,
and summer went away.
From the hill through the valley
upstream from down the corner
to the place in lieu of understanding.
You could think anything
but what would make it all better
you don't see
at first
but then it comes back around
summer
to warm your joints out of their frozen sleep.
Maybe by then,
the sun'll be out
the grass as alive
the wind forgiving.
And maybe by then,
you'll have realised
that summer went away
so you'd call it back to stay
so you'd weep and touch the ground
until you go in
and find summer again.
I couldn't compare this year to a kiss from a rose because I've never been kissed, particularly not so sensually or invigoratingly. A year ago nearly, I started this blog, this space of expression, ushered by an idea from a friend, one who walks by me. I wanted to write, so this, finally, was that opportunity to put something out there and have it reflected back and not disappear into the nether of the rubbish bin. About anything, about something, about nothingness itself, I wrote, experimentally, experientially, discovering that writing was a means of communication and connection, of courage and unity and the exploration of emotion, thought. It's a canvas, on which I can either paint an infantile abstract piece, or be blessed with something closer to art that's a window into my soul. So I can see it. So you can see it. And from the statistics that Blogger collects regarding my blog, it's not been a very widely-accessed experience, which I accept. Thus I can say that this space resembles more a spring in solitude than a photographed fountain in the centre of Rome, with statues in dynamic positions and coins carpeting the bottom. Looking for love, looking for the eternal, looking for happiness, that is what I had in mind, and each post, then, was my coin, my wish, my prayer, this being the 125th.
I began the year without much knowledge of where I was going, except to university, which was to be dreaded and revered, and therefore not very helpful as a goal seeing as it could be anything I made it out to be. Life was in my hands after high school, though I was to realise later that it was not perched warmly in my palms but coursing through the veins in my fingers, and like the blood there, it wasn't in my control. I wanted to know more about myself, so I went on and began a journey of self-discovery. Fears, shame, guilt, stress, all emotions that I had felt before, would come at my door and I was supposed to open it for them. I had some new unwelcome guests too, such as jealousy, desperation, insanity, heartbreak. I'd seen them in movies before and in the lives of those around me, but oh, I did not expect them to come caroling at my doorstep, and yet life did guide them there. Hesitantly, I let them in, then at various times kicked them out, then after pacing back and forth in the hallway, I opened the door again, and they walked back in, temptation hand in hand with itself, so pleased to see me, and later to lure me with its sex. Beyond being host to this cauldron of negativity, I had been blessed with signposts everywhere I looked, telling me what I needed to do to entertain the guests or to be a better host. Friendships formed, friendships strengthened, friendships stilled and weathered the teacup storm that started when clouds gathered.
I started university in March. Stressed, I experienced a sense of loneliness that I had thought had been buried back in Year 9. It was a bitter, alcoholic aloneness: addictive because it placed upon me thoughts I did not want to think but which I ultimately scooped up again from the sands of time and built a crumbling mound I'd pretend was a castle. Suddenly, the world had opened up for me, and I did not see myself in it. The tempest had begun, trying to find my shelter before it was too late. But I wasn't quite getting to that place of safety anytime soon. I don't think I was meant to get to that ideal place at all, and every pocket of sunshine I could find, I basked in half-heartedly, aware the rain would come back in again and I'd get wet. I changed my clothes, my approach, several times, but that wasn't going to stop the weather. So, instead of racing away from the eye, I was instead guided towards it. The centre. Where the demons lay together and fornicated. I received "A Course In Miracles" in the mail. I thought to do the course, it wouldn't hurt to find some answers that the introduction promised. It specifically said I didn't need to believe each day's lesson, just follow it. With that guarantee, I went for it. Spiritual awakening beckoned.
I don't remember what I thought it would be, but this was not it. The course emphasised completion, devotion, courage, presence, gratitude, all which have taken turns to teach me this year about life, about what I had missed, about what I have held in my past like an idol to commit suicide over. But it was not just about learning, it was also about experience. Suffering was tearing me apart below the surface, and habitually, I would try to understand the shit out of it and then it would make some fleeting sense and I'd be happy, until it stopped making sense. What I learned was that I could not, could not, could not, understand it all. And if I couldn't solve my problems, then, woah, there would be pain, content to suck on my life like it came out of my teat to nourish this cute, pudgy, infested, destructive baby. My mentality took a serious beating, and I had to question everything, what people meant to me, what I meant to myself, what I was doing, whether I was hurting people, whether I was who I thought I was. The perfect list of ingredients for overthinking, and that's exactly where it lead me. Thought. So much of it. So much of it unnecessary, because it was unable to answer those questions with certainty.
Certainty, then, came from elsewhere. The course lead me to God, or the universe, or Life, or whatever else you want to call what you cannot call anything. I was to have faith in Him, as I had consciously never had faith in anyone or anything before. Here was my life, on a platter that I'd chewed the silver from in my overthinking. Here it was, for God's taking. I have to surrender it completely, for the decision to have a transformative effect. I have let go of many things, but there still are some that I yet hold on to, still fears, lies, things I am ashamed of, things that burden my heaven and make me confuse it with hell. I am confident that I will let go of all of those, simply because I am willing. When and how, I don't know, but I do still have until sometime in early April 2011, when I am scheduled to complete the course. Past that, je ne sais pas encore. There are still lessons to be learned. Yet this is an appropriate time to reflect, as I have learned enough to witness a change. I don't know how old I am, mentally. I don't know whether I am gay, or straight, or bi, or a, or b, or c. I feel a sense of resentment towards being packed into a labelled cardboard box to be looked upon and segregated into some portion of interpretation. I feel it's detrimental to discovering reality. I don't know what specifically I am supposed to do. But I know that all the answers I need to know, will be given when they are needed, and it is in that promise that I trust. I can't rush everything, nor can I slow it down or numb myself from feeling pain so I can feel just joy. They are mutually exclusive by definition, but underlying them, there can either be unconsciousness, or the peace of consciousness, not both, always one. It comes down to the decision, whether I want the truth, or whether I want deception. Where I feel safe and secure is the criteria on which I base that choice.
The thought philosophy has dominated this period of time since the birth of this blog. I am trying to figure life out. While I watched others go on with their lives, content, taking part in joys and games and at times, their own soul-seeking, I removed myself from the stream of mindlessness that had driven me before so that I could prepare well for an adult life of doing what I was supposed to do. Quite frankly, it comes down to what I want in life, and I knew there had to be more than just chasing pleasure in a game, or a girl, or porn, though I do recognise they have their roles to play. With this realisation, I wanted the truth, I wanted what lay underneath the forms and things that we as people would involve ourselves in as if we were dolls in a house full of props. From situations, I wanted to go beyond to reason, to the mechanics of depth and creativity. I expected an intricate but clear machine; I found nothingness exemplified. Because, really, soul-searching had lead me to a skeleton of myself - dead in form, or at least, dying, ephemeral, but in essence, well, untouched by anything, invulnerable. Perhaps there is a better metaphor for that. I have touched that depth and its beauty is like a well of openness and disregard for difference. And it's really when I let go of thinking that that place is reached. The moment of experience is over and then I open my eyes from meditation and look on the world differently, as if it were all okay, even if there was fighting and politics and advertising and gore and poverty and apathy. For a brief glimpse, I do not even register the suffering, as if it was gone, and it mattered not. Then I slowly scooped it back in, because I thought I had to, as if it were my responsibility as a human being to take on the pain of others when I had some respite. I copy-pasted instead of select-deleted. Then I released back the tide, and that was the back-and-forth experience of finding peace, because it went to and fro. I want to say peace is winning, but the truth is peace isn't fighting, so that would be a moot statement.
I have been blessed this year, despite the war of worlds and words in my mind. Perhaps when one agrees to find themselves and agrees to confront their past with no weapons, just forgiveness, one is greeted with help from previously thought-of-as-unlikely places. Each situation has been and is a lesson. Each person is a brother. And underneath my strict mold of the world, that mental construct I foolishly wore as a protective helmet, I am a brother, too. In that spirit of oneness in which everything real is, I am. This lesson, I found difficult to digest, especially when there were those around me who were very different outwardly, who had different goals, approaches, behaviors. More often than I would like to admit, but I do here anyway, my ego has played the part of a victim, ever the attacked, ever the one who is hurt. Other times, my ego was the conqueror, dealing blows to other egos. Yet behind these masks, I am to learn that we are all the same. This is a glorious truth, but one I know not if I can impart but merely point to, one I yet bring to the world because I still believe there are exceptions to, even though there are not. I have talked with friends, at times nearing a point of desperation, and in those moments of vulnerability was revealed the river of love I had been searching for elsewhere, in the wrong places. In case you wonder, I talked about behavior, personalities, hopes, fears, pain, suffering, guilt. Identity too. Things I would normally stray away from but was needing answers to. And friends were happy to steer my vessel in the right direction, whether they were aware of it or not. That's another interesting thing that's happened this year, I've gone under the radar and achieved so much personal growth, without many people noticing. Help, signposts, have come from close friends to strangers to strange situations to music and literature. I figure if I am willing to give myself to life so that it can use me for whatever it wills, then it would point and guide me in the right direction, and if I deviate from the path, it would come and show me the way back after a pep talk and a realisation or two. But I don't want to create a tornado or some other dramatic turn of events. I want to quietly find peace and then radiate it through my impersona so that those surround me may find their own lives more pleasant and enlightening, wherever they are on their own journeys.
Ultimately, I want to be loved, but I also want to give love, as I have before. Giving and receiving is the same thing. In the spirit of unconditional love, I would learn that love knows no boundaries, no definitions, no traffic lights nor walls. I expected at the beginning, foolishly, for someone to tell me that they loved me unconditionally, and then I would impart all my pachyderm belongings onto their ass and I would be a free mule alongside them. Bull. Yes, others can love you if you don't love yourself, but you cannot know it unless you love yourself in some way, at least a tiny bit, somehow, tucked away beneath layers of difficulty. This year has taught me that I can tell you nothing about love as you may want to hear it. I have never been with anyone intimately, so I cannot give any stories of romance or consuming bodily passion. Yet what I know of love, is that if it really is love, that is, if it is without reserve, then all it is is a recognition of yourself. You are love. And so am I. I am writing these words but language cannot encompass such completion, wholeness. From memory, I don't think I've felt it wholeheartedly. But I want to. And it will come when it will come, but I know it will come now.
Love is everything, and there's nothing else. Love is the word that I use, but I use it loosely. I like love. It sort of symbolises peace and contentment and fulfillment and joy all in one. Perhaps it's not very focused in my mind, but I don't hold on to it. I find myself saying 'true love' now instead of love because of all the changes to the term, not that adding 'true' makes it more true, it's just easier for me to know what I mean. Like I said though, I can't tell you anything about it, though I've written quite a bit on it. Perhaps it's me pointing to it, for me, for you. Perhaps it's my romantic mind, or my secretive desire to express emotion in a world that doesn't value it to the extent that I see it, especially coming from someone of my gender.
I am grateful for so many things, so many people, some that know themselves, some that may not yet. I appreciate you, for sharing your life with me by reading this. Everything really, even the 'bad' stuff, for it came up and showed me where I needed to change. The puzzle pieces fit perfectly, even if it all looked like a mess on the floor when I began. Now it's beginning to look like what it was meant to look like, life. I feel like I am right where I need to be, and I have faith in the gentle light of guidance that I am going where I need to go, home.
Attraversiamo.
The light has faded, the peace has burned,
The room is cold and I can't reach out
To grab the hand slipping out of my sight,
Too bright, too far to see into the night,
Too long to bear the pain
Of standing alone in the rain.
While life is pouring out its veins
It's still my beating heart that strains
For love, to come be my savior,
For love stares blind into my fear
Like it wasn't even there, my fate to cripple,
Like somebody quietly knows it's all so simple.
I have half a mind to see responsibility
And the other part to want the seas to part,
It's outside where windows look alive
But spirit drowns and after it I dive
To give it breath, divinity I can revive
With the hope that I somehow will survive.
There is a written rule, on gossamer,
that movement ceases when I scream
and refuse to listen to the peace, silent,
trying to protrude through the dream.
Where is faith - while I hold myself
by the throat, unwilling to deconstruct
the torture chamber I built, misguided,
seeking to live as I have been instruct.
Care is mistaken for harm, I know this
yet refuse to unchain myself - be not
my anguished self, a lie, but give the past
away, exposed, so it can be forgot.
Is there care where I have buried my soul,
or have I no faith that I am already whole?
I, we, you, choose
To contradict the blessing
With what cannot be.
I, we, you, choose
To compromise heavenly
Things with harsh nothings.
I, we, you, choose
To replace peace and love with
Anticipation.
I, we, you, choose
To suffer indecision
To be left suppressed.
The fragrance of your smile
The womb of your indifference
The flight of stairs for a mile
The whole lack of penitence.
The peace in your heart
The marshmallow gaze
The presence from the start
The most familiar haze.
The riddling laughter
The broken lies
The prose right after
The sudden ties.
The four lines
The feather
The two signs
Together.
The she
The you
The me
The true.
Your face
Your pupil
Your space
Your beautiful.
I hear the rain pulling out the rift of space
between my facial features and my feeling
of abandonment. It dries up the pale light
of peace. Some corpse lies on a table alone,
undergoing instructions to shrivel. Sand
remains remain to remind one is yet free.
Remember the voice of silence, yelling "Free
yourself!" Now I have given it more thought space;
see I have drawn with a mental stick in the sand
my aspirations. These schematics, feeling
has kept firm and unbent. Now that I am alone,
I can exhume them to be burned by the light.
Friendships, relationships, secrets in the light
of truth, their funeral is nigh. Let me free
also my buried heart, a symbol left alone
far longer than desired. Amidst found space,
I gather from below the surface of feeling
like I understand, a feather kept by sand.
I used it to write down names, scribblings in sand,
of those who I held dear. Carved, when met by light,
they still shine, resplendently touching, feeling,
setting their etched presence and nuances free.
Perhaps in my voyage, I may roam in space
for them. Maybe not. Maybe I journey alone.
Yet this path is too well-traveled - the alone
eventually find it, don't they? Breathe. Sand
parts and the windswept realms greet me with the space
to find my way. My luggage gone, I trip light.
I am not even burdened by want to be free
and so, I rest in an embrace of feeling.
Ever, I could not encapsulate my feeling
into expressions where I was left alone.
Now, I reach beyond them to where being free
is but the way beyond the walk in the sand
of mind. Joined are the granules, in purest light,
permeating the dunes on the shores of space.
I am free of any bounding feeling
That in space, in rain, I am held alone.
In the wet sand, I but follow the light.
Reasons, for changing the point of view may come, to change your image from 2D to 3D. To those who would rather see it as they would a television show, I have nothing to say but to make you aware that I have stirred you from your slumber. To others, know that there isn't always a worded reason that coils itself around the lies we tell about ourselves or others in an attempt to fashion a beneficial reality. Lying fails. The truth doesn't, that's why it's the best option. But we may try to find reasons, a certain intelligence that answers a 'why' behind what happens in our lives, as random and uncalled for as it may seem. I have been trying to find that, the causes all being in my past of course but digging that up and trying to reinterpret it has opened old wounds and brought to my attention my deeper, previously hidden vulnerability. And so it is, that I've had to surrender some of these feelings. Insecurities about many aspects of life knocked on my door and I answered thinking they needed my attention more than the present did. That was a mistake, because all they did was drag me outside and give me a beating. And then I went into cyclical overdrive, trying to find out the purpose of this, and the meaning and all that has gotten me nowhere but in a rut. Overthinking. I've been there, done that, it got nowhere.
So Life said to give in, to stop, to breathe. I did not listen, so the pain of perceived lack got worse. Finally, when I couldn't take it any longer, I let the moment be. And it is.
Everything happens for a reason, for there is a cause to everything. I will know them when I need to, and I will know what to do when I need to do it. There is nothing but illusion, speculation, avoidance, fear and whatevers outside of that. Rather, there is nothing outside of that! And this is peaceful, because we are always in the place of truth, as we are truth. It is a conscious choice that we must make to awaken and to live as true people, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, hair colour, nationality, miscellaneous differences. Everyone's form is different. Life breathed it that way. Life breathes through us. The lungs, that is to say the Source, is the same.
That is joy. To know that everyone is the same, and that we are here to really discover and aid each other in discovering that we are one. As Kim Eng put it, "We really are each other."
Silence, is deeper than the energy combined of an eagle and an angel, both soaring and calling the firmament a path between homes. Neither struggles to find comfort in the absent because both know where they are is where they ought to be. One could say they don't even know the absent, the otherwise, for to them the air is present and that is all there is. Owls are the same, although they prefer the night to fly over the day. I think they can all tell that the world is quiet. There are no clouds that separate and no creeks that divide. It's just one whole plain, varied in its form to display its sheer beauty, inherently simple. Mountains rise up and appear to tear at the sky, but the intention has always managed to make way for the action.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's in a song by Madonna which was subsequently covered by the cast of Glee, so it's not an idle signpost to a broken well. The wrong thing done for the right reasons is still the wrong thing, although one could dispute that if something 'wrong' is done that its reasons must have been flawed at some point. Intentions can be misguided by illusions that pose as lights, as true guides. One can tell they are fake by their ephemerality. Nature doesn't crumble, by contrast. Yes, seasons happen, leaves fall, grass grows, but there is a certain intelligence at work here, something or rather somehow knowing what to do, when to do it and executing it with exact precision. To understand it we could call it Gaea or Mother Nature, because what it does looks to be similar to what human beings do. But I suggest that it doesn't do anything at all, and it merely is. Perhaps it fulfills all its desires through its being. We have a relationship with nature that we honour. We all share in the miracle of life. We are connected via the 'being' because it is the same. Discover this by going amongst nature and listening, appreciating the sounds of insects, leaves and wind, but also the silence, in its incomprehensibly peaceful depth. And breathe, letting the quiet resonate, radiate and remain.
In it is within. Out it flows, not as displacement, but as courage, as romance - a short whisper and a gentle murmur that says absolutely nothing but means everything. Heroism? Threats? None. Just connection, the reason and result of being one.
It's like everyday I start anew
Like I don't even have a clue
How to live my life.
I pretend it's clear
But I know that I'm wrong
Because finding peace takes far too long.
In my quest for an answer
I have broken myself down,
Told myself that happiness is too lost to be found.
And I believed in me and in those words
So desperately, so foolishly,
So childishly I spent my energy in vain.
Hopeless, I'm lost.
Sought validation for the things that I had done,
But took none to heart.
Breathless, I gasped
For the one to make everything all right
But no one ever said a word.
There's always some reason
To feel broken apart
By the hands I pen these words with.
It will never get any easier,
The words never meant anything at all
So this wall that's built remains tall.
I find comfort in the abyss,
In the maw of sadness
There's always, ever an opportunity for bliss.
But solace doesn't heal my wounds
Love doesn't know why it left
And I don't know why of them I am bereft.
Shedding tears might be beautiful release
But no love is given to those who can't see
And I'm blind, faithfully so, in pain.
Somehow despair renders my eyes inert
And I don't know where I'm going
To find sweet surrendering paths to true knowing.
Caveat silence, tripping the switch
I fell into my trap of ages and gloom,
From where I weep for my own tomb.
I think I'm stupid, so stupid,
Such a fool to believe.
For missed redemption I grieve.
Chances are, I've given up,
Chances are there's no tomorrow
I held on too long to my sorrow.
And out of that came hell
Beckoning nightmares to come ravage
My dreams, my hopes, my terrifically mistaken hopes.
You shouldn't care about me,
You shouldn't listen to my lament,
You shouldn't know what I'm crying about.
But you do.
Here's the life you wanted, messed up.
Because we feel the same, we're losing this game to our pain.
Today I realised I didn't really know how people and life worked. I thought I did, with my expertise and experiences under my belt. But I don't actually. I have made the present into a very complex image based on the past and it didn't turn out as simple and easy to interpret as I thought it would be. So I got some advice from some good friends, about living life and breathing. They told me to take it easy, to chill out, to not think everything means something. We give meaning to things, I should know that, and now I recognise it because I see that this is what I have been doing. I am the one that places value on Facebook, on clothing, on imagery, on things said and unsaid. I am the one that allows doubts to be placed in my mind about the most trivial of things. I decide what's in and what's not. The basis that I have been making these sorts of decisions on is experience. Things I learned in high school don't apply as rigidly to life in general. For example, friendship in high school taught me that friends were around all the time and the ones that you stuck with in the cluster/clique were the ones you would leave with and that would be happiness. The world is not high school. There is a much much wider variety of forms and people out here, and that certainly adds a touch of flavour to this great moment we call life. I have learned that I have put my faith in the images I have of people instead of the people themselves. Mistake made, lesson learned. People are more than just what you see, and the surface isn't just a cloud of irrelevance. Faces, particularly eyes, lips, cheeks and teeth, are used to make connections. I've gone for the quick version of getting to know some people, straight to where I thought was the heart but was instead just a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it. People have to let you in. And I admit, there is a sense of urgency that makes my own search for people seem desperate. I recognise that and am willing to change my gears and my approach.
In the back of my mind, there used to be a voice that was saying how I was manipulating everyone, that I was a controlling bitch, because I was able to make friends by building them up instead of breaking them down. That voice never got loud until this year when making friends suddenly became obligatory and more unconsciously feared and now I thought there had to be a process involved. That was a mistake, listening to the voice. Manipulation comes from a lack of security, a fear that people acting autonomously would mean my demise. Now I know that not to be true - manipulation causes people to stop understanding you and forces them to interact with a projected image of yourself, of someone better, of someone you think they need. And this is how it complicates things, because then the friends you are trying to make no longer comprehend how your world functions. Mine didn't. I was torn between manipulation/seeking attention and authenticity, an imbalance which is poisonous to relationships because it injects confusion and blurriness, and what we see then is not what we get and the complexity suddenly becomes very foreign.
Life is simple. I see now that I looked at people and discerned what their problems are and somehow made that part of who they were in my mind, thereby somehow giving me a way into their hearts if I could repair the damage. But this is a misperception. If you only see the problems in people, you stop seeing people and see problems instead. And how can you befriend problems? People carry problems with them, but as a person who understands that they carry them, I realise that what they carry is simply their past, which is no longer here, so they are in reality carrying nothing.
The aforementioned friends made me realise this because they were looking at me as a person, as a friend, not as somebody with a perception problem. And I awoke. I was making them into what they were not. The removal of my filter made me see that I had made a big error. I was seeing broken people, but people are not broken.
So I thank you for the lesson :)
I think the following reiterates it well. It came to me in the library while I was taking a break from studying for exams.
"I want you to know that in each of us there is a light, a light so bright that it penetrates through our grievances, our guilt and our mistakes. It radiates from within our soul, so this light keeps us always warm, always at home in its peace. And whenever we are lost, it is only because we stop seeing it when we close our eyes. But it never ceases to shine, and neither do we, for we are that light."
Have you ever been told by a day that the world is your oyster, it keeps itself together and it won't fall apart? In the moments that pass, know that there is a chance to redeem all that you've lost. I do believe in substance, in the forwards backing truth, and there's an idea that speaks in the past like a wheel. It turns. Some call it the eclipse, some the sands of time, some aren't quite aware of it. Regardless, it spins, and out comes a web that we all are tangled in, not trapped in the sense that we yearn to escape, but free because the web protects us from what is not real. Rest assured, you shall not asphyxiate because the web grows larger by the moment, always expanding, always growing. Will it collapse upon itself one day? Irrelevant, until it isn't.
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And, those dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.
Something tells me the rainbow is somewhere behind me. I stand here, where else but here? And that dream that I dared to dream has come true. Happiness, is unfolding itself within me and this places the rainbow behind me. I can always turn back to look at it and admire the hope that it gives, and remind myself of the days when it did offer me hope. When it signed itself as a guide, a myriad of lights playing in the rain, it shone. I followed, step by step, until I went over the rainbow. It hasn't stopped raining, and I am closer to basking in the rays of heaven as they glow a larger and larger halo through the clouds in the firmament. It's wonderful. Mysterious, but a known mystery, a reminder that I've been here before and am simply welcomed back. It hasn't changed one bit, nor should I expect peace to do that.
I like it here. This too shall pass. D'accord.
Peace.
No hearts can break.
No stones can shake.
No love can kill.
No death can will.
No light has passed.
No wind has grasped.
No hate has flown.
No peace has blown.
No hearts can truly mend.
No darkness can transcend.
No stories are told.
No present is old.
No fear is meant.
No fire is sent.
No shadows are paved.
No ego is saved.
No hearts are torn.
No grace is born.
No silence is shattered.
No pieces are scattered.
No hurt is real.
No pain can feel.
No truth is a lie.
No life can die.
And the rest is silence.
Love gets you nothing.
If I were to leave that be, you might feel as if you had been struck by a pessimistic and/or depressed bolt of emotion. But, there is a continuation.
Love gets you nothing, it gives you everything.
We talk about love as if it's the most cliché cliché and yet the most sought after thing in the world. It's everywhere, yet we look for it in places we can't find it. This does not make sense. And it is upon this realisation that I have stumbled upon with the help and guidance of "A Course In Miracles."
To paraphrase "Entre les Murs", "Je ne sais pas pourquoi nous faisons ce que nous faisons." I could say it in many ways but possibilities are endless, and certainty, quite frankly, is certain. I am going to talk now from what I have learned.
We build bridges to the world. We climb mountains, proverbial and otherwise. We overcome adversity. We compromise. We seek out a life purpose. We search for other people. We search within people for similarity. We push other people away by shutting our eyes at their similarity. We form groups. We exclude, but we want to be included. We have arrived at a point where we exclude to include, which doesn't make sense. We go to war. We blame somebody else for an illusory reality that lies in our own heads. We shove guilt down someone else's throat because we don't want our own illusory crap because it's illusory crap. We use colloquialisms to fit into society. We conform to convention to be included. We exclude those who do not fit into the social conventions. We envy those who do not fit into the social conventions. We fight those people. We fight each other. We laugh at each other. We feel wronged by the world. We seek to be accepted. We seek to be at peace. We attack other people. We want our peace to come to us. We push our peace away. We look at each other and choose to ignore what we see in the mirror. We bombard the surface of the world, of other people. We dig into the core of weakness. We fashion masks to protect our egos. We fail at succeeding to find what we really want. We succeed at failing to see the truth. We see each other and ourselves as torn and confused and shattered and tired and bruised and wounded and pathetic and apathetic and hopeless and surpassed and distraught and shocked and mournful and lost and forgetful and ignorant and insensitive and obnoxious and stubborn and unmoving and unbending and gluttonous and defiant and disrespectful and scared. We don't know what we are doing and why we are doing what we are doing. But we know one thing. We want to be whole. We want to rise up and rejoice and be present and joyful and meaningful and at peace and to embrace synonymy.
We think we are alone, but we are not. We think we are hurt, but we are not. We think we are cursed, but we are not. We think we are worthless, but we are not. We think we are nuisances, but we are not. We think we are better, but we are not. We think we are worse, but we are not. We think we are unloved, but we are not. Amidst this confusion, lies the truth. We all want the same thing and feel the same-sized love-shaped gap within ourselves.
The gap is not there, and we realise it is not there by testing it. Not by feeling sorry or guilty or ashamed or depressed at our seeming incompleteness. We know love, by doing things that require love. By being who we are and letting others be who they are. Those bridges are made of love. We are lost, which means we have simply forgotten, so we must remember. We do this by giving. Love is for giving. Love is forgiving. Love is everywhere, but we look for it as if it weren't there. But it is. Open your eyes. I am standing in the same boat as you. We are sailing on the same sea. And I am glad we are on this journey together.
Alien.
Sometimes we're just caught up in a bad romance: where things aren't what they seem, where what we say isn't what we mean, and who we talk to is not who we are talking to. Flirting with what, exactly? I cannot speak to you because the words I say do not mean the same to you as they do to me. I speak from my horizon, and you hear with yours, and so you selectively hear only what goes through your filter. I wish we could see each other for who we are, filterless. We aren't quite there yet, and that I accept. Much progress has been made however, many steps have been taken inwards. The outward shell has changed too, almost to the point of being alien to the past. One could say it is alien to the past because it's so different. And yet, it doesn't even matter because of course, we are here now, not yesterday, not before, not any time before yesterday.
Beneath this dance with illusion and mistaking what is unreal for the real, lies a struggle. A conflict, not of essence, but of perception. Essence is whole and therefore untouchable, but we seem to be able to perceive things differently from what they are. 'Why?' would be a fair question to ask at this point, but I'll move past it to get to what I wish to say. We appear to be uncertain of the world, to be transfixed by an apparently endless amount of possibilities and if...so statements. To clarify our blurry picture, we have dug our past out of our minds and brought it to the present, thinking that the answer is somewhere in our rubbish bins. Recycling repeats history. So we have had wars. We have had fighting. Cyclically. Internally and externally, we fight against/for a future with our past swords and guns. We arrive at a point of stalemate when we realise this conflict will restart if the rules do not change. Is there a winner? No, there is no loser. There is nothing to gain. Yet we think there is, so we continue fighting. Our essence remains intact, unaffected by our masquerading.
And that's where it is now. Still here, still at peace. I can feel a desire in me to really express the urgency or the sheer want to be at peace that I share with everyone, but I have clouded mine over with my fight. I stopped now. I really wish I would make the choice and be at peace forever. I will get there. I really will. I know it. Until then I will continue to be a light of the world, and shine as brightly as I can, through my illusions until they are dispelled. This, then, is a process that has the destination of forever, of presence, of now. Sooner is better than later, but it makes no difference in eternity, where there is, really, no time. That sounds like fiction, but the truth of it is untouchable, it's essential.
And this essential truth is oneness. And my words betray it. And my words know not of the truth. And my words are not the truth. But my words point to the truth. It's a journey that we have to walk ourselves. We are guided along the way, for sure, but we must walk back to truth just like we walked away from it. And in our journey we gain awareness. And we become conscious of our wholeness. And of our peace.
And we are not aliens, nor actors, nor characters, nor puppets, nor puppeteers. We simply are. And it doesn't make sense on the level of the mind. And it's conceptually disturbing. And it's twisted. Yet it's clear, because it's real, but it looks blurry when seen through unfocused lenses.
Just like a dream, you are not what you seem.
And it isn't what it seems. We are told what we should believe. We are told that if we believe one thing above another we will suffer. And we are scared, so we choose what we think makes us least scared, and we end up scared anyway. Why would we choose to be unhappy? Because we do not see the 'un'. So, again, we selectively pick out what we wish to see and that becomes our horizon through which we perceive the world. Distortion occurs, and we have pain. Reality lies intact, but the inability to see it for what it is is painful, because it resists. The truth sets us free precisely because it is peaceful, it is aligned, it is not in conflict with what is because it is what is.
And the metaphysical nature of what is currently being read by the reader might seem alien. It's a perspective. I don't know if how I see the world is how it is, because the inexistent realm of possibility can make it seem like it can be anything. Enter fear, shutting the door behind and giving you the key. Unlock it, if you dare. This is how I see it. Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone. I hear you call my name, and it feels like home. I measure how I see things by how they feel to me. But feelings are ephemeral, so more than that, I let the feelings come and from what they show me and from what I know, I make a decision whether I would like that feeling again. This is how I change my behavior. There is a simple relationship here - I do the things that make me happy and avoid those that don't. I see things that make me unhappy sometimes as things that make me happy. And in those cases, I learn from my misperception. And increasingly I become aware of something more. The pillar of strength that allows me to make such decisions, to feel, to know. I am conscious of its presence. Is it God?
It's another signpost on my journey within.
I would like some advice, if you wish to impart it.
The question - what is the feeling I am about to describe?
I meet a person, I feel strongly about them, I hold on to them because I respect their person, I respect what they say to me, even though it is not always serious, it is always with kindness, even if disguised through the façade of a joke. I get the impression that they care for me strongly, like there is a pull. A certain respect of this kind makes me feel like they are my brother. I can depend on them with anything, even if they don't outwardly show this loyalty, this sweet fidelity that is such a blessed feeling, a feeling of belonging. How do I know I can do this? I feel it. I have not tested it, and I do not feel the need currently to discover any of these limits. In my mind it might have taken a certain imaginative appeal, a desire that replaces a lack? A lack of what? Of brotherhood? Of respect? I enjoy when others are kind to me, when they care and they openly wish to defend me - despite the attack never actually occurring.
Opened up, I have, to them, in the past. This liberty has allowed me to reflect my inner feelings. Those sentiments. Those whose life they do not dissect but present, in a way, for pursuit. Is this one of those? Quite possibly.
My feelings are strong, they are of peace. Where does this feeling come from? This feeling that I have just tried to express without truly revealing its light? How can I do this in words? What is the essence of this?
Could it be love? Full acceptance?
Could it be that the person that I feel this feeling for is but a reflection of myself? A me that wants to connect with me? Why are they in this other person if that be? What is this call that I feel as a sentiment, a warmth from within the heart?
Teach me.
