I i, I

Who am I?

I start everything with that, whether I leave a space for it or not, but that's where it all begins. From there stems reinforcement and building blocks of some structure I would not mess with, lest I feel afraid to press backspace and erase all evidence of the mistakes I've made. So, before I give the answer, let me leave another world and come back more courageous.

Seeing for the First Time

I've left the ghost behind
at the entrance to the void.
Now
I amble away
from the park bench
to the moon,
which I can reach because
I don't believe in distance.
The moon is here,
wherever I am.
Isn't that wonderful?

I always refer to myself as a capital letter, that's how I was taught English. But I reckon I'm actually an i, not an I. An I is a colonnade, holding up what is above, stories from rooms and roomfuls of semantics. An I is a vertical bridge to heaven, crossed by a little work of art that no one really knows by name, nor by author, but by distant recognition. An I is the world of safekeeping, but a bar in the windowless prison of mind, behind which all secrets are stashed away. An I is the shadow of a larger I, which is the shadow of an even larger I, big in presence. The I is the pole around which sense turns and imitates. Yet this isn't me, because although language believes I am capable of being capital, majestic, purposeful, I am incomplete as of yet, an i.

i am the symbolic gesture of a man who's looking across a gap to something of his kindred that is out of his reach though not out of his consciousness. i am the pedestal upon which floats some crystal ball of meaning. i am the angel grounded with the halo suspended in the air above him, lighting his surroundings as a sun, as yet untouchable. i am that which appears in situations and in warriors and in kisses and in rain. i am forgiving, willing to see beyond the space that seems to separate what has been believed lost from what appears to struggle to keep together. i am writing something somewhere here, sometime, with my purpose imagined, though inexplicably seized as reality. i am nobody, touching the eternal. i am everybody. i am somebody, too, a pez dispenser, a severed giant, a slope ready to welcome a boulder. i am even, these words.

Language may have taken a leap to signpost reality. I is inclusive. i am not, as evidenced by the gap. I is higher, dominant; i, incomplete. Line and a dot, more code, more secrets. I is representative of wholeness, identity with all. i but pretends, aspires, yet is nothing. Language has given me the impression that I is the embodiment of totality, while i am fragmented. According to the rules, i am I though. So I have come masked in this existence, standing tall, the bearer of responsibility. But really, i am frailer, unsure, supposedly something that is, as yet, unfinished. But I am to assume the completed form, to show my invulnerability, immutability, the self that stands centered around which sentences orbit and semantics gravitate.

I am all, so then i must be in there somewhere too. Now there are two of me, the me of now, and the me of anything but now: past, future, all other tenses but the present. Everything to i is relative then, because what occurs is never the whole picture, just details, pixels, morsels, bits. But I has everything, together, connected in all ways, full, wholesome. With this known, the realisation dawns on me, that i don't know who i am. i could be whoever, whatever, because I am everything. As such, i have a double-identity, the I and i, though one is inclusive of the other. The question of who am I thus ought to refer to the i, because I already know the answer. The i represents something, has some place, occupies some space. I was wondering what its meaning would be, but now I am not so worried, having already the answer to everything in me. Perhaps the i just is one path, this path taken now, to the discovery of everything. i am concerned with what will be and what has happened before, where i will go, but I only experience it as now, and now, here, all is known. So all problems, fears, come from the i trying to be I, a next to nothing trying to be everything and failing, being limited. Yet I can never fail, and so i find my purpose when i meet with I now.

Just stay here, now, I tell i.
i respond to I. I i, I.

Ent In This Moment

Oui.
Je voudrais commencer avec ça. Because
the allowing makes way for what cannot be seen,
yet will be; what is, is.

Demain, dans un recoin d'un lieu inconnu,
quelque chose s'arrivera.
It will become the precursor to the written word, spoken by battled pathways, upon journeyed pipelines from whence the tears of solemn seeking ambled.
At first, terrified.
but then - triumphant in its trek
now tesselating towards tomorrow's today.

Try.
Follow the path, three doors down, instructions written on the other side of the panelling that lines these walls; beyond these corridors lie lies; and here, ushering new existence, stillness carries out the weaving of the fabric of life, majestic in sound, incomprehensible in reality, yet existent nonetheless, uninvited but inviting as a sweet dew to the soul's morning herbe.

I shiver, and here it rains. Il pleut de l'âme, because what else could sheen so brightly in the moonlit circumference of the prayer.
And it glides - outwardly touching within, explained nowhere, but witnessed everywhere and remembered anywhere here. Dans ce moment.

Ce moment. Ent, a tree root's knot in a bowl of
glass, fathered hymns,
praise, honour and grace,
ce moment, ent-ire worlds aloud,
in tie are worlds allowed,
and I, our world's a loud
memetic colouring book.

Beyond The Word(s)

Before I named it, that was it.
Those abundant skies are beyond
the vapor in my lungs, but there's closer.
The reflection in the puddle on the sidewalk,
the tears behind the water.
I did not cry to be heard, nor seen.

Before I named it, that was it.
Now it's just words on a canvas,
the paint about a picture of regret.
Now it's a second guess, mistaken
for the way it could have been
but taken as the nail that bled.

Before I named it, that was it.
Heaven's doppelganger's wish fulfilled,
directions misremembered, spilled
coffee, blood, thoughts on the carpet;
and leaves. Now, I've forgotten.
So now, I can remember again.

This Day, I'd Be A Rock

This day, I'd be a rock
to who's man, I would not talk
so he can hear himself at last
overlook his timeswept past.

I'd crumble to imagination,
lost to earth voices and direction,
yet I'd like for him to hear
the watered trickle of his fear.

It washes away existence -
though does it well void distance
between what he seems and sees;
on this rock he sleeps and dreams.

He stumbles as he lays faced
by faces I long ago embraced,
and he shouts in split disharmony
the decrepit state of his autonomy.

This is no one else's cry of war -
what he bellows is a silent roar
without an ear to understand;
I merely am part of the land.

But after this day's troubled mare
in strength uneroded he's to bear
what's by grace been given,
the rest of matter forgiven.

Though I'd remain to be lift,
I'd rest in mercy to this gift,
in waiting, chipping, smoothing
edges into space more soothing.

Procaryote

I was about to punish myself for the horrible
transgressions that I had committed, fighting
with my sanity for my sanity,
but then came the sword, down upon all
I held as mine, my dreams, wants,
and paperclipped people, all frayed
beyond recognition, tassels whispering
in the wind - forwards, not back -

I didn't kill myself that day,
for what went down in the ring
was more than a jewel's worth of
precious, and what I learned, my lesson,
what I'd been solemnly swatting for
the past nineteen and a half years,
had come, bearing with it an empty sack
of shoddy patchwork but within it, promised,
the promise, that it was fuller than
the superlative of what I had been yearning for.

Tucked away, I rose from my problems,
as a phoenix, sans the fire, sans the ash,
sans the smoke and mirrors and stampede of
interest into the egg that I had hatched from.
I flew, without wings, without anyone in particular
looking out for my inexistent blazing trail in the sky.
I beat no wings, I beat all odds,
I scoured and developed and penetrated
and found hope beneath my preening brothers,
fawns of the new day,
depth-receptive and drowsy.

I fell out of that yonder's dream,
whipped by a cloud into the obscurity of a concrete
path by a creek, flowing downstream as
water doesn't comprehend, but just does,
and I watched it, from my dead perch, where it went.

It never happened. It never will.
My will's not meant to take me any place but home.
So I say I flew, I have defeated and triumphed,
and I disregard the order of events to impress,
yet, even this, now, doesn't satisfy.

The moments pass, the moment remains.

Attraversiamo

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.

Ominous Wish

I want to bring water from the source in my cupped palms to those who are stranded on the shore, gasping for a mouthful of that all-restoring substance. I don't care if some of it drips out through the thenar gap or the spaces between my fingers, there will still be enough to quench the thirst of those who are dying, impaled in place by the spear of their senseless habits, or those who are still looking for the stream, not knowing that it runs just beside them. I want them to drink so that I can share the solution of life with them and finally wash our problems away like dirt off our skin. I want us to be clean, not dirtied by the dust we make when we fight amongst ourselves on the land. I want the children that line up to take a swim in the stream to all just dive into the flow and be taken away to wherever the current heads. I can imagine swimming elsewhere, encountering drought sooner or later, hitting the dam I would build in front of myself so I would have some obstacle to overcome. I would not perish there while I can still drink and bathe in that which life deems most precious, its miracle panacea. I want to cure the ailments of those who cannot find breath in the oxygen that surrounds their weakened bodies. I want to follow the course where it leads, pulling those marooned ashore into the river where they may drown and become part of it. I want to give the gift that was given me, that I would receive it myself by seeing the seedlings grow into saplings, and the parts become whole.

Give

The best gift is the present.

Christian

“My name is Christian and I’m five years old,” he said to the suited man, Kirk Cherry. A boy talking to a businessman at a late morning street corner, people may have thought them related. Holding a box of jellies in one hand, the boy held his other outstretched, reaching almost to the end of the tie below the man’s jacket’s done-up buttons. The morning meeting had started a few minutes ago. The longer Kirk took, the longer he was going to keep his employees waiting. His alarm clock should have worked, but just when it was needed, it decided to run out of batteries. Time’s an unreliable bitch; sometimes. He moved to cross the street.

“Excuse me, sir, could you please help me cross the street?” voiced the boy. “Mummy says I can’t cross without an adult because it’s not safe.” Kirk turned his head slightly. Yes, he was talking to him – hand out, unkempt hair, oversized clothes, barefoot. Kirk’s pocket vibrated. He was late. The boy smiled and like clockwork, the guilt set in. He couldn’t just leave him there. He was late anyway, so what’s another minute? “Please, sir.” He moved his briefcase to his left hand and took the boy’s. The small fingers were traced with the sweat of youth. He stepped his foot once more onto the concrete, but the boy hesitated.

“Sir, it’s not green yet, we shouldn’t go.” The grip weakened, and Kirk knew he was going to have to wait. There were no cars coming, but the traffic lights were never in sync with traffic itself. He’d have to wait. Damn. Unless…

Squatting, he met the boy’s born-yesterday eyes. “You know,” he began, “it’s safe to cross when there’s no cars coming, or when the light’s green. It’s a small town, and there’s not much traffic in the morning. All you have to do is check both ways and then go when it’s clear.”

The boy’s eyes probed Kirk’s forehead – maybe he found a pimple, or a wrinkle. But he didn’t say anything. At the change to green, they crossed. His meeting beckoned.

Batteries – forgotten. The relentless pager in his pocket prompted Kirk to hurry again the next day. At the same intersection, there was the boy again, waiting to cross, once again, hesitant to cross. Apparently, life hadn’t taught him yet that it was okay to bend the ‘rules’ – that’s to say, he still listened to his mother. As Kirk approached, the boy turned and bounded with his hand outstretched.

“Hi, sir! My name’s Christian and I’m five years old.”

“So that’s your name, is it? Do you want me to help you cross the street, Christian?” An eager nod. “Do you remember what I told you yesterday? How it was safe to cross if it’s green or if there’s no cars coming?” He shook his head. Typical kid. To him, life is just a moment, and everything else is forgotten. “Well, it’s safe now to cross.”

“Mummy said to go only when it’s green. Can you please help me cross when it’s green?” Refusal would not get him to the office in time, and his pocket urged him to agree.

The next morning, there was no such rush. The alarm clock woke him up on time. At the same intersection, Christian waited on the other side of the street. He stood there on the concrete by the traffic lights, transfixed by the colour of rejection that denied passage to the cars ahead. Opportunity seized, Kirk crossed.

“Excuse me, sir! Can you please help me find something? I dropped my box of jellies. Can you find my box of jellies?” It lay fallen, rejected, nearby.

“Here you go, boy. It was just over there.” And Christian appreciated it and held out his other hand, this time to shake. How can a five-year-old forget where he put his jellies? Supposedly, he may have just dropped them without a care in his sweet momentary world. “How come you’re on this side of the street? Yesterday when I found you, you were over there.”

“Mummy said I could cross if it was green and if an adult took me.”

“Ok, so someone helped you?”

“Yes, a man. He didn’t say anything but I just took his hand and he walked me across.”

Now, obviously his mother hadn’t taught him about strangers. “You probably shouldn’t have done that. What if the man was dangerous or had a gun?”

“I don’t think he had a gun. He took me across the street. I thanked him and then I wanted to go see my mummy.”

“Maybe you should tell her to stop sending you for sweets without an adult, people can be more dangerous than cars.”

“But mummy said to do what she says, and she said it was okay if I asked the adult and the adult took me across when it was green.”

Kirk’s face tensed. Where had parental responsibility gone? It wouldn’t help anyone to go through life without learning which risks are worth taking and which ones aren’t. The mother needed lessons, too. The kid’s obedience may end up costing them more than his jellies.

“Listen,” and their eyes levelled, “Can you take me to your mummy, Christian? I’d like to talk to her.”

Hand in hand, the boy led Kirk through disregarded alleyways and buildings where there once must have been activity. His pocket started vibrating sometime but he turned the bloody thing off, preferring the solitude to the interrupting reminders of his daily routine. He’d be just a few minutes late… not enough to cause a dispute – after all, the manager was an integral part of the business and they wouldn’t function without his involvement. They might even take it as a sign of Kirk’s confidence in them that he’s letting them start the meetings without his presence. His job had always been to ensure the numbers added up properly – so there couldn’t be any discrepancies on his watch. Profits had to match earnings at the end of the day. That would come. Time didn’t matter for the moment. He was going to do a good deed.

Christian let go of his hand to place the box of jellies onto a pile of about twenty, all stacked on top of a small stone at the head of a dirt mound. A wan “Maree” was scribbled on the stone. “Hi mummy, here’s your jellies!” He sat on another stone directly adjacent to the pile, a stone part of a whole row of differently sized and shaped stones in a courtyard’s worth of grass and dirt and worms.

“I dropped my box of jellies on the footpath, but this man found it for me, and he wants to talk to you.” This is where their gazes met once more, but Kirk hesitated. What was there to say?

Just as the moment arrived, it had already left. There was no one around, no one else to talk to, no one to explain to him what had happened. But, he understood, then. The silence somehow justified Kirk’s cold demeanour. What was he supposed to say, and to whom? Christian was five. He was only five. Kirk took a few steps back, thinking some distance would help him gain some perspective. There were names on the nearby stones, too. But he couldn’t sob in front of someone who wouldn’t understand why he would be sobbing. Someone who kept their innocence alive by their ignorance to the truth would have to come into their own realisation in their own time. Kirk managed to smile, but Christian didn’t change his expression. His eager eyes looked right through him. Time would slowly trickle cruelty in his jellies until his pile crumbled, when he might build it back up.

“Mummy says thank you for being concerned for me,” said the boy. “She appreciates your care. She says she knows the man that took me across the street because she sent him to take me across the street. That’s all I need to know to be safe. Thank you for coming to see, mummy sir!” and again he held out his hand, for someone to hold.

Request For A Second Chance

To you,

I am writing to you right now. The timing doesn't seem to be very fitting, after you packed my own bags for me and threw them into me and pushed me out the door.

You say I stayed too much inside and made a mess. Well, I won't deny that, but I never think of it as mess - more like creative expansion... or child's play. You know I'm right, so I don't see why you're sending me away. After so many years together, so much we have been through. Yes, you've gotten mad at me before and recently you told me how fed up you were with my antics. But we used to have such fun times, when we were both younger, we played so many games. I loved spending that time with you. And now, just because we've arrived at yet another obstacle in our relationship, you tell me you've had enough. Please... you've said that before and never actually kicked me out. After all, you are a forgiving soul, so even though I said a thing or two about the people in your life that you might not like, you know I must be right.

In case you're wondering, I don't take it back. I'm not angry you've closed the door on me, I know you'll let me back in. Then we can continue having fun together. I've pitched a tent in the void outside. I'll wait until you gather your senses.

Be quick! Don't let the present get in the way of our past times and possible future!

I'll be here.

Love you lots,

xoxo
Your ego

We Really Are Each Other

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/Intention To Know Silence

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.

Your Isle Of Peace

The start of every life is the birth where we commence to listen and remember. The end is that death that follows the birth. We thus experience something in between, and call it life, because we have lost our faith in the ability to know what was before and what is beyond, both of which are not part of the past nor the respective future, but of the present, that gift which keeps on giving because we ask it to. We are reminded that there is little power in our projection or our memories compared to the moment that we live in now, it being eternal.

Change happens. Street lights light up near evening and cease when the sun catches up. A friend waves from the bus as it wheels away in the same direction where you are going; from the footpath you can see their smile passing. The television delivers a short melody to announce its being turned on, and another before it slumbers on Standby. The comment you wrote on Facebook moves its way down the page as it gives way under the weight of Farmville and Mafia Wars notifications. Smiles :) are seen and left as the eye moves right along the row. In quick succession, cars drive on the street in front of your house as you remain watching from the window. The song you're listening to finishes and then another begins. Hair grows longer and escapes when severed. Pikachu faints because it was poisoned by a Weedle. Your birthday is celebrated with balloons, cake(s), candles, presents, chairs, a table, maybe alcohol, dancing, laughter, chatter, gossip, a spill, two arms holding, clinking, cheering. The clean-up is left up to the restaurant crew or your parents. Your day's one of joy. You are older, officially, and you deem yourself ready to step up and push further the brackets of your horizon, revealing more of what you want: more sunlight, more clouds, more hearts, more voices, more happiness. You feel you can fit more in because today is yours. Take it. Take it.

But don't hold on. Are you not enjoying it because you do not want it to go away? To leave you, to never return? Are you holding on? Stop. Live now, and do not clutch the fears that you are projecting into the future based on a past. Live your life.

Your fingers, wrap them not around an object lest you crush it under the pressure of your dread. I know you want to hold on, to not lose. But objects fall away, they fulfill a use, a purpose, then are discarded, for another purpose. Buildings, systems, grow in size and scope and crumble one day after their birth. With birth, death follows. A beginning, end. And it all happens within the eternal. No, nothing does not last forever, nothing cannot be. There is no thing that we can hold on to because once we hold on, we let go at some point.

Such is the lesson that we need to learn, that the world is impermanent. It changes constantly - thus the only constant is change. And this change, this movement, this process, is a gift. It is your present. Your isle of peace, wherein you can open your heart and cherish life for what it is. It is. Words start and end, and such is not life for it cannot be spoken. You live.