One word following another
like hope hungry to be reclaimed
I have been on this journey
stepping away from things
that make sense
in a life-is-ordinary way
only to realize that what I do find
extraordinarily beautiful
is ordinary
and extraordinary
at the same time.
I don’t yet feel like I’ve got the hang
of living within the paradoxes.
I can adore Rumi’s wisdom,
following him out into the concept
of living in a world beyond
right and wrong.
Just this week I reread a chapter
of Pema Chodron’s timeless wisdom,
something that gave me solace
a decade ago,
only this time I experienced
something new.
I felt cornered.
As if I couldn’t dance with two complimentary
Ways of seeing Life,
my shadow came out defensively
in life and death mode
as if my belief in the wholeness of all
was under attack.
These past 9 months I’ve wondered
when this creative block in my writing
might recede,
unable to express any longer
this evolutionary gestation process
in words.
Sometimes the creativity came through
in collage or a draw to go deeper
with co-creative gardening
and then this Cavern
invited me in.
The pain I saw outside me
came inside
and became this huge cavern,
one that kept expanding
with a dark kind of spaciousnesss,
the shadows of lifetimes
passing before me.
My fear of the Unknown
came on in waves
as the dimensions of this
cavern appear to be boundless.
I want to say
that I am getting less afraid
of looking at darkness
of seeing only a few feet in front of me
at a time,
even recognizing the more time I spend
in this cavern
this fathomless feeling
of depth
like an ocean
with no ocean floor,
is slowly taking on the sense
that this climbing inside my Self
may lead me all the way ‘home’
to the peace
in the Mind of the Creator/Creative Matrix
of All that Is.
That’s what I want to say,
as everything that made sense cracks,
opening
a senseless beyond
where I feel what I don’t yet see,
and trust
what I don’t have any archival proof to validate.
I want to say I’m becoming
less bewildered,
slowly recognizing this Awareness
doing the writing,
that keeps on expanding
and losing ‘my’ mind with it,
is connected to a Me that is morphing
into a multiincarnational identity.
Like Dorothy in the land of Oz,
these strange and beautiful inner companions
can interact in puzzling ways.
It can feel as if I have completely lost my balance,
as one of them melts down,
these shadow selves in me,
that tears can transform in waves
of tender compassion
as I see a childlike innocence shatter
and patterns that emerge over a lifetime.
How can I explain these shadows I’m coming to treasure,
to cradle the pain they express
while feeling utterly helpless to change the source
of it.
Precious pain
that sweeps the mistakes
of lifetimes
into a much larger dustpan,
illuminating lessons and a Continuity
that moves beyond death.
In this cavern where I discover my Self
as an uninterrupted web of Being.
I emerge from the depths
and I confess
that I return again and again.
Despite the discomfort of finding more shadow material,
my passion is to get used to
the feeling
of moving in fathomless, uncharted space,
adjusting my breath
to this atmosphere of the Unknown,
it’s liberation potential.
