Constancy

                                                                         Continuous

 

                                                                          awareness

of my life

as me.

I am told it is called

the soul.

Inside us all, (except for animals?

But aren't we animals?)

it connects us

I am told

to God'

Universal Mind

Substance

All  -

 still my strongest feeling

is of being alone.

Mysteriously me,  

you're uniquely you

them thwarting they

(unnoticed us

wishing we)

obviously other

than the problem

I can be 

for myself.

In doubt

no soul

just my identity

definitely not a cow

or a bumblebee

or the tree on which I hang

myself out to dry.

If what I feel is real -

as real as one can reasonably expect

in a universe of uncertainty -

then why tie me to divinity?

When experience of my nature 

is full proof of my being

and being is all we are

then why play at shadows

why erect "altar egos"

in fantasy realms

where naive wishes

become desire pernicious

to live for forever

because I fear

to be now?

Myday

 

Fridays always feel like Saturdays.

 
I also have found that Thursdays 

so resemble Friday that 

Wednesday,

the middle of the week, 

even numbers on both sides, 

if days are numbers...

doesn't seem like such a bump.

Then, the third number is Tuesday?

Twosday? If it's only the second day of the week, 

then it is only a day old, nearly fresh

and ought be full of promise...

Like Monday, so regular and solid, mundane

We can spend our day Monday-in'

with so much to look forward to

and so little to hold us back

from Sunday, the weekend's end

the day after Saturday...

and still it feels more like Friday.

I could just make my own calendar

and not be confused by the 7 sisters

I'd never forget what day it is

as it would always be Myday.

First base is not home

Advice is not experience.

Experience is knowledge

more experience yields

wisdom

Sage

Fool

Youth is indiscreet,

impetuous and naive

the values that count

Therapy

paid advice, 

(directions and schemes

abstractions

blind to the eye of the hurricane)

a map for a path they have never been on

lone pretender to ideals

agoraphobic

soloist

telling the crowd 

how to be happy

If audacity was success

the doctor would be in

and the seer be blind.

You will never be first

as long as home is 

another base.

Oh my dying life, it makes me smile.

I was contemplating life, being alive and what that "means". First thing I found is that from the moment of conception, we are dying. We "are alive", we "are living", but the actual condition of this living is a continual dying.

Is it possible for us to talk about our lives dying? I am not saying we are dead. No, we are very much "alive". Yet, our inevitable decay is the form of slow dissolution that is similar to the end of biological life. I mean that we never know which is our last breath but we know we are breathing our way to it.

So, in terms of positive "life affirming" value, what can be gained by conceptualizing our time as a dying and not living?

Firstly, I see that I own my dying and by extension, my death is me too. It is not an alien danger waiting to dissolve me with some dreaded mortality ray...it is simply me. Passing my time, filling the voids that consciousness discovers in my desires and thrown-ness.

Secondly, I don't fear myself and so I have no reason to fear my "end". I have the opportunity to embrace it as my destiny while all the time desiring to fill it with meaning that is only of value if it promotes the sense of well-being.

We run out of time...but we are an hourglass being, our sands flow down, the space in our heads becomes emptied of being.

Thirdly, the value of the time we have here is heightened if we confront the "painful" fact of our mortality ( the pain is an ego-function designed to heighten the value of identity while denying the true nature of our mortality, namely, our lives). "Your days will end, do something you want to do with the time you have." THIS is part of the Golden Rule and it implies a power of inspiration, a motivation to live your life with dedication...

and awareness.

 

Stopping the world

I have long wondered what the world was like without the frenetic activity of post-modern life.
I have wished for the world to "stop". I have wished to be from the 19th century or even earlier.

I do not want these things because I dislike where the world is now. I am not reacting to the "ugliness" of the world; I am not hoping to find a better world in the past. I am just curious, really, what the world is like when the voices and actions of humans don't dominate . I ask what is a blue sky, a sky where no airplanes fly, no contrails appear, no jet fuel combusting.
I am curious what is the sound of silence, where no trucks roar, no Jake brakes tremble, no sirens wail, no merchants bark their offers, what is an ocean devoid of tankers and cruise ships...?

I am curious about the lack of convenience at fingertips, inability to shop for consumer goods, no stopping for beer or coffee with a few friends, the slowing down and frustrating of instant gratification, the long waiting for spare parts and even letters from far away...

We built a world that roars, that stamps on, that dominates and destroys the natural. The ground of our being is littered with the effects of our civilization. The fumes we inhale are the gasses of our success as a materialist animal. What Greta said and all those who care say still...

Irony of a pandemic that has shown all of us the answers to my curiosity and questions, the fulfillment of the wishes to see it empty and stopped, the world braked, the end of modernity. Unexpected return to the middle ages, but electronic, digital and Zoomed in on. Our plague has reduced us or returned us to clerical forms, quotidiana has beaten novelty.

What do I say now? What more is there to dream of when the world has been returned to it's cage and society is prisoner to itself? Closed in, locked down, quarantined; we monks, like monkeys in our cages, revert to ancient customs, family and friendship, gardening and reading, writing our thoughts down and looking up at the sky for rain or sun, to judge the clouds and the color of the grey, we bake and cook and can again, we are learning who we are without the roar and din...

No bed

rain

dark

zinc

drops

wind

starless

terrace

wet

prints

small

paws

toads

wait

night

written

down

Firstly

In Principio

στην αρχή

In the beginning

stin archí

am Anfang

i begyndelsen

ў пачатку

ne fillim

fi albidaya

hasieran

à u principiu

en la komenco

alussa

no inicio...

...