Rising Moonlight

Sundown over a strange day. Where will the moon leave me tonight, as he slides through the sign he once tip-toed on, as my little body took its first breath? Terribly hard to do the things emotions stand on the way of, and also so difficult to be interested on a day with a clean floor, little to do but what I’d rather not, and the sick dizzy feeling wandering around behind me. In the larger, more natural scope of things, it all makes sense, but navigating the rocky troughs of water between such shores of inner arrival is almost enough to make one want to rent holes in the barge, and end the tediousness of speculation. Another short-coming of the mind in practice: that of only possessing the capability to focus on one thing at a time, one reality at a time, one place at a time. Like a long and dimly lit gallery of paintings, the mind arranges reality in pieces it can remember, in encapsulated feelings it can readily access, and analyze cooly. What else am I looking for in this expanse of duty and work? It all seems so silly. Better maybe to just live another day, and embrace the ups and downs that will take me along a path that I trust and know has good reason. Self honesty is, after all, maybe not as difficult as self-realization, the one naturally following the other. But I sometimes feel like I’m hitting every bump in the road to the first, and a worn out being stretches out for relief in solitude or sleep or nothingness.

There are a few things to remember though, little beads to count when the going gets tough. I am, as ever, ennobled by what I can give to others. Freely, and from the urgings of my heart, as well as the gentle proddings of intuition, I’m left feeling not so alone, and not so deaf to the world I’m occupying. There is wisdom in Nature, and I can see the imprint of my own hand in her so clearly, thereby recognizing what still needs refining in myself. And lastly, most importantly, the Truth exists. It calls unceasingly, singing in cool, bracing tones, waiting with sharpened sword when I stumble towards It covered in the brambles I can’t remove myself. In It is a Love I can’t even rightly comprehend, even though I live by It’s Grace.

How silly again I feel, but not so despairing this time. The Moon has taken stage, cradled by saffron colored clouds and attended by stars in the East. Sundown over another day closer, another attempt, another mirror into the state of my being. Strange day indeed, but not so bad after all.

Print: Village in the Moonlight - Shotei Hiroaki

Something in the middle

Sort of feel like an interminably lonely creature, an anonymous daughter, a little fragmented womanhood. Like transparent petals, or brittle grasses, or stones that lose brilliance out of water. Wandering from beauty pool to beauty pool, existing by the grace of evening sunlight, or kind orange cat, or out-bursting thunder shower. On the tips of living, maybe dabbling the toes in the icy art of being, shimmeringly shy and hardly relaxing, save to write a line or more. Passing clouds take all day to arrange themselves accordingly for their sundown repose, and in the fleeting beauty give such thanks for their existence that escape me as yet. They don’t seem to mind the day-long stretch to beauty, or the tediousness of tree, rock, Sun, land, night. Pieces of indomitable humility, the little vessels who empty themselves, and are graciously replenished day after day.

The walnuts always seem to give way first, relinquishing yellow leaves in forewarning of the Fall that awaits us. In little bits, in our own manner, we too give way to what seems inevitable, be it for joy or sorrow, and thus temper the oaken side of our humanity, which never releases hold until the very foundations of an existence break down. Don’t give up too soon, in a quixotic defense which strives to sacrifice what is most readily available to defend the tender inner reaches of spirit. Don’t hold on too long, in some effort to be proven right through out-lasting, in some misunderstanding of real strength. Little Queen Anne’s Lace bedecking the humblest places, tell us your story of working dichotomy: how delicate, multi-faceted, and ethereal are your blossoms reaching toward the light, and how humble, rugged, and nourishing the knotty primeval carrot that roots you in the Earth.

Up, down, East, West, water, fire, strong, flexible, and something in the middle, something yet beyond all cardinal directions, something in the third dimension, something outside of the meandering path we wander, something that inevitably guides the way, because it is the way, because it is the Light. My little self, nodding in the breezes of this Earth like ripened Elderberries, ready to give of what I have, and yet so small in the greatness of the universe. May I be just as I am, ever nobler, ever more dutifully fulfilling the little niche I have to offer, ever more gracefully singing in the little space alloted to me.

Reflecting on my generation

A ladder rung up from our parents, who challenged and set alight so much that was already decaying on its throne. We live on their successes, material and psychic, yet we loose ourselves in them as well, swirling into the comfort of amiable home and the platitudes of over-education tempered with over explanation of all our inner woes. A tribe of people gifted and heart-broken, reckless and yet self-fascinated standing on the shoulders of a revolution against that which was all too obviously egregious. Where are our battles? On the inner landscape we all choose sides, and crowding together, collectively forgive one another our differences and descend ever onward into either deeper pits of self-reflection, or more fragile glass houses of success than ever our forebears imagined.

I see the best minds of my generation everyday, on their facebook pages. Happy just to craft themselves, happy to be free of the responsibility that comes with crafting the future. We are outside our professions, mainly, and exist to see one another again, and feel whole thereby. This sad little episode in humanity, this terribly deep upward striving, this happiness that urges ever to be let out, this peace that only knows the reflection of itself. All our arts are tired from the struggle, and we find beauty only in the admiration of each other; the diamond in my neighbor’s eyes is the crown upon my head, if only I had the courage to posses it, to be responsible for it, to tend it toward good or ill. Not yet are we forced to develop ourselves, and we are left with gifts of the heart that remain there, and beg to be released, stumblingly, in heart-wrenching episodes that leave us too tired to try once more, too exposed to live in totality as we are. Our last chance, I fear, is coming, and I fear because I am as guilty as everyone else, and I fear because it is almost just about too late. We all have the capacity to achieve so much good. if time still remains, if only we try.

Painting: Jacob's Ladder - William Blake

Recalculated investment

The mist is finally breaking over the valley, and here upon the western-facing hill the tenderest of blue escapes an ever-present silver. Comforted by tea and piled library books concerning European history, the kitchen washed and the sunflowers just holding back against fading in their vase; a quiet picture of life is painted, and I allow myself the morning’s vacation. Things feel all the safer when the Sun has risen, yet the sound of crows brings forth regret; as Summer passes we all too soon forget the misery of heat and flies and remember that we never did accomplish what could have been in the lushness and splendor it provided. What to do with a Summer? Like a precious jewel it beckons us along through cold and expectation. It smolders around me, and the expanse of greenery and life almost too much to handle, yet gone too quickly.

How do I escape it, then? The cycle of up and down, good days and bad, lost expectations and joy in being. It’s probably meant to be like this, and most likely the churning pulse of this sort of living is slowly and surely polishing away, milling me down to the usable fruitful corn, and sending all shaft to the wind. Maybe I place myself in the sandstorm in a lingering fascination with all that is pulled away. That I felt something deeply seems to be reason enough for me to linger over its departure, and everyday almost I say a long farewell to former friends unreturning. Watching myself change seems to be the hardest part, for fear, most likely, of loosing the tiny pearls of self-understanding that have lasted through all previous shifting.

Like the pang of regret when an imperfect tooth is dentisted back to unnoticable compliance with the rest of mouth-life, or when irrepressible harried-looking meadows are severely mown back into tidiness, so I wince a little at the release of tired old emotions, so I sigh a little as the little corners of me are cleaned. Maybe this is a long lesson in prudent investment, and just like the rest of the country I’m watching sacred stocks plummet because, as it turns out, they were based on something false. So we all wind down to the harvest. A little patience, a little detachment, and by and by, I’m sure I’ll be provided for, cared for, and prepared for whatever next stage of living awaits me.

Letting go the watch

Washed the breakfast dishes and the compost pot, then watched for a moment the cheerful turning of the second-hand washing machine, and re-examined its broken latch. I find ever again the challenge to find joy in what is placed before me, not what I have dreamt up and reach for unsuccessfully. I’m sitting down with the concept of identity to find it so easily linked with joy, so closely paired with one another, as the latter is generally recognized as the sure road to the first. I doubt the veracity of this notion, and yet can’t deny it totally. The house will have to be cleaned, and all my towels are spinning away in the mechanized suds downstairs. A little feeble, and unresponsive, yet the prayer forms ever softly: please, let me not be blind to the joy of this moment, simply because it is not as I thought it should be, because it is not as I planned, because it is not as I imagined happiness and fulfillment to look.

And then sometimes it’s all set aside, for brief moments which last an eternity, and all that can be thought and experienced is “Oh Lord, thank Thee”. Then I want to be as a sleeping battle maiden, awoken by the call in times of great need, already dressed in perfectly crafted armor, rescued from slumber by a daring knight with a gifted sword. I’m lost in images of castles, of struggles, of heroism and purity, and the tininess of present life is forgiven, along with all clinging sadness. I form the wishes for myself later, in reflection: may fierceness be forgotten for valor, may disinterest and withdrawal for the enthusiasm I recognize as uniquely mine to give, and may loyalty rule over all. A little Valkyrie I’m harboring in my heart. Plunging these particular fingers into another sink of dishwater, I hope I do not hid her way, giving into despondency when I cannot hang her battle shield across my drying rack or dust pan for all to see. To see myself in all I do, I think, is to forget myself; to find true my identity, I’ll most likely have to let it go, so that it can come back to me, in the most unexpected and the most honest and trustworthy way.

Painting: The Valkyrie's Vigil - Edward Robert Hughes

Loosening hold

I watch the Sun sink slowly down in bending light and eat honey with my bare fingertips. Horsetail grass is calling my name, as are chamomile and baby mulliens. The heat reminded us it was Summer today and my sweated form remembers a form of sensuality; a curvy, rounded enjoyment of the temporal, a bare-footed, tousle-haired thick Sunlight. I love the smell of corn, of misty moisty mid-Atlantic forests, of bee-dappled sunflowers. August is now upon me, and, as every year, I wake up to the reality of Summer: in perception almost past us, in reality only just now reaching its height.

How strange to watch my surroundings as some sort of cinematic lecture, pouring out in strange shapes that which is needed. How strange also to feel lonely and harried at the same time. Just tousled about and empty; bloated and still hungry. How sad I have become and yet I how much that feeling has replaced one of stiffness, a strict hold on living. Given the choice, the decision is easy. So much is already given to me to take care of, so much would I waste by bashing it into concepts my limited understanding could grasp. Like relinquishing control over the Summer garden, simply to hold open hands to the fountain of tomato and broccoli gone to flower. All the sunflowers know what to do, and I look to them in admiration: when the swelling energy of life becomes so all-embracing and uncontrollable, turn your face upwards, and calmly follow the Light.