Author: Tom (Page 10 of 71)

Tom is a stroke survivor, a seeker, a meditator, a veteran firefighter and rescue tech, a motivational speaker, a poet, and a blogger (new site) & author. He is also the father of three and as their student and teacher, has found applying spiritual practices to all aspects of life provides a vast amount of possibility and abundance. Tom has discovered that true forgiveness is the key to a pure heart, and a pure heart can lead us to wondrous experiences.

You can also connect with tom on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Tomgwriter55/".

I Find (A Poem)

May 30, 2019 / Tom

^{I find, in the way of things,}
^{A part of me that cries,}
^{A part of me that sings.}
^{Yet who am I to be?}

^{I seek, in the way I do,}
^{That part that loves me,}
^{That part that loves you,}
^{They seem to be the same.}

^{In this world I have found,}
^{Sometimes fear,}
^{Can find the ground,}
^{And we stand alone upon charred remains of truth.}

^{For those secret tremors turned to quakes,}
^{We wallow in,}
^{What our soul forsakes,}
^{We sometimes find an angel’s feather at our feet.}

^{A tear will run its way again,}
^{And soak the earthen desert sands,}
^{Though I cannot say just how or when,}
^{Beneath me I find that heaven looks like hell.}

^{For angels can show their horns as well.}

A Room at the Inn

May 28, 2019 / Tom

I entered what was our room, and just stared. Just moments before you were there, laying as you do under the sheets, your smile bringing my body to life. In the culmination of a wonderful couple of weeks spent mostly together, the end had come and you have left . Again.

I have learned to survive such things in blocks of weeks. This would be just another block of weeks, another moment in our time, another mixture of one’s fear of jumping would be tested by one’s fear of standing still. It’s a story we know well, and though the union of our spaces seems so much closer than it has before, the empty chill of our separation remains as stark as it ever was.

I took a deep breath as the transition took hold in my soul. The room we shared, the room that we had made “our space” had suddenly become just another room in the inn. The tornado that is you, whirling around in the space full of worry about making your flight, about time you had left to get there, had been with replaced with a peace I simply could not cherish. I love the chaos that is you, that mixture of heart and mind, presence and worry all wrapped into one beautiful experience.

One deep breath was replaced by another, joined with a selfish wish made into the ether. I just wanted to sit in that room, feel you moving intently while only stopping briefly to kiss me or touch my hand. I wanted to call out to you and hear you answer, but I knew today there’d be only silence. I wanted another walk around Coot Lake to see your wonder at the mountains that brought me here, and listen to you breathe in the clear, clean air. I wanted dragonflies to capture your attention while you danced to the song of geese landing safely in a splash. I wanted to hear you make an agreement with the Universe, that “if” a bird, a dog, a sign of some sort crossed your path…and that peace that followed your joy as that agreement was fulfilled. I wanted to see you easily finish a loop that once challenged you, and have you want to share that space with those you love who have never been blessed with that amazement.

Today, however, there was only my breath in an empty room at the inn. I could hear the songbirds just outside the open window, and I wished you could hear them too. I swear I could smell you in the room, and that memory brought a subtle tear that gave life to others. I have such joy in our love, in our union, and in our moments shared, but I also feel such pain in the parting, in the weeks between our touches, in the gaps between our words.

I know I am not supposed to. I know I am supposed to focus only on the joy, on the blessing that is “us”. I know that I am to honor this growth, this slow, aching sunrise breaking dawn upon our shared horizon. I pay homage to all of that, but it’s only a part of the story I am writing. I trust my heart, my soul, and they break in every kiss and hug goodbye, and that story must be told as well. There is such a beauty in that breaking. It reminds me of the truth that we, the you and me who flirted with togetherness and then made it happen, have so much possibility ahead.

The “ahead” is now being replaced by the present silence in the room. I put my head on the pillow where you laid, and inhale the scent of you. I notice a strand of your hair laying lonely on the pillowcase, teasing me with a memory of the morning. I remembered the few times I woke up to involuntarily apologize for my snoring, always taking the sight of you in my heart. I remembered the 4:30 AM thunderstorm that woke me for the morning, and the hours spent just soaking in the moment. A flash of lighting would splash below the blinds in our room, and the crash of thunder would echo in our chamber. I could remember you laying where I now am playing with that strand of your hair you’d left to tease me. I could feel you as if you were laying right there next to me.

That has been my journey, sweet beloved. At first I could just ignore it. I was fine in my solitude and my aloofness, and ignored the voice that demanded I change it. Then I began to slip toward surrender, knowing full well the shadows I’d pushed into the basement of my mind would now have their due. Finally, I surrendered in a vision on Mt. Sanitas, and gave my heart its full attention, and those shadows their moment in the sun. Though once honoring the aloof-child within me, then the falling into the angel’s arms, and then the sweet surrender to this certain truth, my heart has always pained in your absence, and broken a bit in your departure. The wonder, for me, was not just in the realization of the soul in you that spawned this process, but the desire to continue while in the throes of it. I have never discovered resurrection without the suffering, and I have never found wonder without a risk. I will endure because I love you, and because I trust the compass that directed us together.

For now, I will hope you take those little pieces of my heart with you as a reminder of the man you leave behind, and that you put them back in the hug and kiss sure to come when we meet again.

It was time for me to leave the room at the inn. I laid the strand of hair where you left it, and said a prayerful goodbye to the moment. I could feel a wave of steely purpose pour over me, a trick life had taught me long ago. Yet, despite the self-protection I , I could still feel the pulsing desire to love you, to weather the storm, and to realize all we’ve come to know since the moment we first met. I will endure until you decide to stay, and we make a life together.

I opened the door to leave and took one last look around, the images beginning to fade as time took hold of my mind. There was a day to live and responsibilities to fulfill, and a familiar weight to bear, and a story to write before the workday began. There would be poetry to come, breaths and words to share with you, and silence to manage until we meet again. I realize in that moment it is not in the parting that I find sadness, but in the absence of your presence. The difference is subtle, but to me so very real.

We both know this is a wonderful thing we share, this love, this breath, the side-by-side footprints we leave in the earth. I am not complaining as much as I am giving life to what is in the empty spaces left by our departures, the full truth of a story so worth telling. The pain felt writes words of honor to you in the pages of my heart. The longing swears an oath to you in the emptiness of this room. Both the yin and the yang of this story must be told in the completeness of the cycle that is love.

I turn to breathe one last sigh while the door clicks closed behind me. I don’t look back, it serves no purpose for me now. Instead, I hope for your safe journey and the blessing of our return to togetherness again, in a room at some other inn, at some other time. I can’t help but smile in that hope.

Beloved

May 27, 2019 / Tom

Alone with my passion,
A wave subsides,
Yet cannot disappear.
Building…throbbing…pulsing
It speaks to me,
Calling for you in the silence of this longing.

Dreams invade my conscious control,
Letting go to the purpose of our union.
When doves shall fly to kiss that heaven’s door,
We shall know, and we shall feel
That loving, sweet release,
And we shall know our truth again.

My love, thank you for the moments of our embrace,
When the bells have tolled to lighten up our minds,
Lifting our hearts to such beloved heights,
God touches our souls,
Unites our touch in divine pools well beyond our understanding.
Love, what caress will paint this holy scene?

While I curse the days of apartness,
A pleading to the gods that brings our hands together,
I shall beg and surrender to my wanting,
In passion, and in truth, a bent knee at the place where we have met,
For perhaps there has never been such truth in my before,
And in aloneness I suffer at the hands of my own heart.

Silence, for a moment now.
May I awaken like this is but a dream,
And you are sitting in the space right next to me,
With nothing but love, fear banished to the realm from which it came,
Our castle gates, sealed forever in a kiss,
Take me and do with me as you please.

One more day, than weeks of fighting my despair,
Then some days again, pouring nectar into the Chalice of Love’s Great Hope,
Building up the courage, to fight dismay again,
The pattern renewed in the drink that one day may never need run dry.
Yet who I am to ask for such a thing?
For birds and angels were given wings so they may fly.

Beloved, do not judge a man so lost in love’s confusion,
Do not think him weak as he falls onto his knees,
Begging for one more breath beside you,
Do not judge his tear as he watches you vanish into the heavens,
The clouds can be such evil things,
When they banish you from sight.

Again

May 26, 2019 / Tom

We all struggle with what’s right
Trying to find the darkness in the night
I just want it to be day again…
In the twilight comes a song
Written in the sky of right and wrong
Sing that song to me again…

In this room the devil stares
Yet there’s an angel just upstairs
Will the fires make me whole again?
Little birdie set to grieve
If I was dying would you leave
Would you fly away again?

Because life…because life somehow
Is right here, is right now
We’ll never get this chance again…
If the end was near
Would it be the moment that you fear
Or would you pray for just one more morning…
Again….

I just want to get it right…this time

A Vow

May 19, 2019 / Tom

Today, I release you.

I release you from the idea that you will complete me.

I release you from the obligation that you may feel to shoulder the burdens of my mind.

I release you from the pain of my past, the dysfunction of my demon-mind, and the need to fix me.

I release you from the part of me that felt sinful, rejected, needy and alone.

I release you from having to heal me to make the us, the you and me, be a complete partnership of truth and love.

Today, I honor you.

I honor the agreements we have made, the truths we have spoken, and the intimate depth of our connection.

I honor the path you and I must walk, whether that path is walked separately or with our hands joined.

I honor the footsteps you have left for me to follow, the shelter you have built for when the storms rise above the mountains, and the radiant light you have shed in the dark corners of my mind.

I honor you for the song within me that sings your name, for the way I feel in each and every cell, and the union of spirit and flesh that can only call your name.

Today, I cherish you.

I cherish the moment you took a chance on me, and the way you saved the very best for last.

I cherish the prose you have cast out into the world. Such truth inspires this man to a higher place; a summit he once had only heard of in a dream.

I cherish the thoughts of you that resound in echoes of my beating heart.

Today, I promise you.

I promise you nothing but the purity of truth that shines in our connection.

I promise to honor our agreements to the best of my ability, and to trust you as the loving heart I’ve fallen for.

I promise to seek the liberation of our selves in the commitment that we’ve made, and to heal any remaining wounds that may bind us in a cage not of our own making.

Today, I love you.

I love you just like I loved you yesterday, and am certain I will love you tomorrow.

I love you not just for all your obvious perfections, but also for all those flaws you think exist, and how perfect I see all of those as being.

I love you because I have no choice and because even if I did, you would still be the easiest choice I’ve ever made.

Today, I celebrate the woman who walked into my life with an intention, but not a plan. I celebrate the soul who caresses my own with ease, and who has challenged me to heights I once feared with great ferocity. Today, I hold you close in body and in heart, knowing this vow was as natural as my breath, and as certain as the rain that beats just outside our bedroom door.

Happy anniversary my beloved, and thank you for knowing the truth of who we were even before I would admit it. Thank you for showing me a way of courage to take a chance on what felt so perfect yet scared me beyond belief. Thank you for rewarding that courage with this divine love, the pureness of this truth, and the great moments we have shared in both.

I love you.

~TG

A Weekend Intention

May 16, 2019 / Tom

I am waiting, excitedly, for the weekend.

Not like I wait for most weekends. It’s not that type of wait. It’s not about being off from work, doing household chores in between bouts of hiking and writing and workout out and spending time with the kids. As a single dad, weekends can take on a meaning some would find hard to understand, but for those who do you’ll understand what this type of wait means.

My beloved has created a wonderful weekend. We are heading to someplace loaded with nature coupled with workshops based on the ancient Toltec philosophy (minus the human sacrifice, I trust). For those of you who know me, you know that parts of that philosophy have had a tremendous impact on my life, beginning with the book The Four Agreements. We are also sharing our anniversary together, and expanding our relationship to a new level in what has been our process, our way, our time. It’s not my way, and it’s not her way. It’s our way. We share in the challenges, the triumphs and the growth equally.

This weekend, I get to increase my knowledge while expanding my openness. Best of all, I get to do this with the woman I have a deep love for, someone who has not only opened me up further than I’ve ever been, but also someone who has shown me that all of the effort I’ve put into my transformation has been both successful and well worth it.

(Channeling Johnny Olson) But that’s not all!

The last few months have taken their toll on me. I’ve had to move, deal with the absolute selfishness of some, try to meet the demands of fatherhood, employee, writer, long-distance lover, meditator, philosopher, friend, ally, enemy, and relative lone-wolf. While those things on their own don’t ordinarily bother me, having them all heaped together in a short period of time is like trying to run a marathon in about 20 minutes. I can feel the stress taking its toll on my body, my mind, and my desire to engage in the world. I can feel myself losing control of some parts of me in order to maintain the focus those other things have demanded.

Sometimes the fighter in me, the warrior, takes over. He is that same beast that helped me survive the many traumatic events that distorted my views of both the world and people who live in it. That fighter is often cold, distant, and can isolate himself with great skill (he’s had much practice). Yet he has softened much in the face of the warrior’s transformation. I have sought isolation recently, but I have not built the walls around me I once built. Instead, I have sought that isolation in the vast wilderness within, sans the walls I once thought protected me, accepting whatever would come into my space while I went about my business of living the experience.

I realize that this, too, is part of the cycle. Life ebbs and flows in a wonderful rhythmic tide that keeps us learning while providing opportunities to exercise what we have learned. Education is in the learning, but wisdom is in the exercise of what we’ve learned and seek, if nothing else, to be wise. I could not find the joy I have found if I had wasted the many lessons this life has taught me. Instead, I need to find wisdom so that those lessons can have a positive value. Otherwise, the pain and trauma I’ve endured will serve no real, positive purpose.

That, in my heart, would hurt worse than the trauma itself.

What this weekend represents is a wonderful opportunity to learn, to love, and to sharpen this warrior’s Wisdom Sword. It’s an opportunity to reset my mind, my heart and my intentions toward my truest purpose in life. It’s an opportunity to share, for the very first time in my life, my intimate process of expansion and reestablishment with the woman who lives within my heart each and every moment. She has always been a part of what is the normalcy of expansion, contraction and existence for me, but never the deeply intimate process of my rising from bent knee to stand, rather than kneel, before the altar of life.

Of course I’m not sure that the outward expression of this process will be as profound as the inward process is. I’ve never shared it with anyone in order to get that feedback. These moments have always been mine and mine alone, experienced in isolation and solitude.

(Channeling Johnny Olson again) Tom Grasso, come on down! You’re the next contestant on The Moment Is Right!

While I’m not jumping and screaming like the contestants on the Price Is Right often do, I am excited about what this weekend offers in potential as I set my personal intention for Self. I am excited about spending these moments with my solemate, of learning something new, of walking in the forests and staring at the Pacific in a shared moment of intense love. I’m excited in employing the wisdom I’ve sweat and bled to realize, and in expanding my eternal horizons.

There will be volumes written, I am sure. Some of that may even be shared. Regardless, I will be resetting at what appears to be the exact right time in the exact right place with the exact right person.

Peace.

Things She May Not Know

May 13, 2019 / Tom

I look at clear, blue skies as she tries to dodge raindrops under the grayness where she is. I view cotton-ball clouds she will never see as she lays alone in her morning repose, meeting the demands of a rhythm that gets her through her day. I walk trails basking in the mountain sun as she overlooks trees not yet disturbed by urban progress. We are in different places while we miraculously share the same space; the space where we’ve always known each other.

While we are both learned souls who have shed many skins along the pathways of our lives, we are also humans who bear the weight of lives lived and lessons inflicted. We’ve left deadened layers of ourselves in the streams and oceans that have nearly drowned us but, as we have seen, caused us to rise to great occasions and meet our demons where they stand. It took us most of this lifetime to realize the promise we’d made in lives gone past, but we are here, finally, at the crossroad where hearts and fears wage war to no uncertain outcome. As we, two warriors destined to find this place along the journey of our lives, fight the battle we were always meant to fight I look at her with a fierceness in my eyes that beg her to listen to my truth in this moment. I know her fierceness and I find strength within it, and want to share a passion of my own with the only heart I want beating with me in the mud.

The greatest poem of my life began with just three words.

“I love you.”

They seem so simple, those three words. Yet within the smallness of their structure lays an infinity of possibility and an undeniable truth. Like a small seed set to one day become a giant redwood, those three words speak volumes as once-blank pages fill with odes, stories and the gospel of our poetry. Each embrace, each kiss, each moment we share our bared souls to one another fills a chapter in our book. Like branches birthed from great trees, we are living in a universe of our making. It is a universe begotten from the pureness of love in a way most would not comprehend yet all seem to dream exists.

“I love you,” an oath uttered not in the empty throes of passion or desperate need for a hand to hold but rather issued in the stillness of both mind and body. When the wicked winds would subside and the dust would settle those were words seen etched in the granite mountains where we sought our shelter. When we finally touched, when we finally kissed, and when I felt her smile vibrate in the very core of my existence, those were the only words our lips could let pass. Those words are the surrender of our flesh uniting to the involuntary utterances of souls surrendered to their divine undertaking, a remembrance of a promise made so very long ago.

Despite all of our souls’ memorial, we still have those human layers to contend with. Within this beautiful dialog exists a process where we learn the value of our challenge. Great views are achieved only after difficult climbs, and great victories are won after the hardest of battles. It is here that I whisper things she may not know, repeating mantras I am sure have been sung by her soul yet muffled by those human afflictions. It is here that we learn the importance of our presence, of our truth, and of the three words we’ve written in our gospels. It is here where the Demon Past thrusts a dagger at our exposed hearts and where the Angel Present parries with a truth of Her own. It is here where we learn the value of our hard-learned lessons, where honor rules the day, and love reigns over the screaming songs of fear.

For what she may not know in her humanness, she knows as truth in her soul. There are no others who can take her place. There are no moments where her voice is not the passion of my heart. There is not a single word spoken now that was not written in our annuls even before we first breathed in this life. Now is our time, and we are on our way.

For what I may not hear in my humanness I know as the song of my heart. I have learned a patience once foreign to my mind. I have sought connection when her flesh is absent and her words are sparse, and learned to find her in the silence of mind. I have discovered a trust not born in the certainty of human frailty, but in the strength of her character and the softness of her heart. I have put my faith in another for the very first time in my existence, and I know the outcome even before she calms herself enough to see it. I am no soothsayer but I can read, and I’ve read our story in the fields of marigolds and heard it in the music of wind flowing through a willow’s branches. While I know my next breath is not certain, when it comes I have found a certainty. With that breath will come a whisper that speaks her name, and a voice that calls out for her to kiss me.

Love, it seems, is more a certainty than life itself and much less finite. Warriors will unsheathe their swords and pick up their shields, but lovers will drop them both for one another. My breath may cease and my heart may stop but my love for her will pulsate until that moment when we meet again, remember, and pick up the story where we left off. Yet now I do not seek to wait until my next life, I seek to love her with the certainty and courage I was born to have and with a passion that was born the moment I first saw her smile.

What is left but to live out that promise? I need not make a new one, but I certainly must live the one made before time existed. That is what I must do, and in doing so my honor is reborn as my love continues on its eternal path.

One Changing Paradigm (A Lover’s Thirst)

May 10, 2019 / Tom

There I sat, way back then, detached and unassuming with a broad smile upon my face. I could walk in and out of many lives, walk along the path in a crowd or alone, counting footsteps in my mind while talking about the raptures of my mind with those whose motivations I could not begin to fathom. I could engage or disengage, wait patiently or run along, mumble things to myself and, sometimes, get an answer from those who knew little about what truly rested in my heart.

I could be satiated or I could starve with an equal amount of desire. I would thirst and settle for the most mundane of drinks, some in ornate chalices and others found in the simpleness of my cupped hand. I had no need for the cup but wanted the thirst vanquished. I often found myself thirstier in the process. The hunger would make me appreciate the meal but the meal, however, would always seem to lead me back to hunger.

There are few things in life like knowing a purpose in the aloneness where I have found both sanctuary and life. One thing that has surpassed that beauty is when I discovered purpose in the eyes of a woman who was not the cup or the chalice, but the very drink itself. That’s not to say my aloneness is no longer beautiful (though it has lost some of its luster), it is to say that togetherness has taken on a new meaning. It’s not to say that I no longer find life and security in my solicitude, it is to say that I’ve found that life seems better in the uncertainty of love. I don’t wish to rid myself (or her) from our moments of empty space filled with the wisdom we have discovered on our own, but I do wish to use that wisdom to enhance our shared space and create a meal that neither of us wish to deny ourselves for long. I want my thirst, but I want it to end in a way where all I need do is open a door to have it quenched.

My paradigm has been changing for some time. I entered into a stage about a year ago where I could invite someone into my space who I never wanted to leave. Even in my aloneness she is there, and in my stillness I can feel her vibrating in my soul. In her I’ve found an acceptance from outside of me that matches the acceptance I have within me, and I’ve discovered a love that embraces me with an equal firmness and compassion as I offer. Imagine feeling the wisdom that you’ve known your entire life in the embrace of another who you are sure has inspired your very survival. I have looked back on the trail of my life and discovered that every tumble, every drop of blood, every moment of resurrection and every lesson of fortitude and love have lead me to that moment when the elevator doors opened and destiny announced herself in eyes that weakened my knees.

It’s been almost a year since those doors opened and everything (I mean everything) changed. That day, however, was years and millions of words in the making. There seemed to be an impossible number of things that had to happen before that day was even a thought. So much growth, so many agreements changes, so many things about life needed to occur before destiny arrived, and has quenched a man’s thirst in a way that once seemed only a dream.

What has been wonderful has been that I haven’t lost myself in this process. In many ways, I found parts of me long dormant. I’ve discovered patience I never thought I had. I’ve stumbled across a wonderful relationship with parts of me that often spoke but remained completely ignored. I also have no desire to have my partner lose herself because I happen to love her, all of her. (I often say I wouldn’t change a thing about her except her location, hence the patience I’ve discovered.) I have found nothing that I would change about her. I adore her quirks, her idiosyncrasies. What she may see as flaws I absolutely treasure. Her vision, her passions, her likes, her fears are all part of a package that I love beyond measure. As for me? I’ve never had to put on a show or change a thing about who I am to please her. That is, to this man who has always had change demanded of him by people he loved, the breath of life.

There is a “but” though. The thing I’ve come to realize is that none of this wonderful story would have been true had it not been for the journey. I’ve come to see in my dreams and meditations something. I feel like a great sculpture who was once trapped in the granite that encased him. Life…like the wind, the rain, the chisel and the rasp… tore at the granite tomb until that moment of my heart’s resurrection. When all of the minutia and layers were finally shed, I could stand fully naked and accepted at the altar of the great love I was to find, write about, treasure and honor. There was always a great purpose to the process of being reborn into the man I was truly meant to be. That process is continuing, and I am certain that this love we’ve discovered is an expansion of the great purpose our lives were meant to fulfill.

I tried to sum up this feeling in a poem I wrote last night.

I sat for eternity
Locked in my granite tomb,
Waiting.
Pulsing.
Begging to be known.
Then you.
The wind, the rain, the chisel, the rasp,
Released me.
Gave me breath in life renewed,
Showed me light born from the tiny spark within,
A statue now kneeling at the altar of this love.

Perhaps this journey proves that we can find purpose in every trial and tribulation, every moment of joy and happiness? I sure hope so.

Fear and Regret

May 5, 2019 / Tom

Do me a favor for a minute. Take yourself back to a moment of irreversible loss. Relive the feeling, whatever that was. Feel it all and stand in the muck just to bring yourself to a place of utmost importance. Don’t stay there long, just long enough to gain some perspective.

We all have those moments when it is too late. Too late to change things. Too late to do things. Too late to know something wonderful. Moments we can’t get back. Moments we will never know outside our own regret.

Bring the perspective of remembering those past moments into something you are living now. What chance are you not taking? What experience is the Universe offering you that you are not accepting? What love, what embrace, what touch are you taking for granted now that will, someday, be beyond your reach?

Fear is the animal that keeps us from our destinies and burdens us with regret. Fear sends us into our shells, a place where we can’t see the stars above and where the songbirds’ voice is muffled into an indistinguishable drone. Fear takes us into a realm that keeps us from what’s dear to our hearts and pollutes the air that’s necessary for our souls to breathe. We lose ourselves in fear until that one day when we find ourselves stuck in a riptide of regret.

That is why I find it necessary to remember those moments of regret. Not just my own, but those moments I’ve witnessed others experience. I find value in the pain, in the remorse, because it reminds me of the value of shedding fear so that I may walk in step with destiny and the importance of leaping beyond the clouds of self-doubt into the arms of living. It’s not the death that frightens me, it’s the loss of living. While I love my aloneness, I adore experiencing life even more with the one who keeps me in time with my truth and helps me see beyond the clouds and I never want to regret not taking a chance, or moving beyond my own fears, to embrace that experience fully.

That, to me, is the beauty of regret. It has taught me that its bitter taste is not one I like to swallow. I may cringe, grimace and force it down in a massive gulp but is there a better way to learn not to drink from that glass again? I haven’t found one.

Perhaps we just all need to remember in order to live. Perhaps it is sane to touch a scar from time to time in order to not repeat the error that brought it. Perhaps there is utter perfection in trusting in something that muffles the voice of fear while allowing those songbirds sing with clarity in our existence. Perhaps now it is time to trade the regrets we’ve gathered in the things we haven’t done in favor of risking it all in favor of destiny.

That is my prayer as I close my eyes for the night. I pray tonight is not my last, not because I fear the sickle of death, but because there is so much I have yet to do. My patience is not tested by a child-like need to have something. It is tested by the blunt realization that now is my time, and whatever time I have left is fleeting. I’ve seen decades vanish in the blink of the proverbial eye, and I’ve seen the end come for many who were not done living but found no choice in the matter. Maybe now is the time to put some impetus on the life I have left and forget about the risks involved in living it.

Winter Ramblings (in spring)

April 30, 2019 / Tom

Sometimes the winter winds can rip right through the soul. Especially when they happen after the onset of spring, when the birth we have sought all winter simply vanishes in the frigid night.

Like the burden of spring snow laden on the blossoms of tomorrow, we are driven to the bowels of our souls by the weight of unbearable thoughts. We lose our luster in the howling winds of a hope dashed by circumstance, and we watch the pedals of tomorrow fall to the ground and be buried by snowfall that just does not seem to belong. Everything seems disjointed, unnatural, but ultimately it is the way it must be.

The promise of rising tulips now lay broken, the cause of an equinox now forgotten in the unexpected. Perhaps the snow was beautiful for a moment, but certainly not now as the shards of hope scattered about the mind of those tired of winter digs at the core of their desire. I will pray for a return to spring, and for the song of summer to appear.

“Pray all you want,” says fear, “but I will always have the upper hand. Bask all you want in the warm sun, for all I need do is say the word and the chill will return. Thus, you will remember your place in this time, and your time in this place.”

If we survive the burden of such an unexpected storm, and find solace beside a fire built for us in the midst of such suffering, tomorrow may bring with it a renewed march to summer. If we do not freeze in the disappointment, or slide broken down the icefalls we cannot see in the night, we may see tulips rebound and the cherries form, and perhaps a bee or two to announce that the storm did not win, and that summer was saved in the reemergence of spring.

Perhaps tomorrow will see me worthy of the spring. Perhaps then, I may see the summer.