Sing to me my darling
Let me hear the melody I seek
Those notes that echo in my ears
Creating hope in happy, honest tears.
Sing to me this lonely night
As the tears flow where they may
Let that spot in you that loves me true
Touch that spot in me born for you.
Sing to me my only
Invite me where few have ever been
Show me hope in timeless faith that lives
So that Love may be the gift it gives.
Sing to me that song
You’ve taught me how to sing
So that I may stand and give my vow
And see such power in here…and now.
Sing to me in a whisper’s tone
Bent softly through my mind
As if a moment lost in human time
Was the only human’s natural crime.
Ah, smile and take my hand in yours
Let truth and church bells ring
Although once I fought myself to see
Now I simply wish you’d sing…to me.
∞
Author: Tom (Page 70 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/".
∏
Today, this moment, this second, this place in time. Whatever. I feel a disconnect in my soul, and separation from the force that creates within me. It’s not a block it seems, it is more like when two of north poles of a magnet are led toward each other. They are led, they may even connect, but the natural course of things forces them apart. It is not either magnet’s fault. There is no wrong here, the connection simply is not natural and, therefore, cannot last very long. At least that is how it feels right now. It’s like I reach out to my creative force and as I get close some force directs me in an opposite direction.
So that’s it is within me right now. I settled down at the appointed hour to practice the craft I love so much. I want to write, to share the art within me and to make something out of this passion. I closed my eyes as is customary, seeking a connection with the inner force that creates within me. I am not an artist, I channel the Artist within me. What you see is not my work, it is My work. What you interpret and define my creation as is your work.
Today, I can’t seem to find my Artist. Perhaps it is the stress of preparing for another move. Perhaps it is financial stress. Perhaps it is the uncertainty of where I am. Maybe it simply is that I am failing to recognize something far greater than what I think. Maybe I’ve found the diamond but only see it as a lump of coal? Maybe I have found what I have always been looking for and I simply need to open my damned eyes and see it.
So, I open my eyes. Same old, same old. The laptop glares at me. The mess and chaos around me stir up the pot and I feel like I should be packing and not working or writing. I look at the clock, only about 20 minutes left in my lunch before I get back to selling something for someone else. I’ve spent 10 minutes complaining about how little creativity I have today and zero time actually creating. What the fuck is up with me? I laugh at the question.
My phone rings in a text from a rather awesome friend. “What to you like to cook?” I take time to answer. I like simple stuff because that’s what I’m good at when cooking. Make it science and my experiment will explode. Make it simple and you’ll like what you are eating. I smile, knowing that this friend is an artist and most likely will understand this post. I know she will put my craziness in its place and explain to me what the fuck is up with me. She’s undoubtedly been there, and at the end of that conversation we’ll both find something to laugh at in the mix of our humanity.
Again I stare at the chaos around me. The silence smacks me in the face as if to remind me that the chaos stems from it. Ok, fine Universe, I remember the lesson. There is order in this mess, silence in the noise, light in the darkness. Somewhere…find it, search for it, and it will come. Or not. Whatever you decide it will be the experience you are after. You want stress, you got it. You want peace, you got that too. You want war, you will find it. You want to be tested by trust and faith well guess what, you’ll find a test coming in short order.
I sigh. I have to find something to create. This lack of creativity is killing me. I mean it is rare that I just can’t sit down and create something “magical” that brings bumps to my skin. My erotic Self is left basting in a cauldron of apathy and disappointment. My romantic self seems to have been packed in a box somewhere. Jesus, I hope I find it when I unpack. I can’t see a box labeled “romance” or “erotica” anywhere. Damn it, I mislabeled it or, worse, misplaced it! I laugh at the idea as I wonder if I will ever be able to get back in my swing of things.
Well duh, of course I will. Too much travel for work, too many nights in hotel rooms and too little time with those I adore spending time with. I’m not just talking about the kids, I need them around and they just left me. I’m talking about adult friends who understand what it is to be an Artist with a blank canvas staring them in the face. Friends who know what it is like to have to deal with the issues of stress. Those who understand the fickleness of other adults who lose their way from time to time. Ah yes, a warm embrace, a handshake, and pat on the ass and then…
My head shakes me back to real time. I feel my insides being tickled and I laugh uncontrollably. “You moron,” shouts my Artist within, “look at what you’ve created in your non-creative state. Keep being this blocked and you must may win the Nobel Prize one day.”
Hardee har hardy har har. The Nobel Prize? Nice carrot but you forgot the stick Mr. Artist.
“No I haven’t. I’m about to hit you in the ass with it.”
Ouch. I get it. Stop looking at the chaos that only exists in my mind and start enjoying it. Stop worrying about if people are happy around you and just start being who you are. That will make those who matter in the Universal concept very happy and like butterflies they will fill your world with color.. Those who aren’t, well they will fly away like the mosquito you swatted away earlier this morning. The butterflies light up the landscape and fill you with life. The mosquitoes only bite and make you itch for some time after they leave. The mosquito bites remind you of a time when your skin wasn’t itchy, red and swollen. Your bliss. Your butterfly tree.
Now the Artist is laughing hysterically, clearly mocking me in my time of trial. Honestly, I start to laugh too. If anyone saw me they would think I am crazy but that’s only because they can’t hear the joke and I’m not sure many would get it if they could. Still, it is funny to me.
“Who built these walls?” asks the Artist in a manner one could find from the old, blind master in the Show Kung Fu I loved as a kid.
“I did” came my feeble reply. I know what is coming, so I grab my hammer in anticipation. No answer. Nothing. Only silence, not even a laugh.
“Come on, what the fuck,” I shout internally as to not alarm the neighbors to my conversation. I can hear the paddy wagon pulling up shortly thereafter and the rubber room door closing behind me.
“Just playing with you. Seriously, I thought you were going to hit me with the hammer young grasshopper.”
“The thought had crossed my mind, but that wasn’t my objective honestly.”
“Then what was?” asked my supposed tormentor and current Master.
I thought for a minute. I could have either chosen to build more walls or…
“I wanted to tear down the walls keeping me from you.”
More silence. I look at the clock and realize I have to get back to work. More walls. Same walls, whatever. I look at the stuff I need to do around me. Yep, walls galore. There’s nothing like looking at a beautiful rose and realizing that it is what you see that keeps you from it. It is also what you fail to see which, for most of us, is that we have already created a wall from the beauty without even realizing it.
Ok, fine. I get it. What you are reading people is my hammer, and it will tear down the walls. Actually, it already is.
Peace.
∞
∞
I close my eyes and see her, calm, seated, smiling, able. My mind so wants to define it all. She is “beautiful, sexy, smart, classy” and I want her. I see the outline of her breasts straining against her tank top, the length of her neck, the way she sits in a pose that defines strength and sex. I feel my heart racing, my breath quickening to the mental images my mind is flashing before me. I’m lost in the moment where my hormones have kicked in. They seemed to have shut down my eardrums, probably sending the blood from there to that growing spot down there.
I can’t hear a thing she is saying. I want to listen. She is so smart and articulate, which is often even more sexy than her body. Yes, that is saying something given that her body is so majestic to me. I want to know what is hiding under that tank, under those pants that are hugging her “great parts” so wonderfully well. I want to see, to touch, to taste. I want to devour her in ways that she wants repeated over and over again. Did she just ask me if I understand? Yes, I understand that right now I am a man and you are a woman. I’m thirsty and you are my drink. I’m hungry and you are my platter.
The desire within me is not from some deviant mechanism set to procreate the universe. No, it is from a place that desires not just that physical form I see, but the entirety of who she is. I want to be inside her in so many ways, not just in the physical manifestation of intense desire. I want to take her to orgasm not just in this act, but in every act we share. I want her delight in our conversation. I want her to tingle with even the though of my touch. I want to see her goose-bumps rise up to meet my fingers just in the anticipation of their arrival. I want her to smile at the mere thought of me.
I want to love her, to define this as forever. I want to explode in my complete desire, no unload the burden of my intention. Instead I close my eyes and breathe. I focus on her voice, that melodious tone accented against our Eastern-American venue. I hear her words clearly, her point totally. I blink into the moment and inhale the truth. This is Love.
Gone are the stories of horror told countless times to countless ears. Gone are the triggers that cause this barrel to explode in anger. Gone is the pain, the anguish, the torture of remembering the wounds. Please don’t touch the scars baby…let them be. Put the knife down…please. Don’t cut me anymore. I’ll bleed for sure and I don’t want to. Just understand.
It is in the warmth of the Sun that the chill of the air is most noticeable. You will hurt me, I know it. You always do. You will cast me aside or forget that I exist. You will not care about the scars, or the blood. You will do something that boggles my mind and breaks my heart. You will push me into the fire. I don’t know if you can help yourself. You will hide from me, torture me with your absence. You will blame me for hurting. You will tell me my feelings are worthless.
Yes, I blink back into the moment. Reality. Torturous reality. Yes, he is hot. Yes, you have your reasons. Yes, I have to understand. Yes, I have to believe you. Yes, I have to trust you, not my instincts. I know it’s an inside joke, or at least now I do even if it doesn’t appear anyone is laughing. Where is the joke if it isn’t there for anyone to see?
No, the visions don’t bother me. No, I don’t hear the voices that tell me you are lying. No I don’t want to think of you that way. No I am not an idiot. White is white and black is black until you create the gray. I know I need the gray. I know I need the doubt. It challenges me to find the truth or to ignore it. The truth, you say, is as clear as the nose on my face.
It’s the lie that seems to have killed it for me. Sure, it’s a game you play that no one else seems recognize playing in the conversation. It’s not making sense…every cell in my body suggests that this is a lie and it is one of many. I want to believe, I want to forget. I don’t want to see you this way. I don’t want to feel the ground of confidence crumble beneath my feet. I want to be strong, but the strength I have found in you is fading fast like a dying star. Soon it will be cold and black.
I don’t know what your reasons for lying are. Stop asking me. I am sure you have them, and if I knew them I would not be here. I close my eyes again hoping I can remember who you were, before the hotel and before a comment and your response that tested my faith in you. God I want you. Who are you seeing when you close your eyes? Fuck, I just want to remember who you were then and who I was with you. I want to forget who you are now and who I am. I just want to move the clock back when we would hide “us” from the world, when your eyes sparkled in the Sunlight and your body glistened in the ocean. Maybe I need to be your secret and make you nonexistent in my thoughts. Maybe it was better when you could do what you do and I had no clue. Maybe…
Please, dear God, take me back to the time when I knew, when it all made sense somehow. Take me back to the sands of the Jersey shore. Take me back to the vision of beauty standing in the ocean’s waves. Let me see the sureness I found in that smile, in that touch, in that moment when it all made sense. Let me find shells again, look for the lost stones and sands that time had claimed not too long. Let me bask in the glory of believing. Take me from this place and, for heaven’s sake, stop me from returning. Let me see…
∞
♥
I am not an island To be sheltered from the world To be kept isolated by a sea you have created Unsure of what is out there But needing to know all the same. What is there to hide From me my lover? What are you keeping me from As the tide crests upon the shore? The answers cause a rolling of the eyes. We pretend awash in awkward mediocrity that we bask in a light of awesome gratitude In the morbid isolation that fear creates. Yet we falter, we shrink before the embrace has even ended Our islands are not here, but where we stand separate from the truth. I do not care about excuses That would force me into the closets of your life I want freedom, I want to know to be a part of the land and sea not me But you, your world, your remarkable story. I will not settle for being anonymous In a world riddled with mediocre anonymity No, I want to be known, seen, heard and felt A reason for a smile, a cause for celebration With an ability to shout from the mountains our love without pause. For now I sit, as miserable as you With nothing left to see or do but watch the fire rage Our souls cannot cry out to us any louder Even as the song they sing creates tears in our eyes And a hole in that part where our story once lived. For now we suffer, alone in tempered misery Because we want to, we have asked for such a space A testament to our own stubborn insecurity Our own wants, our own desire, our own fears And our unwillingness to cater to each other. We are one, in our love and in our misery We are one.∞
Got this from Facebook, and it moved me to tears. Perhaps because I am not getting any younger, and I can see my life thus far following this man’s description. I wish he was around so that I could give him a hug and let him know he is loved, but alas he has passed. Maybe another lesson here is to share that Love with others while they are around to accept it? To steal a line from one of my favorite Pearl Jam lyrics (to Love Boat Captain):
“And the young, they can lose hope cause they can’t see beyond today,…
The wisdom that the old can’t give away”
Man, if we’d only listen from time to time! Anyway, I hope this has an effect on you as well.
♥
“When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.
And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.” ~Scott Sonnon (Facebook)
Cranky Old Man
What do you see nurses? . . .. . .What do you see?What are you thinking .. . when you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . . . . . . .. with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . … . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .’I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice . . .the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . .. . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . … lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .The long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking?. .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am . . . . .. As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, .. . . . as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . .. . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . .. with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . .. . . a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . ..my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .. . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . .. With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don’t mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. …Babies play ’round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future … . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .. . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . And the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man . . . . . . .. and nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age . . . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . . . . .. . I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living . . . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . .. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .. . . . .. . . open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see .. .. . .. …. . ME!!
Pass the tissues and learn the lesson Tom!
∞
♥
“You’re fucking this up!”
Her words hit him like a knife in the chest. He blinked slowly, deliberately trying to absorb what she was saying. He didn’t want to defend his position, he just wanted her to understand it. He wanted her to hear him, and to for once make a decision based on how he felt and what mattered to him. That’s all his statements had been about.
He loved her dearly, and she him. Each had their own crosses to bear, and while he so wanted to shoulder hers as they walked across the desert she demanded he leave her be. It was her desert; not his, not theirs, but hers and he was not welcome here.
An Unusual Love
Their’s had been a love unusual from the start. They had fallen in love before they met physically, sharing intimate details about themselves long before they had ever touched. They had walked through gardens together before they had held each other’s hand. They had forged a romance that was only solidified by their meeting.
This meeting was short but intense. Each had seemed to have found their Twin Flame in the other. They saw it in their first glance, found it in their first embrace and knew it in their first kiss. When he first entered her they found Paradise; finding that which binds the Universe and sets galaxies ablaze. They seemed to be on their way to perfection until the mind took over and the war began.
His battlefield was often set in his own mind. He knew how he felt, but he had this belief of what he wanted. He wanted a relationship that touted love beyond all measure, where he could be the man of a woman who so loved him as to set the world to destruction to defend him. He would, in turn, die for this woman in the blink of an eye if need be. They would support, defend, and love each other beyond measure and without question.
She had a different idea. She wanted a relationship absent of existence outside of it. She didn’t want him involved in the minutia of her life and didn’t want him mix with her life outside of the time they shared together. She would do battle with the world around her without him, and when she turned to him he would be an island untainted by the wars waged and battles fought. Each had their own crosses to bear, and while he so wanted to carry hers whenever possible she wanted nothing to do with the sharing of either hers with him or his with hers.
He wanted to share his life with her, and she wanted no part of it. She didn’t want to know his circle of friends or the roles he played within them. She had no desire to know or be with those he loved. She didn’t see a value in getting to know his world or to journey there with him. He, however, wanted to share his world and dive into hers. He wanted to share her joy with those she loved, be the one she reached out to in the crowded moments of her life. He wanted to know those who made her enjoy her life away from him. He simply wanted their lives to meld into one another’s like the day melds into the night. Each are separate while each are the same.
A Mindful Battle
There is no making sense to pretense of the mind. He could hear her fear and anxiety when they discussed the topic. He just wanted to cuddle her and pretend the world around them did not exist even as the winds of change blew around him. God he loved this women, and yes he would stretch his comfort zone to new limits in love with her. He would cope with not talking to her for days and not knowing a thing about her life outside of what she felt necessary to share. He would deal with the unsteady moments of anxiety and doubt because he trusted her beyond all reason. He would stand like a rock beside her even when his mind spoke words he never wanted to hear. He could close his eyes and see her even in her absence and know that at some place at some time she was living her life in the way she needed to.
There seemed to be no option. He had checked his ego at the door many times in their past. He didn’t mind, he didn’t want to have much use for his ego anyway. He could not fathom what he would need it for. There was no need for protection here, no need for selfishness beyond that which would make her smile. He fought back the voices of ego in a mindful battle waged each and every time he wanted to be a part of her life “beyond the bubble” (what he called the boundaries of their relationship). They had a glorious bubble indeed, but he so wanted to know what it was like outside of it.
Yes, the mindful battle he waged was worth it. Yet, there were times when he would sound the retreat and he would need to know. He wanted to know why he couldn’t step outside the bubble. What was wrong with the minutia of her life? What was wrong with him being a part of it? Couldn’t he be her island and still walk the world by her side?
He heard her say “no, I can’t live that way.” He heard her say forcibly that what is “normal” is not always what is right. “If you are happy and I am happy why ruin it? You’re only thinking and analyzing without feeling a thing,” she would protest in the heat of battle.
He knew she was right, but he knew he was right too. He didn’t want to live in a bubble devoid of outside contact with her world. He loved the bubble but he wanted it to be so much more. He wanted to be her man here, there and everywhere, not just in the solitude they had created for the “them” he so loved.
“Should I Forget It?”
He could hear himself asking the question. He asked it in the context of forgetting his own needs in favor of meeting hers, but soon found himself wondering if he should forget the bubble instead. It pained him greatly to even consider such an option. He simply loved this woman, but knew that in the very human way he lived he needed to be open in the world whether his, hers or theirs. He needed to walk with her wherever possible regardless of the terrain and continent they were on.
Still, how could he forget the way he felt in her arms? How could he move beyond the ecstasy of the moments they had shared? How could he forget the promise he made to himself; the one where his heart openly swore to be her Rock, her Mountain, her steady Lion? He couldn’t forget, and he knew that he could not cave to her fear. He could not walk away from her in her moment of need. Yes, it seemed to him that she needed him if for nothing else than to prove that there was a man in this world who could love her without control and who could stand by her even when she was the force driving him away.
So it seemed. Love’s own vow demanded he return to her when she was ready. It felt right to be by her side even if it were only in a bubble. It felt perfectly necessary to move onward even if that direction took him only a few inches from where he stood many moons ago. He was her King, she his Queen, and such a bond created by the gods could not be usurped by the bastard thief called his mind. He would stand by her; bloodied and wilted by the battle but standing tall all the same. Her hand in his he would face the demons, accept the reckless abandon of his Soul’s mission, and move on toward the place where they would meet in utter and complete ecstasy.
They had met where the Sun met the Earth at the dawning of the New Day. They had walked from there to here, and they could not be defeated by the momentary illusions of the ego. They were home. They were the island. They were one, and that was his choice and his vow. He would follow Love’s promise toward wherever that oath would take him and as he looked at his now empty hand he would wait patiently for hers to once again fill it. That was what the stars and the moons and the tides demanded, and that was the way it would be.
∞
♥
I gaze upon the Eastern way, looking for that spot where the Sun meets the Earth and a brand new day has dawned. Slowly I inch my way forward toward my life’s horizon, looking at my empty hand and feeling awash in the empty feeling that suggests that such a place does not exist. Not for me anyway.
The sands on which I stand are hot to my bare feet. The sands give way to the weight I carry and the burden I have no choice but to shoulder. Together we gazed upon the orange-crescent moon and shared the laughs of Lovers so caught up in the moment as to not know that this one could ever exist. Yet, the barren landscape on which I know gaze has come. A famine now exists where once stood fertile land, and the Sun’s once-loving gaze now draws the very life from all around me. The cloudless sky allows the radiation to drive deep within the soil and burrow deep within my skin as I struggle to move onward. I began this journey a gallant vestige of strength, able to stand tall among the trees and walk steadily through the grasslands. Slowly a slouch became evident in my gait as the summer winds grew hotter, and the grasses dried to sharp pins that hardened my feet to thick pads of skin unable to feel much of anything. Then came the sands as the dead grass blew away in the now brutal desert winds, and the brothel of mirages began their onslaught on my mind. Even my feet with their thickness found a hell in the terrain they now were forced to endure.
There would be many oases in this journey, each giving me pause to believe that such a place as Eden did, in fact, exist. I’d sheath my sword and drop my guard in each one; bathing in the springs and eating the nectar of the fruit each one had to offer. Ultimately I’d eat the wrong apple and be cast aside. In some I had to fight my way out, others I had fought to stay in. Invariably though in each I’d become an exiled warrior, and in each I could never return through some form of Divine curse, or promise, or a mixture of both.
Time would judge the battles waged as rarely worth the effort. Even with this wisdom tucked safely in my mind I would always fight. I loved the fruits; their sweet, supple nature as their flesh met my own. I loved basking in the glow of the morning Sun as It shined through the trees, the birds singing loudly as distant bells tolled the hour’s arrival. I loved inching my way into the crystal clear and cool waters freely provided as my body was caressed by Love’s great giving. Such things would often wear out their welcome, either in me or in them and I would be forced to flee or escorted to the gates unwillingly. My feet would always touch the desert sands, my brow would endure the desert Sun, my mind would battle the mirages set to ego’s great design.
In each experience, in each drop of blood and sweat, I would seek the understanding of the moment itself. The scars would not endure, the voices would not win, the mirages would not create my reality. No amount of false idolatry could replace the sweet caress of my Queen regardless of how many times the mirages would suggest such a caress was nothing more than a mirage itself. It must exist, it must be real or this journey would be for naught. Each distorted footprint left in the desert sands would be meaningless. Each moment in the grips of pleasure would have no meaning. I knew, if I just kept walking a moment more, that my Queen waited patiently for her King at that spot where the morning Sun kissed the Earth and conceived a new day. The Divine conceived this new day, my mind gave birth to it, and my body would live it indeed.
A moment’s pause, a deep breath, a quick exhale and I am ready to walk some more. The desire to be a Queen’s King so enthralled in Love with one another sets my feet in motion. Imagine being carried by a Queen who I can carry. Imagine being held by a Lover’s embrace so intensely as to never want to part. Imagine being the first thought of a woman who shares her victories and her defeats with her man immediately upon the determination of either. Imagine being the only desire of a woman regardless of how many options she may have. Imagine being so important as to be the focus despite the distance, time, or thoughts that separate you. Imagine such designs to be mutual creations of the human love shared by two Divine Lover’s in an eternal dance created by the Universe Itself.
Those thoughts make the miles fly by and ease the discomfort of each lonely footstep. She’s there, I know it. I’ve tasted her kiss, felt her move beneath me, felt her passion atop of me, and I’ve seen her beauty a million times with each blink of his eye. I will not find her by sitting still even if the stillness has helped me know her. I must continue on. I must not falter. She is looking for me as surely as I am searching for her. She is calling out my name as I echo her cries in the valleys and peaks of this path. She, too, is looking at her empty hand wanting mine to fill it. We both gaze upon another orange crescent moon peaking above the horizon and know we share this moment and that place. It keeps us pressing on, it keeps us wanting, and it keeps us knowing our destiny.
So, we move onward toward that destiny. Separated by time and space made irrelevant by the knowledge that we live within each other’s heart and soul. We close our eyes and see each other. We make love in each other’s nightly visions as our song is sung loudly through the mist of our slumber. We hold each other closely with the strong embrace of what must be. Our cells merge, our minds replaced by Something more as our hearts beat in rhythmic harmony. We are one even as we are separated, and our search will find us together at last in the eternal promise of Love. One day…
So, onward ho we go, each footstep a prayer, each moment defined in the narrowing of the desert between us.
∞
My Lover,
I lay and stare at the place where you woke up this morning. I can still see the indent of your body on the sheets, and I move over to seek your scent in the spot where you were. A tear wells up in my eye as I can smell you as if you were still there, stroking my arm and holding my head in your hand; our lips locked in a lover’s embrace. I close my eyes as that tear rolls down my cheek, burning into my Soul the memories that Love Itself has created. A tear born by Love yet shed by a Soul who is completely missing its mate; a tear that speaks loudly your name in the silence of a man staring at the place where he only wishes he could find you.
There are no words, my Lover, that I can create to describe this moment. There are no methods born that would describe the emotion of your parting. Your absence is the focus of this moment created only because of the absolute beauty of your presence. Like the warm waters spilling onto a sandy beach you are missed in the chill of a summer’s breeze. I have left these waters walking tall only to find myself kneeling in solitude hugging the sand longing for the sea. I cry out your name into empty air with only an echo in reply. So I lie in bed, seeking your scent in the hopes that, as the waves break in the shores of my mind, the waters will spray my soul and comfort me. If only for a moment.
I close my eyes in that moment. I remember it all. As sleep invades my weary mind I see you clearly, looking at me intensely. I can feel your hands cupping my face, drawing me closer to your own. I can feel the instant our lips touch and we began to move to a drumbeat not heard outside our hearts. I can feel you reach for me, drawing me closer to the edge of ecstasy before pulling me back in for more. I can sense it all, the sweat, the sounds, the way your soul speaks to me. I want nothing more than to never wake, to stay asleep in this dream for eternity. Dear Lord please…
~
Yet I awake, those prayers unanswered as were the ones that could keep us together until the sunset of the last day. I looked over at where you woke up yesterday morning, praying that your leaving was nothing more than some cruel nightmarish trick my mind was playing on me. Yet there I was, alone, staring once again at that spot where you were, seeking your scent if just for one more minute, one more moment of physical remembrance.
I will await your return, my Lover, and hold these moments as a sacred testament to that magic we call Love. This empty hand will be filled once more as the Oceans of our Being will again merge in ecstatic remembrance. Our eyes will meet, our lips will touch, our bodies will merge in that sweet harmony. Until then I will close my eyes and find that spot within me where you reside; where your imprint has been etched forever and your scent shall never fade. The tears that roll down my cheeks and spill onto my open Heart will only serve to water the flowers of my Love for you. I can sense you…you are here, forevermore.
Your Lover
I walk where I’ve never walked
See things I’ve never seen
Hear things I’ve never heard
And think things I’ve never thought
Just by putting my hand in yours.
I want so desperately to chase you
To ask you not to go
To kiss you one more time
And to bring your heart to places
It has never been before.
Imagine time more gentle
With the loving hearts of men.
Where waking and sleeping with you…there
Here, everywhere
That lonely side of parting never need return.
But I sit…here…
You are…there…
And you take a million dreams of mine with you
With that one kiss that said goodbye
Until we meet again.
~
A slight breeze swept across the flow of sweat that had covered my body.
The sweet torture of the work magnified even the slightest movement of air across my skin, highlighting the beauty of nature’s hand in every corner of my Being. Inhaling deeply I set myself to another set, another round, and the sweetness of the work my body was doing to cleanse my mind and renew the understanding of this, my physical self.
No judgments beset me as the sweat poured off of me to the ground below. Surely the grass beneath me found the salty taste of my work not to its liking. Surely the Earth would reject the bitter effect of my labor even as the Universe within embraced each and every moment. Surely as my muscles strained and my body shook in the heat of the Sun all that is in this moment would see a value to it all. The Universe knows Itself in such a challenge; when utter devastation wreaks creation, where utter chaos offers itself to the beautiful order of things.
Chaos is nothing more than the mind playing tricks with what it cannot understand.
Beyond the human mind chaos does not exist. This I see in the effort I am in as my mind creates havoc in the burn and the stretch while the Universe simply allows it to be. It is as it must be everywhere but in my mind, and as the Soul’s river works there flows a beautiful sound that suggests I am alive. The stillness after the effort allows me to hear that river flow majestically through the forest of my mind into the valley of my Soul. Out of chaos comes order, and out of experience we find there is no chaos at all.
As I gazed upon the Earth in this pose I noticed everything. I saw a tick crawling toward my firmly stationed hands as my sweat rains down all around it. My mind screamed “get away!” as I focused on this predator. It’s hungry. It needed nourishment just as I do. It smelled the sweetness of my blood through the air and it thirsted for a bountiful meal. My mind suggested that I was too good to be this lowly being’s meal. It could hurt me, it can could me pain. Who taught me that? Certainly not the Universe. Certainly not the tick. No, someone somewhere along the way taught me that ticks were horrible beings, that they must starve if we are to survive. Maybe it was through them that I learned the same thing about people.
I can remember having ticks pulled off me as a child, and burned. I remember wondering if they felt pain as the flame enveloped their tiny being. They looked so ugly, yet so delicate as they perished, my blood still coursing through the body I saw. Somehow I was one with them, and they one with me. We were inseparable, and as they vanished from this place a part of me vanished with them. Yes, there was a remorse in this cycle of nature that only a being who could see it would feel. This tick was just doing what the Universe demanded. It had no choice, it had no alternative. I did.
I raised my head and look at the trees in front of me, the approaching tick no longer a concern. If it could get me it could have me, and is I should see it I would remove it and let it go on its way. Yes, I had a choice, and my choice would be to not harm anything in this moment, not even the grass now supporting my weight. The Universe had decided to challenge me in many ways during this asana, and in one challenge it was to push the envelope of my mind toward acceptance; to make order out of the chaos. I smiled as I changed poses in time with my breath, the sweat now heading in the same direction but from a different place. I looked up at the cloudless sky and felt myself go there, following my outstretched hands to the very ends of my understanding.
“I am alive.”
I noticed birds soaring high overhead as I melt into the pose. A hawk circled high above me, perhaps believing I am nothing but a next meal. What did it see? A man working to hold a pose in the high heat of a summer day? A man struggling to understand himself in the valley of his life? A dead man not quite in the knowledge of his end? I wondered as I wished I could talk to this magnificent bird of prey. Tell me, my friend, what do you see when you look at me from your perch in the sky? What do you see when you see any of us men scurrying aimlessly about? How could you help me be more like you and less like me?
I switched back in time with my breath. My mind seemed to be screaming at me that there must have been a million ticks now aiming for various part of my body. In the pose I settled the drunken monkey back to more meaningful tasks. I could feel the sweat run down my head and drip off my face. I could feel it run like a morning dew down my arms which were now supporting all of me. I could sense nearly ever stream, every drop, every bead of me run down like water from a stone. My mind suggested that the grass was screaming at me to get away from it. How it hated the stringent taste of my work. How it despised holding my weight where I deemed it must. My Soul suggested something different. The grass beneath me loved me more than my mind did. It accepted my sweat with joy. It took on the weight of my struggle with an acceptance my mind could never fully comprehend. The grass wanted the experience of me even as much as my mind seemed to reject it. Yes, the yoga here wasn’t just me and my body, or me and my Soul, or me and my mind. It was a simple understanding that everything is yoga, everything is united and only separated by the drunken monkey those who killed ticks taught me was the only thing that mattered.
“I am alive.”
Switching to the other side and gazing back up at the sky I noticed the hawk had flew away. Or perhaps he never existed to begin with? All I knew is that he was no longer there. Maybe he had decided that I was not among the dead or dying yet, and that there were easier things to munch on. Perhaps in his yoga he had seen that his needs could be met elsewhere, or everywhere, or nowhere. Either way, I followed my outstretched hand once again beyond the bright blue sky into the space. I could almost see the light come out of my fingertips and flow freely out there, toward a place I so wanted to visit. I wanted to see what the Sun saw, but I also wanted to see the Sun as just another dot in the horizon.
I wanted to know the entirety of this place and the smallness I could see that allowed me to understand the enormity of who I was.
Someday, but for now my body screamed at me to end my practice, and to find peace in the work I had done.
Shavasana.
~