Do not fret, for the lightning may crash and the thunder may roll, but just beyond the darkness lies the light you seek. Endure, for the open arms of love await you through your fear.
Author: Tom (Page 8 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 hear a subtle song, Southern bells ringing in the distance, Yet the flag flying Half-staffed, My heart sinks into laughter. What lyrics mention those whispers, Where light breezes move the stiffened pine, The bluegrass moistened by the softness of her touch, I hear it all, Though speak nothing of its wonder.
Where will my heart be when smoke billows from the embers? The clouds beg for my repose, I give them nothing but life roaring from my chest, The fight raging through the weary part of stories told, Waken, I say, and enter the truth of her forever. There's a seat for us at the peak of that there mountain, A solitude made for two, the lightning rings beholden, I feel her ease me into that promised land, Takes me whole, I seldom shudder in this amazement, Her prayer a scream that echoes in the canyons far below. Such this dream...not forgotten through the ages, Ecstasy reborn through the stars we kiss on longing skin, Stories we write on flesh begging us for more, Time spent not here, or there, but everywhere, Floating whispers that have finally found their home.
Found in This (A Poem)
The senses tingle,
Full of grace,
The smell of you,
Fills this space.
And here I am,
Lost in bliss,
Right next to you,
Found in this.
Within our time,
A moment dear,
We shed ourselves,
And a joyful tear,
A single touch,
A playful kiss,
Our truth is told,
And found in this.
We give it time,
To answer fear,
And before we know it,
The end is near,
So I live this moment,
I can’t resist,
The life of love,
I’ve found in this.
And thus, the art of fearless ingenuity, of passion-full connection and of courageous togetherness was lost to one meaningless voice.
We were lost, and we knew it. The sands in the hourglass of our moment had run thin. The voices were winning and the slope seemed too steep even for us to climb. All we need do from here was await that final breath, and the eternal darkness that followed.
What is, in the minds of beings who protest their awokeness and who can pen messages of hope on thin are, the end? Who are those who can write great works of nature from the cloister of their own fear? What masters are we who have not yet mastered ourselves? What teachers can we be if we, in our own moment of uncertainty, have not yet learned the lessons we so eagerly preach to others?
We are none of them, of course. We are covered in blankets of the hypocrisy that gets our souls to cringing. We are shrouded in the fog of our misgivings, standing at the pulpit speaking words we cannot hear and reading prose we only wish we would have written. Regret, the constant companion of the disciple of fear, whispers hopes of “next time” and oaths of some future accomplishment. If only that stalwart student who trembles in the darkness of his own mind could realize that all he seeks is with him as he sputters; that light is just within his grasp.
For the chosen few who nearly die to find their life, who nearly drown in the quicksand of despair to find a perch high above the peaks, there is a calmness in the darkness. He who has met the Reaper cannot fear it. He who has made friends with the sadness cannot drown in it. He who finds respite in the darkness cannot loath its arrival. We may nap in the sunlight, but real sleep can only be found in the pitch black of solitude. We sleep alone, even if we snore in a crowd.
What is life but boredom without such wisdom? We will always run from shadows we have not befriended. We will always be cut but blades we have not mastered. We will always be slaves to thoughts we have not accepted. Who was I but a boy before I accepted who I am? Who was I but a baby before I knew who I was? Who was I but a thought before I fell in love with heart that colored my flesh and sent tears streaming down my face? I was nothing but a sculpture of other artists, and until I took the hammer and the chisel to my own story did I realize the beauty beneath the stone. From there I could be me without excuse or lie be told. I could be then unabashedly beautiful.
I hold the hand of truth as we walk together into today, dreaming about tomorrow with the certainty that nothing we say may be but a promise, and that one day the aberration may arrive to test our mettle. The warrior will stand tall, bloodied but not defeated, and he will not surrender even in the moments when he gives ground. He will call out to his friends in the darkness, look into the eyes of the Reaper, only to discover that fire burning brightly within him. They will confirm his truth in their opposition to it, and reveal his zest for life in their calling for its end. Warriors, it seems, know victory from the throes of their defeat, and know rising from the harshness of their falls.
What we lose as we fumble in the darkness can be found when we grasp the torch of our truth. We must choose one or the other, we must surrender or find a way to victory. We must either walk through the pain or rot prostrate wallowing in our insanity. Which to choose is ours to choose, we wave the white flag or fight on to plant our colors upon high ground.
It’s there, on that high ground or in the muck of the valley below, that we find the real new earth. It’s beyond what some guru suggests you will find if you just do something they do. It’s past the shiny lakes and mystic ponds others would call “enlightenment”. It seems, to me, to be finding oneself in the muck, in the clear waters, in the rays of sun on a cloudless day and in the torrential downpours of storms and cyclones. The real new earth is, in my experience of it, whatever I define it to be in the moment I seek it. Sometimes its the victory lap, and sometimes its the humility of defeat. It’s rarely the same thing twice.
When we finally stand our ground, accept our sadness and our joy, and stake a claim to the life we choose to live we have discovered our earth, our home, our sacred shrine. It’s our birthright is we just choose to defend it.
Bathing in the morning Sun I sit, Wandering in the muses of masters who stood before, Their dream now mine, Their prose running through my veins, I bow to the gods of words before me. Though not sure of myself, I hear their song rising in the distance, And I know they know, So whilst I bargain for a seat at Nature's table, All I need to do is hear the geese sing. For the geese know more than I, Awakening to a purpose that pours from their within, Taking to flight with the Divine gifts of their birth, Truth to a soul that guides them to wherever they may go, They know, the geese, they always know.
The morning. I love the morning; its promise, its peace, its solitude. A part of me is thankful most don’t like to wake up early. Bathing in the wondrous shards of dawn scattered about the western sky, I can marvel at the promise arising on the eastern horizon without ever hearing a complaint. I can just exist in the respite, touching the face of the God I have found, enjoying peace as I commune with a nature most have either forgotten on not known at all. I pity them, for nothing seems to act as a reliable mirror to the soul as the nature we were born into. We may have forgotten her, but she has never forsaken us. Not even in our current state of denial.
In my experience, nature is never more alive than she is in the early morning. It seems creatures both earth-bound and taken to the sky rejoice in nature’s transformation from darkness to light. The grass looks greener, the air feels crisper, and the mountains look even more majestic bathing in the orange hue of a brand new day. The blood flowing through a man’s veins seems more energized as he shakes off his evening slumber, reminding him that he is quite a part of something bigger than his job, his thoughts and the opinions others may have of him. He is, if nothing more, as much of the sunrise as he is part of the night’s darkness. I feel as if I can howl as I sit still spinning on my Earth, and I know if I do it will be part of this great chorus that surrounds me, awakens me, and takes me to heaven.
On this morning I can hear the long-lost chants of my Native brothers and sisters playing through time. I can sense my soul touching the face of a Spirit guide, the one who has shown me much in my journey and reminded me of who I am. I can hear the footfalls of warriors paying homage to a great fire in the sky, and sense a caress of a great Chief piercing my sky to touch my heart directly. I don’t feel worthy. I know, he says. I’ve never felt worthy. Yet the Sun rises for you, he says. Should it? You cannot stop it, he replies. She loves you and shines on in your heart even when your eyes are closed. The warms the insect and the gods alike, and glistens on the smallest puddle the way she shines on the largest sea. Just shine, he says.
I want to cry, but a smile crests my lips instead. I want to feel sorry for myself, but a warriors song springs from my chest. I want to wallow in the mud like a swine, but instead I take to flight like the eagle. I am not looking for prey as I soar. I am searching for liberation from the lies I would believe. The lies I tell myself. The lies I hear from others. A man cannot live on bread alone, he says. No, he needs to live on freedom from himself as well.
This moment must end. There are responsibilities to be met, money that must be made, people that must be helped. The sigh that pours from my soul begs for a morning that never ends; where words can be written and stories shared as a way to accomplish all things that face me this day. A sigh that is a prayer to something to see me through yet another moment of being something else. A sigh that is a hope that somehow, someday, tomorrow’s morning will be different.
Sometime,
Before the moment the me I am existed,
I stood there in a dream,
Wondering which path it was I’d travel.
I chose the one that made me bleed,
That threw me into the pits,
That cast me aside into the whims of fools and folly,
I dreamt there’d be something more.
I found the one where tears flowed wildly,
Where solitude forgave the acrimony of the crowd,
And I could sit before a fire,
Warming my frozen heart into puddles on the ground.
Birds could sing loudly as the morning sun approached,
I could feel alive as I once tasted the bitterness of death,
I could feel love through the broken shards of hope scattered on the floor,
Lost, I was found through the miracle of my own confusion.
Thus I was born not to ride the placid surface of a lake I’d rarely see,
But to toss and turn on waves birthed by storms on oceans where able vessels go to die,
Though strong I could splinter on rocks that would cast my soul aside,
Weakened by a force of nature carving the path that I had chosen.
The moment before the me I am existed.
The moment before the truth I am was known.
The moment before they ever knew my name.
In the soft sand, the footprints once remained,
A testament to a journey known,
A wondering soul, the shoreline pointed me in its own direction,
The security of a compass not my own.
The waves then came, and washed it all away.
On the rocky incline, something more mine,
I found myself in the courage each footfall demands,
The challenge of the thinned air,
The struggle to breathe renews the belief I have…
…in me.
There are some things the waves can never wash away.
To rest on stone washed by a million drops of rain,
To brush off dust left by winds so long ago,
To touch the flesh of trees who have stories of their own,
I am so blessed, to be such a young, forgotten one.
We have this folly in our minds,
Addicted to the sanctimony of our supposed injury,
The stories we hold on to in our delusions of grandeur.
I wish to hold on to nothing then, but me.
And then, I will be free.
I’ve found love in the echoes of these canyons,
Found myself in that quiet solitude, broken only by a hawk’s song,
Discovered truth under the veils of lies that I was told,
Found life flowing under the stilled currents of its ending.
There is no return to the weakness of my yesterdays,
No gleam in the eyes of the demons in my mind,
A choice made, I would walk to places beyond my imagination,
A choice lived in each end and each beginning.
My foot rises and falls in hope for just another…
The crow sings beyond my window, and I just stare,
It’s wings just beg to touch the sky,
It’s talons just want to grasp at solid footing,
But its soul…it’s soul will use what it must to get it there.
A dove flew by and I swear it peeked into my heaven,
Please, my friend, tell me what to do.
Alone I sit, befuddled by my mental indignation,
“Come back to me, and teach me how to fly.”
A sigh, I sit alone some more.
Under the darkness I slept, transported into a dreamscape of someplace wonderful. In the expanse between this space and time’s horizon there is nothing but perfect crystals poking through the nighttime sky, and I am a man transported from mortality to eternity. I feel the pulsing of my heartbeat against the stillness of my mind, my body both awakening and resting as the cool breeze brushes along my skin. In this slumber I hear the rustling of the trees just outside my door, and it seems my breath tries to keep pace with the natural rhythm of the Earth’s gentle winds. I’ve dozed here, surrendering to subtle pleas for rest and, hopefully, for a chance to find her once again.
I miss her in these moments of our separation, and when I can’t touch her hand I reach out for her in my dreams. There was a time when she was but a wish, a formless mist in the pulsing of my heartbeat, the rhythm of a breeze that had me looking for her everywhere I could. I’ve searched for her in the lonely trails that took me from someplace low to someplace high. I called for her in the lush canyons and heard my heart’s echo in reply. I felt her coming near as pieces of me fell away, as my soul shed those needless bags and blunders that once defined who I was. Those pieces left a trail as I walked and, somehow, I felt she was following them straight into my waiting heart.
Soon, I realized I was not walking a path just my own. She was leaving a trail as well, and the pieces we were leaving looked very much the same. It seemed as though each stone I turned in my search for her was a stone she had left behind, and each echo made in canyons was not my own voice, but her song reminding me the path I was on would be so worth the effort when we finally met. Our poems sometimes seem written by the same hand, our hearts seem to know the same breeze, our embraces seem to somehow have always been. If there were lifetimes before this one, I’ve known her there. I’m pretty sure we’ve walked together before, or flown the same skies, or swam in the same oceans. My soul knows hers, and hers mine. We’ve been this way before.
I miss her in my sleep, and often rejoice when I awaken in the night to see her silhouette nestled nicely among the shadows. I can find her form in any disarray, the way she rests and hides herself from the noises of the night. I sometimes just stare at her in this portrait, the pixels of time and fate mixing into the rhythmic breezes and hopeful prayers of a warrior who has found his home. Not wanting to disturb her, I caress her in my heart and whisper my truth through the ether into her waiting heart. Then I drift off again, content in the peace of her presence and in a love that has been in our dreams forever.
On this night, I rest alone in a dream of my own making, breathing in a mystic’s rhythm with love pouring from my grateful heart. Then the miracle arrives, and I hear her call out my name. I lay with that sound, the vibrations coursing in the stillness creating little ripples in the puddles of my mind. I stir a little, then feel her hand on my shoulder.
“Come to bed honey. I miss you.”
I smile a warrior’s smile. It’s the kind of smile of a grateful man who finds himself wedded to perfection smiles, that type of smiles that crests on a once-starving man’s lips once he’s feasted on something far superior to bread alone. I stir, excited to lay next to that perfection and feast on my own gratitude.
I can hear her say “I’m not perfect” and utter my truth.
“You are to me. And you need be nothing more than yourself to be that perfect.”
Her being her has never been anything less than perfect for me. I may be challenged in my own frailty while standing in her light, but her light has always shown me another way. I may feel fear in walking on trails I’ve never walked before, but I’ve never doubted the safety of our space. My black and white may be challenged by her gray, but she has always steadied me in those transitions from what I know to what is possible. I’ve never viewed those challenges in terms of being right or wrong, for in this love I’ve never been wrong in trusting her. I’ve never been more right either.
I sit up to make my way up to bed, realizing I was dreaming just the moment before. I turn toward the stairs, half-expecting to see her standing there waiting for me to follow her. There is nothing looking back at me, not a shadow, not a glance, not a smile; just empty air. I grumble a little sigh, feeling the sadness that often comes when realizing that beautiful dreams sometimes don’t match our reality. I stand, and head toward the stairs and up to bed, realizing that nightmares don’t match my reality either. I can’t help but smile in the lesson.
When I was securely swaddled in my blankets, I breathed deeply to say my “good nights” and offer my well-wishes. Something dawns on me in this pre-slumber ritual. I was in peace, the type of peace that I feel when she is near me. I looked over to the empty space on my bed, and instead of sadness I felt that beautiful peace. I could not feel her skin, but I could feel her. I could not hear her breathe, but I could feel her breath in my own. I could not talk to her in the shadows of this night, but I could talk to her in the light of my soul. My body wanted her near, but in the caverns of my soul we lived together, never to part even as our flesh went in different directions. My mind is troubled in our separation but my Being is never far from hers.
A man in the truest spaces of love must learn to reconcile the cravings of his mind with the knowings of his heart. He must learn to breathe with the rhythm of her nature. He must find gratitude in the breezes of togetherness that cool his skin after he’s been baking in the Sun of solitude. He must trust the process of life to bring him to loving waters when he thirsts, peaceful feasts when he hungers, and contentment’s rest when the fatigue of longing becomes too great for him to bear. He must trust in a truth – sometimes he will leave his footprints for her to follow, sometimes she will leave hers for him, and in other times they will etch their time together on the same trail at the same time. Either way, he has found her and she him, and they finally know each other again. How far they’ve come since the days when they could only dream of one another, and hope for that arrival.
I miss her. In that there is no lie. It’s a solemn truth that makes itself known in every hour of our separation. There is also another truth. I have found her, and in doing so have become the luckiest man alive. On this night, both truths have mixed into one, my black and white has transformed into her gray. What more could I ask for?
In my dreams my mind issued a challenge to my heart, and I awoke to a realization.
In the experience of reality, I wonder what is actually real. Are the thoughts dripping in my head real? Is the doubt that often invades my certainty an instinct or simply a voice from the past? Is what I feel in my gut or in my head? How can a mere man tell the difference?
I often search for things to confirm my security or my doubts. Despite my fear of heights,I was once high-angle rescue technician. That fear, coupled with the dislike of pain and injury, caused me to check things repeatedly before getting “on rope” and trusting my life to it. I would look for issues with the rope, for problems with my harness, for abnormalities in the gear and the correctness of the knots. I made sure the team was trained and able. More importantly, I was also confirming the integrity of those things before giving them my trust. When I knew things were right, I would breath out my fear, hop over the edge, and head downward. Nothing exhilarated me more than facing my fear and defeating it on its own turf.
Perhaps that is a wonderful metaphor for my life when facing the various fears I’ve accumulated over the years. I have, as I am sure many have, been in some extremely dark and cold places. Oddly, when I would survive one dark corner of my world another would eventually come that changed my understanding of what darkness really was. I’ve also learned that my perspective, like my eyes, don’t actually adapt to the level of darkness in a space. They adapt to how much light is present. I’ve learned to seek out the light.
I still do not like pain and injury, although I’ve developed a high tolerance for both. So, I’ve learned to check, and recheck, things in my life to best ensure my survival. I check the integrity of the proverbial rope. I inspect my “gear” to ensure its strength. I ensure those who will be on my team are equal to the task at hand. Then I go on rope, and begin my journey into fear prepared. I may still fall, and I may still get hurt, but it won’t be because I ignored the things within my power to address. I knew I could only control so much, meaning my own actions and my own mind, but that I also had no control over so much my life and well-being depended on.
In the fire service, we learn techniques to give us the best chance to survive. We “sound” floors before entering a room. We check the roof before getting on it. We size up a scene before working a fire. Mostly, we rely heavily on our own experience and training to get out of many precarious scenarios alive. My experience (and the loss of some friends) taught me to instinctively check things. Constantly. Without fail.
So, I awaken to the drip…drip…drip of a nagging thought pressing on my heart. I start checking the proverbial rope, the lifeline I’ve tied to the anchor of my life, running my bare hand along its braided sheath looking for distortions. I check the knots I’ve used to bind me to the steadfastness I seek, looking for loose ties and uncertain bindings. I go within to ensure I’m thinking clearly, and that I’m certain of my plan. Then, I step off, trusting my instincts and hoping those I’ve placed my trust in won’t let me down.
I’ve gone on rope.