Author: tomgrasso (Page 3 of 38)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSeZO6UWa6g]

I swallowed my breath and went deep, I was diving, diving
I surfaced when all of my being was enlightened.

So…

I sit here among a crowd of loved ones and friends having the time of my life.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen some of them, but here we are talking it up like we just got together yesterday and telling old war stories.  I laugh, I smile, and every once in a while I chime in with some witty one-liner that gets everyone laughing.

The trouble is that it’s all fake.  I feel lonely here.  It isn’t them, it’s me.  I used to belong here amongst the laughter and revelry.  I used to fit right in as the story teller, the comic relief, the clown but now I feel like I am watching the play instead of starring in it.  I don’t want to be here, but something tells me that I need to laugh, I need the companionship, I need the time away.  Some thing tells me this…

I do love these people, and they love me.  I can feel it from them as surely as I can feel the tequila burning my throat.  It isn’t the lack of love I feel as I am very fortunate to count so many people as “loved ones”.  Many of these same people have walked with me during the various transformations I have undergone in my life, and here they are, still my friends and still people I love very much.  They have seen the best and the worst, and they have loved me enough to not only stick with me, but love me as few could.  That, my friends, is truth.

Another truth is that I feel very lonely in the crowd.  I don’t feel this way when I am alone.  In fact, being alone is becoming much easier for me than being here is.  I am not playing a role as I sit in silence.  I am simply sitting.  I do not play a role as I suddenly get up and do some asanas in my living room.  Here, I am hiding from something.  I am drinking this tequila to hide from something.  I am laughing to hide behind something.  I am telling jokes and poking fun to hide from something.  It’s a numbing practice that exposes the deeper part of me to the part of me that is watching.  I am not where I want to be.  I am in hiding.

Better yet, if I am not in hiding, I believe this feeling is trying to tell me that I should be.

Who am I?  Well, I’m Not a Mango

Uh oh.  Not that question!!  I ask it to drive someone crazy actually.  I have been told that asking that question is counter-intuitive to personal growth, that we should be “eating the mangoes” instead of asking how they got there.  The trouble with that analogy is that I don’t care how the mangoes got there, I care about how I got to the mangoes.  I care why they taste good to me, why this place is so beautiful to me.

That understanding only comes with with an understanding of who I am.  I’d have to eat some lemons in order to appreciate the sweetness of the mango.  There is a reason I’d want to get “all messy” in the juices.  There is something that has brought me here, and I want to know it.  Not so that I can forget about this beautiful present moment, but so that I can value it.

What makes the Sunrise so beautiful?  Usually it’s the darkness of night.  What makes the warmth of a fire so awesome?  Usually the bitter cold of a winter’s day.  I can best value the wonderful present moments I have if I understand what makes them so wonderful.  If I fail to realize that, then that moment’s true potential is lost for eternity.

So, I want to understand the path that brought me to the mango grove.  I want to know the cuts I got as I cut a rose for my beloved.  I want to appreciate the bruises she got climbing her Mountain because it will help me best value the moment when she arrives all battered and torn.  It doesn’t detract from the moment, it enhances it.  To ignore the journey is to not fully realize the destination.  At least this has been my experience.

If I fully want to appreciate the mango I need to experience the lemon.  In this way the lemon has equal value to the mango, and they are both perfect.

Going to the Mattresses

Ok, so here I am.  I am sitting here laughing and talking and drinking and getting all sloppy.  A cute blonde is hitting on me, but I have no interest in doing anything but feeling all lonely and sloppy.  I still feel a tie to my past, to her, and that means that I am not going home with anyone but myself tonight.  I check my cell phone to see if she has sent a text, or an email, and then I look at her picture.  I obviously am either stuck in the mango grove or in some past hedgerow.

“What if the blonde is the mango and ‘she’ is a thorn bush keeping me from the fruit?”

I laugh at the idea and wish I could share it with her.  She wouldn’t appreciate the irony of it all, but who else would get the reference?  Damn, irony sucks and so does this present moment lost so eternally in what should be.

I check out the blonde to see if I have any moment of doubt.  She’s very attractive, and this would have been a “no brainer” months ago.  Still, she doesn’t have her eyes, or her mouth.  The blonde puts her hand on my leg and whispers in my ear, “I don’t live far from here and my house is empty.”

“I do, and I have to get up early tomorrow after a very early day today.  Once this buzz wears off, I am outta here.  Sorry.”

We swap phone numbers and next times, but I lose the number about 3 seconds later.  It just doesn’t feel right.  I am so ready to leave this place.  I have two competing voices in my head, one calling me a fool for passing up a night with a hot blonde, and the other calling me a fool for even thinking about it.  My smaller head is screaming at the larger one, and the larger one is screaming back, “don’t blame me, it’s that damn thing in his chest that is fighting with us both!”

That damn thing in my chest is telling me it is time to head for the mattresses (if you need to know what that means, watch the Godfather).  I need to clean out some inventory, clear out the cobwebs and figure this shit out.  I feel like I need to become a hermit for a while, meditate and find whatever it is I am searching for.  I need to find some love for me.  I need to forgive myself for what I have done.

That damn thing in my chest wants to share itself with others.  It wants a special woman to share itself with.  It wants a lover to appreciate it.  It wants to learn and apply those lessons to the betterment of everyone who touches it.  It wants both the larger and smaller heads to do its bidding.

It’s time to go into hiding.  It’s time to “go deep” and not to surface until “all of my being (is) enlightened.”

I know where I want to be, and I know how I need to get there.  What I’m not sure of is whether or not I have the balls to do it.  If I don’t, well then as some wise Master once told me, I will repeat these patterns over and over again.  I don’t want to be here again suggesting déjà vu.  I want to be free.

I have created all of my own suffering.  Why can’t I help mySelf?

The old friend is back.  A calm resolve enters my Being, a subtle rage fills my mind.  I will not succumb.  I will not be made a fool of.  I will not lose my grip on the safety of this place.

I’ve been here before, and I’ve survived.  I am, in effect, invincible.  Kick me and be kicked.  Smack me and be smacked.  Fight me and lose.

Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale again.  Smile in the realization.  Find the soft spots and make them hard.  Find the hard spots and temper them.  Realize that pain is a gift from those who wish to expose your weaknesses.

I welcome the shunning.  I welcome the ignorance.  I embrace it all, even from those who would watch the blood stream down my face with a smile on their own.  They are my truth, they are the ones who show me the most.  They are the ones who bring on the winter to which I will build a fire.  They will inspire me to great feats of strength.

They are liars who inspire great honesty in me.  I will not enter into their weakness.  I will not participate in their shallowness.  I will rid myself of excess and welcome the hunger.  I will cut, I will bleed, and I will drink my own blood in front of their worried faces as I laugh at the fact that they believed they had me.

The path has brought me here and now I am steel once again.  Fuck the absence of truth, the pretentious feeling of warmth that never existed.  They have not seen me before, they have only heard rumors.  Now they will see me in my glory.  I am not your pussy.  I am not your lamb.  I am your fiercest Lion, and I am coming for dinner.

I have risen.  I have awoken.  I am the Warrior.

He had lived in this cave for far too long.  He had long identified with its darkness and solitude that surrounded him within its confines.  He had gotten use to the dampness and the hardness of this place, and the security he believed he had when there.  Nothing could disturb him here.

Actually, he had started to understand that nothing wanted to disturb him here.  Most had become accustomed to their own caves, their own sense of comfort and light, and his seemed too dark and cold for their liking.  Every once in a while he would find some company in this place, but those encounters usually didn’t last very long.  He had grown accustomed to being alone, in the dark, and completely protected by the walls he had grown to love.

Once, he began to feel stirrings within him.  He wanted to know what was outside of this place, what went on out there.  He started to edge his way to the doorway, but each time he got close the light would drive him away.  There was something scary about the light, something unusual about it.  Each day he would try, and fail, to leave the cave, but each day he would find that the light hurt less and less, and soon he discovered that he could see things.

After a while he could make his way out the opening.  There were no walls he noticed.  He could see upward as far as the blue sky.  He could see in every direction until the Earth met the sky.  He felt him most comfortable at night, as the cold night air and darkness reminded him of that place.  He smiled at the notion that his cave went from “this” to “that” place.  Perhaps he wasn’t missing it as much as he wanted to believe.

At night, he could see as far as infinity as he looked toward the Heavens.  The stars let him know that the darkness held no power, that the real power was in the light.  He would not have been able to see the blackness of infinity had it not been for the light.  The light defined it all and gave it form.  The blackness allowed him to see the light, just as a wall gives a window its form.  He could lie there and stare at the sky for hours, enjoying his new perspective and watching as even the vastness of the Universe changed before his very eyes.

Nothing was permanent.  Even infinity changed.

He wanted to know more, he wanted to experience and to know what was beyond the place he found himself.  He came across fruit trees and tasted the fruit.  This is what is out here he though to himself with each bite of sweetness.  Every once in a while he would recoil at a bitter taste, but realized that this is what is out here.  The bitter made the sweet taste what it was, and vice versa.  Neither was permanent, both were of the moment.  Neither would last very long.

Soon, his body became strong in the searching, and his mind became resolute to understand this experience.  He would cut, he would bleed, he would heal.  He would laugh, he would cry, he would laugh again.  He would feel the heat of the Sun, and the chill of the rain on his bare skin.  He would climb, he would fall, and he would climb again.

Nothing is permanent, and the search for understanding is a testament honoring that impermanence.  I once sat in my cave, content with only that, and search has brought me here.  He bowed his head in solemn appreciation for that which has brought him to this place.

Once he came across a Fire.  He had never felt such intense warmth or enjoyed such light.  The Fire was strong enough to beat back the rain, and it dried his skin when the rains had subsided.  It warmed him when the chill came, and lit this place when the darkness came.  He would feed the Fire, give it fuel, and it would give of Itself in return.  Both were unselfish in their giving.

Soon, the Fire needed more fuel.  He looked around and saw that he had taken, and given, all there was.  The Fire began to withdraw and took Its light and warmth with It.  Is there anything else I can give?  The Fire responded by continuing Its withdraw, until soon there was nothing left but glowing embers among the charred remains of all things that had been given.

With an unsure mind he poked around in a dying fire looking for a warm ember in which to warm his hands. Finding none, he returned to his cave, unsure of his return.  A part of him welcomed the walls, the chill, and the darkness.  He sat here, still, knowing that this place truly no longer suited him.  He had grown to love the warmth, the light, and the freedom of no walls.

Sitting in the darkness he realized that the Fire had become just like the cave.  He needed that cave at times, and he needed that Fire at others.  The need is the prison.  Need is the mindless desire to make impermanence permanent. 

He knew he would find Fire again, but he also knew that he didn’t want to need to find it.  He didn’t want to need to have It warm him, or light his way.  Despite this, the shivering of his body told him that he would have such a need.  He was, after all, a man.  A man whose search had taken him from darkness to light, from cold to warmth, and back again.  He knew the taste of sweetness and bitter in this search.  He had seen the freedom of infinity and confines of the walls he called “safe”.  He had been wounded and had been healed.  He knew, and for that he was grateful.

He looked toward the cave’s opening, and with a smile stood up and started to walk.  It was there that he met Her, and the sparks lit a Fire anew…