Tag: realization (Page 1 of 5)

My Little Girl

August 25, 2022 / Tom

There she was, my little girl, getting set to leave me.

Yeah, I know. As the cliche goes, she wasn’t really leaving me. But she was. It was her time, and she was grasping it. It was a moment she had worked hard for, and she was taking it. I was the nest and she was flying away. All I could do is watch.

Was it really, though, all I could do? Of course not. As a man in love with a woman, in this case a Dad in love with his Daughter, I could do quite a bit. I could encourage her. I could help her. When she looked back, I could be there. I could offer a whisper, or a shout, or I could just be silent. This wasn’t about me, so whatever decibel level she needed ,she would have. Otherwise, I’d keep my mouth closed and my heart open.

Her older sister had left too. That was different, though. Her sister stayed close to home, so was within a short drive should she need me. My Little Girl, in the truest form of her being her, decided to go out of State, a not-so-short 7 hour drive from home. This was her toughness showing itself, her badassness claiming ownership of her life, and her independence shouting “I will let you know when I need you.” It was all the things I loved about My Little Girl, and all the things the Dad in me wanted to change even as the heart in me refused to try.

I always just wanted her to be her. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Day Had Come

So now it was the day. The day I had both loathed and looked so forward to. This was the day when I could no longer protect her easily or be there quickly if she called. The day when all of my admiration of this warrior woman would mix with all my regrets as a Dad, when all of my hopes for My Little Girl meshed with all my fears of her departure. The day when she was to give birth to herself, and her parents would become more of passive spectators than of active participants.

I stood in amazement as she was born, first crowning and then flying out of the womb. I watched her fight for life her first 10 days of it, and stood in awe of this baby who was somehow strong, independent and never willing to give up. Memories sprouted of when she would push her older sister around on a Playskool trike even before she could walk on her own. Yeah, this was a badass.

I can remember those moments when she’d hide behind her mom or me, afraid of new parts of the world showing themselves. Then one day she took off, facing the world fearlessly with a field hockey stick in hand. She transformed from the shy girl who would never talk to anyone into a kick-ass champion almost overnight. This had been her way since the day of her birth, and this would be her way on the day she gave birth to herself.

I know this was not really the day she had given birth to herself. It was, however, the day I saw her as a woman, and as someone I knew would do well as long as the world did not try to fuck with her. She had birthed herself long before I saw it and in the gradual stages that led to this day. In this moment, though, my eyes were fully opened even if shrouded by tears.

The Lesson Learned

Like any good lesson, this one keep evolving and showing itself. She’s gone, but still here. She calls and texts and send pictures in her time, in her way, just like always. I am not there to protect her, but perhaps she doesn’t need my protection as much as she once did. I’m not there to help her when she calls, but I’ve realized she rarely called for help. She has always helped herself, and figured it out, and proved to us all that she is capable of being…her.

I’ve come to realize that my fear was not of her leaving the nest, but of my failing to be there should she need me. I feared not being needed, not that she wasn’t capable. My fears had little to do with her, they were all about what I saw as my own shortcomings.

Just as she has since the moment I knew she existed, she continues to teach me lessons. Her older sister started the process and her younger brother keeps it going, each of them teaching me in unique ways. Just like her sister, neither is my little girl anymore but both will always be My Little Girl. My son will always be My Boy, no matter how big and strong he gets. That’s the thing about being a Dad. As we get older we had better get wiser, or we will simply cease to exist. It’s also true of being a human. Sometimes we’re frail. Sometimes we’re even pathetic. Yet we are blessed with the power to learn lessons, to effect change in ourselves, and to change the world in our newness. We are fucking powerful that way, and sometimes…well usually…all we need is something to love to show us the way to greatness.

Are You Okay?

September 2, 2020 / Tom

He had heard something once in the darkness of his mind. A simple question with meaning beyond his comprehension. It would echo through the entirety of his life.

“Are you okay?”

A boy sitting alone, waiting for the beating to come. He used to turn off the lights in his room, thinking he could find some security in the darkness, but the lights would always come back on. The lights signaled the beginning of hellfire, the darkness a place where he could find some strength in his solitude. Eventually, when the beasts weakened and had their fill, the lights would turn off again. That’s when he’d hear the question of one beast to the other.

“Are you okay?”

A young man laying in a drunken stupor wishing the woman next to him would go away. His flesh was so weak but yet he indulged; his mind so wounded he’d need numbness in attempts to not to feel the pain. His drunkenness was not an addiction, but he thought it would be a nice distraction. Something would drive the demons from his mind. Something would heal the wounds the lighttime had inflicted. There had to be something that would show him love. He would turn to the woman and ask, “are you okay?” She’d smile, always wanting more.

There was little more he had to give. Still, the flesh would be willing even if the mind had withdrawn to someplace safer. There, in the darkness of his mind…

“Are you okay?”

It wasn’t the question he sought numbness from. It was the answer. The young man ran from the answer with all the speed he could muster. Still the question dogged him. He would run into burning buildings always asking the question. He would hold the hand of the injured and always want to know. There were people he’d find in various places of need and the words would tumble from his lips.

“Are you okay?”

One day he decided it had to end. He was tired of being chased but mostly he was tired of running. Through tears and anguish he finally knelt in the snow, looked within and asked the question he had never asked himself.

“Are you okay?”

Each tear that ran down his cheek was an answer, each sob a reply. Suddenly, the numbness that had been his friend vanished and, in the darkness, a light had appeared. For the first time in his life the light didn’t scare him; it led him. He was never afraid of the dark and, in that moment, he would no longer fear the light. He had made friends with both.

Finally the experiences of his life in darkness were not a source of weakness, but of strength. He could walk the path of light holding hands with the darkness and find both had taught him well. There was no need for sadness, for the spirit had arisen in him. He could walk confidently even if others did not understand his gait. He had found his home and he would never leave.

An old man laid in the stillness of the night, gazing at stars in the darkness. He marveled at their beauty and their power, wondering how such beasts of the sky could look so small when surrounded by the darkness. A smile crested his lips as he realized that it’s not the size of the light or the darkness that defined them. They existed for one another. They cannot fear each other for the breath of life is breathed into one by the existence of the other. They are, if nothing else, partners in the truth.

And he realized that he was one of them, a star in the darkness of night.

His interlude was interrupted by the heart that beat beside him. He could feel her breath on his naked skin as her fingers touched his back. The Lioness to his Lion, the sheath to his sword, she kissed his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He smiled, and turned to her. “Yes, I am okay.”

Much More Than #24

January 28, 2020 / Tom

Kobe Bryant. A star athlete. A hero to many. A legend.

I don’t want to get into the minutia of hero worship or the frailties of a boy made rich and famous before manhood. There are many challenges we all face as we mature, but few of us have to do so under the spotlight. Even fewer of us have to do so under the intense pressure of performing for wealth and adoration. We make our mistakes and, hopefully, learn from them without much in the way of fanfare or notoriety.

Today, I just want to focus on a Dad and his daughter, a man with a girl he surely loved more than life. That is, after all, what truly matters.

I won’t pretend I can’t imagine what they went through. I believe I can. It makes me sad that such a loss had to happen in such a way. Yet, as I see grief on the faces of fans and athletes, this tragedy allows me to realize that great love exists. It exists even among the famous, the wealthy, the legends.

Because at the core of all the accolades, he was just a Dad with his little girl, a man with his legacy.

Tears

I have often felt waves of sadness roll over me as I contemplate my end. There is no fear of death in me but there is a sense of sadness. I want to experience all of life with those I love, and the thought of missing some of those things saddens me. I don’t want to miss a thing.

My children, if all goes according to plan, will carry on without me. Sometimes, as it so happened with #24, our plans as parents vanish in an instant. That’s the part I can’t, or won’t, imagine. It’s a horror needs to quickly vanish from my mind. I need to die before my children.

That is when the tears come. I think about Kobe, sitting next to his little girl on that helicopter, experiencing the horrible realization that nothing was going according to his plan. Not only was he going to die but so was his child. I can feel his impossible fear fighting his need to comfort his daughter. Waves of desperation poor over me as I sense his need for survival mixing with his desire to protect his baby girl. In my mind he fights his desire to tighten his restraints with his need to undo them just to hold her tightly.

I can hear screams mixing with “I love you”, fear mixing with love, and helplessness mixing with the desire to survive. It is quickly overwhelming.

So that’s where I stop. The intensity of pain mixed with the focus of a Dad’s need to protect his children proves too much. I can’t take it any further. It threatens the idea I have of my own plan, and leaves me realizing just how little control I have. I say a mantra, wipe the tears and shatter my shell, determined to live. I still don’t want to miss a thing and I know, deep inside, that fear does nothing but cause me to miss things.

The Legacy

I’m not a die hard basketball fan. I knew of Kobe because I grew up not far from where he grew up. I knew of him because of his childhood basketball exploits and the controversy he created locally by deciding to jump right from high school into the NBA.

It turns out he knew what he was doing and he trusted his instincts in doing it. Good man.

The death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, as well as everyone on board that helicopter, comes with a legacy outside of sports legend. It offers us a moment where great numbers of people can reflect on who they are at the same time while mourning the loss of someone they cared about. Hopefully, it also gives us all a chance to reflect on the things we haven’t lost and the opportunities we still have to embrace those things in gratitude.

Kobe Bryant’s death is not just about the loss of a legend. It’s an opportunity for parents to contemplate their own mortality and their own relationship they have with their loved ones, particularly their children. We often miss those opportunities as we swirl in our life’s distractions, but they are vital to experiencing life fully in our moment. Our moment that is so unexpectedly fleeting.

Pride

December 30, 2019 / Tom

Sometimes I am so powerful.

I can stand on my own two feet, and face the storm with fearless abandon. As the inferno burns hot before me, I can stare the flames right in the soul as the world turns to ash all around. I can crawl over boulders and reach heights as the fear grips at my mind. There is much fight within me even as the ground shakes below me.

Sometimes, I am so weak.

I hear their voices and I shrink into my shell. My legs wilt under the weight of the cross I bear, falling to my knees in abject failure. The chorus rains down shards of judgment, shards that pierce my armor and force my heart into hiding. I am a lost child, gone beyond my veils, outside the walls of my kingdom.

What is left to do now but learn? Can I shed the mask of pride? Can I rid myself of the weight I’ve carried with me my entire life?

Pride, that alien being to my soul, that bastard bully hiding in the shadows right behind me! Whisper if you will, but I can hear you. Sing if you must, my ears bleed at the sound of your song. One day I shall turn the torch and burn a hole through your darkness. Pride cannot defeat the lowly man with an empty bowl. He stands, kneels, and bows with equal power, with equal strength.

That warrior knows the only strength he needs is to lift his bowl, give all he has, and accept what others are willing to offer.

A hard fight for me indeed. The hardest battles are often the ones we wage within.

A Conversation

I turn to my god, the Silence I crave in the noise of my mind, and beg of Her to answer me.

The answer is as it’s always been. “Shed your gold and give glory to your heart. Pride is thine enemy.”

So much gold has been cast into the raging torrents, sacrificed to the god of who I am. There lies so much of what I once believed important, so much of what I gave my life to have.

“It’s time to give more of you and less of what you have. It’s time to rise, naked in the snow,and be warmed by what only love can provide. That is what you must learn. It is you the world needs, not your coin. It is love that must fill your pockets. You will fly in the lightness of love, not be drowned by the weight in your purse.”

“I have little left to give,” I answer.

“Wrong. You have yet to scratch the surface of what you offer the world.”

A tear forms. I have heard this all before.

“My child, you have hidden behind the quest for things of the world, seeking to be judged by them as some reward. The gold you seek is waiting for you, and when it ceases to be your quest the truth will open up those waters to raging currents. Where the green light shines within you is that space you should work to fill. The other chest will fill after your treasure chest has opened, and your heart becomes free to beat to its own time.

The chest you’ve tried to fill cannot be filled until the chest that holds the true treasure, your heart, is fully open.”

A tear spills. I know all of what I hear to be true.

A Lesson

“It has been said,” the Silence whispers to my soul, “that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to pass the gates of heaven. A chest of gold cannot fit but the man full of love passes through easily. You will leave your gold behind, my son, but love will go with you forever.”

“Yet I tire of the struggle,” I respond.

“Ah, it is the struggle that keeps you from your truth. You will regain wealth, have no doubt, but first you must stop judging yourself in its presence or its absence. When you love, you will know yourself the same both in wealth and in poverty. Neither will change the man you know yourself to be.”

It is the struggle that I know myself, and it is in the struggle that I judge myself as worthy. What was once so easy has now become so difficult. The river that once flowed has now become a trickle.

“The ice up there is ready to melt again and Spring is ready to appear,” said the Silence. “Love shines warmly. Let it shine, watch the ice pack melt and the river flow again. It is truly that easy. Stop being the struggle and start being the Spring.”

I smile, knowing full well the beauty and truth of this remembering.

“I know it is difficult, my son, but you were not built for the easy things. You were bred to make the difficult things easy. You were born to melt the ice…”

A breath, a moment, an undeniable truth.

“…and to light the way. So, now shine. Love yourself as worthy and watch the river flow.”

One Pane of Glass

November 26, 2019 / Tom

Outside, a blizzard rages. Inside, I am comfortable, nestled nicely on a sofa beside her warm body, watching the driven flakes of snow head to meet others that have fallen before them. There is but one pane of glass that separates me from the wilds out there. Just one pane of glass between the me found in this comfortable place and the me begging to be in the place that calls me.

The slow drum and dribbles of the washing machine fills this space, a rhythmic, modern tune hummed inside while the wild, ancient song of winter whips outside. Still, in this comfort and safety my mind wonders out there, to the place where deep snow has buried the earth, where the winter winds blow hard in autumn, where the parts of me that existed well before my flesh was formed once played. I can feel the discomfort of the cold air on my skin. I can feel the challenge of moving in deep snow. I can feel the desire for survival well up inside me. It is a fire I’ve known well, built in the moments of darkness where no light was assured, kindled in those times when I was frozen to the bone.

The wild part of me wants to be challenged. The hunter in me wants to stalk his prey. The hunted in me wants to dare the hunter out from behind his tree. The beast in me wants to prove I can survive. The coward in me wants to push the beast out of his cave. Nothing brings me to life like answering the call of the wild, and nothing says home to me like the wilds themselves.

I once believed I had surrendered to fear. That was a lie told by fear itself. I had but given myself pause to regroup so that I could move forward a little bit more. Sometimes victories are not measured in miles but in inches, and sometimes victory looks like defeat. Defeat cannot, however, stain the soul that moves past the fear within him. Defeat cannot pierce the heart of the warrior who stands firm against the onslaught of the demonic hoards born inside his mind.

I fear heights, so I’ve climbed tall ladders to protect my brothers facing fire below. I’ve feared death, so life brought me to its doorstep to show me a truth. I feared sharing myself with others, so I tore off my veils and became a naked warrior ready to just be me. More fear comes, and I challenge it, often discovering what I will do and won’t do now has little to do with fear, but more with desire. While I fear skydiving, I answer less to that fear and more to the fact that I simply have little desire to jump out of an airplane.

If that desire grows, I will jump with a wild yell. That truth I learned, the one I mentioned before, was that a fear of death is a fear of life. I choose life, living as fully as I can in any moment even in those times when victory looks exactly like defeat. I will not let panes of glass get in my way, instead honoring the oath sworn on my lifebed. I will splinter any walls that get in my way, and step over the shards of windows shattered in answering the calls within.

I wonder if there are others, those intrepid souls who hear the calls of life lived before this one, and answer with all the might their hearts can muster. I wonder if there are souls out there now trudging through the deepest snow just for the challenge of it. I wonder if there are warriors out there who hear the call of hunter and prey, beast and coward, sinner and saint simultaneously and who, like me, feel at home in the forests that echo those calls. I wonder if we speak one voice, hear one song, and peer at hope through the same, lonely pane of glass.

Life is what we are given as a promise of our birth. Love helps us overcome the obstacles to life we are blessed to have fallen across our path. Truth is what binds life and love to a single, simple calling. Find life, discover love. Discover love, know truth. Love life in truth and never die again. Even as your final breath is drawn, it is the one who has discovered life who can never truly die.

You

November 13, 2019 / Tom

I see you.

I see that wonderful mix of courage and fear, and I marvel at your intricacies. I see the way you rise to the challenge of your own mind, and how you answer the call that is born deep within. I see the way you care, the way your heart spills out over the canvas of your life. I love how you leave you brushstrokes all over the place, and how I can touch the lines you’ve left on my soul. I see you, my artist, my muse, my living love.

I wonder about you.

I wonder about the Divine magic that made you, and the wonderful truth you’ve been born to be. I wonder what good I must have done to have you cross over into my life, and though I never can quite tell what it was I know I’d do it all over again just for the chance to kiss you. I think about the tears I’ve shed in utter darkness, and wonder which one watered the flower whose fragrance now fills my soul. I wonder about you, my love, and how you were born within me before I even knew I was alive.

I know you.

I know the bumps on my skin raised in the thought of you; Braille from my soul the Angels wrote with hope when sky burned with fire. I know the truth of your name whispered in the very beat of my heart, a promise of life eternal beyond the mortality of one man’s mind. I know you from lives past, those vestiges of things left behind but never quite forgotten. I know you as surely as I breathe, and I know you as a certainty gifted to a man not quite deserving of the honor.

I love you.

I love you along the clear creeks I see in solitude, and in the deep snow I fight alone to touch the depths of Nature’s breast. I love you in the songs that birth tears in my eyes, and I love you in the smiles that come in those things that only you can do. I love you in our sweet embrace that pulls us past our moments of hellish uncertainty, and in the shudders of unholy fear that come in its wake. I love you in the throes of ecstasy that beg me to love you more and in the truth that this man was made for you, and you were made for me.

It’s you I see who has showed me the way to the sweetest summit. It’s you that’s given me the pause to wonder, to find the Sun in the darkest skies and love beyond my eyes held shut. It’s you I know who’s pulled me from the whirlpool of my mind into the center of my heart. It’s you I love. You are the destination of my soul.

Love is not a fixer

November 6, 2019 / Tom

One of the hardest things you will ever have to do is tell someone you love that you have no desire to fix them. Whether it is to someone you are romantic with, or friends with, or a parent/sibling/child of, the moment you cease all responsibility for their behavior it becomes the moment you risk losing them forever.

Or at least for the time being.

People want to share their pain, their suffering, their anxiety, and their fear. More often than not, they seek out fixers, those who will take ownership of their mess and step into piles of shit with them. People also want to “fix” other people, often sacrificing their own happiness and joy in the process. We are often so conditioned that love is only real if it includes an abundant willingness to suffer, and we want to so desperately prove how much we love in our relationships that we will forget the truest source of all love — the love we have for ourselves.

During one of the most painful times in my life I was told I was a project, that I needed fixing. I realized in the moments that followed that the pain I felt was derived not only from the constant need to please others, but in the feeling that I would never succeed in that effort. That fixer became like a sponge that I felt the need to constantly fill. In that need I would create situations and instances where I was broken. After all, if I was broken wouldn’t the fixer show love in the repair? If I was Humpty Dumpty, wouldn’t she then ride up on her horse to put me back together again? If I wasn’t in need of fixing, who would I be to her?

And that “her” can be a mother, a father, a friend, a lover. It can be anyone we seek approval from when we have not learned to find that approval within ourselves.

Nothing speaks to self-loathing like constantly breaking yourself to please a fixer. Nothing paints a picture of despair when one day that fixer leaves, and not only were you helplessly broken, but you were also not good enough to be fixed. The hammer you used to break yourself suddenly becomes too heavy to hold, and the fractures you habitually created in your heart bleed real blood. You were broken, just not in the way everyone thought. You were in need of repair, but not by any person other than the one looking at you in the mirror.

That first “goddamned motherfucking shit” you utter is the first moment of real healing. That first string of profanity you growl as you try to stand again is your first moment of awakening. It’s not the thunderclap you hear from beside your Bodhi tree that shakes you out of your sleep; it’s the sound of your reconciliation as it pours from your heart The tears run down your face in a flash flood of reality, and they cleanse you of your inequity and purge you of all sense of sin.

Then, finally, you can breath with little strain. You realize that the truest sense of love comes not in fixing someone, but in not taking ownership of their repair. Your truest love emanates from your sense of self, and you have no desire to fix others or have them fix you. You can walk, run, or sit based on needs the meet your purpose and, in turn, help those around you meet theirs in your way, in your time.

When you stop being the fixer you can truly love someone with all of you, and not just the part of you carrying the toolbox. When you no longer see yourself in need of repair, you can then love yourself and others beyond that cracked area of you that once needed to be filled. When the bandages are no longer the only part that can be seen, the healthy parts of you will flourish and unite with the healthy parts of others. You will not see others in how broken they are, but in how powerful they are. You will stand on your own next to others standing on their own, and you can then walk together freely in liberation and in healthy love.

Love is not the fixer, or the broken, or the wounded. Love is the selfless act that makes nothing broken, or wounded, or in need of repair. Love is the soul that rises from the ashes and the spirit that growls in the moonless night. Love is not the hand but the sword it carries. Love is not the rope but the blade that shreds it. When all seems lost you can count on love not to heal anything, but to stand by the one healing. When the twilight comes and the Sun takes forever to rise, love is not the one pushing the Sun above the horizon but rather the one shivering next to you in the cold. Love is not the one sewing your wounds closed, but the one holding your hand as the needle pierces your flesh. Love is not the healer. Love is the one who stands by you while you heal yourself.

So when the one who loves you dearly says to you, “I cannot help you,” he is in pain right next to you. He is writhing and wincing in the agony he shares by your side. Yet, his love for you has him remain idle for he knows in his heart that real love is found in the allowing space for the strength you are realizing, the truth you are discovering and the power you are finding not in him, but in your own self. What greater love is there to offer than such a truth?

The Hour of Separation

June 17, 2019 / Tom

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” ~Khalil Gibran.

There, this man finds himself knowing a depth eternal in its scope, not waning in the process of knowing itself in sadness.

Not long before, I woke to see her image in the shadows of an early morning. I’ve long memorized the contours of her form, the way she hides herself from the night’s disturbances, the way her hair flows from the shadows and her breath can be heard through the various white noises of our space. I swear I can hear her breath despite the noise, but I also know that it is quite possible that I hear her breath in me, just like the subtle way I feel life in her living, and love in her affection.

There I lay, just studying her in the darkness not wanting to disturb a thing. Being beside her is like arriving at a lush oasis, a place where the storms around me lessen in their ferocity and my thirst is quenched in a single touch. It is here, in her presence, that I awaken to awaken, finding myself in total bliss, breathing in the joy and gratitude I cannot, and have no desire to, run from.

Yet, as has been the way with the process of our journey, such a bounty must end and the thirst must return to be quenched another day. As is often the case, we arrive to depart where we found ourselves reunited, and my heart again breaks open in bits of stoic bewilderment as I turn to watch her leave. I know by the look on her face in that indescribable way we feel each other that she knows this pain as well. I appear less able to appreciate whatever beauty there is in this separation.

What is there in a stoic man who once was so devoted to his own solitude as to wish its liberated end? Perhaps I knew the dysfunction that demanded my aloneness, and the imprisonment I had actually created in the wanting of such a thing. Aloneness is liberating when it breeds the awareness of love, but it can be a prison when it builds a wall to love. Solitude is a wondrous space when it blooms under the spring sun, but our petals wilt when that solitude hides us in the shadows, afraid to face the light of what has hurt us before.

I seek not to hide behind those bars while calling myself “free”. I seek the wide open spaces where I see my soul dancing in the distance, her hair twirling in the breeze, her smile glistening in the morning sun. I seek no separation in the prisons we often build searching for safety. Liberation is not safe. It’s a space wrought with danger, and known through our sweet victory over both the wounds of our past and the fear they inspire. True liberation is often crawling to love’s sweet precipice, looking down into the abyss, and knowing you are free to fall or crawl back to safety. The experience of love is, though, in the plummet through the mysterious and formless spaces the child in us often fears to go.

That is where I am, plummeting through the formless mystery as my heart breaks open, and I become one with the depths of a realization; I have no idea how deep this goes, and I have yet to find that place where I will land. I just know this love, the depth of which I’ve yet to fully understand, and I know the beauty of the oasis we find ourselves in all-too-infrequently and the madness of the thirst that is a companion way too often.

I shall draw the bowstring of love until it touches my cheek and I shall let loose the arrow of truth until our hearts are united once again. Perhaps that arrow will pierce the hearts of lying demons that play tricks with us in the shadow of our safety. Perhaps that arrow will be yet another rung on the ladder of a truth two souls feel in the open presence that they share. Perhaps that arrow of truth floats in our internal compass, pointing us to the truth of our union, directing us to the True North of our journey together, and finds us in an oasis where we reside much more than we leave.

There is a wild truth in this existence, and as I watch her leave I know its power and its promise. What prose there is left to write I cannot be sure, but I am certain of its existence.

A Solid Truth

November 4, 2014 / Tom

Through the numbness gaze I see

Cloudy, murky, beholden to the current

Leaning, listing, the stormy sky emblazoned

Calmly, the whitecaps form.

Through the blinded folds of skin I feel

Nothing, lost moments, surrounded by light everywhere

Laying still yet falling into the whirlpool

Rising, the foamy surf left evidence to the dying.

Lovely, I’m lost to the bliss of my own ignorance

Awakened in a moment, I cannot stand to shout

Aware in a flash, I cannot look to see that spark

Forever changed, the light enters me where I am wounded.

But such is the way of great fortune

To be wounded but alive

To be silenced but not forgotten, then heard again

She reaches for the coldness and brings a warmth renewed.

One wobbles, but does not fall

One stumbles, but finds sure footing

Somewhere, beyond the certainty of the next step

Comes the power of where the feet now stand.

One regrets, but accepts what cannot be changed

One worries, but gives himself to the great Ocean on which he lives

There, in the horizon that we call our home

Come the Sunrises and Sunsets that define our days.

Goodnight, dear, see me in your dreams

Goodbye, friend, hear me in your laughter

Feel me as the waves caress your feet, as the Sun warms your face

Know me when the light appears as a new day comes.

There is nothing to fear there, in the waves

Dance like you’ve never danced before

And know me there, everywhere

No surrender, no retreat, just calm acceptance of the Warrior.

Now, let’s go, to that healing place

Let’s bask in the warm water

Play in the lush fields where the color is blinding

And hold this moment dear.

Let’s leave the worry to others

Go crazy in the surf, find ecstasy in the sand

Together, as lovers sitting on an Earthen altar

Together in every breeze, in every wave, in every squawking seagull.

There is heaven.

There is hell.

There is everything in between

And it is there that we will find ourselves in a solid truth.

My Muse, An Introduction

October 18, 2014 / Tom

Now, it seems, is time to introduce you to my muse.

Rather than do this in what would seem to be easy fashion, I’d like to do it the way my heart tells me to, using the methods by which the Universe speaks through me. Please meet her as my heart speaks in the written word.

See, a picture would be too two-dimensional, a handshake too cordial, a video too incomplete. I’d rather introduce you to this gift in the way most of you were introduced to me. So, here goes.

Imagine for one moment you are thirsty and you are wondering through a scorching desert looking for something to drink. Everywhere you look there are pitted stones, dying trees, and the bones of dead memories strewn about in some chaotic fashion. Some of these you put in your mouth, only to be repulsed by bitterness. Others you don’t even get near, the stench is just too much for you to take. So you continue to search, to imagine what it would be like to find that one drink of water. You never give up hope.

Then, suddenly, you come upon a clear, cool spring in a lush oasis. You bend your knee to drink, that first heavenly gulp saving you as each swallow afterward reminds you not only of the thirst that nearly killed you, but of the wonderfulness of the Universe that brought you here. You take long, mindful drinks from that pond, and relax patiently on the plush grasses provided while enjoying the fruits of that place.

You are sure you will never leave. There is nothing out there for you, and everything you have ever wanted is right here. So, you give thanks, you care for that space, and you rest in a certainty that you are, and always have been, right where you belong.

That’s my muse. I’m glad you have had the opportunity to meet her.

Now walk with me. The Sun is blistering hot, and the sky offers no respite from its assault. You walk onward, the sweat dripping from your skin like tired stories of a slow demise. Each step gets harder than the last, but onward you march until…

..finally…

…. a large tree rises from above the unforgiving sands. You sit under her, enjoying the cool comfort as you are refreshed from your journey. She dries the sweat from your skin, cools the burning rage in your heart, and steels you for the effort that still lay ahead; all while assuring you that you can always return to her, without ever wondering where she’s been.

That’s my muse. Please shake her hand, and give her your utmost respect. She deserves nothing less.

Now sail with me on my Ocean. The seas are rough, the storm mighty as the ship tosses roughly around while the gods argue your very existence. You are battered against the wooden frame, bruised against the solid mast until, finally, you are tossed overboard into the murky mayhem that quickly surrounds you and drags you down…

…down…

…down.

The last thing you remember is your impending demise. The last thing you see is a vast, bottomless cauldron of darkness. You finally surrender to your doom.

You awaken on a soft, sandy shore, the Sun warming you, the light breeze sending chills up your entire being. You gasp as you remember your breath, and you inhale deeply as if you were newly born. You sigh as you embrace the earth around you, and you cry as a testament not only to where you are, but where you have come from.

There, right there, is my muse. I don’t possess her any more than I could possess the air around me, but I certainly utter lovely prayers of gratitude with each passing breath. “I love you,” I say. “Breathe,” she replies. I love you too.

Now that you have met her, love her as you do while I love her as I do. Know her through the air that you breathe, the water than quenches your thirst, the earth that gives you a safe place to stand after nearly drowning in the Sea. Be tender with her as she is tender with you, and give her your full attention. Do not question the Sunrise and Sunset, but give thanks for the experience of her absence by truly appreciating her presence.

She is my muse, and with each word you find value in thank her with all your heart.

Love.