Tag: Understanding (Page 1 of 5)

A Lifetime Ago

April 19, 2022 / Tom

Lost in the fray of my own frazzled mind, I bow.

I was not good enough, or I was too good. There was no hope in you for me even as you hoped for all you never had. You walked and I watched, you ran and I agreed. You forgot and I let you remember.

I scared you, or so you said. I was a force, or so you suggested. There you were, set free upon the altar of great love, blaming the very key that unlocked your chains and left them piled on the floor. You blamed them for your fear, for your consequence, and then you hid behind the creature you feared the most.

Time. We just need time. Time to remember the moments of quivering ecstasy as we laid gasping for air, our sweat mixing into pools upon the ground.

More. We want more. I want more of your body taking mine into agreement. You want more of me owning all that you wish to give. Yet here we are. Me being too good or not good enough, hopeful in this hopelessness, a spectator in a sport that sees you run in some other direction. There is no sense to this senselessness. We will just have to walk our paths alone.

Memories. They curse at me as they bring me to my fullest arousal. I will move on. I always have, but I shall not forget. Memories that both tease me and lift me to the sky will ensure I remember. The pulsing throb in my manhood matching time with the echo in my chest will drive me toward dreams long since left behind. I shall let go as I hold on, my prayer being shouted the same as always as the eruptions remind me of what has been gained, then lost, then gained again.

You will whisper my name again someday. Perhaps such music will be played in your aloneness as your mind and your fingers wander to those hidden places. Maybe the song will be shouted as your hips buck and your flesh shakes. Certainly there will be a moment when your heart beats and your mind hears my name. You will then reach for me, find nothing but the space you asked to be created, and wish I was there to remind you of the kingdom we could have created.

I wrote this a lifetime ago.

Yet it could have been written at any time. Fuck those who take their concept of time so literal as to make it part of my existence. To hell with those who seek to make me old, or young, or tired, or plagued by their insanity. They cannot hear their roar for the sounds of the chattering in their heads, and they cannot see their promise as the fog of fear gathers before their eyes. Who am I to tell them any different? Who I am to stifle my own howl because they cannot stand the sound of their own warrior voice?

Talk all you’d like. Walk all you can stand. You will still be a puppy unable to see the moonlight. You are blinded by your mother’s tit, eyes closed as you take the nipple, being fed all that you can stand of all that she can offer.

Yet I will still love you as I have a lifetime ago. I feel no bitterness toward either of our limitations. I have forgiven you much in the way I have forgiven myself.

Time will always try to get the better of me. I may die never again hearing your voice, but I will have heard it once. Your music may be silent in my ears, but I have known its rhythm. Perhaps even the moments of great losses I have found great wins, even if in my final moments I exist in an empty space with only the memories to hold my hand.

If only I had listened…

April 21, 2020 / Tom

Here’s what I can say to those who are protesting public health measures put in place to protect our economy, our people and our community. I say it in love since that is, right now, all I have to offer. No data will convince you. No science will sway you. Perhaps love is the way to your salvation.

Right now, you feel fine. It’s easy to protest things that oppose your ideas of freedom, of capitalism, and of ideology. It’s always easy to adhere to a principle when it’s not being challenged. It’s easy to be strong when you don’t really need to be.

Perhaps soon, your recklessness will catch up with you. You may feel a tickle in your throat or an ache in your body. “It’s no big deal,” you will say to yourself. You may, if you are one who can admit making a mistake, put yourself in quarantine to protect those you love or you may continue your recklessness and ensure those around you that “it’s no big deal.”

Perhaps that cough and ache get worse, and maybe your fever starts to spike. You’ve felt this before, it’s no big deal. You’ve always recovered in the past with some antibiotics and rest. You call your doctor, who says you are showing signs of coronavirus. He says quarantine at home. He tells you that there is no treatment, that antibiotics don’t work with this virus. You’ll just have to ride it out and hope it doesn’t get worse.

And no, there is no test that they can give you. You aren’t sick enough to warrant a test.

That angers you. You have the right to know what you have. Ah, they remind you, this is a serious pandemic, and everything has changed. There are just not nearly enough tests to go around. Sorry, but you aren’t rich enough, famous enough, or athletic enough to warrant being bumped to the front of the line. Athletes, CEOs and celebrities are being tested. You? You’re just an average American who must be near death to be given a test.

Still, you’re the brave one. Invincible, you might believe. It’s all going to be OK.

Then, perhaps, it gets hard to breathe as your fever spikes. You can’t seem to catch your breath. Few things scare people like not being able to breathe, and here you are, the bravery beginning to falter, the invincibility beginning to wane. The feverish chills course through your body as your panic increases. If only you had been smarter…

You miss your family. They are not able to come see you. If you die, you will die alone. There will be no memorial, no chance at good-byes, no final moments you share. Your final moments were spent convincing others of your bravery while convincing yourself of your invincibility. Now, the illusion is gone as you face your own mortality.

If only I had listened…

Have I infected my children? My spouse? My friends? Time will tell if you are the one they point to as a reason for their suffering, their loss, their pain. Perhaps you all will learn a lesson. If it is not too late.

You wonder how you are going to pay for all this care you are receiving. Will your family be bankrupt as a result of your illness? How will they survive if you do not? How will they survive even if you do?

It’s gotten so hard to breathe. The doctors, all bundled up in their protective gear, come to tell you the bad news. You will need a ventilator to live. They will sedate you, put you in a drug-induced coma, so that you don’t gag on the tube they are about to put down your throat. You want to be strong and brave again, but all you can do is look around you. Is this the last thing you will ever see?

I want to touch my children, tell them how much I love them. I want one last kiss with my spouse…

Those things will have to wait, and as you quickly fade asleep you wonder if they’ll ever come.

If only I had listened….

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.

Nature (A Poem)

July 9, 2018 / Tom

To feel the vibrations of Nature’s song…

The smell of Her forgotten pines,

Eternity encapsulated in the droplets of cool mists,

As water falls,

As Her sweat sprays against the rocky mounds of Her exuberance.

The soil beneath your feet never quite the same.

I’ve heard the calling of Her ecstasy,

As the song birds greet the arrival of the Sun,

As man stirs in his unconsciousness,

Distorting Her truth with the lies of his existence.

Though I falter, I hear the beckoning of Her breezes,

Tried and true I stand beside Her majesty,

Bruised, but sure to the task for which I was born,

To climb, to fall, to bleed upon Her fertile soil.

Forgotten the truest womb a babe has ever known,

The willows weeping their joy and I cry beside them,

She knows no bounds in Her acceptance,

And no judgements of misguided expectations of survival.

Hold this tired form, swaddled nicely in the torrents of despair,

Her rapids flowing beside me,

The sounds deafening me to the point where I can finally hear

That howl that rages deep inside me.

Tear away these shrouds, and leave me naked in the field somewhere,

I beg you, bleed me of the humanity bestowed on me from birth,

Rugged, let me know the steadiest of stones

As I seek my way downward once again.

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.

I Long for Winter

September 12, 2014 / Tom

Silence.

What is wrong with basking in the silence?

What is wrong with the aloneness of nothing’s sound? Where is the error within this isolation? Within the miracle of those spaces caught between the notes, within the sweet sound of creation stuck within the cracks of what we see as destruction?

From somewhere comes a sigh. From outward poses of false realities come awkward words of truthful fantasies.

I walk along trying to find the mindless footprints I’ve cast in the hardened bedrock of my life; wondering why some fear the sturdiness of this place, why they search for escape by looking for the invisible tracks they swear they left behind.

I question, they don’t respond.

They react.

Read more here…

A Moment Cherished

May 21, 2014 / Tom

“Who are you looking for?” came a voice in the night.

“You,” I responded. “This, us, everything.”

This is how it happens for me. In the darkness of night I hear her, and in the throes of my slumber I can feel her. There, I can look into her eyes and feel it, and there I can touch her hand and know a truth that is, and has been, a certain reality.

“I’m happy you were patient,” she says, touching her hand to the place where my heart resides. “I’m happy you were there when I called for you, and I’m happy I was here when you finally arrived. I’m happy your arms were empty when I reached to embrace you. I’m happy we both were tested, and that we have finally reached our place, our time.”

The look in my eyes spoke total agreement as my beating heart sung the praises of a moment fought for, a moment cherished.

My mind first wanted to travel backward, to the scattered remains of lessons learned and of things lost. It screamed for attention to the bandaged places, but when I looked there all I saw was light. It wanted me to revisit old pains and distant agonies, but my heart had set the bridges to those places afire, turning them into impassable piles of ash.

Her lips drew my attention back to the place on where we stood, together. I could feel the sturdy sands of our beach give way slightly to my bare feet as we kissed, the warm surf surrounding us in our moment of pleasure. The sea tugged at us, wanting to pull us away from our place, but our root held firm as our passion grew. There was no other place out there; for us there was only the here, the now. As the Earth held us tightly, the air embraced us gently as the sea issued its sweet song of surrender.

Here is love, and here is where it will be.

My mind then wanted to travel forward, into times not yet created but certainly well-known. In the fear of a moment never seen before, the mind wanted to find security in what it had known, and in the process created tomorrow out of yesterday. For a moment I could not feel the soft sand beneath my feet, but only felt the stony beaches of yesterday. I wondered if those rocky coasts were my future paths, and if the lies uttered by a hundred mouths before would one day be said by the lips I so eagerly tasted now.

Now. Come back, now. Please listen…

Her hand on the back of my head brought me back to our place. It is said that tears are a release of stories kept deep within the soul, and I release mine as my mind surrendered to what the rest of me was screaming. I listened as fear raised a white flag to the moment, surrendering to the passion, to the promise, to the reality of a moment cherished. There were no more footprints in the sand save the ones we were rooted in, and there were no more doubts in the bedrock of water and sand in which we now stood. The miracle was that the sun had risen as though it had never, ever set.

Our lips parted and we looked deeply into each other’s eyes. I could see the trail of tears on her cheeks that framed her beautiful smile, and I smiled in return as she wiped the last vestige of old stories from my face. I knew, then, that she had traveled far as well in our cherished moment, and that we had not only shared a collective peace there, but also an individual journey in the seconds we first felt a new reality. Some connections cannot be explained, or reasoned. They can only be known, and when two hearts know that connection as truth, nothing can stop the dream from becoming real.

“Thank you for waiting, my love,” she whispered.

“I had no choice,” I responded. “You were always speaking to me, always there. Even in the darkest hours I could hear your voice begging me onward, reminding me of things not yet done, and places not yet seen. Thank you…”

She hugged me tight, no other words needed to be said.

We looked down the beach, deciding silently to head in that direction, to everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Our hands embraced as we splashed along the way, laughing and talking the entire way toward each sure footfall, each telling footprint in the sand. Our night was drawing to a close.

I awoke with a smile and a renewed feeling that change was coming. The emptiness in my room became filled with birds singing from beyond walls through cracks the windows would provide. I had never seen it so bright on such a cloudy morning, and even as the humid air stuck mildly to my naked form there was a sense of comfort there. There was always a sense of comfort in surrender, in knowing that control was only possible over the choices I would make. In those moments my anger over the lies of others in their untrue testaments of truth and promise would end. It appears those souls were simply unconscious leaves from the tree of life that the wise wind had taken away. They were malformed to my purpose but certainly valuable to another’s, and the release became a testament to the promise kept to the one who will be waiting.

There is great service in truth, in surrendering to the will of the wind and the great sands where we stand. There is a great love shown in letting go of the pieces that just don’t fit for they, too, deserve a true moment cherished. How many square pegs continually grasp at round holes believing that with great effort will come a perfect fit, all the while finding the work undertaken is destroying both pieces. We deserve to be honored, to be cherished, for who we are by those who need not change to cherish us.

We all deserve our truth. Once we discover what that truth is, I mean. Until then, we all deserve our illusion separate from those who can’t live within it.

As for me, I have vowed to remain true to that which I am seeking, knowing full well that it, too, is seeking me. I cannot return to the human expanse of barren promises and broken dreams that I know all too well. I not only burn bridges that would take me back to those places, but blow them up with an abiding attachment to my own sense of truth. It has taken me a long time to arrive, and I’m not giving up the hard-earned ground I’ve traveled for a sense of human security which is, of course, a human frailty. Each experience teaches me, each dream fulfills me, and each cherished moment reminds me of who I am.

I love even the round holes to my square peg. They are beautiful, which is one reason I don’t seek to change them more to my liking. While I do wish they’d stop trying to change me to theirs, I understand who they are and where they stand. We often seem to fear uniqueness, we seem to fear that which reminds us of what we’ve created as a painful truth. We seem to fear aloneness and become fearful of those who don’t. We fear being different, and work hard to fit into places we truly do not belong. “If I need to change to make them happy, why don’t you need to change to make me happy?” seems to be a mantra of leaves unaware that they, too, are simply blowing in the wise wind. We often don’t seem to learn that the “one” will never arrive if we are busy holding onto the “wrong one”.

So, yes, my lover, I am letting go. One day there will be a light so bright as to blind us both to everything not within it. There I will go, even if only within the confines of my slumber, to let you know that I, too, am waiting for our moment cherished. I know it is coming.

What is Surrender?

February 22, 2014 / Tom

Surrender is, simply, an act of love, the description of which is determined by our current states of mind.

I could end it with that, and be done with the discussion. Yet, I’ll surrender to the need to expand on it, and to share some personal experiences and insight. There is an act of surrender in everything we do, and we can see it simply by shifting our focus.

We aren’t taught the art of surrender in our society. We are taught that surrender is an act of weakness reserved for losers. We are taught that quitters surrender, and then we make an agreement to agree with the various negative descriptions of surrender we are given. In essence, we surrender our experience to the egoic definition of strength, weakness, winning and losing.

I used to see surrender as an act of fear, and the refusal to surrender as an act of “heart” or courage. Yet, I’ve discovered that even what we view as a refusal to surrender is, in fact, a surrender. I make dozens, if not hundreds, of choices to surrender each and every day. Perhaps I choose to surrender to old behavior patterns. Maybe I choose to surrender to new perspectives. Maybe I’ve decided to fall into old ruts, or perhaps I’ve decided to make new footprints. Either way I am offering myself to the choice, I am surrendering to the experience of either renewing old agreements or creating new ones.

There are instances when events that seem out of our control become difficult to surrender to. A job loss, a relationship that ends, an illness, or any event that seems beyond our control can set us off on a tangent of suffering simply by our seeming refusal to surrender to the event. Our refusal to surrender doesn’t mean we haven’t surrendered, it simply means we refuse to see that we’ve surrendered. We have, by either surrendering to the refusal or by surrendering to the event.

You can’t refuse to surrender, you can only recognize your choices on what you surrender to. Those choices will reflect your current states of mind, and you can begin to see (become aware) of where you are simply by observing what choices you have made.

Do I curse the company that I used to work for or do I embrace the change? The answer will help me discover where my mind is, and to what master I am answering to. Am I attacking my old lover and trying to make them suffer? Again, my answer will show me what master I am serving. Am I afraid of the changes coming or eagerly awaiting their arrival? Yes, you guessed it, the answer will tell me everything I need to know.

We are all given choices to make, and often those agreements became a simple choice between acting in the illusion of fear or acting in the reality of love. While love allows us the illusion of fear, fear does not allow for the reality of love. What we surrender to is our choice, and our experience will directly result from which we agree to have. We are all-powerful creators, and we create our existence within each and every moment. We simply need to surrender to the experience we wish to have.

Peace.

God I love this place!

December 13, 2013 / Tom

I walk.

I marvel at how the once soft, fluffy sands have become hard and unforgiving in the winter’s chill. I’m alone with my thoughts save the sounds of the surf crashing behind me; the sea hidden behind a shroud of darkness that allows me to focus on that music and the Universe exposed around me. I sit in the chill, gazing up at Gemini hoping to see the faint streaks of light created by the end of things likely born long before man was a dream. I give thanks in each passing blur as I am reminded of my own mortality, my own beginning, and my own end. I am reminded of the distance between the two, and I am grateful for this step in the journey of remembrance.

Through the shivers and the wet feeling of coldness upon my skin, I realize I love this place. I love the drawings I see as my mind connects the dots on Heaven’s canvas. I love the bright gaze of Jupiter staring down at me as I stare up at her. I love the orange flicker of Betelgeuse lighting my way toward the Hunter I’ve loved so much since my youth. I remember gazing up at his belt, staring at its perfect alignment and marveling at how the dots seemed so close together, yet were so far apart. I remember realizing then that what we see from where we stand can make all of the difference in how we think.

God I love this place.

I walk.

I walk through the paths others have cut through forests created long before I was born. I embrace the stiff silence that allows the wind to make music through the brittle, dead leaves on their Mother trees. I notice how both seem to hold on to what was, neither truly wanting to admit that the time of their union has passed. It’s a certainty that the winter wind will separate those who cannot seem to let go on their own, and that the tree will sleep and the leaf will fall, lightly, to return the gift it has been given.

I cross a stream. Little tufts of earth peek through slowly moving surface of crystal clear water, reflecting Heaven’s gaze. I notice how everything reflected seems the opposite of what I see, and I wonder which is the truth. Am I seeing things as they are, or am I seeing things through a reflection in my mind that is the opposite of how they are? Whichever, I continue walking, realizing that time and space can change everything, including the distance between giant stars that likely pay no attention to each other.

I allow the cold winter winds of my life to separate me from my leaves. I let go and say goodbye as they drift away toward their destiny. I know those things I think, those things I see, are mere reflections that exist only in my mind. I am a man, after all, and can enjoy a view through both tainted eyes and the crystal clear waters of Love that exist in the calm stillness I dive into. Both exist for a reason, and a purpose to which both can be known.

God I love this place.

Here I sit. I’ve done nothing on my to-do list, yet I’ve given birth to an entire universe. To whatever blesses me with these words, I am grateful. To whatever inspires me to see beyond my flesh and bones, I am grateful. To the power that takes the ingredients of a man and makes them so very special, I am grateful. To my eyes that see and my heart that feels, I am grateful. Though I am no longer who I was, I am grateful for who I am. To the music I dance to and the voices I hear whispering lightly in my ear, I am grateful. To the scars and the wounds as well as the dream I had that gave them life, I am grateful. To the love and kindness offered that has held me steady, I am grateful. I am grateful for it all.

So I sit, in peace and in stillness as the Sun shines gently through the window, its glow changing colors through my closed eyelids. I inhale its warmth that contrasts nicely through the chilled morning air, realizing both in the same moment. I realize the stretch of time that has brought me here, the limitless experiences and infinite possibilities of what “now” has to offer. The raised bumps on my skin tell a truth, a truth that says, “Yes, you are on your way.”

God how I love this place.