Melee, The Storm

Here are more in the pensive mood that happened at the end of last November. I have no idea at this point what I was going through so I can't tell you more than the poems do. Still, it is the emotional life that these poems are about, no doubt. It was not a real war that I was close to so emotional conflict is in view. I do honor those friends of mine for what they go through when they hold up, and I am rather proud of me when I avoid the worst of my tantrums too. I am sure someone was going through something and this poem was about that.

There is a huge lesson in the fact that I can't remember what it was. These things seem so big when they happen. But if I can have the presence of mind to wait a few days and ponder the hugeness from that distance, well... in AA they call this pole vaulting over mouse turds.

Melee

View from the distance:
I see the flames and arrows
Of your holy war,
How you bravely fight
Flaming, flying all apart
In red explosions
Of your emotions
Not in order, in shambles,
You engaged full out.

I sit here at this road's end
In wonder that you survive.

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This next poem takes the Shaman's position in the midst of things. This is the truth of it, just as Zen says, chop wood, carry water, that is, back in the thick of it but able to rise. Even as enlightened, do we always rise above? What if to do some thing I must NOT rise above? If I can rise and choose not to, to a purpose, is this not a spirit sacrifice? Yet I must beware claiming skill not mine and know when I sink that I sink, not that I descend on true purpose.

I have been privileged to live with many cats. Sometimes they screw up. Quite often what happens next, the feline version of "I meant to do that!" Uh huh. So posing is older in evolution than humans because cats know how to do it, and cats became true cats before humans became true humans, and they did this millions of years earlier.

Pretending to more than I am is an ancient mammalian ploy. Its original purpose, still in use today, is to save the species through propogation or to save the self from uneven contests. Posing can be borrowed and used out of the original context. Posing in spiritual matters actually reverses the field. It is so out of place as to endanger the spirit, damage the soul. Where posing may be required in the field of ordinary affairs, posing is a failure of humility in spirit matters. Humility is one of the primary distinctions between white and black magic. That is what we learn in even vapid spiritual tales, such as Star Wars.

The Storm

Balance within storms,
Tornadoes, cyclones, strange eyes
Within, I am tossed
Above clouds looking
Down into deep dark shadows,
Lampblack paintings spread
Across the dim lands
Of your lost hopes, my lost dreams,
Still I hold balance.

Meanwhile the storm master's song,
Thunder rolls in the distance.