I hope that I never again experience the radical powerlessness of the position I have experienced and write about here. You don't need to know what this is about. I am sure you have your own...
Karmic Consequence
It was a small stone,
Just one small action that tipped
The whole thing sideways.
Ponderous moment
Slow motion unstoppable
No damn thing to do
But get far away
From the kill zone beneath it
As it fell faster
And ever faster
Until crashing into me, it
Cratered the lost ground
Of my once grand life.
January 27, 2009 2:51 PM
*********************************
I am not lonely. Not really. Not ever. What is really cool, I feel like this most days, all day. I hardly have a day, even a part of a day I feel lonely. I am alone quite a bit. I am alone right now. I have no idea where my cat is. Often she is on the cooler tile in the bathroom these days. She too is okay being alone.
Further West Than Solitude
I heard you say so,
Say all we have is mortal,
A loneliness west
Of solitude, what you said.
We are the very
Words we use, there's no other.
But how can I live
With that? I have to deny
The keystone moment
Of my whole entire
Life to stick with you in this.
Further west than solitude,
I found comfort there.
January 27, 2009 3:20 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
We are the words we use, so we need to listen closely and really hear.
ReplyDeleteSounds like that is what you did and decided you needed to move on. Being on your own and feeling okay being alone sounds pretty healthy. Lots of people cannot stand to be alone with themselves.
I could handle being alone a bit more often....lonely? Not really, maybe sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe first....argh yes
xx
Further west than solitude,
ReplyDeleteI found comfort there.
Yes.
my loneliest times have come in the most crowded of places. And my least lonely in peaceful quiet solitude. ~rick
ReplyDeleteOne small thing, and it means everything. Yes, it makes all the difference.
ReplyDeleteFarther West Than Solitude reminds me of this:
"Alone, alone, all all alone!
Alone on a wide, wide sea
And never a saint took pity on my soul in agony."
Techno, thanks for your comments. Yes, I believe as you do that being comfortable alone may be one measure of better mental health. However, in saying that, one must be careful of isolating as a tactic of avoidance or some other negative motive.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, that experience and surviving it is one shared feature of the ground we have in common.
Thanks for visiting, Robin.
You too, Rikki.
Thanks for the lines, Karen.
Karmic consequences falling like asteroids from the sky... man, if that were the case, we'd all think twice before stepping outside.
ReplyDeleteThe other one is lovely too, though, why is solitude in the West, I wonder...?
Joseph, Solitude is in the West for the exact same reason the Elves withdrew from Middle Earth to the Lands Of The West.
ReplyDeleteAs to having Karma fall like asteroids or whole mountains, if you have not had the experience yet you are a blessed man, may that continue to be so. My big one started in 1993 and didn't really finish until 2001. There were periods to it, but mostly it was unrelenting. Terror was never far away. There was also great joy scattered about. I did not emerge unscathed but apparently I lived. There is however some debate about that.
Interesting comment Christopher about Karma, I'm coming to know Karma, or become acquainted with it. Sometimes other peoples Karma gets mixed up with your own I think. As for being alone, and being lonely. I agree with Rick, that some of my loneliest moments have been amongst large groups of people and some of the least lonely moments of my life have been spent walking in solitude amongst the wildness of the earth.
ReplyDeleteSG, Most of the time, I think Karma is more like water for the fish and air for us. We only sort of notice it even though it almost completely encloses us. It is in this lack of attention that seems to be built in that the many illusions called Maya chiefly reside. Most of what we think of as freedom is not free, not unless we enter into disciplines of attention and succeed. Even then, we mostly navigate currents rather than freely choose novel ways to travel. To become free of these myriad entanglements is the goal of many eastern traditions.
ReplyDeleteIt is rare to actually see the hugeness of a karmic issue culminate with such inevitability and reverberate, unless it is all mixed up with those events we call "acts of God". But if you do experience one, there is quite a good chance you won't understand much about it except that Karma is what this must be. It is so heavy that it can't be anything else.
Interesting Christopher, different thoughts for me there...
ReplyDeleteSmall stones!
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I find my fingers all over them, my pockets full of them!
I wish I had the quiet acceptance of being alone that you have. I do not.