It is hard to raise children, I think, and choose to keep the wings. We may wish with all our might but we are apes, not birds. We need to raise small apes and not confuse them with the possibilities of mythical flight. That comes in other ways. There are other things like that. The Hindus teach a threefold life stage, the first a stage of training for the second, the stage where one gives back and assists in the life of the community, while as well raising the next generation, all part of that, and the third when one sheds all responsibility as best one can, divests of all possession and begins the preparation for death and a good rebirth. These are each twenty-eight year cycles, roughly the cycle of Saturn and the Moon as progressed in a day for a year.
The point of the cycles is not so much to time things as to reveal that there really is a context to things and that one may have a duty to fulfill. Since this life is genuine, I cannot doubt the necessity of things. I mean I take the idea of life’s illusory nature seriously, but that raising children, for example is no illusion. I come in with a destiny to fulfill right here smack in the middle of illusory things. This destiny too is no illusion. If I am locked in right now, it may mean I am rightly placed in my own destiny, however constricted I feel.
I have learned that my feelings may not be the best way to measure my life. This is awkward because I am positive that my best thinking is not a good guide either. After all, my best thinking has driven me into desperation more than once. If my feelings are chancy guides and my best thinking leads me to disaster, how shall I guide my life? That’s a good question to sit with. I don’t think trying to answer it is very useful. I of course will make the best decisions I can using my feelings and my thinking, perhaps with vision and intuition, and perhaps with guidance from trusted advisors and the Divine, that’s really all I can do.
Landlocked
Landlocked by my life,
I recall you and those days
when all was open,
grand truths flying high
above a fertile country.
We had the view then,
the full scope of things,
but that was before we chose
to settle down like this.
Jun 4, 2009 12:13 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
...and now, according to the Hindu stages of life, I enter the final phase. Time to shuck off these "mortal coils" and prepare for what lies ahead. Landlocked. I think I've been there in every stage.
ReplyDeleteYes. I feel the guidance in thinking like this. Something responds. It is long past time to live a different way at age 64. I have no doubt that all the poetry in me is part of that. I don't know what for. I don't even care what for. I have thought hard about it and can't see where it goes beyond right here. I don't have the energy or desire to try to fashion some kind of public presence of my last years. It is truly not my job.
ReplyDeleteI think I am grateful to be born precisely in this time, that having found a public location to place the poems without fanfare and fuss is precise to my calling.
I feel distinctly landlocked. I feel tight to both skin and time but I recognize this as ok. I recognize these things as gifts, although they do perplex me a great deal. I can almost see beyond the fence at times, or at least it feels so, and then bam, landlocked.
ReplyDeleteNow raising children has done a peculiar job to my head. It has put my wings in a drawer, to a certain extent; although to a lesser extent these past couple years. I haven't known how to be a parent, be myself, and grow at the same time. I am learning, I hope.
xo
erin
Yes, I hope your wings are not clipped but stored carefully for the time you can return to your own shape. Mother is a deep role and even a destiny but it is not your main role. You have too much, you have revealed too much. This cannot be true. You belong to all of us, not only your children. Mother is a job with a planned release in it. This will not really be easy. I have watched it in others.
ReplyDeleteMy mother became a minister at this point.
you so speak to my soul
ReplyDeleteDear Christopher, I hope all is okay. I had a bit of an inkling that something might be up, and here you are, 4 days behind in posting. :(
ReplyDeleteI like this concept-- landlocked by my life. Sadly, it's that trapped feeling that tends to kill my poetry.
Dear Christopher,
ReplyDeleteI echo Rachel... And hope all is okay with you. You usually let us know when you will be away...
Where are you Christopher! xxx
ReplyDelete