"Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment."
- Shunryu Suzuki
not always so
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Lao Tzu
Sometimes we come up short… Or maybe there is a time for love and another for some other thing… I know I have been single for nearly three years and it’s okay. Even now that my cat has died and I really am in this house alone, it’s still okay. Far too old to change…it is just so much work! I don’t know why I want to work that hard any more. That’s part of the reason the bosses out there don’t want older workers. We want to be well paid for not much any more. We know we deserve that because of forty years of service, even if it isn’t realistic to anyone else. The same may be true in loving. If it isn’t okay to just be me, then the love engagement is too much work. I need my energy elsewhere. I need to write the poetry, play the music, encourage my friends, serve in AA, find my peace before I go. I am fairly busy. Building a new world...Oh.....My.....God.
Living A Long Time
If I took your words
as serious as you meant
I would have to change
my love, transform it
beyond my understanding,
answer completely
with all new bright words
as if you were no longer
you, but my lost maid
come back to me now,
at this late stage of my life
and me far too old
to change.
July 7, 2009 12:58 PM
I would have to change
ReplyDeletemy love, transform it
beyond my understanding
Isn't this what love does anyway? Changes us beyond understanding? And as for being too old - well, the whole of life is about change, or we would stagnate! Your poem set me thinking, you see... :)
There is, as far as I can see, turning points in my time on the planet, and beyond these moments I become more intrigued with what comes next in the spirit than with the continuance of things as they are. I have actually reached the turning point many times in the big changes in my life, the changes in which I die to the old, make way for the new.
ReplyDeleteIt is certain that I shall make a final personal exit, just as I made a first entrance here. These are primary and personal experiences on the planet, nothing quite like them, nothing bigger. That my personal exit should cast a shadow before its approach is the most natural thing in this world. I watched my cat in her last days, and she entered a dream as it appeared to me. That dream actually contributed to the particular moment of her passing. So shall I experience myself, I believe. I too will begin to dream more and more, and I feel like this has already begun in significant ways. I find myself leaning toward it to keep my balance. I cannot see how this is improper.
What is called love must fit inside and around this shift in my attitude here or else it no longer makes sense. So much of my experience is now a form of recall. With sixty-four years behind me and no more than thirty or so left, at the outside, I am two thirds at the least or very likely much more over. That is just the case, period. I am no longer chasing things very much. Now I am far more engaged in cultivating my inner shape. How can this be wrong?
Interesting perspective on the changes to your perception of the spiritual side of existance. Rather than describing approach to death as 'dreaming', would you not class it as simply a change in awareness of the 'other than self' part of each human being? What most people would probably call soul?
ReplyDeleteI think our early ancestors were far more in tune with this awareness and accepted it as the norm, whereas many people these days are reluctant to even acknowledge the possibility that such a thing exists at all, so intent are they on dealing with the physical world, to the exclusion of all else.
I still think discussions like this are better in emails - at least then I can use a spell checker to weed out the typos!
And if you want to know the word verification for this it's 'parsa'- get any vibes?! LOL :)
I would say the conversation is better in email except you never know who is getting a drink of fresh water out of people writing such things. I know at least one of my blog friends dotes on these conversations. We have been having them here and on her blog for a long time now. Often she, like me, gets her start from the comments that others leave.
ReplyDeleteYou are IMHO right that shamanic cultures are much more in tune with theses matters. I was using "dream" more in that way than in the night time REM sleep sense. One term for the life source place in one abo culture is the "dreamtime". I think I am referring not to a kind of knowledge or waking awareness but to an awareness of another kind, which is a necessary change in order to have a consistent encounter with the "other than self". If you meditate, this is one of the goals, to reach a change in the quality of awareness, much as awareness in dreams is different from waking state consciousness.
I am not sure though that "other than self" is a complete description. There are traditions that suggest that God has made us in order to have companions, and that we must therefore function as selves in God's presence to some extent. I know that my path seems to include that version of things.
It's sometimes difficult to find modern words to equate with the kind of 'knowing' implied by the 'dreamtime' awareness you referred to. I agree, that meditaion makes it easier to link to this source, and I worked for several years as a member of a small group who exlpored it quite deeply, with some very interesting results - personally, as well as a group. Blogging is, on the surface, a far cry from such things, but you are about the fifth person I've come across who is willing to talk about the subject, though I expect there would be many more if people were less inhibited about admiting their interest.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to coming back for more...
Jinsky, dear, I have this kind of discussion shot through and through my archives. It is my life to hang out in the spirit lands. I started my path in 1966 and have worked hard in my own way ever since. I consider this blog life very much a part of it.
ReplyDeleteYou might be surprised what you find.
It will take a great deal to actually surprise me - I'm as old as the hills...
ReplyDeleteAnd you are certainly welcome at any point of entry throughout. I will leave all discussion of a woman's age to those better suited to that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteI am only saying that this is not an ordinary blog.