For some there comes a time when a second chance is given.That time then becomes a celebration of the unrecognized gifts of the past and humble gratitude for the wonder of present.
This then is a collection of reflections and comments on life,work,love and faith to be sung ,and danced to, in thanksgiving for a second chance.
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me one more time to feel the smoothness that changed my destiny.
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep, I want for your ears to go on hearing the wind, for you to smell the sea that we loved together and for you to go on walking the sand where we walked.
I want for what I love to go on living and as for you I loved you and sang you above everything, for that, go on flowering, flowery one,
so that you reach all that my love orders for you, so that my shadow passes through your hair, so that they know by this the reason for my song.
There was this point in the minor Odyssey where the anti-pilgrim was in some kind of black hole. Therapists, scientists and even poets of all sorts would concur that this dark spinning cycle with no perceived end was of his own making.This was no Camino de Santiago or mission to find a new way to paradise. His great Obe Wan would say “trust the force” as “the Doc” implored the ref for a time out to crack him open like a lobster to repair his wearied heart. He advised the pilgrim “ Well played but I think this part of the game is over for you.” The pilgrim had lost sight of what he was really after and he feared that he may have missed the point to everything completely.Afraid that the pre-surgery kisses would be the last and hugs and those sweet whispers would soon be forgot and were all signs that his faith in all that was sacred and in himself had regressed to the point of disrepair. Was there not a paradise to look forward to or was this existence the heaven that was promised?It seemed too late for Bocelli and Brightman dueting a “Time To Say Goodbye” or a angelic chorale singing Neruda’s Soneto de La Noche. He was aware of how unaware he was as he never really learned to be still and be mindful. There were moments of inexplicable unconditional warm tranquil grace just as well as there were times where he was getting suckered by the corrupt promises of a greedy self centered world.His soul and heart knew the right path but it was the vanity and hubris that distracted him.
It wasn’t until he slowly passed through the preverbal post surgical fog that his vulnerable spirit was suddenly immersed in a sanctifying sea of redemption and love. His soul and body were consoled, comforted and caressed with a peace known to angels and faith filled pilgrims.The secret sacred songs of the second chance would not cease and his soul danced with the freedom he felt when he first entered this world. He then knew the answer and the answer was love.
Post script: Exiting the the hospital he thought that was that and all of this may have been a dream. But he knew he was wrong in this assumption when a somber voice on the phone reached out sadly informing how the pilgrim’s associate and friend had given into the vanity and hubris shooting himself and his wife in complete despair . A flash memory for the pilgrim recalled night before he had gone into the hospital and how his associate treated him to a pre-surgery dinner and hugged him as they departed. The pilgrim thought it odd as the associate never hugged anyone as he was all business. He would not forget the hug and knew all of this was real. The associate had bought into the wrong promise.
“ I think I am a reflection like the moon on water
When you see me and I try to be a good man, you see yourself”
- Dalai Llama
The Buddha's Last Instruction
"Make of yourself a light"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man , he lay down
between the two Sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs,disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its oceans of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I am not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of unexplicable value.
Slowly,beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Don’t use the
phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry. ―
- Jack Kerouac
“If you do
follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all
the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one
you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open
where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
- Joseph Campbell
He
once wrote,
Martians used to preach
Of days they would reach the earth
Now they’ve given up
Finding what it is worth.
He
was wrong, there had never been a serious consideration for Martians to explore the
earth as it looked like a dying planet. “How did they get such an impression?”
, he wondered. And so the journey began for him to comprehend how this
perception could evolve.
Out
came the yellow high-liter with the history and sociology books as well as the
laptop googling thousands of trends and facts about the evolution of earth’s
inhabitants their attitudes, institutions, political structures, beliefs,
culture and changing. Charts, graphs, narratives and all types of analytics
were created to visually illustrate the doors of perception. Then a wave washed
him up onto the shore of enlightenment.
“Poetry!
They have never read or heard our poetry! Poetry is the language of our hearts
and souls, the living proof of the existence of the sacred within sentient
beings. ”
He
also thought of music as the voice of the divine but continued to wonder what
the Martians might think of earth and her inhabitants if they read and heard our
poetry, as it was the root of what would become songs. “Poetry is evidence of:
our compassion and passion; our love and desire for peace and concern for the
common welfare; our devotion to and appreciation for the beauty and wonder of
all that mother nature provides; our humility and hopefulness; our resilience;
our ability for our own spirits to transcend our vessels of clay; and, our
enlightenment of and faith in a great magnificence who is the reason for every
aspect of the universe.”
But
with this awareness he also became depressed, as he knew that many in this
world had lost their sense of poetry and most poets had been minimalized or
trivialized. Many contemporary poets had lost their voices or desire to have their inner
voice heard. Some "would be poets" had been led to join that carousel where
reaching for a brass ring became the objective rather than being an authentic
channel of passion. Furthermore many had become silent out of fear of being
ostracized for being a voice from the wilderness. There were some champions who
would fight the good fight but they seemed to die young.
“Maybe
if I just continue to encourage others to allow their authentic selves and
voices to flourish through poetry, that may be enough . No need to worry about
the Martian perspective now as we all have a greater challenge at hand…to save
ourselves.”
