I grew up in a very boring intellectual family and never really fitted in. I even wondered if I was adopted at one point, but I just look too much like them. I force them sometimes to wear pink wigs and afros. (Yes I still have a dressing up box at this age) We all laugh until we cry, in spite of their hesitation. It’s my role in the family to be the crazy mixed-up kid, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” ― Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Bitterness creeps like a dark thing clutching my heart, making me question my circumstances My plight My God…
I can see it now covering the corners of my vision, seeking to torment me and blind me to the beauty of the everyday…
To be discontented and grumble about my life.
When envy grows I am resentful so I must exhume it from my body, before its tentacles spread out and poison my heart.
I speak out it’s malice and like an unholy black mist it evaporates into the ether.
And because it’s been here before I recognize its path of destruction, like a hurricane blowing through, leaving me vulnerable to its elements.
I know it’s serpentine nature creeping up on me, dropping thoughts into my mind, putting bitter words into my heart, when I’m most vulnerable, when my body is weak, when I can’t see a hopeful future, and the days are just too long!
I know I must nip it in the bud and snuff it out before it takes hold!
And then to cover my shame
I let love in
I let it wash over me in colors of the rainbow, in the tempo of the skies, with the harmony of all my senses.
And the lilies of the fields remind me of how brightly arrayed I am, the birds of the air inform me that I am loved beyond measure…
“All day, all night, now I can’t hide Said I knew myself but I guess I lied” -Nightbirde
You’ve woven tapestries in my mind, broken images you left behind, scattered impressions bubble over, negatives that require exposure…
some are fighting for their lives but you decided to go and we’re all caught in the tragedy of this overflow…
but it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay if you’re lost, we’re all a little lost and it’s alright
Because my friend took her life, I’ve had to dig deep down to forgive myself for not doing enough. It feels like a trauma I have to revisit every day, the hurting doesn’t go away easily…
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ― Rumi
Day 20 & 21… I’ve proved to myself that trying to write a poem everyday from a prompt turns me into a machine. I can’t feel any flow, and I’m dead in the water. Sometimes I need a few days to re-group, because I lose momentum, otherwise I find myself writing drivel from an empty place and it feels meaningless, and right now I need meaning in my life. I know that I have not been drinking enough Earth nectar lately or living in the moment. I’m caught up in the hustle of life and I’ve been filling my mind with defeat. Dust is gathering in the corners. Down time is sacred to me, and it reminds me not to try and be someone I’m not. It feels like I’m going against the grain and you know what that leads to… burn out! I am not an intellectual, I rather feel my way around things before I think them through. I don’t feel like I’m on the page anymore, this stone has no more blood in it. I need some meaty stuff to get me through the day, maybe it’s just the place I’m in right now?
I feel as though I’m scratching for words in the dark, making up lines and syllables, meaningless drivel smudges the pages of my life. I’m a human watcher, a human lover, I love the nuances of humans, even their struggles make them more human! When I’m not my true-self it’s like a mist forming over everything preventing me from seeing the beautiful undiluted images of self. Scratching down non-descript words, searching in the archives of an empty vault, I feel as though I’m losing my sense of purpose, What am I here for? and the Sage said to me “I have worked out that our only job is to be here and to welcome the night”, so that’s what I’m doing. For the full story read here..
Last week I absorbed the suffering of the whole world (as well as my own) into my body and my mind…
I feel like a prisoner of thought, caged by my own mind, stuck in a time-warp, I can’t identify myself. I feel lost, empty, confused, a reed in the wind with no bearing, no true north. I’m a clanging gong, out of sync, out of time, born of chaos. I eat, I drink, I wake, I sleep, but my understanding seems groundless. The truth is not fixed or even visible, it waivers!
Around every corner there’s a sense of nothingness, my hopes are shattered, I don’t want to feel anymore. I want to fade into the light, be covered by darkness, gathered into a cosmic eddy and vanish from the face of this earth. Just to be assumed into heaven and relieved of suffering, erased of all thought, of hurt. Words have become shards of pain, visitations.
And then…
I pledge my allegiance to love only, for love as energy is ceaseless, it is undisguised, it is all that I am… a resonance, a vessel, it does not falter or wane. Love seeks not division but unity, it does not grow tired of me. Love lifts the heavyweight from me and transforms me into kindness… For love is eternal, it is the answer to every question I have ever asked, it is the perfection and the chaos of who I am! Even in my darkest moments, when I could not reason with my afflictions, love gathered me into invisible arms, closer than my skin, love stormed the gates of hell to find me… I have surrendered to love’s purposes, to its extravagance, to its wildness. For I am nothing and I am everything because of love
In June of this year, my Dad aka Douglas-Henry would have been 100 years old. He was born after the Spanish flue in a place called Mvuma in Zimbabwe. I don’t think he would have taken kindly to the present lockdowns or booze ban (yes they have banned alcohol for the third time). He did however make his own mulberry wine and beer, which was quite lethal if I remember correctly, it could knock your socks off.
He was a futurist and predicted the landing on the moon when he was a child. People laughed at him and said it was impossible. He rode to school on a donkey and when he got there it was time to go home. He made his own radio and grew up to be an electrical engineer. He taught me the inner workings of washing machines and he could fix any electrical crisis in two ticks. He was still climbing electricity pylons at 70 and had a portfolio of all the electrical installations and substations he had been involved in through the years. He loved technology and was always keen to learn new things, however, he couldn’t boil an egg or make a cup of tea.
He was a member of a club in every city and he frequently played at the 19th hole. In his 20s he drove from Bulawayo to Nairobi in a Morris minor where he met my English Mother..
I don’t really miss him because I have dreams about him riding a skateboard with my son, Stevie. He is in a much better place and he gets to hang out with some really cool post-material people.
He was a crazy brilliant dude who didn’t have much emotional intelligence, but hey, he lived in an era when you didn’t talk about your feelings. I think I got my love for science fiction from him and a taste for the exotic.
He used to say to me “your best isn’t good enough and sorry is too late”, which I think is absolute BS! He expected far too much of me, which didn’t bode well for me or him because I’m a rebel at heart. He liked me quite a lot though, and on good days I would call him “Daddykins”. I think I taught him more than he taught me in the end, the loving part didn’t always come easy to him. Believe it, your kids are your greatest teachers, I know mine are!
However, unknowingly he did teach me to be curious, to think for myself and question everything, even him!!
“Love says ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two, my life flows.”― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That
I always wanted to be someone-etched out in beauty and intelligence, written in stars. To be noticed in the hallowed-hallways of time… instead I wore the garments of suffering, eaten alive by failure, I stumbled forward on an invisible journey, hemorrhaging fear, awakening in shadowlands, yet constantly occupied by mystical light, guided into atmospheres of imagination, soul symphonies, high octaves of love…
It was a gradual letting go, fingers finally unclenched, surrendering to the life that desired to play itself out, the slow-release of delinquent narrations. I recognized the small-self, not in condemnatory overtones, but with love and forgiveness. I learned to observe the ravenous ego, that feasted on compliments, needing approval, craving to be known…requiring flattery to breathe!
Though I have spoken penance to my failures, rewriting the script, I think I may always suffer the voices of disapproval, as they rasp in the silence, their off-key rhetoric catching my breath, bringing me to a momentary halt…they are curves of learning!
On looking deeply into my reflection, the little girl appeared more balanced than the one I became…so I put aside any narration I had made up, or was told, and reminded myself that I have always been the breath of the Divine and my only requirement is love…
I have attempted this balancing act between being nothing and being everything, and I am gently learning to flow in each direction… and yet I am still in need of further instructions!