Dirty Little Secrets

“At the funeral of one of his monks, as the Abbot joined the procession, he remarked, ‘What a long procession of dead bodies follows the wake of a single living person!’” (The Golden Age of Zen 145, 309 n.47)

For twenty days I have contemplated the actions of human beings, one upon another… murder then suicide… my best friends are now gone. Their lives, this turn of the wheel, are ended. I have mourned and I will likely always mourn their passing, but it is my own loss I mourn, I think. I will no longer hear their voices, touch their hands, witness their lives. Each time a life has ended unnaturally, a light in the network of lights that have touched mine is extinguished. There is less light left behind.

It is not right that one should choose to end another’s life before the natural passage of one’s life. I do not see it as “what was meant to be” and I can see no justification, no moral imperative, that makes right that which is wrong. I do not know everything there is to know, nor am I a perfect being… yet I do think I know right from wrong in this case and my mind does not rest easy.

The Zen quote above tells me that, yes, death is inevitable to us all, we cannot avoid it… it will come… as it always has. My desire to cling to that which was… this is a hard thing to let go of, yet in clinging, I see myself as striving against a great river, rather than letting the water flow. I am aware that I am making this more difficult than it perhaps needs to be… but, as before, I know not how to let go. It would seem the simplest thing, to just open my hands and let go, but it is far from simple for me.

In some ways, I see it as being afraid to be free… and yet, we are not free, trapped in these bodies, on this earth, though our minds and our thoughts and our feelings can travel vast distances. On the other hand, all is one… there is no need to go anywhere or do anything to be free, but just choose freedom. Clinging to what was is to trap myself in the past, as I have done before. Yet, there is no past, no future, no time, no distance… all is now, all is one. My friends’ have left their bodies, yet they are with me now in another sense. Each time I think of them, they are here now… even now, probably watching me type this, knowing these tears are for them.

Let it flow.

Out of the Divine Darkness a small dark light has arisen, a brooding twilight before dawn, in which the cloud images of the gods are dancing. There is still within me an immense deep of being, an emotional life too vast, too spiritual, too remote to speak of, for the words we use today cannot tell it’s story. It is Love yet unbreathed, and yet not lust…

… rather a hidden unutterable tenderness, or joy, or the potency of these, which awakens as the image of the divine is reflected from within. The Spirit sends an energy or love or eternal desire to go forth… it seeks, through myriad forms of illusion, for the infinite Being it once was, and still is on other levels of existence. It is an eternal joy becoming Love, a love changing into desire, and leading on to earthly passion and forgetfulness of its own divinity.

The eternal joy becomes love when it has first merged itself in form, and images of a divine beauty dance before it and lure it afar. This is the first manifested world, the place of Manannan, the Tirnanog or World of Immortal Youth. It is just a side-step away.

A word: begin
A phrase: in the beginning
A sentence: In the beginning, there is nothingness.
A paragraph: In the beginning, there is nothingness, and yet there is all that ever was or will be. It is paradox. An Awareness is Awakened. Out of darkness comes light. The still small voice within whispers, “Who is listening?” The response is a spark of light proclaiming Presence, a Song begins to play.

lately the way i’m feeling
i’m surprised i don’t hate your guts
i wonder how many years
i’ll keep thinking about you
and remembering us
while i hide my thoughts
behind this mask of “everything’s fine”

i lay awake at night alone in my bed
thinking about all the things you said
and i think of you way too much
the years pass by, my hair turning grey
and only my misery for company
it still hurts as if it just happened
i’m flinching at the sound of your name

told constantly i am no one important
and everyone i trusted betrayed me
so you see why i’m so suspicious
when told that someone loves me
a place i’ve been but never seen
and it always comes with a price
that i, suffering, alone must pay

I’ve tried it. I used to play guitar, but forgotten pretty much everything I learned. I’ve actually written a couple of songs, failed on many more. I think some of my poetry is somewhat rhythmic and could probably be adapted as lyrics. Songwriting can be very different than writing poetry, though. It has its own set of challenges. I find the pattern and rhythm of poems to be very compatible with music. I think some of the first Classical period poems were accompanied by lyre, so they became known as lyric poetry.

The Irish are well-known for their poetic and musical artistry. In ancient days, it is believed that the pattern and tonal and rhyming variations in poetry were ways of calling upon the powers of the spirits of place or of the Ancestors to effect a magical outcome. These are no mere rhymes. They are words and images of immense magical power, truth summoned from the Otherworlds. The creation of this true, fearful poetry is inherently ennobling, raising the poet from the basest of conditions into enlightenment. This Celtic form of enlightenment is no gentle melding with the oneness of the universe. Instead, it is a passionate, sometimes uncontrollable engagement with the fabric of reality. Irish magic was largely a matter of poetry, composed and chanted for particular purposes. The rules of grammar, therefore, might be thought of as the building blocks of magic.

I waited for you as long as I could
but then I had to get while the getting’s good
my friends all said you were lying to me
so far away I ran, hounded by your memory
down the highway, around the bend
into the valley, high on the mountain
I been double-crossed for the very last time
and knowing love like I do, you aren’t that kind
you may never know the pain you put me through
or the dreams I have, or the things I do
so for now I’ll keep on moving down the line
but I know I’ll never leave myself behind.
You hurt the ones that I loved best
but someday, baybee, there’ll be a test
to see what price you’d sell your soul
your heart is darkness, black as coal
there ain’t no way to make it come clean
cuz I’ve been there and I know what I’ve seen
one day you’ll waken, see the blood on your hands
and wonder who the hell is that bald old man
lyin’ there in that big old bed next to you
he’ll be a damned sight uglier than me, I can tell you.
It’s a wonder that you still know how to dream
I can’t remember your face anymore, it seems
your soul has changed, your eyes don’t look into mine,
ain’t it hard to look truth in the eyes, sunny valentine.