Vessels

How do two clusters of water

collected from the same stream

differ?

How do two solid vessels

cradling river water

differ?

Though their particulars differ

by their purity, quality, and such,

their essence is one.

Cohesive fluid subsets

that hold together for now.

For form, for function, for fun.

Illusion

My body is separable.

not an element, not an axiom, not a fundamental speck.

Not a necessity, not an indispensable unit,

nor a cornerstone of the universe.

Tis a compound,

a compound of compounds of compounds,

compounded and recompounded across the ages

seeking unity

seeking form and function

liquid legos

creeping and seeping

onto each other, seeking growth

seeking life.

This body is separable

it was once synthesized,

and since then it regenerates itself

continuously

via absorption, filtering, and cleansing

a flow all its own

my body, ephemeral fountain of life.

Follows not my consciousness

my memories, knowledge, experience, identity,

the same path?

Are they not also

compounds of smaller compounds adhered, expressing life?

Symbiotic synthesis,

a building of specks of soul

a fluid of spirit

vesseled for a time

to, just like the clay body,

absorb and digest the flowing soul,

the consciousness it finds

the meanings it encounters

devour and use them

for its own ongoing growth?

Are you fluid too, my soul?

Destroyed you every moment ago?

Inhabited you other clays before,

and will you scurry away when this one breaks?

Will you allow, my fluid body,

your holdings to flow?

To notice what you take, use and hold,

and release it in due time?

Accept you both, my darlings,

that neither of you are truth?

That you world walker,

and you word weaver,

are but illusions of singularity?

That you are no fundament, no a-tom,

no primordial being to hold on to desperately.

But that you both rise and fall,

cohere and dissolve,

collect and burn,

discard and grow,

only within the world around you,

the universal river in space?

Can you allow

your flow to pour,

your trophies to go,

your wounds to show,

well-knowing that you as vessels

will die and rebirth

as you shift form and shape?

Will decay and fade?

That they were no truer

than iron ore is a sword,

than warm mud is a man?

Flow, flow, and synthesis,

periodic shaping, firing, and holding,

periodic growing, absorbing, dissolving.

Can you accept, my darlings

that you are no more meaningful

than a wave on the ocean

than a play at the theatre,

actors, feelings, dramas,

believing specific bundles of fluids,

exploring their shapes and concoctions,

combining the compounds,

that join to play for a while,

until the next shape is due?

Can you accept, little ones,

that you are naught but the evanescent shape of smoke?

Your identity no more than a weave of threads.

Standing waves, my darlings.

That is you in this rope.

Coherent and lively and graceful,

yet only shapes in the sand.

Space sand.

Imprint

The pattern imprinted was

We are poor, we don't have much

we are humble, we are frugal, but we survive

and achieve.

We exert effort, we work well, we do good

and we strive. We strive and we are good.

The rich have so much

they do not appreciate what they have.

They are lazy

spoiled.

Being rich is bad

because they do not strive

because they do not know the need.

Unbridled, this pattern

leads to continuous self-unworth

antagonism towards affluence

whether in others or in self.

hidden superiority

unending strive and need

to achieve

and a hidden rejection of the possibilities

that material wealth can bring.

Time

What is is immutable

the state that is

is an infinite colorful bead

evanescent.

It is time who sees, and weaves

the next moment with law.

It applies the myriads of forces and forms

within the bead.

It applies the law

to design the next bead

in continuous, wave-like fashion.

Point-less. Seamless.

Continuous wave-spider of all that is

time.

I believe I guide it

with my will and desire.

I strive, hope, and trust

to achieve what I will.

But these wills, these desires, beliefs,

these fears, hopes, pleasures, and pains,

merely forces and forms

just colors in the bead

just waves.

Not guides nor oracles nor heroes

nor villains nor victims

but to my separate sub-self,

within the bead

this infinite bead.

These words, mere forms

these thoughts, mere directions

the bead sees itself

and explores.

Tethers

I move through life tethered. I feel a tether here, to my family. There, to my work. There, to my friends.  And there, to things I own. One for each one of my active acquaintances. Friends, housemates, teachers, antagonists, old reminiscences, one for each person, and all of them tied to me, pulling, at risk of tangling themselves with each other, of becoming a mess.

Tangling themselves up in my psyche.

Tethers with my bank accounts, with governments, with landlords, with transportation companies, with doctors and hospitals. These tethers hold me, grab me, and keep me constrained in a tiny subset of the space of all that could possibly be.

And something in me rejects them. Despises them. Desires them to leave, to disappear, to get out. Desires to cut them, to pull on them til they snap, to rid me of their force. LET ME GO, is its voice. STOP HINDERING ME. It says this, it yells at times, as my mind and body dutifully hold on to them, knowing what happens if I let go. Thinking they know what happens.

Yet this thing imagines cutting them. Lashing at them, destroying them, ridding myself of all the things that hold this moving life self tied to this or to that. It says LET ME GO, I CANNOT KNOW MYSELF IF I REMAIN STRUNG UP LIKE A PUPPET. LET ME GO. And sometimes, like now, it flares up and yells inside me like an animated devil, like a fallen hero, like a crying child, LET ME GO!

And it thinks of each tether it still holds. The knowings and the friendships and the possessions and the certificates and the work history and the personal debts and credits, and desires to burn them. Cut them, mash them, slash at them, bite and pull at them like a dog would cut them, desperate to be free. LET ME GO.

And it glimpses at the futility of its efforts, for a human is inevitably tied to its state. Its body, its wounds and its boons, to its needs, its prides, its fears. And yes, they can be changed or healed, but they only end up replaced with others. No matter that, it looks away from the futility, and roars out again with desperate tremors: LET ME GO!

The body is the crux of this cry. It is what continues, what accumulates and refuses to let go. It is that which remembers, which desires, which needs, fears, and keeps this consciousness imprisoned in this infinite prison. LET ME FUCKING GO!! It imagines a sharp chef's knife, 10cm length, and imagines the stabbing of my body. Right into the solar plexus, blade facing down, then push and slice downwards as low as it'll go, aided by gravity. Destroy the core organs, cut straight through enough blood vessels to make recovery impossible. Cut down the power, so my energy may finally dissipate and die.

But it knows how truly unlikely this scenario actually is, and other scenarios come streaming through. Destruction of my social self. Shutting down all my contacts, releasing my residence, dissolving my career. Having next to nothing, enough just to live, and to walk the earth untethered, free to follow each moment's song.

I also remind myself this idyll wouldn't work. It is not what has become stuck to me. It is my stickiness. At some layer inside me, I believe I am hindered by these tethers, while actually this spacious prison and the tethers are one.

So I continue.

Correct

Often in life we think there is a THE right way

the correct way

the one correct action

the one right choice

the one correct partner

the one correct career

the one right lover

the one destined place

the one best destination

the one right hobby

the one key pattern

or diet

or book

or music

or friends

or habits

when nothing in life is correct

except with each other

"co-rrect"

always in relationship

nothing in life is "right" in the absolute

but to oneself

to one's one truth

nothing in this sandworld

is the apex of the box

no supreme direction

only parallels and angles

are found in between.

all we perceive and understand and choose

it is all in relation to

the ineffable, perennial,

unknown, ever-fluid

truth of self.

done 2

because when I am done

I merely recite and need not seek

my explorer becomes a librarian

and in every meal I encounter

no novelty or surprise remains

what remains is packaged food

if I think I'm done knowing I stop learning

no amount, however grand, can replace flow

and only in flow is Life.

done

It is the belief that I am done

that brings me to a halt.

It is the thought that I am finished

that brings about the standstill,

the feeling of complete, that my task is over

that I need no longer care

that I have all I need or matters

that I, or any part of me,

no longer requires growth.

It is the belief I have the answers

that brings me to stop asking.

That the fireflies I've captured

are all the magic I need.

That the wind has told me all its secrets,

that nature is my tool, and no longer my friend.

The magic of the moment stops flowing

when I believe that it has stopped.

A settled job that takes care of the financials

can bring my desire for learning to a halt.

A steady lovership may make me feel

I no longer need to strive to be of worth.

A comfy social cushion may numb my empathy.

Belief of doneness induces carelessness

detaches that part from living flow,

makes the stream a stagnant puddle,

leaves the pirate ship floating adrift.

Hubris of a healthy body

has me stop heeding its signals.

The arrogance of an agile mind

brings it to sleep upon the racetrack.

Yes, what I have has been granted,

yet it can always be ungranted back.

This is the state of flow this moment

and at any other moment, never the same.

believing that book has the answers

believing I've cornered truth or beauty

believing this practice is enough

believing this thought is the one key

believing this poem is the crux, the missing piece

believing the subset can detach from the whole and be complete

believing it is done

believing I am done

brings striving to a halt

brings thinking to a halt

stagnates the curious flow of Life

inseparable from growth.

clay

this body

organized clay

no more

no matter how complex, sophisticated,

mobile, ingenious, compelling,

intense, suffocating, perceptive,

useful, beautiful, or dear,

it is clay

just to play

what is not clay?

her dress

she wishes to be seen

does she not?

she dresses so as to bait the eye to her exposed skin

yet enough to keep it seeking more.

she delights in wearing patterns that delight

the eye and the sense of space

colors, shapes, sheers, and frills

aiming to express soft and sleek

a tacit offering to receive.

she plays with hugging and veiling her shape

enticing others to touch it

this is the social feminine's tendency

whether awarely or not.

This I perceive.

Aspirations

When I meditate upon my heart,

I find my mind slips almost always

so consistently, so frequently

that it could not be mere happenstance, I thought.

Something there is causing me to slip.

Today I glanced at a clue

a guess at what it might be.

I realized my mind slipped always

onto recent events, which my mind then inhabits

and acts out something else I *could've* done instead.

either onto those or onto portrayals

of something I could do

the words to say what I want to say

the actions to do what I want to do

reaching for outcomes that I didn't know I wanted.

e.g.

How I imagine exposing my true and full self to my family.

The words I imagine writing to express a concept brewing inside me that I find exciting.

How best to use the time that I find myself with, how to play my role.

My guess is that my heart

stores aspirations

Unlived aspired realities

I don't dare or deign to reach for

and that my mind forgets.

They are not, I feel, desires.

For my emotions do not stir for them.

Yet they are in me.

Perhaps my heart keeps these aspirations,

is littered with them, fogged up and veiled.

It knows them to be true,

but unprocessed, unfulfilled

whether through success, through striving, or through conscious dismissal,

And waits for me to find them there

and to remember.

If so, I think I begin to remember.

At least I think I know now

where in me I can search.