Across The Divide

             NOT BEING THERE

after so much spouting    let's be silent
mums the word   after such commotion
even a stone's too fidgety   let's be still

what about hiding up an empty sleeve
wouldn't that be nice     or absconding
sneaking through a keyhole in the dark

just too many ways to fuss and fume
what's needed are more vanishing acts
take a powder sweetheart   bon voyage

you know how it is when you're absent
the shining invisibles come out to play
hippity-hop   scratch   sniff   what fun!

don't pretend you don't understand this
we're all grieving over the same wound
a lost gateway    the trapdoor into light

                           *

This world is not Conclusion--

A Species stands beyond--

Invisible, as Music,

But positive, as Sound.

-- Emily Dickinson --

WE'RE ALL GRIEVING OVER THE SAME WOUND

     We live in a global civilization with a gaping wound at it's core. This wound is not only pervasive and inescapable, it's also intentional and indispensable. We're conditioned from birth to unquestioningly accept such a diseased state of affairs--yet at the same time to remain blind to it at all costs. Living smack in the center of this huge, consensus blind spot, we're always being wounded, or else wounding others, but without ever really understanding the deeper, wider reasons why it's happening.

     Our archetypal wound is a tragic split right along the axes of the human soul, a blasting polarization between spirit and body, mind and instinct, heart and will, male and female, self and other. Consequently, instead of providing a haven of wholeness, connection, transcendence and joy, the soul instead becomes a devastation zone of wreckage, self-dividedness, cynicism and despair. The inevitable fallout is chronic, consuming fear, pain and rage--but usually they're denied and repressed. These emotions in turn are all the toxic ingredients necessary for the ongoing inflicting and suffering of further wounds.

     Each of these primal wounds, however, no matter what its immediate cause, specific nature or individual circumstance, ultimately is traceable back to the same universal crisis: the brutally fractured and drastically polarized human psyche. Freud, Jung and others pioneered in uncovering this truth. Nevertheless, nothing testifies more glaringly to our secular Western Civilization's profound and enduring blind spot, then its triumphant scientific paradigm's determination to rationalize away the very existence of the soul itself!

     In other words, much of the time we can't even grasp fully how we're being wounded, or wounding others, because Ground Zero is the bull's-eye of a deep, culture-wide, potently inculcated blind spot--the discarded soul.

     If we honestly ask ourselves why this should be, the answer's not rocket science. It stares back at us from the mirror's witness, exposing our extremely selfish, competitive, individualistic and egocentric society. Despite loudly proclaimed ideals and values to the contrary, too many people are myopically obsessed only with looking out for Number One--either so they can scramble up to the next rung of money, fame, success and power, or else avoid plummeting down into the churning meat grinder of unemployment, poverty, crime and homelessness.

     But always--wherever selfishness short-circuits connection, competitiveness undermines cooperation, and hyper-individualism destroys community--it's the humble, open, transparent, vulnerable human soul which gets trampled on and inevitably offered up as a propitiating sacrifice to the harsh gods of a ruthless, dominating, survival-of-the-fittest mentality of power and control.

     This scapegoating is not simply unavoidable collateral damage--it's radically embedded, thoroughly institutionalized as a fundamental adjunct to the continued functioning of our ultra-competitive, uber-acquisitive postmodern dystopia.

     Our vile, ugly, unmentionable secret is just this: the terrible specter of a desecrating altar of soul sacrifice, erected at both public and private crossroads everywhere--an evil even more pernicious for being for the most part hypocritically unacknowledged and insidiously invisible.

                              *    

The Primal Face

                      SOME CAVES

some caves clutch deeper caves inside them
never explored         undreamt by day-mind
hidden even from the bat's needle probings
mirror stab of mountain peaks underground

when I go there    when I go there    when I
not with my human face    no   the other one
the face before words   houses   hearth fires
primal face that gnarls roots   cracks boulders

when I go there   when I    don't look for me
I won't be a thing you'd care to kiss or hold
won't respond to chuckles  snacks  little hugs
won't hear your voice or know your name

some caves clutch darker caves inside them
never explored        undreamt  by day-mind
who we love and hate doesn't matter there
even time    death    swallowed in that void

                              *

Don't forget--Rome fell

not having grasped the phrase:

darkmotherscream.

-- Andrei Voznesensky --

SOME CAVES CLUTCH DEEPER CAVES INSIDE

     There's a primeval nature inside me, inside you--within all of us--whose roots plunge down to ice age caves. Farther still, they reach back to the pitch-dark jungle floor; and even deeper into the prehistoric past, sounding the original ocean's abyss. Recognizing, accepting, finally embracing this elemental inner core has been a stringent yet profound awakening.

     Most of my life I denied its existence, even as that repressed and enraged reality rampaged through my subconscious, sabotaging everything. Much of the nightmare horror erupting through the shredded fabric of 20th Century civilization can be understood in the same catastrophic light. We have the choice to say "yes" or "no" to inescapable aspects of our being--but not the luxury of ignoring them. In one guise or another, constructively or destructively, our shadow selves will always come out.

     I wasn't raised that way; probably, neither were you. Mom and Dad tried to teach me to be a "good boy"--sensitive, thoughtful, adaptive, unselfish, well-behaved, always striving to please. A major, normal part of me was happy to oblige. He was the Little Darling who got all those Love Cookies of acceptance, approval and nurturing! His creed was summed up by my Boy Scout Oath: "A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent." Oh God, I prayed, if I could only live up to that!

     The problem: there was another, subversive side of me, a usually repressed, rejected, obstreperous character, who wanted to trample on all this sanctimonious blather and tear it to pieces! He was the rebellious devil who insidiously undermined and recklessly overthrew every effort at cooperation and conciliation dutifully made by the obedient angel.

     I was whipsawed between these two, contradictory, psychological polarities--unable to come to terms with either, because such drastically different personal universes could never, I believed, conceivably converge and miraculously integrate as one.

     I've conducted a desperate, lifelong struggle to confront this quandary, resolve this contradiction, and transcend this seemingly intractable fate. To do so, however, I've had to risk exploring dangerous, untamed inner regions--those caves clutching even deeper caves inside them--absorbing their invigorating wildness as an indispensable component of the totality of all I am.

     I found only one way to meet such a challenge without drowning in uncharted, storm-racked waters--discover a third, independent, balanced perspective through which to comprehend and ultimately heal the apparently unbridgeable divide between soulful connection and instinctive survival. That third perspective proved to be the overarching, adult voice of my individuated intelligence, and what you're reading now is one example of its synthesizing and liberating power.

     As I listen to the thunder this morning while sitting at my computer, it's the elemental creature inside who soaks up that rumbling fortissimo with every pore--but not at the expense of meaningful relationship. There's a presence in the rainfall which speaks to my soul.

     Even as my mind shapes abstract words, I sense an instinctual vitality thrumming through my whole body--from toe to crotch, from coiled gut to the top of my head. Yet I'm attuned as well to intimate communion with you--stranger, friend--now reading these lines.

     Whatever I am, whatever I love, whatever I hope to be, I've learned to experience this ever more richly and intensely by resonating not only with my spiritual essence, but simultaneously with the most basic of my primitive, animal instincts--"the face before words, houses, hearth fires; the primal face that gnarls roots, cracks boulders..."

                            *  

Start Anywhere

                  BETWEEN LINES

Start anywhere        say with the letter f

fame fails   fashion   faces   the first kiss
and the last fuck    fables die too    so do
frozen pop tarts    fried chicken   friends

one day      last gasp      no guts or glory

glazed donuts  the best   go  vital glands
stop secreting  goodbye goals  goofy gifts
grain by grain    even grief   wears away

our whole life's alphabet       gobbled up

from a to z     expunged     what a thrill!
until   useless as an expired prescription
we shrink to absolute zero   case closed

or not     replies a voice without a mouth

I'm the one between lines   beyond words
where you end I begin   while you empty
I fill   as you vanish   I become crystal clear

                               *

THE ONE BETWEEN LINES, BEYOND WORDS

     Living in such a stridently materialistic civilization has definite downsides. For instance, because we're inundated with so many things, and assailed by so much noise, we're often blind to the significance of empty space, and deaf to the importance of pregnant silence.

    All the real action, it seems, is where all the "stuff" is. After all, one of our main identities is "consumer," isn't it? We've been bombarded nonstop with evermore manipulative and addictive advertising throughout our lives. Most of that sophisticated huckstering is designed to sell us various, seductive conglomerations of matter--and by the way to convince us we can't live without them.

     At the same time the manufacture, transport and merchandizing of all this metastasizing stuff requires enormous resources of the latest (and usually loudest) modern technology. The tool-using primate is nothing if not brilliant at devising and constructing powerful machines! And most of these are noisy as hell.

     There's no such thing as "noise" in nature--only softer or louder sounds, each one contributing its sacred thread to the vast tapestry of universal music. And that tapestry, in turn, is woven on the great loom of silence. The human race invented noise the first time some "genius" decided expendiency should trump reverence--and that was a long time ago.

     To rediscover my true essence as a human being; to come back once more to right relationship with the cosmos, I must commit to reawakening my alert awareness of empty space, and redeveloping my acute attunement to perfect silence. The capacity for such consciousness is intrinsic to my authentic identity--and utterly essential to my happiness. Only by rapt attention to emptiness, only through inner surrender to silence, can I connect inspirationally with the spiritual dimension of existence.

     What I discover "between lines" is not absence, but Presence; not meaninglessless, but a Meaning so profound I can't possibly encompass it.

     What I encounter "beyond words" is not nothingness, but ultimate Reality--communion so intimate even the humblest prayer erects a barrier.

      We inhabit more than one dimension of being. But the hugest of these worlds is both invisible and inaudible. How then can I approach its threshold, unless I become the beloved companion of emptiness; unless I welcome the deepest teachings of silence into my heart?

                              *

Waiting For Dawn

                        EXPEDITION

the triumphal arches   they're crumbling away
lost outpost off the map of the known world
heart full of shadows    heart full of shadows

who walks beside you now of all who began
just a few   a ragtag band as spellbound as you

and what were you searching for          what
absolution perhaps
                            a kiss set in dazzling crystal
the elixir distilled from thunder and moonshine

but we forgot the implacable fury of chainsaws

that abyss inside our fear was still undreamt of
and who could foretell such complete betrayals
who could say    I bargained for this    even this

hope    so frail     riddled by a great black wind
battered bird       shred of life     desperate cry

will we ever see dawn light etching the horizon

                                 *

And yet there is one great thing,

the only thing--

to live to see the great day that dawns

and the light that fills the world.

-- Old Innuit Saying --

WILL WE EVER SEE DAWN LIGHT

     I've hung on by my fingertips to the narrowest edge of hope, dangling over a bottomless abyss, unable to inch either forward or back. All I could manage in such extremity was to keep gripping that ledge with everything left in me. The only reason I'm here now to write about it--somehow, against all odds, I never let go.

     Many great blessings I could do without indefinitely if I had to: belief, approval, nurturing, security, happiness, acceptance, achievement, intimacy, even love. Lord knows, I'd be miserable. Eventually, if nothing improved, my life wouldn't even be worth living. Yet I could scrape along for quite a while--as long as I still had hope that things would change for the better. But if my hope dies, I'm done for. Despair kills.

     "Hope is the thing with feathers--That perches in the soul," wrote Emily Dickinson, "And sings the song without the words--And never stops at all." Hope's not just a positive feeling, or even a bulwark of character. It's the indomitable cry of the Spirit--a soaring testament from my Higher Self that even though caught in the teeth of the grinding gears of a seemingly implacable fate, I still have a chance. I can yet overcome, even transcend.

     Recently, I was just about to surrender an almost lifelong dream. No matter how hard I've tried, across how many struggling years, I've never been able to attain it. Now it seemed I was further away than ever. What was the point of forever banging my head against a brick wall? Time to become real, grow up, get over it. I conjured half a dozen perfectly sensible reasons to justify tuning out "that thing with feathers" perching in my soul.

     For a while, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I might actually turn into a respectable adult at last! But then, gradually, life began to lose its color and zest. I became more cynical; my existence seemed pointless, the meanings all drained dry. I found myself acting out those lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time..." I'd acquired common sense, but at the price of no longer giving a damn.

     I learned a few lessons from that experience. For one--what we call "common sense" is often just a euphemism for a critical failure of imagination. For another--there's a crucial difference between pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams and authentic, indispensable hope. The third lesson I learned: my own hope must be the truly authentic and indispensable kind, because to abdicate it felt more and more like a living death.

     It can be lonely as hell to wait for a dawn that seems as if it will never break. The heart moans a thousand reasons for wanting to abandon this vigil. The mind recites its feckless litany of fear, doubt, frustration and skepticism. What am I doing here? Why do I keep hoping, despite everything? What's the point of holding on?

     But then, just when I'm about to give up, that first, luminous glimmer of light kindles on the eastern horizon. And at the same hushed moment I hear it--clear, irrepressible, sweetly heralding--the thing with feathers; the Spirit Bird that sings the song without the words, and never stops at all...

                             *  

Uncharted Waters

                   NIGHT SAILING

farther out      farther    uncharted waters

bottom nowhere     heart everywhere   far
far from shore    faceful of spray and stars

tiny red boat in a big black night      wave
after wave coming on      compass broken

lost           can't even remember my name
loving   hating   both scoured clean   gone

is this the way     is this the way    tell me
bailing and bailing       ocean still pours in

farther out     farther     uncharted waters

                              *

O seekers, remember, all distances

are traversed by those who yearn to be

near the source of their being.

-- Kabir --

FARTHER OUT, FARTHER, UNCHARTED WATERS

     Only the bravest, or craziest explorers willingly seek out certain places, chancing the farthest, wildest edge of nowhere--going alone, afraid, exposed, pursuing some extravagant dream, wondering why they even started to begin with.

     Once, these "fool's errands" were undertaken mostly in the outer world--up the frozen, windswept face of a mountain; into fierce, nearly impenetrable jungle, or across a stormy, uncharted ocean. But all such former unknowns have been thoroughly mapped and tamed by now. You can even make a cellphone call from the top of Mount Everest! As far as external exploration goes, it seems that space is indeed the final frontier.

     Not so, however, for our inner world. As the possibility of geographical discovery has dwindled to almost zero over the past century, the potential for psychological revelation has grown exponentially. Despite the pharmaceutical industry's non-stop propaganda, calculated to convince us all our inner demons (and angels) can be banished by popping a mood-altering or mind-numbing pill, the next great unknown opening up to our boggled awareness is the kaleidoscoptic cosmos of the human psyche--from the harshest primal instinct to the most exalted mystical epiphany.

     Yet this inward Terra Incognita is even more unpredictable and dangerous than the outer one. If you've spent much time there, deliberately or not, you know what I mean. If you haven't, you're only putting off coming to grips with an essential rite of passage. Sooner or later, these dues must be paid, this journey must be taken.

     Unless I'm willing to keep risking, learning, changing, growing, I begin to die--if not immediately in body, then surely in spirit. The only way I can transcend this trap is to dare to let go of what's known, familiar and safe, and plunge into what's unknown, strange, and therefore threatening. This exploration may involve little outward discernable drama. I might never move an inch geographically. But deep inside, "where the meanings are," as Emily Dickinson wrote, entire worlds are ending and others being born.

     Once I accept this inescapable challenge, facing into it with hard-won courage and humble grace, an interesting thing starts to happen. Not only do I get better at coping with these scouring episodes of personal upheaval--more sure of myself, less terrified; I even begin to enjoy them. The excitement of movement; the awareness of transformation; the sense of an old, outworn skin painfully sloughing off, of a new, fresh one secretly forming beneath it--never do I feel more excruciatingly yet exhilaratingly alive!

     When did I adopt the illusion that such wintry seasons won't inexorably cycle back around inside me? They're just as much a normal and necessary part of my being as they are of nature. How else could the decaying past be turned into fertile soil, so the vital, green shoots of the future can thrust up through it, hungry for air and light? Although it's taken a long struggle, many hard dyings and rebirths, I've finally learned. When the time comes around again to let go, to head out into the deeps and dare the unknown, I'll be ready.

                             *