My stories emerge from parts unknown to teach me something new to remember. Memory, the greatest teacher, hopes to entertain and celebrate, but more importantly, to learn what may help me avoid new mistakes. Reflecting on pains and sorrows of the past may in fact bring new pains and new sorrows. After all, healing often relies on the narcotic arts of forgetting. A fresh start. A clean slate. A new birth unburdened by the sins and sorrows of the past. It may be shallow. It may not last.
This new face to greet the many faces of the waking world may find itself a mask, disconnected to the roots and fruits of wisdom acquired in countless skirmishes in the past. This mask may seem a beautiful face, thoughts carefully managed so not to reveal a busy storm of doubt and confusion, unsure of safety, fearing trust. The forgotten challenges that were unwelcome, fought and lost in the past, may still lurk in the unconscious valleys of regret. The tears never cried may never be dry, never washing away the lingering truth of invisible sadness.
Wearing this disguise, the honest art of human love can become an effort to overcome the loneliness of numbness. Like armor covering painful wounds, the cover plate is a scab missing sensitive nerves which feel the difference between pain and pleasure. Trust is replaced by insistence on certainty. Beauty is a test of pride. Seduction is a test of ego, not a union of passion and compassion. Only one person, invulnerable, lives behind that stony eggshell. One deeply longing self in the vast universe imagines a custom soulmate that only exists in dreams of the perfect beloved.
To what end will I aim the arrow of my conscious life? That is the hero’s journey. There is wisdom in trusting the honest heart, beyond the fears and anger learned during those lesser lives that live on in subconscious dreams and imaginations.
In order to shape the priorities of a new day
many fractures of the shattered mirror once clear
offer myriad confident senses of wonder
pointing in fear, blaming anger as truth
integration, perfection of all that has passed
embracing tenderly a new heroic adventure.
TimeIsArt 