posted September 26, 2004 02:43 PM
Lioness,You hit upon one of the significant themes in my life... I am notorious for second-guessing and analyzing to death nearly every aspect of my daily existence. I gradually came to a point where I could automatically call to mind several highly-credible cliches, each of them potentially applying to the given situation (whatever it may be), and each in stark contradiction to the rest. I realized that 99% of all the advice people try to feed you, is probably just based on the first potentially relevant cliche that comes into their mind.
"[Even the devil can quote scriptue to his purpose.]"
- Shakespeare
Since, it seemed to me, logic could just as easily negate all that it set out to affirm, I lost confidence in it. In consequence, I began to develop my intuition to (what I feel is) a remarkable degree. I suspect that this sort of experience is a microcosm of what the mythologists refer to as "the sacrifice of the intellect"; you know, like Gandalf giving the ring to Frodo (just to name one of a billion examples); but, more poignantly, like when the Buddhist renounces (in part or altogether) "his" attachment to dualistic thinking. Then again, maybe I'm just full of it...
Time to empty myself.
Some original poems that vaguely apply to the topic at hand:
Pen and Sword
Ripened thoughts to actions tend,
As fruit falls from the vine.
But thoughts too long ensconced ferment
and are overfed,
like rotten fruit that, greedy,
clings to parch'd stem.
True,
the pen insights a million swords,
and nations, to a noble thought their births belong -
But words do not a sword uphold,
Nor slackened arms contend;
Sharp wills must hearken and be bold
For tragedies to mend,
And all the world's unblighted hope
is nothing without them.
Unseen
What's seen is yet unseen, and all unseen is seen;
There is no spirit without flesh, no skin without a soul. -
When every-thing becomes itself, bespeaking nothing else,
It's self just turns to something else, - and nothing grown but grows.
Whither breathes this breath? And hither breath expels?
Living dream? Or dreaming death? Heaven only knows. -
But, what is what and which is which; my Heaven is your Hell.
Chimerical is all the world, and nothing is disclosed.
Trust
What is this passing, unresolved,
Now or never to devolve; -
Never stopping for directions;
Busy asking busy questions;
Not to smell the scented flowers
Where they sit upon the grass
And wait for us, in untold hours,
Who never stop, but hurry past?
This living death that never lived -
How came we thus, to call it dear;
When what we think we never know,
And who we are is never here?
Not once do we but dare resist
The thought that we but do exist -
Yet, while our thinking-thoughts persist,
Our whole existences are missed!
With every breath we breathe our last,
And every sigh is but a gasp -
For you yourself do you subvert
When you yourself you do assert.
So, let us not reflect ourselves;
Reflections are but empty cells.
But desperate-seeming moments quell,
When silent thoughts in silence dwell.
Abstraction though it truly be,
There's more than timber to a tree;
More meets the eye than we can see;
There's more than what is seen to be; -
There's more to you and more to me;
We're more than we could ever be. -
God must be more than just a "He";
There's too much possibility.
There's more to life than living, just,
And wind is more than but a gust;
There's more to loving than to lust
(Far more about the breast than bust); -
And more to ashes, more to dust;
More to 'may' and more to 'must';
More to earth than just a crust, -
But nothing more to truth than trust.
Altars And Pulpits
"To a woman who prayed with her butt in the air, I remarked in passing, "God is also behind you."
- Diogenes the Cynic
Our backs are turned to God;
No wonder we don't see 'Him'. -
That's the trouble with having a back.
Some say God is also a man;
His back is always turned on someone.
Everywhere, men go to men to find God.
Pulpits are built where altars grew;
Stages for men; theaters for God. -
The actor is easy to distinguish
(He's always the one
Not facing the cross).
These narrow theater walls -
Someone must always stand outside them.
They say that God is in the church,
But every week they look there.
I think they will go on looking.
God is known by His absence.
Don't we all feel this presence?
Who said 'there are no contradictions'?
He only spoke half-truths.
,
Isn't It Chironic
(a.k.a. Heart-Shaped Cross)
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"Judgment is the antithesis of understanding."
- Stephen Wallace Coltin