Letting Go

sometimes I wonder how to begin a stream of consciousness post and then I say to myself why worry sure you can start anywhere and then continue on without concern as to what will come out for the piece will write itself and some flowers will appear like lotuses from the muck and gunk and bilge and all that slime and all that slime and somewhere deep within it there will be something fine formed like a poem coming to birth coming to a shape forming forming from all those Freudian depths from that cesspit from which rises the Self like some exotic phoenix  and so I keep on writing keep on thinking keep on doing and basically keep on keeping on following my nose to quote my late great mother and all I can do is go with it go with the flow of it the flow of it the flow of it and then even the trickle of it the stop of it yes the stop of it the stagnation of it the vile vile smell of it and I have often been amused that even from the cesspits from the tanks of shit from the tanks of effluent that's anything but fluent anything but fluent without flow stagnant stagnant but this is no angst-ridden piece this is no depressive's account of life no no no it is an observer's account of life as I sit objectively sitting in my body that I almost do not recognize as me as I grow older and older in this out of shape container that bulges at midriff  and I sit and seek and seek and sit and type and write and attempt to compose to find some shape some form some structure some way of being in this world that is light and light and lighter still I search and search for enlightenment for an elongated light-bulb moment for some dawning of the light some dawning some dawning of the light and I write and I think of the shit that has happened not to me no not to me but to those dear to me dear to me those who I hold in my heart in my heart for some strange reason why that link why that holding why why why that holding of them in my heart why and yet I am drawn drawn to their suffering and I am with them yes I am with them in compassion in compassion and all that meditation and all that falling asleep and all that seeking and yearning and searching and then sleeping again and all that reading all that reading all that philosophy and psychology and becoming more and more theology and literature and languages and all the things that I have studied and learnt and I say why why why why and I write in search of what I do not rightly know anymore but I know I am getting to be more observant of the whole thing more and more of an objective watcher of life that is coursing through this body this body enlivened through its blood its blood its blood red vitality that rises from God knows where in some gap some gloriously small gap some Goldilock's window where the light of life came in came in at some temperature suitable to life formation and suddenly there was something that stirred at the quick of things at the heart of things somewhere where the music of the spheres chimes in harmony chimes and spins and spins and chimes and all I have left is this stream of consciousness to warm my heart this damp night this damp night where everything is cold and objective and I long for a passion for life I long for and enthusiasm for an en-god-ening of myself as that word essentially means etymologically being filled with the godhead being filled with a spirit a life a vitality beyond me and I experience this life this vitality this vital-ism that is pure pure gift and then the bolt from the blue the punch in the stomach the headbutt and the knocking senseless of the cerebral way of processing things that knocking punch-drunk of us all at your death Sean and I cannot get you out of my mind anymore after your final act your final act under a beautiful low-hanging evergreen tree where you ended your short life where you tied the rope around your neck where you climbed upon a big strong bough and jumped until the rope strangled you until the rope suffocated you knocked your life from you under that evergreen tree so near to the school where you were happy and you ended it all ended it all there and I went there twice and wondered and wondered and cried and wondered at the awful suffering you must have endured before that final act that definitive act of saying no to the vitality the vital essence that ran through you whatever that essence of life or living happened to be and at end of some nerve ending at some synapse at some strange interconnection of neurons in your brain some dreadful thought leapt forth and shrieked at you and screamed at you that the only way was out that the only way out that the only way was that short lonely drop from a strong bough under a beautiful evergreen tree and I still see you in my mind's eye in the corridors of the school in the corridors of my mind caught somewhere in a synapse bereft of meaning throbbing sparking between neurons and you jumped and let it all go and let it all go and let your life's breath ebb away in the shadows under a beautiful evergreen tree

The Eternal Now

Sculpture at the American Military Cemetery, Normandy

Sculpture at German Military Cemetery.

and all spiritualities talk about living in the now the eternal now because it alone is all we have as the past is already gone and is merely a somewhat cloudy memory while the future has not yet come and is merely a fleeting vision if we are lucky and that's it my soul-friend the future and the past are illusory leaving us only to dwell in the eternal now that now that goes on forever leaving us with the mystery of time which we know only by the changes wrought on and in our very bodies and that is what ageing and growing old for me is yes that's what it is a coming to terms with the body-soul or soul-body as a unity ah yes that is what growing old is for me yes it is a coming to terms with my body an acknowledgement of its weaknesses and failings with all its bumps and lumps and imperfections exacerbated by the weathering of the years and my spirituality is a growing of my soul-into-body and my body-into-soul a growing beyond all atomization a growing beyond all splitting of the self because my self is so intimately bound up with my body that i know of no separation and ageing is carrying me beyond old certainties and old categories one reads of in dusty old books a going beyond the dualisms and dualities a going beyond cartesian categories of body and soul and yet those old rationalists knew a lot but they kept mathematically dividing reality and even Self whereas the modern thrust of psyche and of Self and of body-soul is to unity union and unification and to live in the now is to hear my stomach growl after the light meal i have eaten as it sucks in through osmosis whatever nourishment was in the food i ate and this is the now of my body and of my body-soul as it feels these keys and taps this flow of consciousness on this screen in front of me the nowness of it all and the dog barking somewhere at the back of my house and i acknowledge its presence as I do the feel and gentle rattle of the keys that give shape and form to these emanations of the Self or of body-soul or of soul-body and all the while i am becoming an Observer or Witness of all about me as well as all within me and i am becoming a Listener to Self as well as to Others and this is the way i can be in this world and a i type i feel like e e cummings who wrote without any punctuation becoming as it were part of what he was writing rather than the creator or objectively ordering person-writer-narrator as the ordering mind begins to notice and observe rather than to order and predict and determine or pre-determine and ageing for me is becoming a letting go a going beyond a wanting to control a going beyond a logical or rational ordering of things to meet my ideas of how things are or should be it's as if i was becoming a more neutral screen or plate letting all those stimuli from outside and even from inside register on it and meditation is teaching me to listen and in listening to accept to accept to accept to accept a small word worth repeating but its denoted and connoted meanings are so hard to achieve and yet i am painfully and gradually doing it and i love the fact that my mind now is teeming onto this page without control of my consciousness and i feel like i have dived into an ocean and am learning to swim learning to let go the Ego learning learning learning to knock it into shape to take away its desire for control dreadful control which has led to Hitlerian destruction and devastation ah my soul ah my body ah my body-soul ah my soul-body my oneness and unity of being i delight in you that delights in others and that brings some lightness to this world weighed down with the madness of manic capitalism which is gobbling us up like an ever hungry monster and so many of us are prey to our desires and the ads on t.v. and radio and magazines and Internet all yes all are purposely composed to lure the desires of the id of the id that cesspit primordially rooted in our being... now now now NOW...  that's all i need all i need as the i diminishes