solving for unseen variables
And today the sky reflects nothing.
An ocean of aspens, all grown
from a single source, quiver in the breeze
and remember nothing, no meaning
hidden beneath yellow-dampened leaves.
This morning cold, glimpsed as a ghost
gliding from shadow to shadow,
says nothing beneath its breath,
each exhalation raising frail bodies
of fog from forest duff. And footprints
where nobody has walked for years
lead deeper into the maze of trees,
toward a hushed trickle of water,
run-off from last night’s rain
carving a new memory, a new vein
of variables, rock exposed, only
to be forgotten by sunset. Still the sky
reflects nothing, offers only itself
as proof to an equation no one
has written, factors demanding this day
as the only possible solution.
2 comments:
Your poem (brilliant and beautiful by the way: you're the real thing, man!) really resonates with something I've been struggling with lately.
I've been going through a tough patch lately and my two best friends, wonderfully sympathetic and wise, both, have been encouraging me to "talk about it."
But my own feeling, more and more, is that things simply happen, arise in emptyiness and pass into emptyiness. I'm so suspicious now of my attempts to interpret and attach stories to what has simple happened. I want to leave the past be (since I can't, anyway, "get there" or change what's transpired) and enter as fully into the present realities as possible. Telling stories and narrating past events seems counter to that. So that's what I'm mulling.
"and remember nothing, no meaning
hidden beneath yellow-dampened leaves."
Yes, exactly. I need to print this out and put it on the wall...
Kai in NYC
Hi Kai,
You raise an interesting question, so please be patient while I try to articulate an adequate response.
First, I think that if you have reached a place where things happen but don't get "stuck" in any way--arise in emptyiness and pass into emptyiness--then you shouldn't have too many problems with current stuff needing to be talked through.
However, it's the old stuff--memories, traumas, and so on--that can create problems. Any time something happens to us that doesn't get worked through completely, it creates a "stuck" spot in the psyche. If it is big enough, it can create a complex or a subpersonality to help deal with it. The only way to release the energy tied up in a complex (or however the energy got stuck) is to process the emotions that got stuck there.
All the different forms of therapy offer different ways to do that, from talk to hitting pillows to primal scream. As Wilber points out in IP, different therapies address different developmental levels, so knowing what got stuck where is the key to knowing which therapy would work best.
I'm a big fan of working through the old stuff because it's often these things that keep us from being happy and reaching our fullest potential. We need a healthy, well-formed ego before we can transcend it.
"Talking things through" works well for anything that happens to us after the age at which we become verbal. There are many useful ways to do that--as well as many other options, such as art or journaling.
Telling ourselves the story of our lives is very useful, however it is done, for giving context to hard stuff that we have been through. It can allow us to be more compassionate for the ways we have made mistakes, for the ways we have been wounded, for how fragile we can be beneath the mask of our egos.
To me, talking through stuff is a form of loving-kindness work that we do for ourselves. It's a way to be compassionate and loving for the weakest, wounded parts of ourselves. It's a powerful way to heal those tender places within.
That's my argument for trusting your friends to listen--and for you to allow yourself to be vulnerable with them. You're lucky to have wise, sympathetic friends.
Best,
Bill
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