Wednesday, May 02, 2012

I should have called them to Love!

Not that I can do much about (lost) time now, but here is the thing:

Around 2008, I thought I had finally tired of the world. I'd packed my (virtual) bags. I was ready to depart, to leave. 
Where to? 
The home is where the heart is, and the path is the path of the heart, too. 

And then, violence occurred. 2008. Murder, mayhem, chaos. I knew nothing would be saved -- nothing! -- and yet I had this sad urge to put down my bags and call people to reason one more time.

I think I did wrong. 
I  should not have called them to reason. What is there to be reasonable about, to be patient about, in the midst of such hate and murder?

I should have called them to Love. 
And the first one to answer the call should have been I.

But I tried to be reasonable. I tried to teach, to gather, to console. I tried to 'organize'. 

Nothing worked, really. I mean some lives changed. Perhaps, most fundamentally, my own. I realized all over again that I realize nothing at all. 
But the concern for love and money and reputation held me down. 
What was to be the security in changing?
In moving away?
In living a new life... and being a light to others who'd dare do the same?

I left the path of this apparent insanity, and tried to be sane. 2009, 2010. I attempted to help the unhelpable, teach the unteachable. 
Nothing has changed. 
They still keep on murdering. They still keep on fighting. They still keep on seeking significance in the insignificant, security in the crumbling. And I am here, still here, torn between the call of my heart and a self-created call of 'duty' -- which has now turned into proper inertia and fright. 


I will try another time.
I will try love, the path of heart, and flight. 

I have nothing sensible to say, teach, share anymore. 
I have no invitations to make to sense and sensibility -- there are none. 

I read this diary, and I realize, with much amazement, that that which I consider lunatic and insane actually makes perfect sense. 
And all the sensible persons and things are now bewildered.

I was answering the wild call of the heart -- and I was right! 
There was magic to it!
There was flow to it!
There was love to it!

No PowerPoint presentations can be made on that, alas. 
No TEDTalks. 
No mashable stories. 
No Twitter lead tags.
No Facebook pages may entertain such insanity.
But I like this insanity.
I prefer this over a thousand folds of sanity!

And this is it. This is it! 
(Amen!)

--
ra
02 May 2012
03:47 pm
(Still sitting) at the writer's desk

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Bold as Rumi [a poem]

BOLD AS RUMI


If I were bold enough as Rumi
I would throw this pile
-- this burden! --
of books from my head;

I would tear the gown of familiarity 
and retreat into the forest
-- the ever-perplexing, awe-stirring forest --
of my being.

But I am no Rumi.
I am grounded finer than stardust
and blown into a thousand constellations
a hundred galaxies.

I am not one thing.
I am not even nebulous.

I am a powder grounded 
too fine, too fine, 
and blown with the cosmic wind
in ten directions.

I take time to gather my being.

They say there is no time.
Have they been me?
Have they found, upon awakening, that their being
was not their being?

But rather through necessity or compulsion
she was a soul crushed and grounded as gold powder
mixed with the meat of a million 
earthly beings?

How does she gather herself

I know not. 
Rumi, at least, left me one legacy: 
he said, "Sell your cleverness, and buy bewilderment!"
I lie bewildered, though gathering.

Gathering, gathering, gathering.
A mercurial being
gathering into a mercurial ball
rolling away from the touch of lecherous beings.

I am gathering.

As boldly, clearly, ecstatically
as a quiet, lost, hidden Lover 
is capable of
gathering.

Amen.

~

January 8, 2012
12:11 am