There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
–Carl Jung. 1875-1965
The opposite of poverty is not wealth. In too
many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.
–Bryan Stevenson. Born 1959.
I may not survive.
So, I must share this unfinished work, now.
Many years ago, I was torn apart
by injustice that continues
to this day.
One injection
of a socially sponsored toxin
suspended me in the prism of pain.
There, the clock’s dial sneered
as it hands clobbered me.
I protexted, resisted and struck back,
until I was persona non grata.
As I fought for life and truth,
I cried out one night:
“Will we ever span a bridge over this
Gorge of Animus?”
We can influence whether we have
a planet of peace, social justice, equity and growth
or a planet of unbridgeable differences
between peoples, wasted resources,
corruption, and terror.
–James Wolfensohn. 1933-2020
I imagine one of the reasons people
cling to their hates so stubbornly is
because they sense, once hate is gone,
they will be forced to deal with pain.
–James Baldwin. 1924-1987
Okay, not quite so eloquently.
It was more
of a guttural, throaty, growling howl
of desperation, disdain, and disbelief.
When I was poisoned, I collapsed,
curled up into a fetal ball and howled in pain.
The unjust toxin destroyed my organs.
Ate me alive, from the inside out.
And would do much, much worse.
Experience has shown how deeply the
seeds of war are planted by economic
rivalry and social injustice
–Harry S. Truman. 1884-1972
Optimism doesn’t mean that you are blind
to the reality of the situation.
It means that you remain motivated to seek
a solution to whatever problem arises.
–The Dali Lama. Born 1935.
When I landed
at what I thought to be the bottom,
I lay still for days.
Every millimeter of me hurt.
My moans echoed all around me.
Days later, I rolled over, onto my knees.
Weeks later, I knelt, swayed, chanted, and prayed.
Months later, I climbed to my feet and howled.
A year later, going mad, I began to laugh.
To truly laugh, you must be able
to take your pain and play with it.
–Charlie Chaplin. 1889-1977.
Step into the fire of self-discovery.
It will not burn you,
it will only burn what you are not.
–Mooji. Born 1954.
The granite underworld crushed bone, light and will alike.
Within, time crawled ahead and dragged me along.
The catacombs hid a vast network of sinkholes.
Each year, I feel into a deeper realm of pain.
Four factors gleaned over four
lightless quadrenniums:
First, as I tumbled deeper, my memories crumbled,
forever reduced to the rubble of delusion;
once a fantastical realm, now no longer real,
once, where empathy extinguished desperation,
once where essential sustenance was in abundance.
Until the great mass of people shall be filled
with a sense of responsibility for each other’s
welfare, social justice can never be attained.
–Hellen Keller. 1880-1968.
The winter solstice has always been special to me
as a barren darkness
that gives birth to a
verdant future beyond imagination,
a time of pain and withdrawal
that produces something joyfully inconceivable,
like a monarch butterfly
masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon,
bursting forth into unexpected glory
–Gary Zukay. Born 1942.
Once, where we strove to govern inclusively,
once, with compassion, is now
governed by exploitation and extraction.
Alas, compressed by time,
my world shrunk to a leaky snow globe,
now designated by the dealers of hate
as a derelict relic of the vanquished;
ransacked and inversed
despite my defiance.
Second, I use the term “tale,” loosely.
This is more like a topographer’s field journal,
comprised of translations of strange tones
and renditions of vague visions and pain
elusive to the surface world.
Third, the route herein was not linear,
more like points on a compass
whose needle spun madly
in three dimensions.
It is a curious sensation:
the sort of pain that goes mercifully
beyond our power of feeling.
When your heart is broken, your boats are burned:
nothing matters any more:
It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.
–George Barnard Shaw. 1856-1950.
Does saying “things are improving” imply
that everything is fine,
and we should all relax and not worry?
Is it helpful to have to choose
between bad and improving?
Definitely not. It’s both.
It’s both bad and better.
Better, and bad, at the same time.
That is how we must think
about the current state of the world.
–Hans Rosling. 1948-2017
Fourth, I painstakingly tried
to render the vital details
but ever-present fear
informed my POV.
Fear that I would
fail to prevail,
fail to live,
fail to ever have
any menaing at all,
never to make my mark,
construct, contribute or create,
never, not without my missing half.
One day, I heard water dripping.
A crystal clear, “Blink,”
bounced off the cave walls.
In this echo chamber
I ran round and round
–until–
A spring of babbling water
led to a stream of water,
led to rushing water,
led to rising water.
Paused, stood still
–wobbled–
then fell.
Into the echo chamber of his own mind,
where he was always able to find
a justification for the most terrible action.
–Una McCormack, Born 1972.
If you want something you never had,
you must be willing to do something you have never done.
–Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826.
Just like moons and suns,
With certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
–Maya Angelou. 1928-2014.
Splashing;
Rising, spinning in its eddy,
Rising, ready to be restored,
Rising, alongst a nautical ascent.
Dumped atop, on its riparian bank.
Back, above ground,
I was blinded by the sun.
My eyes adjusted,
cringing reduced to squinting
until I could hold my eyes open
without pain.
He threw his hands to his eyes and hissed.
Like the hiss of incinerating ashes.
‘What is this bright orange orb in the sky
that mocks me with its warmth?’
–Jesikah Sundin, Transitions. Born 1978.
The human race
cannot forever exist
half-exploiter and half-exploited.
–Henry Ford. 1863-1947.
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait
a single moment before starting to improve the world.
–Anne Franke. 1929-1945.
One day lying in the sun,
I rolled and wiggled
in the warm dirt,
basked in the light.
Then I heard them,
the Dominion Dogs
barking in the distance.
The lush carpet
of tall, thick brush
parted as they charged toward me.
Though not done, my time has run, so to you,
I bequeath my memories and dreams.
Do not rest on discontent;
elevate your efficacy;
build your biome, wisely.
Men should begin to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to,
and why.
–James Thurber.
In time of crisis, it is of utmost importance
to keep one’s head.
–Anonymous.
It is not the size of the dog in the fight,
it is the size of the fight in the dog.
–Mark Twain. 1835-1910.
They’re here, skidding to stops,
digging their claws into the ground,
snarling, growling, snapping
an inch from my face.
I fight to hold them back …
As if I am wrestling with time, itself,
stopping them from tearing into me,
stopping time from rolling over me.
Their erratic jerks, stay,
their convulsions, pause,
their snapping jaws, stall.
Their saliva drips in slow-motion
until the stink-drops halt, mid-air,
and the tick-tocks of the clock stop.
Through the sacred art of pausing,
we develop the capacity to stop hiding
to stop running away from our experiences.
We begin to trust our natural intelligence,
in our naturally wise heart,
in our capacity to be open to whatever arises.
–Pema Chodron. Born 1936.
Courage is grace under pressure.
–Earnest Hemingway. 1899-1961
Go now. Go quick.
Go find my other half.
Go bring my other half back to me!