I had a little fellow attached to my side – a kind of misshapen, half-formed other self, a twin self, who was so small and misshapen that I forgot about him, hid him under my shirt until he spoke to me suddenly one day on the way home from the store.
He spoke in a really tiny voice and it would’ve sounded cute if it wasn’t so insistent. Hey! Don’t forget about me down here. I need some looking after too! And I looked down at him and I was shocked, astonished, once again, at his tiny features and misshapen form, and yet he spoke! He had intelligence! I covered him with my hand to reassure him that all was okay – and reassured myself too, if you want to know the truth of it, and went on my way. I was going home, and this part of me quieted down.
I could never forget he was there though, because he was connected to me on the inside and when I lay down at night, I always lay down on my left side so as not to disturb him. And he didn’t move, of course, but I could feel him connected to me and was very careful of that side of myself.
At home, with my friends, I tried to find a place to get comfortable and take a nap but my friends were all up and talking. I couldn’t get comfortable and someone noticed me and announced that it was time to cut the bugger off me. I replied with horror that it wasn’t that easy, that he was connected to me on a deep level, that we shared the same blood even and that to cut him off wouldn’t just be a flesh wound, but would leave a gaping hole in my side where blood would run out. They began to get interested in the idea anyway and they were all stirring and coming around to me in excitement. I became more alarmed and jumped up to get away from them. I tried to reason with them but they seemed only interested in making things better or removing so-called defects and weren’t interested in what could happen as a result.
I ran to the outside of the building and climbed up to the roof, trying desperately to get away. When that seemed hopeless, since they were still coming, I decided to throw myself off the roof, and I did – and gently floated down and down, past the many stories, to land on the ground below.
Later they found me and I felt a pain and an ache in my side, and a bandage covering where my “little guy” used to be.
As I sat in my spot in the big room with the friends, I felt the blood seeping out and wetting my shirt. I had told them and they hadn’t believed me. But I knew.
I was still feeling dull and weak and it would probably take awhile til I could fully come to terms with this, my form changed so deeply and the hole it left behind.
What was that part of me? What did it mean? And where did it go if it was cut away? Was that a good thing, after all? Or needless suffering? Was it a drain on my life force? Did the hole of bleeding leave my life force to run out or create movement and flow where there had been only stagnancy?
Was something feeding on my life force that I had to be careful with and mindful of? Something that had no use but was merely an appendage? Or a useless hopeless thing that had worth nevertheless?
Were my friends my friends, or hooligans? Was the dull ache of the knife to be feared more than the ever-present nagging and insistent presence of "the other?" Was the wound more important than the taking care of that part of me?
Was it more important to create the wound from the dis-embodying of the little self, and thus to free up stagnant physic energy which before had been bound up in maintaining that self, even if that meant the blood would flow freely, at least for awhile, and thus would cause concern in and of itself, as a wound that may not heal? We have no proof that it will heal. We have only evidence of its opening and flowing, and a dull ache within. Surely it will flow onto the ground (of being) and nourish the roots there. For a new life.
See with me. See within. Go within and feel your way through. Throw out your prejudices and make your way in the darkness of mind, the darkness of soul. Get to know the lay of the land inside your own psyche, inside yourself. Become familiar and decide where to make your home. Watch the comings and going and be the tree, fixed in the garden, aware and strong and rooted deeply in the earth and the ground of your being. Deeply rooted in your own being.
When midnight comes to you
And petals lose their flowers
Dropping silently in gentle
Repose around the hours
Stalking visitors impose
Their demands upon your wishes
Replacing joy with Everests to climb
And choking seaweed for the fishes
The shocking calls ring out
Deafening and senseless
Monotone and monosyllabic
Wasteland without fences
Freed and wandering, you pass
The signs of many splendor
In and out of coils of hope
Your break and then engender
It moves within you, spirit comes
A shadow of your life
Rising up and filtering out the noise
Its own truth like a knife
Cutting through the bonds of past
Miscarriages and labors falsely keeping
Opening up old wounds to free
The love that lies there weeping
Your soul has truth, potency
Obscured in light of day
It waits til lines are blurred at night
For what it has to say
When lines to outside pleasures’ gone
In the midnight hour at last
One can commune with one’s self
And hear the voice of soul broadcast
In the dark, I tumble down
To a lost reverie and pain
Quiet dreams and lost horizons
Given up for security and gain
Here I open up my heart
For there’s nothing left to do
With silent peering in, I hope
To discover something new (true)
Something I’ve lost or forgot about
thrown upon the heap
Of once-bright treasures left behind
And toys that never weep
Useless and hopeless, they all seem
Dolls and toys flung away
The flower petal dress and dew drop hands
Still, they sing to me this day.
What can they offer you or me?
What can midnight bring?
If all the world’s a stage, then I
Must surely play the part within.
Clues abound, though overlooked
My stubborn mind ignores it
Still my softest of friends speaks to me
And tenderly implores it
Many soft things hang in the shadows
In the quietude, I’m feeling
Quiet rules me now instead
And a modicum of healing.
This reverie of knowing must
Permeate the day
To bring forth unknown qualities
Into the conversational play
So the midnight brings its own reward
A fulfillment and a pain
Dark and moody, fearful, present
To what is secret, again
Midnight is the dark of it
And fear of it, I think
Lurking in the shadows of life
Leaning on the brink
Til all my being’s tuned to it
My justifyin’s disappeared
My fear like a bad melody
Stuck and can’t get cleared
(My fear laid open for me to see
It’s not as bad as feared)
When midnight comes to you,
Listen to what I say,
be aware the dark’s not as dark
as what you feared in day
so sink into your favorite chair
let go of daily busy-ness
slow as the hour proceeds from here
to make contact with the is-ness.
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