The Harvest

I put things in order from A to Z, small to large, dust off the debris, rearrange, restack and organize – trying to impress some order on the chaos. When am I going to learn that trying to organize dust particles is futile? And here we are dust to dust. All it takes is a strong wind and we’re history.

I don’t have much time here. I don’t have much time to figure it all out. I call it eternity – but it’s not. It’s my forever, but it’s conscripted solely in my flesh. I’ve been granted this gift and I’ve abused it – or maybe I’ve just lived it. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. If I’ve used it well, sometimes I think I should arrive at this moment with more, but I never really deliberate on what I mean by that. More what?

Come down here onto the earth and die by the weight of it. It’s so much more than sitting up there in the clouds pondering the heavens. There will be time for that later when we’re dead. We will come to know the spirit world soon enough, when our forms are better suited for that understanding. We weren’t given the gift of flesh in order to understand that world. We were sent here to understand this one rightly. Is speaks through each of us and this is what Is tells me.

Walk on the ground and carry the weight of creation rightly. The burden increases with every act, every deed, and when it comes to be too much we’re to do what Atlas does – to shrug. This is the burden of our harvest. This is the burden of the abundance of life. It’s called joy.

Every Violin

Isn’t every violin supposed to be yielding itself to my hearing?? Damn trees. Damn blades of grass. You mean they are not growing all around me with the recognition that I’m the gravitational center?? No, no, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be the center. I just want my corner, off to the side, out of the fray, outside the whirlwind chaos of everything.

I want time to slow down and I want crisp morning walks and a progression from one thing to the next that feels even vaguely like progress even if I don’t understand why, to what end, toward or away from what. I want my voice to be heard, my words appreciated. Yes, the problem is that I want a certain reverence that I neither want to work for or be terribly accountable to. That’s arrogant and unfulfilling all at once.

If I set wind to these words will it offer them the gravity to float away? My old therapist seemed to think so. There are too many words left undone, half spun, frayed and broken and the tapestry is unraveling as we sit here saying nothing.

I had a dream last night that I was a drummer. Yes. A drummer, of all things. New music, subtle and complicated rose and for the life of me I couldn’t feel the rhythm of it, could’t find the beat for the life of me. I felt embarrassed. I wasn’t who I thought I was. And in my waking I realize that I’m not.

Perhaps my anger is for what I’m not – not for what the rest of the world is or isn’t. And that sucks. And maybe all I’m trying to do now is deflect my disappointment in myself.

Do you think I’m having some kind of mid-life crisis? That’s a possibility, but it’s such a simple phrase that’s likely overused and abused. The term mid-life crisis feels like an excuse or a box to place angst in. Oh look, one more aspect of life to throw a few simple words on, since it’s just a phase somehow it’s not real life and it can be dismissed. I don’t think so. Not this time. That’s been part of the problem all along. Sometimes I feel like screaming at myself, “you’re entire life is not a phase to simply endure until you get to the other side of it.”

If I have a single obligation it’s to find, experience and express joy. That’s the goal of every single day and why do I have such a hard time accomplishing this mission? What’s the obstacle here even when there’s no apparent obstacles?? Why am I my own biggest road block to this?