Tag Archives: loneliness

wounded, weary, and wideawake

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The invasion was unexpected and uninvited; it happened
one numinous now
when the minder of memories had her back turned.

In crept wild wideawakeness, sleuthing
through this dormitory of sleeping stories,
slipping from cocoon to cocoon
dubbing each bedded-down memory
with its diamond dagger and pronouncing each one
an esteemed and luminous Member of the Matrix.

It lifted up the wounded and the weary,
the lost and lonesome, the betrayed
and the broken, saying

 

To know this pain, beloved
is to know That which is beyond time
for That alone has the capacity to be aware
and in your naked awareness of your pain
you are naturally ever-enlightened.

You imagine your enlightenment to be
other than this wretchedness –
you take it as proof that you
haven’t yet “made the shift”
yet how could pain (or pleasure) be known
if enlightenment were not fully present?

By what function of cognition
would you aware this knowing?
By both logic and experience it’s found
that the unlit light of awareness
is prior to every sensory perception.

Will you stay tucked up in your cocoon
dreaming of the mirage of your awakening
shimmering in some distant space and time
or will you blink now
and own up to your feral freedom?

 

I blinked.

 

Tantric painting, India, C1800, detail

 

Image: Tantric painting, India, C1800 or earlier, detail

 

where could loneliness be found?

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The sea is sighing this morning.  Its murmur is the continuo that cradles the voices of my sangha-souls:

– brisk yap of startled dog

– honk of ibis, strutting on stilts

– warble of magpies’ morning choir practice

– chatter of pink galas, busy on newly-greened grass

– laughter of lorikeets taking breakfast in the scarlet bottlebrush

– and beachside, the cackle of kookaburras hunting crabs.

Pink and white oleanders show off under the big gums and a huge sulphur-crested cockatoo paints a streak of white as it swoops across the park, suddenly silencing the sangha with its raucous shriek.  They listen; a second passes.  Then they all strike up again.

On my shady balcony, tubs of color:  impatiens, caladiums, violets, maidenhair ferns.  And, oh delight!  A shiny green sleepy-eyed frog has taken up residence in the water reservoir under the ferns!

I live alone and am often asked whether I feel lonely.  Where, I wonder, on this magical and miraculous Earth could loneliness be found?

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~ miriam louisa
echoes from emptiness

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