The Journey Towards The Authentic Self

Wednesday 28th November 2012

Today I reflect on yesterday’s blog posting with the usual question what will I write about today? I think of my friend Barbara’s appreciative comment and thoughtful posting on facebook  of Maya Angelou’s wonderful picture and reflection dedicated to my daily blog efforts.  Thank you once again Barbara for your encouragement.

It was a struggle for me to be as honest as I was in yesterday’s post, but necessary I feel to strip away the mask.

We learn I think when we are young that it is not always profitable to totally reveal ourselves to others.
My own experience growing up was that it was not always wise to be totally open with people,and so a habit begins where not only we hold back, but we play games and pretend we are,  what we are not, or perhaps we just remain hidden and neutral, never really taking risks, and so very often we endure the frustration  of stagnation.

Also our world promotes competitiveness over co-operation, and so competition I think plays a part in the emergence of a false self.  To survive in this world, means that to an extent we must don a mask and create a false self.  This false self is forever restless and disconnected from one’s true origin, and part of the symptom of this disconnection is our continual distraction with external and visual stimuli.   I once heard someone remark that if ever there was an anthem for our time, it was that song by Mick Jager, ‘I can get no satisfaction.’  St. Augustine expressed it in another way when he said ‘You have made us for yourself O Lord and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’

Back in 2007, I decided to do an evening course in a college close to where I live.  It was a two year diploma in spirituality and the range of topics were fairly broad.  We explored and asked the question what is spirituality.  We agreed it wasn’t easy to give a single definition to such a broad subject, but one of the things I remember from that first exploration was a handout from an excerpt of Michael Paul Gallagher’s book, The Human Poetry of Faith:

“But when I risk staying in touch with my weakness or fear and even more so, if I can communicate what I feel to another person, shadows become thresholds of transformation.” (handout Chapter 3, Dive Deeper, Michael Paul Gallagher)

John Henry Newman, an Anglican Minister in the nineteenth century who converted to Roman Catholicism spoke of avoidance of our human wounds as the reason why our religious beliefs remain so unreal.  In Michael Paul Gallagher’s book, he quotes a passage from a sermon given by Newman on this theme.

“We have each the same secret, and we keep it to ourselves and we fear that as a cause of estrangement, which really would be a bond of union.”  Newman saw this fear of facing our shadows as the root of our shallowness, because we dare not trust each other with the secret of our hearts, our love is not enlarged and our religion, viewed as a social system is hollow.”  Newman seemed to be implying that if God embraces all human woundedness in Christ, we too are invited into a surprising lowering of our defences.

This for me was an extraordinary discovery that a clergyman of the nineteenth century could be so advanced and enlightened in his thinking that he had the wisdom and perception to see that for many religion seems unreal, because of an unwillingness to journey into one’s centre.

Traditionally eastern religion and philosophy has been better at this, from the little I know through my encounter with yoga philosophy.   Institutionalized  Western Christianity has focused too much on externals and religious dogma, and dare I say also literalism.  It is interesting to read one of the definitions of dogma given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is ‘an arrogant declaration of opinion.’ Also on that subject of literalism, during my studies at the Milltown Institute, I came across an interesting statement by a British philosopher called Own Barfield when he said ‘all literalism is idolatry’.

Traditionally we were told idolatry was the worshiping of false gods and we had an image in our heads of people worshiping stone idols, but this for me was a very interesting perception because what he was really saying was that our institutionalized religion had focused very often on stories that really were myths, but were perhaps pointing to a certain lesson or symbolism and so being encouraged to take these stories up literally, we were and  are distracted from the true role of religion which really should be  to create meaning, and put us in touch with not only our inner being but also with one another, our planet and eco system and to encourage us to share in a harmonious and just manner the resources of our world.

  Our task is really to try and create a more intelligent and less destructive system, and the role of religion I think or indeed philosophy is to help us to see that this is an attainable goal.  We are all ultimately seeking happiness, happiness that is deep and lasting, and if we want happiness that is deep and lasting, we have to look at life from a holistic perspective.

When God is continually presented as an external other who is male and a judge, it does not in my opinion help humanity in its search for truth and in the necessary search for self knowledge. God may well be the external other, father figure that he’s presented as, but if he exits he is also in all of the creation and all that he created including myself and there can be no knowledge of this God, this bliss, this felt oneness with all creation, until I come to a knowledge of self, and until I learn to drop what is not of God.

So this brings us to the further question, how can we say what is of God, and what is not of God? Can we even put a name on the unknowable?  Again in the east, the wisdom of enlightenment and self realization says ‘he who speaks has not seen’ and ‘he who sees does not speak.’  God or the absolute as some prefer to call this creator cannot be contained and squeezed into some small narrow human perception of who he, she or it is. Again the wisdom of the east does not favour a faith system, but instead encourages one to explore and journey towards one’s centre.

We see this with the life of Christ that much of the miracles and healing he performed were preceded by his periods of withdrawing to a ‘quiet place’ and he through his life and death show us that his way, truth and life is a way of love far above and beyond the limitations of human love.  It is expressed best as ‘the peace that passes all understanding.’

At times we are shown glimpses of this and sometimes we get a sense of it through certain people who radiate this aura of pure goodness, so much so that even after an encounter with such a person, we are in some way changed or affected by such an encounter.

Be Not Afraid

Tuesday 27th November 2012

My day started today with an attempt to meditate.  It’s a practice I’m trying to develop on a daily basis. I’ve been trying on and off for a few years, but never really sticking at it.  Yes, I’m afraid it seems to be a major flaw in my character, not sticking at things and of course I equally know that there is no-one standing over me waving a big stick ready to beat the s..t out of me for failing to do this.

I’ve come to this  choice in life  from my own free will, because I’m basically sick to death of being afraid of everything in life including my own shadow, so when I sit down to meditate, half way between trying to bring my mind back continually to the mantra, which changes every few seconds from ma ra na tha, Christian meditation to So hum, the vibrational sound of the breath, ( and not a good idea from a meditation point of view to chop and change methods like this) back to ‘ I’ve got so much to do, I better make out a list of what I have to do,’ or what should I do next,’ and all the countless jumble that goes on in my head, when I suddenly launch into my prayer of desperation and I seem to internally hear ,‘be not afraid’ It just seems to come out of the silence, ‘be not afraid’ and calmness descends in amongst the clutter.

Now before I’m accused of insanity by saying I hear voices, not a wise thing to say in an aggressively secular world that is presently throwing off the shackles of institutionalized religion, I would like to try and explain that  the way I define this internal voice I hear is that I think this is the  intuitive knowledge of the cosmic Christ dwelling within, the soul, the true self, the part that occasionally if we’re lucky, and if we try hard enough, we can have access to and that reminds us that even though everything is a mess, all is well.  Yes, quite a paradox I know, but nonetheless true.

Anyway I concluded my attempts at meditation with some heartfelt prayers and then after breakfast, I set off to Stephen’s funeral and the hymn that Marion his daughter , sang at the Offertory of the Mass was ‘Be Not Afraid’.

Later when  I came home,I switched on the computer to check up on emails,  messages and posts on facebook and  I found a video that was in some way linked to a friend’s promotional video for his art exhibition. As I finished listening to Ed’s video, I clicked into another one that I thought was also by Ed, but discovered it was by someone I did not recognise, but like Ed's it was on a spiritual theme, and it showed the sun setting over the sea, and what did I see next, but the words in white letters printed on the screen 'do not let your hearts be troubled', quite randomly and by chance or was it?

These were the first words that came to me after my prayer of desperation earlier this morning ‘do not let your hearts be troubled’ followed by ‘be not afraid’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeTpISSA5x8

Remembering Stephen

Monday 26th November 2012 

Today I think of all those who have touched my life in one way or another.  A good friend of mine, her Dad passed away yesterday.

Marion comes from a very musical family and I can remember times when myself and some friends were gathered around the piano in her home listening to various members of her family sing and play the piano and we would join in and have a great old session.

From what I could see at any rate, this was a happy and loving family, and when I look back to those times when I would arrive at the house and music would just seem to spontaneously happen, I reflect now on what a unifying and uplifting force music is.

Marion’s father was born during the time of the Civil War in Ireland, and so essentially, he was shaped by civil war politics.  He was a great lover of the Irish language and passed on his love for this to not only his children but some of his grandchildren who are now growing up speaking Irish as their first language.

He set up his own auctioneering business and in later years became a Fianna Fáil councillor.  I know it’s easy to be cynical these days about politics, perhaps for good reason .  I myself am a believer in the need for political satire if it helps to keep our public representatives on their toes, but I also have to qualify that by saying that I have not a clue what I’m talking about when it comes to politics in any shape or form, but Stephen, that was his name, seemed to be a man who represented what is noble about public service, judging by what I’ve heard from the grapevine, but mostly I just remember him as a very nice man who was warm and friendly to his children’s friends who were always made to feel very welcome.

I knew for some time that he was fading, and when I heard of his death yesterday, I remembered all the times I saw him in Marion’s house during our teen years.  He always seemed to have his hat on and when one day, he took this off and  I noticed the lack of hair, I can remember saying, very innocently ‘oh you’re like Kojak’.  That was the American TV series we watched back in the seventies.  He laughed heartily and at times used to slag me putting on a very upper class accent and saying ‘thank heaven’s we’re from Rathgar’, but what I remembered today with great fondness and gratitude was when I was looking for a character reference for a  job in a financial institution, I had to supply at least four references, and his glowing reference was one of them.

Stephen Riney 26th December 1922

Died 25th November 2012 RIP

“Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis”

Darkness and Light

Sunday 25th November 2012


Today I embrace both darkness and light as part of not only my external reality but also my internal reality.  Samhain, November 1st marks the beginning of the Celtic New Year.  It is a time for stillness and darkness where seeds that are planted rest in the anticipation of light.

We too are beings in process, so we rest and learn to listen to the rhythms of nature.  We must be who we are not who we think we should be, or indeed who others think we should be.  We learn also to listen to ourselves, so that we can become more fully who we are.

'The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.'

John O'Donohue
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.

The Journey Towards The True Self

Saturday 24th November 2012

Today I ask the question how can I learn to be uniquely myself, to be comfortable in my own skin?
To do this, it seems that I must let go of the need for approval, or of an obsession with winning and losing. I must let go of the need for success and the fear of failure, and indeed also the fear of criticism.  I take great comfort from the following words which I came across from two people I greatly admire.  The first is Fr. Peter McVerry, a Jesuit priest who has worked all his life in the service of the poor and homeless in Dublin and who says like Mother Teresa of Calcutta that he does not pray for success, but asks instead to be faithful ‘I do not ask for success, I ask to be faithful.  If I am faithful, I am already successful and I cannot fail.’

Scripture always talks in terms of being fruitful rather than successful.  Being fruitful to me sounds more beneficial to everyone.   The seeds we plant, become the food that feeds us, that sustain life. Success sounds like it has a degree of vanity and narrow self interest attached to it.  I think today’s obsession with success focuses more on externals rather than genuine interiorarity  which lead to the peace we are all ultimately seeking, that peace that passes all understanding.

I remember as a spirituality student coming across a paper that stated that   “The goal of all inner work is to facilitate the emergence of the true self.”

This paper listed the five different stages of this process as follows;

1. To Understand Myself
2. To Forgive Myself
3. To Accept Myself
4. To Be Myself
5. To Forget Myself

I think there is much truth in this.  How liberating it is to take the focus off ourselves, but in order to be able to effectively be of service to others, we must first take care of ourselves and come to a degree of self acceptance, but at that point, I think it is crucial for our well being to move the focus beyond just self.

I conclude today’s reflection with the following prayer by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Such a prayer might bring up strong reaction in today’s world, and in fact parts of it in myself, if I’m being truly honest, which I strive to be in my writing. I hear myself almost saying, ‘come on fight and not heed the wounds’? Is such a thing possible?  I might find myself saying ‘come on is it healthy to toil and not seek rest, and to labour and not seek reward?  I can almost hear some people saying, ‘come on Rachael, are you living in the real world’ and yet what I take from this prayer is that when you are indifferent to results you become in a sense free of anxiety and what might have started off as seeming like an impossibly lofty ideal, unattainable by ordinary mortals becomes the very vehicle by which we gain our own happiness and liberation from suffering.


Prayer for Generosity (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

Success and Failure

Friday 23rd November 2012
In a world where we are often obsessed with success and failure and the pressure to succeed at all costs, I find the following prayer not only refreshing but humbling.
It is written on a bronze plaque on the wall of the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in New York City by an unknown confederate soldier.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

The Prayer of an Unknown Confederate Soldier

The Writing Dilemma

Thursday 22^nd November 2012

As I sit here wondering what will I write today, I’ve decided my offering for today are two poems, one from myself and another from a writing acquaintance called Christine Broe. I’m happy to say I’m in the same writing group as Christine, The Rathmines Writers Group.

Christine’s is a wonderful poem about the dilemma of no poem and she has given it the same title.  Mine is called Letters and it questions the validity of writing in the overall scheme of things:

No Poem

The pencil squiggles-

let it twist,

The line of words that come
come only from the wrist.

Eight bones -
the westerly most
resting on the page
as I face the window.

White space -
if I were a snail
my silvery afterthoughts
at least would leave a trail
to shine
in the absence of a poem.

White page -
product of some tree
sacrificed, bleached,
set out upon a table
for pulp fiction.

In a state of too much mind
where do I find

white space

where words will settle,

where feeling and image will copulate,
cause a silent echo

in their wake.

I am not the vessel for such gift
today.

I put the full stop here

© Christine Broe  2003 (taken from her collection Solas Sólás, published by Swan Press, 32 Joy St. Dublin 4)

Biography:  Christine Broe was born in Dublin in 1948.  She trained as an art teacher at NCAD, and after many years rearing a large family, trained as an art therapist at Crawford College, Cork.  She began writing during a temporary exile in Luxemburg.  Since returning to Dublin 1992 her poetry has received many awards, most notably, the inaugural Brendan Kennelly/Sunday Tribune Poetry Prize in  2001 and from Italy, the Premio Cittia di Olbia award in 2002.

Letters

'Oh it's writing you do is it?

Where do you get all the time'?

A telephone conversation

from a week ago.

'Yes, well, you know, I........,'

I make excuses for this excuse of a life,

feeling the uselessness of words,

the vanity and egoism behind them

and the certainty that they eventually

like ourselves vanish into thin air.

But this vanity, egoism or whatever

I choose to call it has a need or

a hunger to express itself,

And panic begins to form itself

in a heartfelt prayer

'Jesus I need to be good at something.

don't take this away from me please.'

And as I step into  the vacuum,

they call writers block with nothing

left to say, I attempt a bargaining plea,

'well you could always write your words

through me.'

Yes indeed, writing, words, letters,

the letters of the alphabet

arranging themselves across the page

from the A for abundance

to the Z for zilch.

I know the reason for this latest crises

if such a trivial matter can be called such a thing,

I suspect my conscience recoils

 at the luxury of letters.

Pen in hand,

Paper at the desk,

warm clothes on my body,

and food in my belly.

Praise and criticism alike on

the comments page of the website,

While parts of the world erupt in chaos,

and so many do the real work of helping

to relieve suffering.

'Oh, it's writing that you do, is it?'

©Rachael Stanley

Second Day Along The Dodder

Wednesday  21^st November 2012

Another lovely day, I enjoyed once again walking by the river:

hearing the heartbeat
of the river
I stop and listen

a heron in the
weeping willow
teaches me stillness

at a low ebb
the rapids
have slowed down

racing ahead
the labrador takes
his mistress for a jog

Along the Dodder

Tuesday 20th November 2012

Oh the joy of being alive on these beautiful mornings. I’m lucky to live close by the River Dodder and there are some beautiful walks along its banks. My reflections today come in the form of haiku.

autumn morning

the sun follows me
along the path

More Questions

Monday November 19th:

I had taken a few steps outside my door today with the intention of going for walk when I instantly turned back towards the house. When I was reminded that the brilliant sunshine was making me squint, I thought I had better go back to look for my sunglasses.

I looked in all the usual places but no sign of them. I was on the point of giving up and saying this is a waste of time and a waste of the precious sunshine which I was eager to get out into when suddenly I found myself hovering around the magazine rack in my sitting room and then the memory came to me instantly, of about a week or two ago, of tidying out my bag and putting my reading glasses into their case and then I put something on top of the magazine rack which fell down at the back of it.

Now the magazine rack is almost up against the wall, but not fully so, thereby creating a little gap for something to fall off it. The rack is only small and light with a fairly narrow table top so it’s easy for something to fall off it. I could suddenly recall having said to myself at the time, you should pick that up now while you think of it because chances are if you don’t, you’ll forget about that and then be looking for it at some later stage. This little inner prompting was instantly ignored by a kind of lazy, ah I’ll do it later type of attitude; Just a stubborn refusal to budge. It would have taken half a second to lean over and pick up whatever it was that had fallen. Such a small thing to do and such a small thing to write about and in case any of you might admonish me for being too hard on myself, which is a very new age kind of love yourself type of thing that’s preached at people these days for good old fashioned examination of conscience, I would maintain that it is vital to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves, not beating oneself up as people might call it but recognizing every small little action has a result, and the result might not be to my ultimate benefit.

At the stage I was looking today, all I knew was that I had dropped something at the back of the magazine rack and that it may or may not be the sunglasses. Anyway I was thrilled when I found them; that usual sort of pleasure you get from finding something you’ve lost, but also thrilled for another reason because to me it represented a lesson that life was trying to teach me and which I’ve already written about a few days ago in this blog about following that instinct to do what I’m being prompted to do at the time, rather than say, oh yeah, I’ll do it in a minute.

Now when I write about doing instantly what I’m being prompted to do in the moment, I must equally recognise that this does not mean doing everything I’m being prompted to do in the moment. This is where the spiritual practice of discernment comes in and unlike the prompting mentioned above to follow a simple inner command to pick up the glasses now, or sit down and write now, I must equally distinguish between other types of instant action that is more to do with reaction and making assumptions without first finding out the facts, the type of instant reactions that lead to arguments and misunderstandings which we may later regret and while I’m on this topic, I find myself asking the question does failure in one area lead to failure in another area. If one is used to giving in to one’s whims and not having sufficient will power, does it lead to lack of control in one’s emotional life, over reacting, judging, flying off the handle, taking things personally and making assumptions.

So a while back I was in a book shop and lifted up a book simply called Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney. You may agree or disagree, but something in this description makes me feel I’m being pointed in the right direction.

The description of the book on Amazon is as follows;

Pioneering research psychologist Roy F. Baumeister collaborates with New York Times science writer John Tierney to revolutionize our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control. Drawing on cutting-edge research and the wisdom of real-life experts, Willpower shares lessons on how to focus our strength, resist temptation, and redirect our lives. It shows readers how to be realistic when setting goals, monitor their progress, and how to keep faith when they falter. By blending practical wisdom with the best of recent research science, Willpower makes it clear that whatever we seek—from happiness to good health to financial security—we won’t reach our goals without first learning to harness self-control.

A strong man masters others. A truly wise man masters himself.

Taoist saying

In The Garden

Sunday 18th November

I had been looking at my front garden for days looking a bit bedraggled and had been intending to get around to tidying it up a bit.

When I saw what a nice crisp day it was today, I got the rake out and raked up all the leaves on the grass and then swept the remaining leaves that were on the pathway.

As I was raking up the leaves, I heard the voice of a solitary blackbird keeping me company and so I wrote the following haiku:


raking up leaves
a solitary blackbird
serenades me

And to complete today’s reflection, a nice picture and a few lines from the master WB Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

from The Wild Swans at Coole
by William Butler Yeats

Looking For An Original Voice

Reflection Sat Aug 17th


When I awoke this morning, the first word that sprung to mind when I thought what I would write today was the word ‘platitude’. It just seemed to come out of nowhere.
I remembered the first time, I encountered that word, I had written an essay for a teacher who was herself an accomplished writer and a prize winner for some of her writing, and I remembered being so chuffed when she wrote a comment on one of my essays saying ‘one of the most original essays I have ever read on this topic.’ The title was ‘My Own Personal Hell’. She then went on to say, she found it very helpful. It was either helpful or hopeful. I couldn’t quite make out that bit of the handwriting, and then she added, ‘but do avoid the odd platitude which creeps in and spoils an otherwise original essay.’

At that stage of my life, I had actually not come across the word ‘platitude’ before, and so the dictionary was pulled out and consulted, and while I know now what it is, I once again consulted it, for a reminder of how it is defined.

Platitude: ‘Trite or commonplace remark esp. one solemnly delivered, dullness, insipidity’ and then I was kind of seized with a sort of sense of dread, followed by a kind of ‘why even bother, what good did writing ever do’ sort of question, and I thought of the line I heard somewhere, ‘I had a very good education, it took me a long time to get over it, ‘ and I wondered does formal education takes us into vanity and ego which takes us further away from a truly original voice, and then I thought of all the great artists who stand out because of their originality and who can therefore offer to the world a new vision, a new way of seeing, and it occurred to me that this must take not only great courage, but also something in one’s formation that is not hindered, and if one’s unique individuality was and is hindered, how does one recover their own authentic and unique voice?

For this question, I have selected the following poem by John O’Donohue from Benedictus:

For The Artist at the Start of Day

May morning be astir with the harvest of night
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its haunting,
And fixed fortress corners,


A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,

May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved

Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir towards your senses
And grow stronger in your heart

In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard
That calls space to
A different shape.

May it be its own force-field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light

To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.

Seeing Things In A New Light

Reflection                                                                                                           16^th November 2012

Sometime on these short wintery days when it gets dark at about 4.30pm, we can get a bit despondent.  Natural light or indeed the absence of it definitely seems to affect mood.  We’ve heard about SAD, seasonal associated disorder, so it’s no surprise that lack of light can cause depression, and yet it was in the depths of winter that I was surprised to see something in a completely new light, almost as if seeing it for the first time.  This was a very large tree close to where I live and totally bereft of leaves, and  it struck me that sometimes we look at things and yet don’t really see them and perhaps it is when we experience darkness, that we are closer to illumination, to truly entering into the eternal present and so I wrote the following poem, and below that I leave you with those beautiful lines from William Blake.

Winter Tree

Driving down Eglinton Road

I asked myself how come

I’d never noticed you before?

Certainly not in winter

When you stood out in front of me

In your nakedness

I wasn’t expecting beauty

In bare winter branches as you stood there

Doing your treelike thing

Of sprawling upwards and outwards,

And as I gazed at you more intently,

You sent me your defiant winter vibe:

“I’m here starkers beside the dual carriageway

No fancy gown of leafy green for me these days

Take me or leave me just as I am today”.

Like a prizewinning piece of sculpture

You spoke to me that day;

“Hey you, WAKE UP

You’ve never seen me like this before”.

Published in Static Poetry III and News Four

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Unavoidable Questions From Wednesday

Reflection                                Thursday 15th November                                                                                         

                             

As a follow on from Wednesday’s reflection, one thing occurred to me, if I had attended to this writing and posting on Wednesday , the same day I was on the bike and the same day I got the inner prompting to do this,  I would not now be a day behind with my daily reflections.   

So why did I not follow through on my own inner prompting?  Why did I not follow the command from the higher self or soul and instead succumb to the desire for escape and comfort, to lounge about a bit more, to escape  to that nice little café up the road to have yet again another daily cappuccino  or to escape into the kitchen to have some biscuits that I didn’t really need and to while away the day being  compelled to live from habit rather than take the risk of something a bit daunting and scary?  Why did I linger in bed for an extra hour because I dreaded getting up and facing into the day?

Are we affected by every simple little choice we make?  What choices leave us feeling disappointed? What choices bring us peace and a feeling of accomplishment?  Have we wasted time that could have been used to greater advantage?

No sooner do I ask these questions, but I tell myself well I could change the date of Wednesday’s reflection to Thursday the 15^th, which is cheating and would not satisfy my obsessive compulsion with the need for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, simply because the reflection belonged to Wednesday and at some level, it was important to me to document it as belonging to Wednesday. Alternatively I could write two reflections for today and risk making my readers if I continue to have them  yawn,which they may  well be possibly doing anyway.

So now I have to ask the question, why was the need to linger on in bed today much stronger, and of course I know the answer to that question lies in the fact that I now feel I have publicly locked myself into some type of commitment I can’t easily run away from, because now at least, my sixty four friends or so on face book will see that I am a fraud and  a phony  or someone not to be taken seriously, unless I keep my word, and so I now recognize in the cold glaring light of day, it is difficult to embrace change, difficult to let go of old ways that no longer serve us, but something deep inside us knows, we must at least keep trying, and for any of us who might have a struggle as I continually do between apathy and enthusiasm, I dedicate my poem below:

The Silent Voice

I wake up and greet the day
with a sense of knowing what
needs to be done.

My daily struggle begins
between apathy and enthusiasm.
yet something, or someone urges me on,
I cannot really say who or what it is .

A quiet voice perhaps that will not
be silenced.

A voice that will never leave me.

A voice that urges me to plumb
the depths like a fish,
and to embrace the sky like a lover.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”    T. S. Eliot

Reflection

Out and about on the Bike                                                                           Wed 14^th November 2012

Today I decided to take the bike out.  The weather was lovely for this time of year and all the streets were littered with great splashes of colour as I trudged through all the leaves.   As I happily rode along I thought to myself how much being on a bike is a bit like life.  In fact the bike is a kind of analogy for life itself.  There are similarities between both.

The first thing that strikes me about the bike is that in order to steer and stay on, we must not veer to either right or left, but stay in the centre, so that tells me no extremes and to always aim for balance and the middle ground.  Do I always listen to my own advice? No.  Am I wise and have all the answers? No, but I can become more aware and strive to find a better way,  and I can enjoy exploring the route.

The second thing that came to me while out on the bike, every time I avoid the uphill route, and seek to only have the pleasant easy routes, I cannot escape the fact that these downhills will inevitably lead to their opposite  and I will have to face the uphill part of the journey to get to my destination, and so I would Iike to leave you with two poems on these themes, one that I wrote myself called The Middle Ground, and the other called Binaries, by Anthony Cronin.

The Middle Ground                                    By Rachael Stanley

I recall a voice from years ago,
a yoga teacher sharing wisdom with his pupils,
‘Where there’s freedom, there’s balance
and where there’s balance, there’s freedom.’

In the middle, between two opposites
like a weighing scales measuring out
an even measure,
or like a rider on a bicycle

who does not lean to either side,
but balances in the middle,
or like a special envoy on a mission
of peace between two nations at war.

The whole of life strives towards this balance,
‘Where there’s balance, there’s freedom,
and where there’s freedom, there’s balance.’

http://mistymountainreview.blogspot.ie/2012_04_01_archive.html

Binaries                                                          By Anthony Cronin

Everything we experience,

Everything we feel,

Has its opposite;

As

Day has night,

Heat has cold;

Youth, age;

Dark, light.

This is surely somehow significant

And so propitious

As to seem benignant.

Consider the encompassing light,

Revealing, defining, enriching;

Repealing the disabling dark.

How marvellous the light.

But then there is also the dark,

Concealing, hiding, removing;

Nullifying the cruel clarities

Conducive to a sleep and a forgetting.

Who could live without dark?

Still Life (A Reflection)

I sit with hands clasped around the cup.  On the kitchen table, a jar of honey and a salt cellar.  The motor of the fridge gently hums and every so often it switches itself off, and I too switch off, pay attention and hear the sound of silence.

Eternity (A sonnet)

I dedicate this sonnet to Mari Maxwell who posted a link for:  Sonnet or Not (2012) cannon poets competition, and so for the first time I had a go at writing a sonnet.  I missed the deadline, so therefore did not submit, so instead I'm posting it here:  Playing around here with iambic pentameter, alternate rhyme scheme and setting it out in 14 lines as required.  Thanks Mari for the inspiration.

On these Autumn days of amber and gold
I find myself in pensive mood and look
At tumbling leaves and days I cannot hold
of lengthening shadows dangling like a hook.
The bonfire burns the leaves that fall and die
And crackling flames in a fury of sound
Rising higher and higher in the sky
Remind me like these sparks I’m homeward bound

Look at creation and dissolution
The death of Autumn and the birth of Spring

Everywhere an infinite solution
Eternal joyous song to you I sing

So do not look at dying leaves and sigh
Look instead at stars shining in the sky.