I prefer the kind of spirituality
Which harbours no intention
To make me feel small
Or subject to the judgment of others
Not even gods
Just as I have no desire
To judge anyone
Not even myself
A condition
Which I am ever on the path
Of unlearning
I enter a cathedral
As if into warped space
Not warped as a physicist might think
But as in how a mystic might think
That is, a spiritual space or dimension
Bent, folded and manipulated
To conform to a specific configuration
Long ago transcribed into books
From collective memories
Predating written language
Aside from a certain wonder
At the passion and dedication
To the exquisite expression
Of humanity’s greater achievements
In art and architecture
A cathedral reminds me
Of the power of group thinking
For both good and ill
How this can become a tight leash
On an individual whose spirit
Simply refuses to conform
But it also reminds me
Of the exultant satisfaction
I experienced
When I finally broke the leash
Chose my own path
And found my way to a spiritual space
Which conformed to me
Not that I am without
My own warped sense of spiritual dimension
But the distortion is familiar to me
Has meaning for me
And brings me to a place of peace
I have convinced myself
That chaos follows me
As if a companion
Or a stalker I can not shake
Until today’s revelation
That it is merely disorder
Of my own orderly creation
Like the roiling waters
Left in the wake
Of a vessel underway
And I am always underway
Though always looking back
Focused on the havoc
Left behind
In the lives of self and others
Manufacturing in my mind
The spiritual narrative
Of a Job-like tragedy
That relieves me of responsibility
I leave him
As an arc of energy
From the light
Which taught me love
Into a darkness
I once feared
But accepts me
With a grace
And love
Greater than any
I have known
Even his
And in that moment
The darkness itself
Becomes light
Once the light entered the bowl
Something magical happened
Something I’ll probably
Never fully understand
The light coalesced
Hardened
Formed swirling tendrils
Of incandescence
Well
I understood one thing
Light was alive
No
Not alive
Conscious
And what I was witnessing
Was the comingling
Of unmanifested being
One each to a tendril
Swimming as if a school of fish
In a golden bowl
Struck just the right way
By the sun
And then it was gone
Light
Was merely light
Again
But some trick of the cosmic tail
Had let me in on the secret
Because in an instant
I’d known
Light
Is love
And love
Is light
When we are unmanifested
In this purest spirit form
We know this as surely as
The necessity of a breath
We know it in a way
A brain cannot grok
But our manifest purpose
The meaning of our existence
Is to remember
And for a moment
Looking into a sunlit bowl
I remembered
A glimpse of the unknowable
Out of the corner of my eye
A memory I struggle to keep
Every day
I discover the divine
Through smoke haze
Muted tones
And hidden features
Seek the clarity
Beneath the murk
Colourless moments
Can be vivid
I remind myself
Create the divine
From the apparent
Mundane
Until I
Understood
Everything
Is glory
To an age before
This silence of spirit
And its sorrows
These days of hardness
And slight assurances
Back to a time
Of no small beauty
When time itself
Came in an abundance
Applied to the creation
Of wondrous things
While wonder was divinely inspired
Meaning was no fleeting connection
And purpose a life’s rendition
Before profit and growth and ROI
Became ends and means and purpose
A time long before
The remains of this pier
Were ever a pier
Before ever a ship
Sailed these waters
Before any European left the shores
Of a land not yet named Europe
Gently floating
I let waves and bird song
Dominate the frantic race
Of engines on the highway behind me
Breathe the ocean deeply in
Exhale millennia of progress
For a moment, at least
I exist in a time before
All that I am
Was ever possible
Can I let this self die
This day
Allow a time before
To lead me
To a time that follows
And I can’t say
where it began
or where it ends
or if it ever will
It drives you to
the edge of mad
(where you found me)
but with your ever
growing faith
it’s clear
Life is not so
rational
as you would like
Discontinuous
In fact
Time sometimes goes
from front to back
while space folds in
upon itself
and plops you down
in the middle of
you know not
what
Yet still you stand
amidst the fray
(such dark embrace)
to write these words
you promised me
Love is not so
rational
as you would like
But its beauty
drives you still
Pix to Words 