understanding love
I was given a mantra when I was 18
directly after a two week introduction to yoga
i used it for a year with regularity
then sporadically
when i was 29 I was given a mantra by Amaji
I used it only once
but what was given to me with that was a translation of the first manta: “Love”
last month
I was given another manta
again, containing that same sound
he translated it as “the supreme creative intelligence”
which is
of course
the same as Love
I was hateful and unloving as a child
or desperately otherwise, but failing
til I soured into bitterness
then cooled into numbness
at 21 I fell in love with a man
i thought I’d never do that
imagining coupling to be a waste of time
as evidenced by my parents
desperation begetting misery
begetting more desperation and misery
but there I was
singing “love” to myself long enough to
“fall in love”
it didn’t last too long
but when I cooled from the burns
I realized I still lived him
and now wanted to
earn his love
( instead of getting the love he gave freely in our falling state )
in order to be fit for loving
I realized I had to
be a better person
Love=growth
oh
raise me up on Eagle’s wings
I was amazed to witness that Love should inspire me to make myself a better person
while all the hatred had convinced me I should rot til final death
and the apathy left me uncaring as I bounced through life’s events
Love demanded I become Better
Grow
succeed
surpass
I forgot all of that
my heart crushed repeatedly
not just by that man
his inability to be present to my attempts at growth
but all others past him
a wild succession of failed lovers
so I performed
even the world stealing my love
and breaking it
I was left emotionless again
just with my abstract ideas
a memory
what it would be like to love
a useless desire
look into the horizion
no star nor sun in sight
but drive on
for it will make the world a better place
this wasteland filled with only self destruction
misery
and despair
where I was born again
at least I had my imaginary guide now
and I did push on
I do
the landscape is like the southern Arizona desert
(where perhaps I never left)
and occasionally it rains
and then there is color
which often fades back into hardness
friends with the tarantulas and coyote
the mountain lions and rattle snaked
all who keep themselves hidden
leaving mr with cactus…
what kind of succulent am I?
how did I get here again?
Venus Retrograde.
perhaps I’m still on that acid trip
God Alone In The Desert
have fun on your own for eternity
Your Imminence
(maybe if I smoked Salvia with strong abandon I could wake up from any of those nightmares of hallucination and have another chance to walk on into the light of dawn and join the living… is that where I left my heart)
this whole writing this morning was inspired by my sister leaving me a voicemail
“I’m outside at Louis’ house, smoking a cigarette. i’m being shamed for being drunk…”
i woke up thinking about the baby, Connor. my nephew
how could you be drunk around him?
not two years old
how could you exhale breath tainted with tar and other poisons?
he’s new and fresh
only loving and needing and curious
receptive of everything
a baby is a ball of pure love
even though they are needy and oddly shaped
everyone sees them as beauty and longs to touch them
to feel their constant love and joy of life
isn’t that the same thing as my imagined Father or Husband?
doesn’t that love inspire us to be a better person?
to want to purify ourselves
to purify the air
to purify the world
for a chance for that child to grow up pure?
shouldn’t we?
but… I always forget… Humanity
the baby will have to get dirty
blind and ignorant
only through that can he yearn for perfection
I am a person where perfection was always in the past
everything tending towards entropy
progression a long decline
neither is true
of course
perfect is what Is
I know
but it’s how I am..
But on mornings like this
where I can wake and remember Love
and chew it my mighty jaws
while dreams fade of Swiss rivers of beautiful blue, me on my bike… with a friend, a lost back pack
forest there, an opportunity to escape
the reaches of the tangled city with all its potential
live and desire
oh
I’m glad to remember love
and the uses of love
and the prevalence of love
even as I masticate it
and leave my mouth empty again
time to get up and make some tea
.iP