Tag Archives: Unknown

Unbidden

Words and images float into my brain these days and I don’t know where they come from. It’s not like I’m furrowing my brow and forcing things out from the inside. They just emerge … erupt … bubble up. I don’t even know if this stuff means anything, and I don’t care about that. I’m fascinated with the flow.

Should I be more focused, more intentional? Some small voice within says so. But yes, it is small. There’s a far larger span of being that welcomes the uncertainty, the non-sense, the misty whiteout that often comes close. (I look at the last sentence and wonder at the potential “craziness” there. And I know it’s just fine.)

Lying in bed as the sun rose this morning, I was flooded with the vibrancy of an emerald green field festooned with red flowers. I could smell their breathing. And the dew sat on the shoots poking out of the soil. It was wondrous, and seemed to come not from within me but around me.

Later in the morning, over coffee and a bagel, there came a starry, starry night of village homes, each twinkling on the earth. “This makes no sense,” volunteers the itsy bitsy self that cruises the surface of this Bruceness. (Wow! That doesn’t make sense either. Should I stifle the flow of pictures and colours and words, in an ode to normality? No, I shouldn’t.)

And then there are the words. In their own time, they come by to say hi. Such as “dearly” and “goodly”. I wonder why the “ly”, attached to words that don’t need them. Is there some recess in my mind that provides lots of room for the strange to fall in?

“There are many ways,” offers some far off and yet intimately close being. Or “living in the world at ease”. Or …

The underworld speaks

Love them all … light the world

Stand still in the ocean

Ask them … they know

Follow the drinking gourd [That’s a song, but why here and why now?]

Underwear king

Absent without leave [from some movie]

Sliding away from the vertical

Beckoning you nearer … Please come here

Space walks together, tethered to some immensity

Quiet in the space between your words

Lying on the softness, calling for home

There is no plan, no strategy, no structure. There is simply a broad opening of the mouth, happy with whatever comes forth. And a trust that what emerges will be good, be kind, be of service to … someone.

1087 … 7801?

This is the 1087th post I’ve written on WordPress. A journey indeed. It all started on June 20, 2014:

I retired yesterday and decided to declare 4:00 pm as the end point of my teaching career. My wife Jody and I have a lovely home on a deep lot. At the back of our lot are maybe 20 metres of trees, and then it’s on to a farmer’s field and beyond that a wide expanse of trees leading down into a ravine.

Taking my trusty red fabric chair in hand, not to mention a Bacardi Breezer, I trundled off to a spot at the edge of the field and plunked myself down. It was 3:00 o’clock. The sky was blue. The wind whistled through the trees. The shade was cool. One hour away from being a retired human being.

That was many chapters ago in the patchwork quilt of a life. “Sitting and Watching” grew out of the person I was becoming since 1949. Reflecting on retirement wasn’t just a moment beside a field in Union, Ontario. The words spilled out under the influence of Toronto, Vancouver, Lethbridge and London; under the influence of accounting, teaching, social work, life insurance and real estate; and under the influence of confidence, depression, courage and wimpiness.

Five years after that first post, I’m still on the road towards the unknown. Who will I be in ten years? What current parts of Bruce will I have left behind? What outrageous newness will flood my being?

The journey hasn’t been a gentle uphill climb. There have been soarings and plummetings, twistings and turnings. More to come.

In 2030, I may not recognize the soul in the mirror. I may be living in New York City. I may be impossibly handsome. But whatever the world gives me, I bet I’ll be smiling.

I Wonder If The Words Will Come

What if I just let my fingers do the walking?  What if I just open my mouth and see what pours out?  Let’s give it a try …

***

The unfolding of layers of wonder

Absent from the swirl of damnation

Flowing over the world, picking up compatriots along the way

A firmness, a resoluteness, in the face of smallness

The unknown beckoning me, welcoming me, to the mist beyond today

No opinions of “I’m right and you’re wrong”, no comparison, no big deal

Being buffeted, gently thrown to the left and right, and accepting it all

A slowing inside, a softening of the face, a descending to the earth

The colours blend so beautifully – no sharp lines as blue becomes turquoise and turquoise becomes green.  There is an artist here with pastels and a soft cloth for rubbing.

The rabbit just stares at me, he with his wrinkly nose.  “Who are you, Bruce?”

The fire consumes … but then again maybe not.  Does the eternal flame reside within?

The books pile high, with much to say.  Perhaps I will strike a match and be warmed.

I move my index finger just a bit and the world turns in response.

There is much to be done in having us come together.  How shall I give?

Ahh … it is such a river.  The rocks have no chance.  The surge is inevitable.

Someone is calling the threads of the shirt to loosen, the skin to part, the bones to make way.  A heart is coming out.

Wandering seems like a good idea.  Wobbling and stumbling are just fine.  And there is a direction which my human eyes can’t fully see.

The skin is torn open.  The blood flows.  Friends hold the ice to my head and bandage the wound.  It’s what the world needs.

I see the pulsing of the vein in my wrist.  There’s life here.

Giving is the answer.  Not exchanging.  Not being owed.  The freedom of wanting nothing in return.  Not even love.

I look up at the windows of the homes passing by.  Some dark, some light.  What are those lives like up there?  Do they have the same joys and sorrows as me?  Yes, they do.

The grains of sand flow through my fingers.  There is no stopping them.  They are falling to where they need to be.

How can a cello be so mellow?  How can those deep tones vibrate so profoundly through my bones and muscles?  Something is calling me.

It’s dark now.  Merely the silhouette of the little tree out back.  It’s time for all of us to rest awhile.  Still.  Silent.

There are spaces here – within my body, between you and me, among the hours and minutes.  It’s a joining, not a distance.  And so I smile.

The moment of the peacock spreading her feathers, of the flamingo taking a step with his backwards knees, of the raised eyebrows

What if I just fell apart – not in mental illness but in disappearance?  What if no solid Bruce remained, but if instead some sweet energy disguised in a body touched here and there?

It’s the eyes.  They hold the most beauty.  No matter whether the skin around them is smooth or baggy.  Look inside.

We need hugs.  Not the crushing ones, not the backslapping ones, just the gentle holding that stays, a sublime pressing that loves.

I wonder if you see me or if I’m merely a thing to your gaze.  Please don’t make me a means to an end.  Please see the light that’s shining.  And may I always see yours.

What’s possible is so much more lovely than what’s probable.  What if the future could be so radically different from what’s past?  What if I can’t use any of my experiences to guess what’s next?  What if “not knowing” is the ultimate adventure?

***

Hmm.  I’m done.  The words came.

 

 

 

Words Tumbling

I woke up many times last night.  I don’t know why.  Each awakening was accompanied by a spill of words.  The thought came to write all of it down but sleep kept taking me back in.  When my alarm said hi, I knew that something special had happened, but the details were lost.

I grabbed a white index card and my trusty pen.  Lying on my back, I waited.  And more tumbling came out.  Throughout the day, I took little moments of repose and just watched.

So here it is: a selection of thoughts from somewhere splendid, somewhere unknown.  There’s no sequence to it.  And no “sense”, if you mean explainable.  I’m not sure what it all points to, but that’s okay.  Mysteries are fun.

***

Home is where the heart soars

Underneath and beyond

Sinking into love

Ribbons of light

Floating on the river

Words fall away

Underneath it all

The light of a single candle

Opening into the abyss

Mouths open … waiting

Actually not

The snake climbs the tree

The eyes of the young ones

Dancing in the night

Wandering in the world

Clouds above … pain below

Under the wings of freedom

An appetite for the luscious

The pond … everlasting

Falling through air

All through the night

I want me

Here we go again

Listen to the world

I am me … you are you

We fall from the sky

I sing upon the sands of time

Darlinka

Underwear king … of you I sing

The anthem of the world

I love you, my dear lovers

Falling into space

All together now

The wonder of the world

Unknown together

A volcano spurting

Love embraced in a robe

Over and under … above and below

Wings abide

The pulsing … the falling … the slipsliding away

Hands out … palms up … forever

Nothing and no one and nowhere

Aren’t you ready yet?

Floating upwards on a wind

Arms wide open … heart wide open

Love them all.  Light the world

One and for all

All that I want is here

What loosens?
What falls away?
What remains?

Human beings throughout the ages

What is the love that is here right now?

Holding on ever so gently

A universe of young minds

***

Well … that’s a whole bunch of stuff
Wash over me, dear words

Unknown

All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today make up just 4% of the universe.  The other 96% is made of stuff astronomers can’t see, detect or even comprehend.

These mysterious substances are called dark energy and dark matter.  Astronomers infer their existence based on their gravitational influence on what little bits of the universe can be seen, but dark matter and energy themselves continue to elude all detection.

“The overwhelming majority of the universe is: Who knows?” explains science writer Richard Panek, who spoke about these oddities of our universe on Monday at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) here in Manhattan.  “It’s unknown for now, and possibly forever.”

Clara Moskowitz

***

We have an enormous amount still yet to discover and understand.  For instance, science now knows that 96% of the known universe is invisible.  It’s called dark matter and dark energy, and it’s called “dark” because you can’t see it.  But here we are, in the 4% that’s visible, and I say to people: If we’re going to make materialism our life path, we’re essentially giving our lives over to the 4% solution.  Because the 96%, the invisible part, we’re just completely ignoring.

Duane Elgin

***

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns.  There are things we know we know.  We also know there are known unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.  But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.  And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

Donald Rumsfeld, former United States Secretary of Defense

***

Difficult indeed.  And if Duane is right, and we can legitimately move from the physical universe to how we lead our lives, what now?  How do I do, feel and think on this planet if immense mystery surrounds us?  Do I swan dive off the solid cliff into the mists below or do I hunker down in my all-inclusive?

The task of letting go seems monumental.  Maybe I can start exercising my 96% muscle by simply doing one thing in a new way.

I get together several times a week with the online global community of the Evolutionary Collective.  For the latter part of our hour, we can share in the large group.  You simply click on the “Raise Hand” button.  Tomorrow, when the time comes, I’ll click even if I have no idea what to say.  That’s a start.

***

Love is always a leap into the unknown.  You can try to control as many variables, and understand a situation as you can, but you’re still jumping off a cliff and hoping that someone catches you.

Lisa Kleypas

 

Unseen

The substance of things hoped for
The evidence of things not seen

What beauties are hiding in this world, so we puny human beings aren’t aware of them?  Well, if I’m not aware, how can I possibly write about such unknowns?  I don’t know but it’s worth a try.

1.  Lines of connection between people who walk by each other on the street … maybe fine red strings that entwine

2.  Roaming at night over the world, visiting friends old and new, alive and dead

3.  Whatever’s under the ground … roots that go way down, insects that scurry to and fro, moles that construct long tunnels

4.  What goes on inside of dogs, cats, horses and dolphins

5.  The future laying itself down as we wind our way through the present

6.  Blood coursing through my body over 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries

7.  The marvel of the brain, allowing me to suddenly relive moments from decades ago.  (As I wrote this, I was transported back to kid-dom, lighting firecrackers in the back alley, and being terrified of the noise)

8.  My friend gravity, constantly keeping me from zipping off into space

***

Simple stuff, really, but fun to imagine