I write this as I sit watching the Presidential election returns. What concerns could I have? As numerous as the sands of the Ganges. By the time this is actually published, a new set of concerns will have washed away the old. The sun rises and falls—my mind always searching for some sign of trouble. And Richard Rose said “But the sky was there through all….”
I love the process of poetry—a blank space in my mind fills with words, conveys a feeling that at its best is a reaction to “conscious contact,” as Paul Hedderman likes to phrase it. That implies there is also “unconscious contact,” which is why one may claim we are all already enlightened and there is nothing to be done. We just don’t know it. I will attest conscious contact is highly preferable to the dimly comforting armchair theory of unconscious contact.
But back to the story of the poetry… which is the story of the word… and the story of self. If you get interested in deconstructing the workings of the mind you can watch this happening. First, the mind has to come under some control, as Richard Rose said. Find a path of interest that leads you to study your internal landscape rather than being totally focused on the external. That interest will inevitably lead to noticing the rising and falling of experience from and into nothingness. The word came into manifestation, like a sound on the wind, like light in a darkened room. A poem was born from nothing, and then it was claimed by me. “I did that.” What nonsense.
At best, with all of my determination, desire, will and intention, I manage to stand a few moments at the window of consciousness and see the light of the moon.
When was the last time you walked on a full-moon night, and noticed the filmy, ethereal nature of what seemed most real during the day? How moon-light is closer to nothingness? How a word springs forward, and is caught by a self that leaps into existence as well. A cascading of stories, passed from one self to the next, one form to the next, until the original meaning was lost. The direct experience was forgotten, and all we had were stories.
Notice the space from which and on which words and all experience occurs. Does the noticer of the space reside in some other space? Or do noticing and noticer reside in the same space?
Even if you discount all of this and claim the Universe as yours, what will that avail you, Ozymandias? Look for yourself. Where did you come from? Where are you headed? From where does a word arise and where does it disappear?
We are so blessed, to be here now, in this moment, with this opportunity. Election be damned.
Such is the conviction, born of a word cascading forward, turning back upon itself saying “I have had enough of my adventure, into endless possibilities of my self….”