Tuesday, July 28, 2009

How Good It Is to Be Loved By You

I lay my weary body down
Soothed by your masculine solidity
Comforted by your feminine grace
This day I have wrung my heart of all its tears
and you are still here
Silent
Unimposing
Had I not seen your face before I would have been
mistaken
I would have felt Abandoned
Lost

I hear your wordless whisper
dance through sun-speckled leaves
Even the trees are nourished by your presence
Even the trees know before they even think to call out for you
You've come.

With each breath I feel my shrivelled heart expand
I feel my shrivelled heart rejoice
How good it is to be loved
How good it is to be loved
How good it is to be loved
By you
(More tears...I thought I'd run out)

Monday, July 20, 2009

Without You (II)

Without you
I walk in
semi-slumber
Fighting for acceptance
approval
acknowledgment
affection.
Discontent
I cling to rituals
words
phrases
that have in the past reignited that delicate,
unpredictable spark
that ties me to you.
I plunge
into the rythm of my heartbeat
feel the water
liquid silk through my fingers
cradling my ears
my heart
my silent lover.
Letting go
I drift with the clouds
sometimes moving faster
sometimes moving slower
but watching
waiting for signs of movement
for signs of life.
What can I do to make you come back to me?
What can I do to bridge the gap that has grown like a chasm between us?
Who do you want me to be?

Untitled

No more distractions
No more empty promises
No more quick fixes
No more pretenses
No more lies
Open my heart and enter freely
Take everything that doesn't belong
and leave only room for your majesty
your compassion
your truth
your love
For none, None can compare to you.
You are the only desire I cling to
my only freedom
Tell me what it is you seek of me
Whisper to me
as you would your only lover
as you would your only friend.
For I am yours
Take what I freely offer
Before fear makes me cold and numb
Again

Just Be

Just Be
silent
still
joyful
ecstatic
and from here
do


and the rest will follow through

Without You

The desire
to know you
feel you
breathe you
haunts me.
I am an automaton
an empty vessel
broken
scattered
lost
without you.

Where will I turn for comfort?
Each face is fickle and judgmental
Each goal temporary and distracting
None lead me closer to you

Am I left then
to wander these roads a lonely nomad?
Have you no place for me
in this home?

Each Moment

Each moment
I yearn to empty myself
so that I can become full again
so that I can become
Alive
Again.

If We Are One

If we are one
How come I cannot feel you
in the blue sky,
in the drifting clouds?
How come I cannot hear you
in the feathered whisper of the bird's wing
as it climbs higher and higher
towards the sun?
If we are one
then why do I feel lost to you
in the business of doing
in the excessiveness of talking and thinking and planning?
I feel very much severed from you
and though I drift between
hunger
contentment
and
numbness
Each time I feel the emptiness of your absence
I fear I will never breathe you again.
Each time you
kiss my eyes
whisper into my ears
caress my skin
I am sure that you will never leave.
But then you are gone
and I am alone again
Left with a distant memory of you
like a dream
I never want to wake from.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Back to You

How many times have you whispered to me
in the silence
Calling gently
Calling softly to me
Come

You are
dismantling my dreams
dissolving my resolve
causing an upheaval in my ambitions
Everything I thought I knew
becomes dry
wilted
lifeless
in time

You are the only constant
The only thing I dare hold on to
that will not crumble
that will not fade to dust

Where am I going?
I don't know where to start and yet
the journey has begun
Will you leave me in the end
as others have
with Nothing
and No one?

You ask me to abandon every plan
Every strategy
Every desire
I feel my heart splitting open
Grieving over all that has been lost
The people I disappoint
The life I leave behind

Where am I going?

I am finding my way back to you.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Chasing Bliss

Chasing Bliss

I’m twenty-five years old. I’ve been married, lived on my own, completed my first degree, had a steady job with reasonable enough pay and a family of odd but loveable characters that appreciate and support me. I’m young, healthy and about a year ago anyone who saw me would think that the world was my oyster. But the truth is that something is wrong with me, something is terribly wrong because in spite if all of these wonderful factors, I am the most unhappy person I know.

The irony of this situation is I’ve been chasing bliss from as far back as I can remember. Through the eyes of a child I realised that my parents, these people, whom I loved dearly, were stressed about money, overworked, miserable and depressed. I wanted to be happy.

I didn’t want to marry someone who didn’t love me. I didn’t want to shut myself off from life because I was too blind to see that it was beautiful and meant to loved and celebrated. I didn’t want to spend all of my time at a job where I worked so hard I didn’t have the time or was too tired to be involved in my children’s life. I would do things differently.

Based on these “scientific” observations, I devised a formula for happiness.

Perfect partner + Successful, meaningful, not-too-time-consuming, enjoyable career= Loving family, money, significant impact in the world= Happiness

It was not a tall order. I was not lacking ambition, and I definitely thought that I deserved to be happy. Don’t we all?

When I met my husband I felt so at ease with him. We dated for three years before we got engaged and four years before we got married. I was absolutely in love with him and had no doubts about wanting to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. But as soon as the honeymoon we were beginning to see signs of a problem that soon escalated and became the catalyst for our separation and pending divorce.

As our problems continued to escalate there was a constant ping pong match going on in my mind between blaming him because he was no longer appreciative, supportive, understanding, loving- and blaming myself because I was simply not content to be happily married to the man I adored. Something was missing. I felt like a shadow of myself. I started to ask myself some questions that I thought were negligible… since I was afraid to hear the “truth”. Why was this happening to me? Why was this happening to us? Was I depressed? Was there something wrong with me? Would I need to be put on antidepressants because I felt isolated and passionless about everything and everyone?

My chronic discontent was haunting me, it was bottomless and no matter how I tried to fill it the fix was only temporary. Nothing could convince me that medication was the solution. Was I in denial?

And then some earth shattering questions hit me. Who was I? Why was I here? What did God want from me? Was God punishing me? Was I not worthy of love? Was I not worthy of happiness?

I was searching for answers, searching for God. Going back to my formula I looked at the next logical step- work on my career. I thought if I could be happy, then my partner would be happy and if we were happy then our marriage, our home would be happy again.

At some point I began to dream of a little girl who was waiting for me to birth her into this world. As I thought of her I pondered the kind of mother I wanted her to have. I wanted to be strong for her and for the little brother that I hoped to bear after her. I wanted to infuse her with a strong belief in herself, with a deep connection to God and the Universe however she related to her creator. I wanted my children to experience from me unconditional love, something I had yet to experience within myself.

The unraveling of certain “truths” and assumptions, as I understand it, has been for me a slow and painful process. My search took me away from what I had built up in my quest for happiness and deeper into myself. When my husband left I realised, however hesitant I was to let go, that at this time this was a journey I had to make on my own.

I’ve spent months at an Ashram, met some amazing people, been led to a number of books by spiritual teachers who seem to walk the walk of freedom, and have had months to ponder all that has happened and all that is yet to be. Is there a formula for happiness? I don’t know, I haven’t found it yet or at least I have not recognised it as such. But what I have come to realise is the happiness, the freedom, the bliss that I am looking for is independent of external circumstances. It’s the kind that makes you feel completely loved, alive and connected to this Universe. I know it exists because I have had brief glimpses of it like some heavenly dream while doing the most random things and it has never come because I have willed it into existence. It is simply some gift of divine grace. The job, the partner, the career, each one is wonderful accessory of happiness. But just to be happy, that’s all I ever wanted, that’s the greatest gift of all.