Last night, I heard a desperate father take his screaming toddler over to a garbage bin and hang him over in a threat to throw him away. The boy is screaming, the dad is yelling. When it is over, he gruffly tells him to get back in the car. A woman yells from her balcony, you ain’t got a treat a person that way. You ain’t no father. He yells something back that I don’t catch; the car pulls out and is gone. I am close enough to hear, but not to react for it takes all of a few seconds and it is over. And how would I react to such a scene were I closer? A dad in a quick and rash act of anger in a public space, retribution, regret, humans in despair. On another street, I meet an elegant woman walking around the block with a martini without shoes, desperate, she says to me, laugh laced with pain, to get away from her husband. She keeps moving.
I stop, I listen, I observe as I walk downtown. I am the same as me who rides in a car at 75 miles per hour; the trees blur into a connecting line beyond which I can see fields of breathtaking winter sleep and decay. I am a passenger.
Life without the chatter of mind is so immense…where to look, what to take in, what to ignore: movement, other people in all their clothes, life going on about its business all around. Pieces of me peel away as I turn my attention; my attention is enough to make my body slough off whole mountains of cells. I am a dervish coming apart at the edges.
The mind does not fill the space inside but tries to protect it, shield it from the sheer overwhelm of being a part of everything. The mind’s chatter at times is a weak attempt at sound cancelation, the rocking motion of an autistic child to find rhythm and pattern in the chaos of it all. My mind makes repetition of my identity to shield me from my disintegration that is occurring every moment of my life. The mind is a blankie to protect me from a tsunami – but the wave cannot be held back.
The flood of information is in the form of a crying dog – abandoned and sick, a winter bare tree, low hung ceiling of cloud, hunger but no appetite, the smell of decay in a loved one’s breath, a daffodil trying to push through the soil out of season, a warm chat with a stranger about quinoa under fluorescent grocery lights, the photons from the sun surprising my face with warm, indifferent love, a song going by from a moving car, a screech of tires, birds…it is all just too much, isn’t it?
grant me the courage, self, to see without protection, for truly, I am the creator of the chaos and the pain and the beauty of this world;
merging is not death.
death is not even death.
pain is on its way to love.
Life as Improv 
Blessings for 2014 🙂
Blessings right back to you, Blue Angel Wolf!
On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 9:54 AM, Life as Improv
buried under
an ocean of suffering
is too much
perhaps
for anyone,
alone 🙂
This ocean is vast,
Thus we merge?
No one is alone!
Yet i imagine a need
for It to be said
so often – no one is alone!
There is such stark beauty
in the dry stalks of winter.
It is there, but hard to convey
the love present in all forms
coming and going –
decaying and rebirthing.
Suffering and Healing.
Peace and joy sent to you with such
clear eyes for seeing, smilecalm!
😆
Thanks for letting me be a fly on your wall. To see with your eyes the world without protection, without the veil of the mind, like ‘writing on water’ (as beloved Mooji says). Sometimes the scenes are so intense it breaks the heart, and yet it is held together by the love of the affectionate Observer. Beautiful sharing. 🙂
I cannot find words, but I want to say something like this, Yo, Erin, Sister! I can feel your fly on the wall eyes in these moments, and I bow to your ability to see through. I bow to your connectedness that allows you to see what I was trying to say as I waded through what we usually avert our eyes from. there is strength for me in the shared understanding of the truth of love that flows through us, as you say, as the affectionate Observer/s that we are. Warm wintertime comforts and appreciation for your keenness overall, sent to you today 🙂 xo! marga
Yo Marga, right back at ya! Sometimes your writing just stops me in my tracks, like whoa, and time stops and all there is is This and I’m right there with you in the Timeless watching the Time. Thanks for the warm wintertime wishes, this is a wicked cold winter for us, and the roads are packed with too late snow clearings turned to icy ridges that throw the car into wild out of control fits of what up? I feel like I’m driving on the moon. xo! Erin
wonderful writing marga… pain on its way to love… beautiful words… the simple truth of all… Marga have you thought about joining our january challenge about writing your awakening experience… Please… there are a few dates left to fill… (I will put all the stories together in a Free E Book to show others that it is all ok…) Take care, Barbara…
I thought I had followed you ages ago, but suddenly stumbled back across your page! I love your idea for January and am so excited to read the journeys of fellow travelers. Yours started off with a bang!!! 🙂 You stirred my pot a bit this morning…I would like to participate; is the 17th still available? Thanks so much for all the vibrant energy and inclusive joy you are sending into the field! xo! marga
Hi Marga… I just returned back home from my holidays in england.. so catching up with my posts.. I replied to you via my blog… take care and until the 17th… dear divine sister of mine… Barbara x
This post is very touching to me Marga. Your words really bring to life a common feeling I have of other’s presence. It can really be overwhelming at times.
For me, it is sometimes so hard not to feel everyone’s presence in some way and when very loud overtly painful things are seen or heard, all the more does it feel like it’s happening to all of us.
Yes, there are times when I shelter myself from too much exposure from others and I have argued with myself over how much is too much and do I owe it to the world to be aware of every suffering and hurt?
Best wishes to you in the New Year!
Yes, we are much the same way in this. Recognizing the flow toward love, even from such dark places cracked me open a bit a few days ago. Sharing the sensation with one such as you cracks me open a bit more! I’m often on the sheltering side; sticking my little toe back in the pool of life is often met by awash of everyone’s experience and sensations. One of the dances we do here, it seems.
Warm wishes to you in the New Year, too, Debra!
Your first paragraph made me think: we juggle dissatisfaction between us like a hot potato, we are bowled over by it as we take our place in the unbroken strand of human interaction, our place in a seemingly endless strand of dominoes. This feeling rattles back and forth around our world and through our lives perpetually. It reminded me of how much and how often I want to step out of the line and dodge the wave, let it sidle past.
But then you reminded me how badly we want to see it from within it, not to escape it, but to embrace it, all of it, and transform its meaning- to make sense of this feeling that, there is nothing to escape, and somehow there is something we will discover, if we hold our place in the line, as we let the wave break upon us, as we give ourselves the space to wonder, what is really happening?
Michael
You had a hot potato metaphor in your story! It is so much the way you describe…for some reason, the one who walks around in this body with this awareness seems to have a keen ear for the suffering of others – why? I appreciate so much how well you are able to Grok and relay back to me my own experiences! Totes simpatico, Bro 🙂
That hot potato must be rattling around up there, unable to get out completely. Reminds me of photons in the core of the sun, which can take tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years to get out of the sun’s interior. Those are some hot potatoes.
The topic of suffering, and of being sensitive enough to witness it in others, perhaps to carry it even, is one that I often circle back to with a question mark. I think it is at the heart of one’s shifting into a reality of Love…
Michael
Thank you for the like on my own post January 2014 Challenge, it is appreciated. This story somewhat resonates. MM 🍀
Oh MM, your post did touch me so and sent me back trying to work through my own draft for my day of the 17th. I’m finding it a hard task to write the post for the January Challenge. I was going to return later after I had digested your story more fully to leave a comment. I am soooo grateful for your deep sharing and truth telling, MM!
Well I started to write mine and realised it would become a very, very long piece. I then read one of the other offerings and got the idea of a much pared down version, leaving only the very basics as there is so much in the story. Secondly I did not want it to be a sob story, merely trying to tell it how it was from my point. Sympathy is not what was sought. If it helps others then it was worth writing and I look forward to seeing your own post on 17th. I wish you well, MM 🍀
Really enjoying the song ‘I See Love’. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing with me your enjoyment. Sometimes I feel like I could just leave it at the song without so many words…:)
I broke the replay button today that’s for sure! :- )