Notice that interval betwixt the chirping of the birds
Sense the emptiness in this remote valley
Did you feel it on that peaceful Sunday morning?
Did it tap your shoulder in the dead of night?
It encompasses everything, yet is so often neglected
We swim in its presence; it consumes, it gives birth
As the stars cannot shine without darkness, we cannot sing without silence
What if there’s nothing to fix? What if the perpetual need to solve everything is why you’re discontent?
When we grow, like a seedling emerging from its shell, we are moving towards wholeness. Perfection doesn’t exist.
Through wholeness, we become well-rounded and multifaceted. Wholeness is inclusive, welcoming the good, the bad and the ugly in equal measure. Wholeness doesn’t push away or repress so-called negative thoughts. Wholeness is adaptive and open, not restrictive and narrow.
Some situations call for strength and power, more situations call for softness and yielding. The person of wholeness responds accordingly.
A murmuration materialised before us, sweeping miraculously across a muted grey sky
Like the atoms of a body in motion, they moved in perfect unison
Transfixed, I looked on with wonder and awe
My friend spoke "It must have something to do with the leading birds and the motion of air travelling to the others"
I momentarily held this view in mind, then felt a pang of vacuity and despair
The wildflowers burgeoning across the springtime field, their green stems suffused with golden light, petals joyously spreading, are they also to be summed up scientifically?
What about the glowing moon suspended in the nightsky?
And the magnificent mountains sprawling before you, terrifying and wonderful, spilling toward the distant horizon?
How about the fox that locked eyes with you as you wandered home, its amber eyes glinting in the dark, its rusty pelt bristling as it scurries away?
Awe and humility should be welcomed through the door of our understanding, and we should ask them to sit right beside science
The more habitual and repetitive life becomes,
the more we lose the wonder, the awe.
The more we lose the openness we once had,
when the whole world was apparelled in celestial light*.
But let us honour and cultivate this wonder and awe.
And though we may never return to a true child-like state,
let us not become embittered and closed-off.
Let us remain open and supple.
Let us remain good-humoured and sensitive.
Let us revere each morning sunrise, a miracle beyond words.
Let us cherish each passing season, each blade of grass, each gnarled tree.
Let us always be grateful for the wonder of life.
* Wordsworth
A poem can be a reminder of how things really are
A shock, a jolt, a lightning strike cutting through ignorance and amnesia
Perhaps a poem is also like morse code or a telegram signal, encoding a message but never fully revealing the soure
A poem is a collection of letters and words, abstract units that come together and form a cathedral, a sweeping murmuration, bristling with meaning, insight and truth
Particles coalesce and form beings
Musical notes collaborate and form symphonies
One becomes two, two become three, and the world dances in relational ecstacy
When I wake up, when I think, when I move about in the daylight, I see multiplicity
I see fields, rivers, birds, trees, flowers and people
Every individual thing going about its business, living by its nature, and eventually dying
I see all of this, the whole drama of life and death, unfolding before me in a beautiful yet tragic way
But at night, I am given new eyes
Within the bewildering multiplicity of the world, there is an eternality and oneness
There is a bedrock, a foundation of unbounded love, ageless and timeless
Everything emerges from this bedrock and returns to it, everything takes part in this endless dance
My words fall short here
Words are limited and conceptual whereas unbounded love is ineffable, limitless and beyond thought
The One enfolds the Many, the Many enfold the One
