THE CLOSET MYSTIC

Without another set of eyes, I’m blind.

What greater blindness exists than aloneness?

What greater blindness exists than the inability to be alone?

I’ve concluded than there is no greater blindness than a life without love, though there is no greater folly. No greater wisdom, no greater folly, no greater joy, no greater pain. 

What does it mean to love? To love is to bite the fruit, the apple, to be forever changed. To love is to bid your old self goodbye. To love is to eat the pomegranate straight from the hand of Hades, to never be the same again.

…

Love is timeless. To love is to encounter infinity. To love is to partake in a communion whose line started with the first human and ends with the last. To love is to break bread with all of mankind — alive, dead, and yet to come. 

To love is to stargaze, knowing that every human who ever came before you has shared that universal.

oh, one of the mightiest things you’ll ever do is forgive someone who never thought to apologize

hah… she called my friends “confused.”

guess you’ve never been confused because you never cared to ask any questions?

can’t ever be confused if you don’t question anything you’ve been told.

…

i’m not saying living inside the bounds are wrong. just remember that if you never question what’s outside of it, you’ll never understand the heart of an explorer; to you, they’re confused, to them, you’re narrow-minded.

can we meet in the middle? you taught me when to shut up and do my work; i think you’ve also learned to poke your head out into the great beyond.

virgo and pisces are wed; the ocean fills the spaces of your line drawings. color fills perfect symmetry.

…

confusion, i think, may be a transitory stage. confusion, the liminal space between ignorance and knowing, of wondering and wondering. the question is asked, the firmament cracked; confusion, a necessary state before illumination. it’s just before a sunrise, the sky begins to brighten, but the light of day hasn’t fully breached the surface. confusion, that transitory between day and night. to refuse to ask is to be content with an eternal night, to not even consider that daytime could exist, or to think night is day, to shun those who wonder what a greater light may be like.

life: an epic tale, an epic story. here we are, straddled in infinite.

i’ll let you in on a little secret, forgive the spoiler:

good wins in the end.

but oh, every good story makes you uncertain at some point, doesn’t it? oh, in every good tale, there’s a period of immense darkness before the hero rises up and slays the beast, the tyrant. this is the pattern — it is a guarantee that isn’t guaranteed. it is the uncertain certainty.

enjoy the ride, all of it, yeah, even the fear — it’s part of it. it makes the relief, the victory, the sweetness at the end all the more palpable and immense.

yeah, good wins in the end — but dang, they had you for a second there, didn’t they?

when i stopped and became present to the miracle, my eyes burned, adjusting to the light. so much to witness; now in the daytime from an everlasting night.

why did i live before with my hands over my ears?

why am i just now taking them off, and listening?

today i heard for the first time, perhaps.

entranced by a tree, and the birds’ choir. i heard them all as one, i heard each part. 

a family, here, a treasure hidden in plain sight.

oh, the pride in boredom. how can you ever be bored? with open eyes and ears, boredom is forever staved. the miracle is never ending. all of these prerequisites to happiness, these conditions that can never be fully met. what more do we need? what more could anyone need than this?

i stopped, and caught a glimpse of just one.

how pretty it was.

a family just like me. a home just like mine. how happy they sounded. a little family. the gratitude they must feel for that tree that let them call it home.

i think i’d like my home to be like that tree. i think i’d like to fill it with my song, too. i think i’d like to fill it with the delighted chirping and singing of me and my loved ones, too. 

i feel so grateful for what to some must be nothing but to me right now feels like everything. oh, the blindness. how can we be so blind? the miracle is right under our noses. instead of bending over to smell the roses, we walk on with upturned chins. pretentious humans. 

those birds are my brothers and sisters. we need to take our desire for equality steps farther. protect the dignity and divinity of every living thing. i am no different from every miracle of the animal kingdom, i am no different from all of the greenery of this beautiful earth. oneness not just of mankind, but of mankind and earth, of soul, of flora and fauna.

what caught my attention first?

i think it was the sunflower.

i stopped to say hello

then heard the chorus.

how many times have i passed this tree

ignoring the harmony

of the birds singing?

everything is alive,

everything is alive.

i feel awful for the times 

i ignored my friends.

but this time,

i stopped,

bent over,

and sniffed.

i looked up,

and listened.

we are all alice

this world is wonderland 

take it all in

the sights, the sounds

who of us can say

we’ve got it figured out?

down the rabbit hole

here we are, incarnate 

all of these distractions

to waste an eternity

remember the main mission

why we are here:

to love

…

…

…

nothing makes sense:

i dream while awake.

at long last, i understand:

i dream while awake.

inner vision more vivid

i dream while awake

than the world around me

why does what’s inside

feel more real

than the world around me?

i remember that adage:

form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

i looked in and found the water that fills the pitcher.

i touch the water with my fingers

its ripples form into visions. 

i went scrying in the waters of my unconscious.

how can i call it divination?

i had no say in the matter.

OH, there’s that old feeling again:

homesickness.

alien to this world.

i looked in my heart: there was home.

those suicidal Pisceans are those who can’t deny the call for home any longer.

i think i can make this place home while i am here.

i think.

rumi told us our task is not to seek love but to find and dissolve all barriers we have built against it — 

forgiveness is the act of dissolution.

forgiveness: demolition and dissolution of those walls, that dam against the flow of the life-giving waters. love: the water of life.

to forgive is to no longer impede the running of the river. 

i wish i knew you

before you were put in the rock tumbler.

i wish i knew you

before your edges were smoothed.

i wish i knew you

before they shaped your personality

to their own palette.

…

let’s take a leap of faith 

maybe the fall 

will break our hearts open

maybe we’ll reclaim our edges.

forbidden memories of a life i’ve never lived

scattered shards of a love i’ve always known

broken and fragmented are we

broken and fragmented, are we not?

the one, the whole, tattered and torn

but i remember.

i remember what it was like 

before one became two.

there is a magic forgotten

stored in the hearts of all

to look inside oneself

is to find the epitome,

the grimoire,

the heart an ancient text.

did you know

that the heart has a numerical value?

it is 1.

did you know that the mind’s is 2?

loving:

the most difficult thing you’ll ever know

yet the easiest thing there is to do.