Teach me, teach me, teach me, Lord, of gentleness. Teach me, soften me. Let my arms be home to the gentlest of all creatures. Let me find my own home in the arms of the gentlest of all creatures. Let me be a lighthouse, a bastion of safety in chaotic seas. Let me make people feel warm, feel safe, feel understood. Let me be solace in this world that can be anything but forgiving. Let me be the forgiveness this world is not. Forgive me the times I wasn’t. This is what I want.
Please, please, please teach me how to love.
How can I better meet these astrological signatures within myself?
That Sagittarian restlessness has long operated within the shadows of my consciousness. How can I meet you better?
Tell me, tell me, tell me where the line between the pursuit of betterment and deep dissatisfaction is? Where is the line between a creative desire to improve the world, and the inability to love the world for what it is?
Those wild horses need me, need me, need me to exhaust them. To run, run, run, run, run great expanses and distances. They need wide horizons. They need wide philosophical and mental horizons; they need wide literal horizons of travel and adventure. It is a stirring and tingling of stardust ever present in my spine, full of laughter, jovian, queer, restless, restless, restless, that little centaur who could not sit still in the classroom, who felt evermore estranged and felt “bad” for simply being what he is: an adventurer by nature, chained with the rest of his generation to a seat.
So, his “inattentive” ADHD was his coping mechanism — if he could not travel physically, he’d travel mentally. So far away did his bones wish to run — the energy could not be created or destroyed, but could change form. So instead of expressing itself kinetically, it expressed itself mentally. That’s why he was distant mentally, that’s why I was far away mentally.
But how do I meet him? How do I love him? He isn’t bad by nature. Perhaps he needs to be tamed, perhaps he needs to be trained, perhaps his energies need to be better channeled with wisdom. But no, he isn’t bad. He is optimistic, he is loving, and he can be a fool, but out of none but the jovian spirit of eagerness who sees so much right that he forgets to consider what can go wrong.
It plagued me, it chased me, it haunted me, and yet, it eluded and evaded me.
Come, oh Prudence — Come, oh Reason — Come, Temperance — Come, Kindness — Come and chase away the Tyrants, those Horsemen that have taken your rightful place in the thrones of the hearts of man —
Overrun are we! Overrun, are we not? Overrun are we by bombardment of the senses, any and everything to distract from what’s within —
I meditate to break free of the cycle — I meditate to break free of the imprisonment. Conditioned have we become to need, need, need — no — always want, want, want, for more.
An entire civilization built on the backs of suffering third world countries that I am complicit in. I am an accomplice, I am part of the problem. What am I to do? What am I to do? What am I to do in knowing that the clothes on my back were forged by impoverished hunched over backs, and so was the coffee in my cup, and so was the cup? What am I to do in knowing that I am the sky that the Atlas that third-world children are support? What am I to do?
I know not. What I do know is this:
It still plagues me, it still chases me, it still haunts me, and yet, it no longer need elude and evade me.
That vision of my youth. That vision of truth.
Of simple living. Of wanting and needing being, at last, reconciled in sacred marriage. That alchemical conjunction of two things that should not be opposites, at last meeting in centre again.
There is so much that needs to be chopped from my life. Is that Saturn’s scythe coming for the chaff I’ve gladly munched on and hoarded? I only need a few morsels of wheat, but have clung for more, more, more.
I meditate as a gradual step. I meditate to make the statement that for, at least 20 minutes, I don’t need to be stimulated. I don’t need to be consuming.
To live simply is to simply live.
I want less. I want to be happy with less. I want to expel the sickness of this country, the spirit of Manifest Destiny never having left our bellies, needing ever-more. We are an imperialist civilization through and through, taking and conquering more than we need through consumerism.
If I learn to be okay with having less, the infinite abundance of my spirit and heart will pour fourth, all that I need to be happy residing therein.
I have found that the pure of heart have some sort of “fixedness” about them, at times bordering on, or entirely meaning, a certain mental rigidity.
I do believe that, in order to maintain a purity of heart in a world so awash with outside influences that could lead one astray, perhaps such a rooted disposition of character is necessary. Perhaps it allows one’s innermost, truest center to remain, making one less easily influenced/generally susceptible to the environment in which they find themselves.
I have, of course, also found this character to be utterly in need of release, of generally “letting go.” Sometimes, I’ve observed it to be existing almost entirely in the mind, forgetting to put its feet in the proverbial — or, quite honestly, literal — grass, and just be, in the beautiful simplicity of life.
It does appear to have correlations with OCD. The fixation on purity, when without the tempering force of surrender (Virgo-Pisces axis), has inevitably appeared to lead to neurosis — and what is neurosis but a reflection of the brain’s inability to deal with the natural forces that are? An unintegrated psyche is one that cannot meet certain essential truths and demands of all that is. Life demands our surrender — chaos is an essential fact of life. A mind so stuck on perfection, order, and the pursuit of some ideal of purity and “rightness” will always meet the challenges of life’s essential inability to be controlled. The less the mind can cope with this fact, the deeper the neurosis will be.
Balance, as always, is the way. We must be versatile and adaptable enough to be both a tree with our roots planted in the goodness our hearts are ever in pursuit of, while also being the bird who can both perch upon that tree and embrace life’s ever-changing — and at times chaotic — winds. We venture safely away from that center to experience the wild beauty of life and its infinite variety of potential experiences, while always returning home at the day’s end, perching once again.
Virgo remains virgin through the ability to say “no,” of course. Virgo is a lover of none but herself, and perhaps the immaterial Spirit. However, Pisces is a lover of all, who says yes to all, somehow also having a purity of heart so great that the whole of mankind can be loved and totally embraced.
Both are pure. One gives themself away freely and gladly to all as one — Pisces — and one withholds themself from all but one or none — Virgo.
nourish my mind
nourish my heart
nourish my soul
no,
never shall I live by bread alone
bodily nutrition says nothing
about what your spirit is fed
can I put song
into calories?
do my pill bottles
contain inspiration?
can I eat love,
can I drink literature?
my hands have needs
greater
than my stomach and blood.
infinite are their needs.
proportionate
are the consequences
of them being unmet.
my hands need
to hold other hands.
my hands need pencils
the energy channel
between heart and fingers
opened
oh, potency
oh, potency
this pencil is my sword
sharp,
sharp.
e’ry hero needs his weapon
let graphite spilled
be like bloodstains
marking where I’ve conquered.
…
feed me
I want to feel saltwater threatening to drown me
I want to dig my fingernails into dirt
I want to shovel it into my mouth
Let me taste the Earth
let me
let me
let me..
feel
I want sensation
Let me scratch at myself
This vessel was meant for challenges
Let me punish myself
not out of self hatred
but out of great self love
I am the soil being broken
toiled
I am the Earth being worked
I am
potential unfolding
These fists clenched
life force energy reverberates through me
I want to kiss
I want to fight
I want to live
no more
no more
no more of these chains
I want to use this voice of mine
I want to deafen myself with the passion it carries
Be set ablaze. Feel the vitality surging through your veins, the primacy of your youth expanding your horizons farther than the eye can see. Your heart, your soul, your gut, your instincts know what lies beyond. You can feel it. Honor that tug, honor that pull. I care not if your immediate physical senses can perceive what is beyond that distant horizon.
Live, live, live. Live. Live. Live your life. Live a life you love. Love the life that you have chosen, for it is all your choice. You are at the wheel. This is a choose-your-own-adventure. The essential truth of life is your own potency. Be confident. You should. Self-belief is critical to creating and following your highest bliss.
Why pick up a sword if you think it too dull to be of use? How can you live as both sword and the one wielding if you do not trust your own potency?
You are capable of so, so much. Do you see that rising Sun? Do you feel its blazing heat? Do you not realize that you are the same? Do you not realize that it is your choice entirely, your choice alone, whether you nestle comfortably in the shade, ignoring Helios’s expanses, or if you step out into the burning Phoenix’s eye, and allow yourself to be seen, allow yourself to live as your spirit would demand?
This life was meant to be lived intensely, truly, fully and totally. Throw yourself into all of your endeavors. Do not hold back. The key to a life without regret is in squeezing that sponge of your heart totally and completely dry, the waters of your soul having been released fully and totally into this world. To be on the deathbed with still yet more to give, yet to be without a body, a vessel, a tool to enact it, is to be choked by one’s own mistakes. The only mistake truly made is in not trying, is in not going out to be. Look at this grand world, its infinite horizons. How can you sit in what is comfortable and not want to scream, to howl, to fight and punch and kick and not allow what’s in your heart to burn, burn, burn, even if you get scorched? Realize that you can set others ablaze, too, allowing the fire of your spirit and soul to create an even greater and more wild flame, that flame’s name truth —
Thank you, thank you, thank you to those spiritual traditions who remind me that our mind can be our greatest enemy. That mind of mine! Equal parts wings, equal parts deadweight. What will I make it today?
Today, I choose wings. Today, I choose passion. Gooseflesh, chills, a swelling in my heart. I feel electric, I feel alive.
I approach the easel and stare at the canvas. As I look inward for inspiration, I am stunned and overwhelmed by the number of impressions that arise seemingly at once. Where do I begin? How could I ever begin a process that I know will never have an end?
A surplus of emotional waters. A surplus of spiritual wattage. A surplus of wooden Earth set ablaze by my passions. A hurricane, and I am the still centre. But where, where can I begin? There is so much in my heart, but my throat chokes. It chokes, for what to give expression to first?
Abundance is a blessing, yes, but it comes with demand. Knowledge — what is knowledge without action? Knowledge, knowing, and perspective are counterfeit without corresponding action. I care not what talk you talk, for if it is not being walked, it is sterile. Potentiate that mind of yours with your body, with your hands. You’ve studied the choreography, but have you twirled and swayed? Have you allowed your hips to give it life? Have you allowed the energy condensed into Ajna to trickle down that spinal channel and instruct the other selves you are home to? Or have you been taken by daydreaming, the maladaptive sort? Do you live your successes in the mental sphere only? Have you allowed planet 7 to remain castrated without approaching the material realm who holds that scythe? Have you not the Jovian bravery to rescue the rest from the belly and allow them to see the light of day? You have the strength — will you or will you not use it?
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 