THE CLOSET MYSTIC

I have now realized that that which exists within is priceless compared to the finite worth of that which exists without.

I have discovered inner jewels that make any diamond of any earthly mine pale in comparison;

I have circled the earth multitudes of times in a single night laying in my own bed.

Of these inner landscapes, I am a pioneer — a pioneer of that very final and first frontier, from whence it all began, and to which it all shall end.

I am a snake biting its own tail.

I have discovered that my pride is a useless attempt to demonstrate to others how spectacular these inner realms are.

Humility is realizing that these inner beauties are not my own. Humility allows one to receive and witness evermore of them. My pride was an ignorant, flailing, missed grasp at making the beauty my own. Non-attachment is the same as surrendering the ego in this regard, as seeking to identify with the grandeur of the holy beauty that passes through oneself is like uselessly trying to grasp something gaseous.

Love cannot truly be so with attachment. One taints the object of their affection with a clasped hand. The flower does not just die if you pick it; if you stand over it long enough, even with a gaze of admiration, you block the life-giving rays of the Sun. In standing over it, neck curved downward towards that lovely flower of the Earth, it too wilts and curves, drooping towards the soil, to be swallowed by it if you do not step back.

If you love something, water it. Let it blossom into more of what it is. If you love something, love both what it is, and its highest potential. Know that it may grow so tall that it extends away from you, and to prevent this process from happening is like clipping the wings of a bird to keep it to yourself.

Water that which you love, but be careful not to drown it. Do not think you are doing it any favors in doling out surpluses of affection. She needs time to absorb and make use of what has been given. More is not always more — less, however, often is.

Love it no matter the season. Love her when she is flowering and rich. Love her when winter has come and made her shed all color.

Love her in all cycles of life, all shades, each an equally-beautiful emanation of her beauty.

The way I love you…

It is like a resurrection.

What died?

Belief,

Goodness.

Belief in goodness.

Faith,

Love.

Faith in love,

and love of faith.

Wonder.

Awe.

Gentleness.

Compassion.

Curiosity.

Forgiveness.

All virtue. All things good. All things true. All things pure.

And so I hid. And so I crawled into my cave. An act of cowardice.

And there I stayed, awfully afraid.

And there, I think, I met you.

I think, there, is when I met my heart.

I found the subtle and pure center within. I ran away to protect it. I tended gently to that soft core.

And I think it was you.

I think I left to prepare myself for you. I think my cave was like a bride’s chamber. I think I had to be hidden from the rest of the world, until we were ready to become one.

How I hid. How I hid behind my veil, only to be revealed by your perfect hand. Only the softest touch could pull the curtain.

I think you were Arthur. I think you pulled me from the stone. I think only you could have softened me enough to retrieve me, rescue me, from the hard rock.

Now my hilt rests in your hand,

my liberator.

I belong amongst the trees

To lay

still, half-buried in the dirt

I am convinced that any other way of living is delusion

And nothing more

Let the hair I blossom be my leaves

Might my place be a humble cell in a grand ecosystem

I don’t want to be anything

The Earth’s fertile productivity is enough for me

Pointless complexities stupefy me

Meaningful simplicities enlighten me

There is nothing to do here

but play

I think we are playing the game wrong

And I think we forgot that it is indeed a game

An intruder implies a boundary.

One can only be called a trespasser if there is private property to be trespassed upon.

Thus, intrusive thoughts necessarily require a wall we’d prefer to keep ourselves behind, with unwanted visitors out.

What is the name of that wall?

The name of that wall is shame. It is our own personal judge, the decider of right and wrong. The keeper of taboos, the sole enforcing power it has being fear.

I’d argue that the function of the wall — though it appears to be in keeping things OUT — is actually to keep us IN. To contain us, cage us, imprison us.

The whole of the psyche contains the entirety of human experience. It is the nature of the ego to only identify, however, with that which is deemed “good,” and to disembody and project elsewhere that which is “bad.”

This duality is the creation of that very wall. The more concerned we are with being “good,” the stronger that wall becomes. However, so, too, do the visitors from beyond it grow in power.

I’ll say it again: that wall is the boundary of “good” and “bad.” Inside the wall, where we prefer to reside, is where we keep the “good” that we prefer to identify with. Outside, beyond the boundary, is the “bad” we fear.

Again, though, the entirety of the psyche, and the whole and total self, contains light and dark alike. I believe the goal must be to integrate these two forces into one and love the whole of the self.

These thoughts only become powerful, scary, and menacing if we fear them and keep them out; if we allow them into the wall, however, and welcome them as honored house guests, offering our warmth, hospitality, and comfort, they transmute themselves suddenly from the dark, deathly lead they appeared as, and become precious metal as gold and silver.

You give the monster a hug, and suddenly it’s no longer a monster, but a teddy bear. I think a practical way to give the monster a hug is to adapt it safely into art…

The function of that wall changes over time and is decided entirely by social indoctrination. Note that in different cultural contexts, that which is deemed a welcome visitor from beyond the wall will change. A closeted homosexual may be taught that his same-sex desires need to be kept from beyond the wall. A gay man who accepts himself welcomes him as a guest.

Impulses to murder would be accepted in ancient cultures that honored the glory of the warrior; now, however, with the “civilization” of society (a fancy name for the heightening of that wall), those impulses must be kept tightly behind that wall.

Literal external representations of what we keep behind that wall are what we sentence prisoners for. That which we deem worthy of being jailed are literal representations of that which society deems must be kept as an unwelcome visitor. Excommunicated.

This idea is explored in The Secret History, by character Julian Morrow. The liberation from the “self” described by the professor is the destruction of that wall, and complete, often raucous, communion with all beings beyond the wall — indiscriminate as can be.

Currently thinking about something interesting…

Before we ever met. Living in the same city. I wonder what the closest we ever physically got to each other was.

I’m sure there was a day we were just, like, in the mall together with our moms. Or at the grocery store. Or within a mile or something or whatever.

And I wonder that with any and every significant person in my life.

What if we were both in public once long before we met each other and just passed by the other? As strangers?

and now, for that matter — thinking of that very real possibility — how many other potential life-altering, life-defining relationships are around us, latent within any given stranger or passerby?

it’s like we become so blinded to the infinite depth and potential of each and every moment. The mundane does not exist. We choose mundanity. We have the ability to choose meaning, if we really look at the infinite richness constantly surrounding us.

It is as if I can perceive mortality itself —

Death itself. Omnipresent. The question — why do things die? Why do things live?

It is as if there is a heaviness that follows us everywhere.

It is time, but as a secondary effect. Its primary identity, I think, is not time — but, rather, because death demands an expiration, and every expiration necessarily has a date, it becomes time.

It is the essence of finality. It is the essence of surrender. It is the essence of our essential weakness. We all are in possession of an Achilles heel — our mortality.

Wisdom is about not blinding ourselves to the fact of our eventual demise. Wisdom surrenders before the sword is at our necks.

Mortality is… a funny thing. In contemplating the question — why? why anything at all? why live if we are only to die? — I am reminded of my own immaturity.

I’d think I’d have accepted it by now, that I’d have stopped struggling, that I’d no longer have such an emotional resistance to that guaranteed end.

But I do not. A sadness fills me. A struggle. I kick. I am strapped to a bed, locked down by steel, human flesh against invulnerable metal. And yet, I struggle regardless. Such is the foolishness of mortals. And I am aware of this, and yet, I feel bound by it regardless.

I feel like I must allow myself to die in this way. I must allow myself to give up. And, in doing so, I might discover truth. Real truth.

I wish to stop resisting my mortal chains, and instead embrace them. I wish to embrace my essential helplessness. I wish to embrace the fact that I am trapped, stranded, utterly vulnerable, and at the mercy of the elements.

Yea, I fear. How deeply I fear. Why shouldn’t I?

I long not for demise, but for the process leading up to it.

I long not for the end of the tale, but for those final few pages.

I long not for my final sleep, but to be laid in that one last resting bed, knowing that the long war finally comes to an end.

I long for that surrender, as my grip loosens, but has not fully let go.

I long to no longer tread water, but to let that river take me, to at last enjoy the feeling of being suspended and floating weightlessly —

I long to not need to fight to breathe, to experience what life might be like without a constant struggle.

And, in those final moments before I am finally taken, I may, at last, taste that.

In death, all answers are revealed, yes — but I think I might be able to hear those whisperings when my ear is pressed against that door, getting as close as I can be to it, without opening it and departing for good. To hear the conversations taking place behind that feared gate, while still being on our side of the threshold…

So, no, I do not long for demise.

I long for peace. I long for surrender. I long to know a life that isn’t a constant fight — and a meaningless one, at that.

I long for that in-between, where life and death might get so close to one another as to kiss, to synergistically compound the beauty of the other, and to give birth to a child that I might call “truth.”

Why do I taste this feeling as I approach the end of a book my heart has been engrossed in? Why do I taste this feeling as I approach the infinite other mini-deaths-not-deaths that exist elsewhere within the chapter book of my life?

Please, oh please, I just long for surrender, and I long for the truths she gives birth to.

Please. Please, please give it to me.

Yes, I’ve lost it. Yes, I’ve gone mad.

How could I not have?

I lined up on that racetrack. I’d been aching my entire life for this, dreaming of it. And finally, it had arrived.

I begin planning out how I’ll approach the race. I size up the track.

I crouch into position.

I contemplate my strategies. I remember the importance of controlling my breath. Of pacing myself. The size of my paces.

I look to my opponents. They look visibly weak. They look like they haven’t practiced a day in their life.

Internally, I sneer. Internally, I feel superior. I know this to be the case.

I can already taste it. What it will feel like when I cross that finish line. What it will feel like—

The gun goes off.

—when I leave them in my dust. But I have to remember to keep my eyes focused on one point in the distance. To maintain perfect posture and length of each and every stride. To pump my arms the way I practiced, to remember not to go all gas no brakes at the very beginning, bringing my fuel gauge to “E” when it’s most important!

I feel my feet on the ground, my hands still just behind the starting line. I practiced my beginning stance constantly. The exact amount of distance between my hands, between my feet, trained myself to bolt right when the gun goes off, psychically, even, anticipating when it may happen.

I knew I had this victory in the bag. When was that gun going to go off?

As I looked up to see if the referee even had the gun in their hand, I was instead met with the sight of my opponent running past me, having come up from behind. They slow from a sprint, to a run to a jog — hands pumping in the air — to a walk, to a halt.

What?

It dawns on me.

Yes, I’ve lost it. Yes, I’ve gone mad.

How could I not have?

Just wanted to share some thoughts I had this morning.

As a psychology major and aspiring therapist, I am realizing how important all forms of literature are for my chosen path.

The psychologist must study literature. Books… poetry, fiction, nonfiction, so on… what could provide better glimpses into the human mind?

Literature is the exploration of the human spirit in all of its heights and depths. The true spirit of the psychologist, who is an adventurer and cartographer of such realms, must, then, recognize the profundity of literature —

Indispensable.

For me, it is to learn that it is okay to feel what I feel. That others have felt it too, that others have felt even deeper than I have, and to be taken on a journey to depths that others have explored long before me.

As without, so within. Might literature provide me a treasure map of my own psyche?

And, if a psychologist truly is a “cartographer” of the human mind, spirit, heart, and all of their depths, then I am led to think that, perhaps, the author and the psychologist are not so different —

What is a piece of literature but just that? What is the act of writing but the mapping out of one’s heart and soul?

Some modern psychologists, however, might seek to reduce the incomprehensible grandeur of the inward workings of the human soul into easy-to-understand bites — pathologizing, at times, its grandiosity.

I have come to learn that there is a reason why mystics speak in metaphor, and in parable. There is a reason why the Oracle speaks in riddles that you are forced to chew upon from several different angles for weeks and weeks on end — sometimes a lifetime.

I have also come to realize that our authors and writers of “fiction” are our modern mystics. They are our shamans, they are our heroic explorers who foray bravely into the greatest, most final and unknown frontier of all: our hearts.

The author is privileged enough to partake fully in that most beautiful mystery — our spirits — and come to tell of what they learned, speaking in riddle, metaphor, and parable, somehow, magically, mystically, triumphantly translating and condensing it all into some pages… what a gift!

Our “old souls” are our readers, every page another lap around the Sun, each and every novel another lifetime under their belt.

No. God isn’t dead.

She’s hiding in your pen, longing for you to bring her to life.

She waiting for you in the nearest library, waiting for you to grab her from the shelf, aching for you to lovingly caress her with your eyes as you open that book, that doorway into your own mind, as she lets you know she existed dormant, within your heart, all along.

Yes, it has been said that the mystic swims in the very same waters in which the psychotic drowns. Can not the very same thing be said about the artist, about the author, or about the creative visionary? That hero or heroine who condenses those waters, colors them into ink, and transfuses pages with it?

When others saw worldly descent, there was, in truth, spiritual ascent –

When others saw worldly ascent, I saw, in truth, spiritual descent.