Prose-Poems
I’m fascinated by the conundrum of how I can use words to speak of what’s beyond words, in how to collapse dualities—dissolving the seer, seeing and seen. That could be in the realm of nature, emotion, psychology or the sacred—depending on the preferred language of the reader/listener. Word meditations, if you like, that take us to a place without tension, a place of peace. So these are my personal explorations; they are partly inspired by the 1200-year-old scripture the VijñānaBhairava Tantra. I enjoy contemplating everyday objects and seemingly mundane events. I’ve been working to capture that moment in time in which I experience a liberation from my sense of limitation. This is a practice and these are the works-in-progress…
Egg Moon
"One may cast one’s gaze on an area free of trees, mountains, walls, and so on; when the mental state dissolves into [that open field], then arises the state of being in which mental-emotional churning is feeble or absent.”
—VijñānaBhairava Tantra (Verse 60) trans. Christopher Wallis
13th February 2023. Snowed in. Puivert, Aude, France
As everyday, i walk the line. Even before it’s winter dark, the egg moon is rising and the cold air is fizzing. If i fix my gaze on the boundary of path shedding to field, i fence my heart and prevent myself breaking apart.
i lift my eyes and see the moon snag on a roof tile. It spills white over the village. A secret world emerges—the redstart, the woodpecker, even the hawk. All of us that are shape-bound marvel at the sparkling sky. Even the crumbling wall keens, ‘Take me now!’ as it is thickened and completed, and the tree pants ‘Raise me up!’ as it is made beautiful.
But snow is careering every which way now—obliteration on its mind. The woodpecker rakes at vanishing surfaces and chases down any dark places that remain. He agitates in a fear of loss. My boundary is splintering white and shifting in my vision and my heart is a-flurry. When there is no place for my eye to cling, what will contain the hurt? And, will i even remain?
The bird, in a fluster, flies. But there’s still the crack he found… There’s still the crack… White dust is blowing; it’s filling that small scar. And then, the snow shifts sharply, and it is erased.
My eye has nothing, nothing, and my heart is roaring beyond pain. i’m waiting to shatter; i’m expecting to cease to be. But it isn’t happening.
Instead, the cry—how can i explain it?—it’s opening into…expanding until…dissolving upon…a brilliance, sheer. And i’m beginning—without ever needing to start—to be. And to Be. And to BE. I am Being. I am. I.
Then there’s laughter—squeals of it. i shrink back into my body-line. The snow has eased; it is world wiped clean. Children, and some adults who remember, are running on the stainless plane. These world-makers conjure up a head, a torso, a dog, a castle, planets. They giggle one to the other, ‘What else can i magic you up?’
Abracadabra; i’ve heard the call now. i hold my small self lightly and know: we are only ever our formlessness, in play, delighting in the recognition of ourselves.
