Defrost

There is a heightened awareness of the piercing cold as the snowfall numbs your senses. The wind violently reminds you that you are in its icy tundra, away from all of the comforts which previously kept you warm. The ability to see ahead has begun to slowly deteriorate as the arctic realizes your intention to free yourself from its grasp. It needs to keep you afraid to stop you from progressing; it needs to stop you from finding truth in its dark and solitary waters. As the snow crunches beneath your boots, you become aware of the fatigue which has set in; just a few more steps to the cliffs.

Approaching the summit of your journey forged in tracks now unseen due to the storm, you look down towards the water. It is savage and unwavering. The crashing of its waves are fierce to send a simple message.

You cannot conquer us. Fear us. We will destroy you.

Holding onto the edge in fear, doubt creeps into the mind. Do you really need to face that which terrifies you even though you know it is best for your growth? You've been told you will survive. You know in your own heart that it is truth. The choice is yours now.

Succumb to frigid fear or jump knowing there is warmth inside

there is courage in the grass

every

winter the

grass wilts and dies

not once does it curse the sun

for giving it life

then taking

it away

i pray

for a courage 
like this

~Rich Pauloo

The Present

Like a virus the heartsting spread throughout her body. It's an interesting thing, the heart. It can ache like an injury or sting like a gash through the arm. It did not ache today. Her body came to the rescue and shut down without her consent like a computer virus. She went numb to the pain. Better than the alternative she thought. As she laid in bed, she began to think of a future she could not see clearly. The contagion had quickly infected her eyes and blinded her with fear. There was no diagnosis for heartache. She knew she could not treat the pain she felt with medicine. She remembered all the moments which once brought her happiness and shuttered as it now only brought pain. She needed something to bring light to the darkness, a nepenthe for the past.

It was time for her to heal her own heart; she needed to love herself now. There was no nepenthe. No quick fix that wouldn't just mask the pain and hide it away. You can put feelings in box and pretend it is not there but these boxes begin to breed monsters. To be strong she needed to start moving on and begin to grow without him. This virus could be cured she realized. She needed to let go of her old life, her old self, and be reborn. The pain which once infected her started transforming into passion. Like a phoenix, she could become a flame and light her world on fire once again; she became the light that conquered the darkness. 

It's an interesting thing, the heart.

Day Light Saving Time

The shadows on the ground reach
across the black top

Like a hand

on a clock

The sun begins to set
on a silent tick toc

White Out

There is a question which has been posed to me more than once in my life:

"What happened last night?"

It's tragic to wake up to a fragment of a night. It's easier to not remember anything than to be faced with the disappointment of boredom or negativity. Some take this one step further and purposely forget months or even years of their lives. Why not wipe away memories which cause us pain than to experience them fully? When we make that choice, we sacrifice the good and the bad; we blindly launch missiles at a field and hope they hit the right target. Sadly, everything gets destroyed in its wake and life becomes haunted by lost moments. In the end, do you want your life to be a scattered scrapbook or an unabridged film?

the blowing clover and the falling rain

In his "Divinity School Address" at Harvard, Ralph Waldo Emerson admonished organized Christianity for overemphasizing the miracles preformed by Jesus, while neglecting true miracles.  He said, "The very word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches gives a false impression; it is as monster; it is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain."

There are two things to notice here: the rigidity of religious institutions and the notion of a miracle.  I want to focus on the latter.  

The blowing clover and the falling rain.  These are the true miracles, Emerson is saying.  Life, death and the beauty between; the dark enigma of what lies before and after.  These are the ineffable mysteries tangling the tongues of poets and stoking the fire of philosophers, twisting the marrow of musicians, and feeding the wanderlust of mystics and seekers.

Life, unfolding outwards from within, as all of life does, like a frond opening, a universe expanding, like a fetus derived from one fertilized egg unfolds outward into bones, blood, nerves, and hair.  Even before the cells divide, the DNA within a single cell first replicates itself--something comes out of nothing, form from formlessness.  Life isn't the only unfolding enterprise.  Even the inroganic rocks on the Earth's crust are churned out of the great molten belly of the planet, spilling out onto the ocean and land, cooling into an array of colors and densities.

Verse 14 of the Tao Te Ching:

See the invisible, Listen to the inaudible and grasp the intangible.
This invisible, inaudible and intangible is undefinable.
Thus unified, it is the One,
Nothing is brighter, nothing is dimmer,
Underminate, it is unnameable.
Ultimately it is Nothing.
This is the condition of the conditionless,
The form of the formless,
It is beyond all descriptions.
Welcome this invisible at the beginning,
Follow this invisible to the end.
Holding onto the Ancient Tao,
Still now is the principle of all beings,
Being aware of the Primordial “Beginning,” it is the Tao.

The form and the formless.  The miracle of anything at all, of Nothing as well, of the interplay between.  These are the true miracles, not water and wine, not fish and bread multiplied.  The profound and fierce beauty in the seemingly ordinary is a miracle.  The feather pen on my desk, the paper, pressed and polished bodies of trees, these are miracles.  The blowing clover in the afternoon wind, the music of the falling rain.


Rich Pauloo
March 10, 2015

Rest in Peace

“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."

-Yoda

Fear grips us so tight we cannot see the dark from the light. Not darkness as in evil, darkness as the inability to see. Most individuals fear loss due to the overwhelming fear of emptiness and it becomes blinding. Loss is a natural part of life though. We grieve for people long since past, moments now surrounded by empty nostalgia, and former opportunities lost in time. If we let them, these things can make us bitter. Once we become bitter we cannot let go of the grief; grief becomes pain, causing us to fear life in order to avoid getting hurt. It is when we finally are able to loosen our grasp on the things we are afraid to lose that we can live in the light and see once again.  

Card Tricks

It seems like the deck is stacked against you but you've just bet all your money on one hand. Are you playing the odds or just done playing?

It's a Wonderful Life

What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.

I'll take it. Then what?

Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much

Timeless

I've experienced moments when time stands still. When everything literally stops for a second and there is nothing but pure awareness. It is when time stops, that life begins. We get so caught up in our days, running from one task to another. There are very few moments when we get to stop and be still. Ticking clocks conjure up time. You don't need to break the clock to catch your breath.

Missing

Name: Merlyn Aya

Age: Unknown

Last Seen: 12/2/14