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10. RESHUFLING PRIORITIES
"If Reason—
Sick of failure
Helpless confused indecisive—
Keeps insisting that
It alone can fix what ails
The malaise continues.
But if Reason
Faces its shortcomings and
By force of thought alone
Steps down from the pedestal
Of its own making
Surprises abound—
Shadows lift—
Light floods every corner
Darkness gives up its secrets—
Neither dream nor fable
When the awakening strikes
Like a home coming
To a state of being
Little Spirit was dreaming of—
Feelings ring true and clear again
Emotions spill as they will
Leaving no residue behind.
Longing striving dreaming
No longer an affliction
But a measure of restlessness
On every level.
Reason
The exquisite tool granted
To humankind
Relieved from chasing after Emotion
No longer fussing over controls does
When called for
What all other faculty do—
Assists Little Spirit in balancing
The ebb and flow of
Vital energies.
In turn
Intuition waves the magic wand
Daydreams attend to housekeeping
Imagination explores every venue
Dreams offer clues to hidden feelings
Intellection guards the linkage
Between thought and experience
And Little Spirit
The quivering needle
In the hands of awareness
Cures what ails
Without understanding.
In this Resolved System
The initial and the extended systems
Function as one—
The resolved system at once
Self-balancing and self-regulating.
Only spirit and flesh
Like the two outer sides of a coin
Look at different horizons—
Spirit forever attracted to energy events
Flesh to things of matter."
*
"The awakening
So true so deep so assuring
May come as a gift but is not
Always beneficial or benevolent.
Unless the mind is prepared to handle
High-powered events and
Skilled in channeling energy into
Activities that call for a high charge
Light—so pervasive so real—
Can also blind—
Flushes of raw energy
In search of an outlet can
Just as well inflame
Some obscure conviction—
A pre-existing mind-set
Raising the flag."
*
"Even when the awakening
Brings gifts unexpected
The elation does not last and
The discomforts of being human
Prevail—
And so it goes—
The impermanence of things
The mending of hopes broken
The adjustments never ending
The hassles of daily bread—
All nibble at this professed
Profound inner state.
How then to go on living when
The ancient guidelines
No longer apply?"
*
"Remember this:
Change must be first imagined
Before action will follow.
When a dream begins to take shape
Imagination fashions an image
Of self to fit the dream—
The invented forward-pointing self-image
Benevolent or destructive
Projects the dreamer into a future role—
The new self
Not Reason not convention not conviction
Now fixates attention on
Things apt to fulfill the dream—
That invented self now chooses
Sets priorities negotiates
The options and channels thoughts
Into select intentional activities—
The finger-pointing self
Compelling you the dreamer
To think and act and conduct
Your affairs in accord with that
Phantom self roaming
The corridors of your mind
Impersonating you—
You who walks and talks and works
And plays and eats and sleeps.
What then is this phantom self?
A multitude—
Daughter sister lover wife mother cook
Provider protector worrier consoler
Artist writer friend—
Each assuming a role
Each wearing a different face
Each mastering different skills
Of no use to others—
All dwelling in you side by side
Not always without dispute.
The bargains the many selves
Strike among them set
And reset priorities
Which one in the course of life
Is to take charge and so will
Serve the dreamer best.
What carries over from one
Acquired self-image to another
Are small consistencies—
Telling not telling the truth
Loving not loving thy neighbor
Keeping not keeping promises
Taking not taking responsibility
For your deeds—
Trends challenged every day
Upholding or restraining the activities
Of that finger-pointing self
Trends that leave it feeling
Good or bad about itself.
What you call the self is
Motion within—
The body and mind
A junction of energy events
Every sensation witness to
A dynamic confluence of inner
And outer forces—
Heart beating faster skipping a beat
Lungs billowing for air
Feelings caressing repulsing swinging
Emotions stirring collecting spilling
Spirit lulling soaring plunging leaping
While thoughts meander push dig and
Twist and churn and grope
For the unreachable—
Every twitch insinuating
Creating the illusion that
At the helm
There is a single self
Alive—
Alive that very moment
Precisely because of
Energy fluctuations within."
*
"By any other name
Attraction is
An ever present silent partner—
Gravity one other manifestation of it.
The force affects everything—it
Amasses compresses repulses and disperses
Matter—every shift
In search of balance everywhere
This very instant.
The laws of Attraction as rigid
As the laws that govern matter.
There is no free will—
Every minute of your life is
Either in the grip of Attraction
Or spent in resistance to
Or circumvention of it.
Is there a purpose to life?
Non other than
The life-giving force insisting you
Use it go with it all the way.
When held back
Intolerant of waste it brews
The all too familiar unrest
Confusion trouble malaise.
The meaning of life?
None other than what
Accrues in living—
In the way the life energy
Is spent day in day out.
Have a good ride.
Take care!
Fare well!"
**
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