Somewhere I Have Never Traveled... by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands  


Poetry... always trying to describe the unknowable.

This gorgeous poem so quietly, yet so richly illustrates 
the quality of the felt experience of the most powerful 
emotion and state of being one could have the
fortune to be in - LOVE.

In first in reading this poem, I thought it was about 
the communion of a couple, the intimate, most minute
moments of the awakening to the shared experience 
of love.
Then, I read it again and again.  It began to 
dawn on me that I was reading something 
Rumi would have written...
Rumi reincarnated as e.e. cummings?!!

Could this be a poem about one's connection on the most 
subtle level with the Highest Within and not just about human 
sexual intimacy?!  I wonder...

A relationship so brilliant, yet so under the surface of things, 
that in order to meet it at its level, we must get into the smallest 
and deepest part of ourselves to be able to feel some shade
of its Light.  Maybe our human intimate communion, beautiful  
and grand as it is, is just the microcosm of a more omnipotent
connection, as macro.  Maybe this is what was being 
verbalized so descriptively by e.e. cummings?
Kind of like Van Gogh, striving with the materials available at 
the time, to reinterpret what he saw: a wheat field or a starry
night, yet, because, in the end: mere pigments, or in the poet's 
case, mere words go only so far in reaching the true texture, 
luminosity, breathability of being in and with The Creator.

I have been fortunate in my life to have had a few of these 
most holy of experiences - the men shall remain nameless, 
but my deep gratitude to what was born out of our organic 
tendernesses, the beautiful shared memories we created
together will always, always be treasured.
However, these experiences are often fleeting,
and like sand, will simply slip through your fingers - your 
awareness must always be at the ready, your inner video 
camera defaulted to "on"!

So, the question is: 
Who has served with you in your attainment of the richness of 
love?  
What was a shared experience you've had with another that has
brought you to your knees exclaiming, as Blanche did in 
Streetcar Named Desire, "There is a God!"?
Or how different was the world around you, 
after a profound shift was created out of a
coming together?  
Did your map change: were the colors more brilliant, people 
nicer, did you find yourself walking on clouds?
How has moving deeper into our evolving and quantum nature 
transformed your every-day surface-life experiences?

Pillow-talk#3

Tell me your story~

TIME & Finding Your Way Back

Sister Dearest...

Last week, 3 years ago, my world... my vision of life became very different.

All auspicious moments can change the trajectory of a life, but there is something about death - a death of a sister, for example... that kind of a loss can change even the things you are not aware of: you check your watch or your cell for the time and then... time...

Time is no longer the same - minutes, seconds stretch out into interminable leaded weights of existence.  Each moment prods along - you can practically sit on them - take a bathroom break, check your credit, paint your nails and then return to whatever you were doing only to find that 1/2 a minute had passed! Each moment so heavy, so solitary.  Time becomes almost visceral - something to wade through it.

But let me clarify, this is not that romantic, must-remember-every-moment kind of time - this is the I-must-break-it-down-to-be-able-to-handle-the-onslaught-of-the-most-terrifying-things-in-a-single-moment sort of slowing down of time.  These memories, you never ever forget.  The wonderful little book: Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman, does a phenomenal job at illustrating different versions of time - the slower-than-molasses version I am talking about is described perfectly, there.

Jacquie 5 months prior (and other sister, Joan)

My youngest sister, Jacquie's breast cancer had returned, however it had metastasized into her lungs, amongst other areas of her body.  Jacquie went through the Great Change 3 years ago, last week, June 22nd, at 9:15 in the morning - it was a Sunday.  It was a beautiful, beautiful morning.

You understand the "I" is not you, the ego, who is adjusting the shifts in time - there is no control here.  The body's intelligence system is its own instrument for encompassing the most incomprehensible on the quantum level.  It adjusts the speed of life to allow you time to be wholly present.  However, I think it has slowed me down in so phenomenal a way, I am hard pressed to return to normal capability - I simply can't keep up and frankly, there is nothing to keep up with.  There is no place worth being in any hurry that has any true currency or value in it - not anymore.   My grounding shifted, is still shifting.  Things, people whirl around me - so much importance, time is money, running late, running scared, got to show up, this to do, that to do, so much to do, sorry, can't stop...

So, I am quiet, still, and lost at the same time. If I don't know where I am going, I stand still and wait.  It is a nothing place... I've been here a long time.

There are times, moments, really, I can keep up for a bit - but never for too long.  Everyone seems to know what they are doing, where they are going or, at least, know they need to be going somewhere. That loss, my sister's death kicked me off my road - still mapless, I am finding my way by what best works in a medium like water, well, more like jello, mud, really - sound.  Like the blind, I both judge and define my space through the reflection (versus deflection) of sound.  I talk and listen to see who responds. No response, no ability to define - my terrain monochromatic, what forms are there may be hard to distinguish, much like a desert or the stark bleakness of the Antarctic.  So, everything comes at me in bits with lots of nothing in-between.  Time moves almost imperceptibly, or so it feels.

When someone, some thing responds, when coordinating vibration shows up, sound is reflected back and like sonar, I can begin to map my nearly colorless surroundings. Suddenly, there are forms I can "see" or rather feel - suddenly, I am not alone.  Here's walking with a purpose or, at least, walking in a direction, but now with a primer to continue, with some assurance.  THIS is something!


The beginning of my 1st post is a quote I took from a little known or, little remembered TV show called Millennium (late 1990's).  I seem to keep referring to the beginning of that quote: "We Are Meant To be Here..."  - it is perfect in that it always seems to find relevance in my interior questions made public.  So, if the quote is true and we are meant to be here, now, how have you been able to find your way back?  What natural instincts or tools, or other support systems do you have at your disposal to help you when you are in the "thick of things"?  What special event in your life has triggered the calling of this tool into its power?

What is your story?