An ode to you
oh Beast!
What are you?
You seem so powerful,
all pervasive, ruthless, yes merciless, indiscriminate, indiscreet and secretive all at once.
.
Who are you?
You who holds reign with the worst of
dictators and tyrants,
on par with
molesters and torturers,
your kingdom far outstrips all the
fiefdoms and nations combined
as your pincher claws
reach,
clench and
grope
across the globe.
You turn people’s lives upside
down,
hold them in a
chokehold,
and lock them in a chamber without
windows,
no air to breath,
in darkness ,
a stench of waste and things
rotten
and decayed,
a dungeon, a prison for life, nothing short of
hell
as we imagine it,
.
you make people do things in
desperation,
you make our bodies reek,
a pungent
odor of
lives
lived in the
shadows.
.
you stare us down, immobilize us, threaten us, squeeze the life out of us, all in the name of
protection and
self preservation.
you make us
thicken our armor, raise our shields, sharpen our weapons, and fortify
our bunkers.
.
you make us walk
the plank
rather than even consider
the alternative
.
And yet,
you are nothing.
.
Nothing but an empty shell –
lifeless,
if it wasn’t for us
feeding you
.
O hungry Beast,
feeding you,
endlessly,
a constant stream of
guilt, self hatred,
self annihilation,
doubt, second guessing,
spite…..
.
The table is set in full galore and with
incredible riches
day after day
because we won’t quit on you
loyal slaves
.
And yet,
you are nothing.
.
You are nothing
but the projection of our
ongoing resistance
to life,
to love,
to being one
with One.
.
Your power is only
because
you serve a secret
agenda;
OUR secret agenda:
to stay separate, claim
our “otherness”, claim
our superiority,
our independence.
To not surrender to life.
To not surrender to Love.
.
mythical stories of the Fall. Lucifer. Adam and Eve.
the fated
bite
in the apple
.
Sadly
we have been portrayed as
sinners.
Our so called ‘fall from grace’.
But the story, the “truth” is so much more interesting than that.
.
How could we be in the realm of
Love
if we even didn’t
know it,
were not aware
of it?
How could we truly participate in this
Feast of Love
if we merely obeyed orders of a (dictatorial)
Higher Power?
Fell in line
without question,
without doubt,
without hesitation
and yes
perhaps resistance, even
resentment?
Without
putting up a fight,
worthy of what is at stake:
total bliss?
.
Overnight Faust and Satan and
a long line
of exotic
masked demons,
beasts and half gods
stop
being the villains
we can project our resistance on,
and merely have become
facilitators,
props
in this
eternal dance
we
dance.
.
The only way,
ultimately,
is
for each and all of us
to make a
choice:
.
come Home,
or stay out a
little longer.
.
.
.
** On an aside: this is where math, signage and language diverge.
Zero or “Nothing” is the only way to graphically express something that paradoxically holds “everything” – picture the round circle, the Omega -;
One, expressed as the number “1”, suggests the quality of distinct individuality but does a poor job of communicating the sense of “being one”, being connected, joined, without apparent separation.