Some would say that faith
is like a padded suit you put
on because you’re too scared
to face the obvious reality
that your life is a swift,
knee-scuffing
blood-curdling
tumble
down a steep
and rock-strewn escarpment
towards
the waiting
gaping
dark, ugly and
hungry
empty
irreversible
vacuum-powered
inescapable
abyss of non-existence.
You’re afraid to die, they say.
Some of those same ones would say
there’s a real sweetness
to the glimpses of wild flowers
and spiral-horned rams
you manage in between
getting your face slammed
up against the sandpaper permacrete
of dried earth baked for centuries
in the beating hot sun
as you plummet
all alone
down your timeline.
I get it. Really, I do.
We should all just man up.
Here’s one option to consider:
Faith might just be that feeling
you get right as that quizzical
look gets hold of your face,
mirroring your insides wherein
a warm hunch is breaking
across the inside of your chest
like a spreading ink drop Aha.
Aha!
It is all coming clear!
I don’t have to live like this!
I don’t have to live like this:
hung upside down from a cliff
by my ankles by two former
professional wrestlers,
blindfolded,
with an expired
bike helmet on my head,
wriggling like a hypoxic fish
against the side of a granite wall.
This is the moment when the
memory of Love returns.
It doesn’t have to be like this…
Immediately, you regain your senses.
You stop struggling and tap out.
They lift you up onto the ledge,
pat you off, hand you a vaguely familiar ice pack.
You look around.
There are pairs of wrestlers and hypoxic
fish like flopping beings in all directions.
Hafiz hands you a delicate white rose.
You notice he is wearing a harness.
He has been hanging beside you
whispering in your ear for eons
and somehow, together,
you have slain a great dragon.
He points to the trail that leads
up and out of this silly canyon.
Come. Walk with me into the Beyond.
You look wistfully up the trail, but…
Here it comes…
Temptation.
Watch it carefully…
I wanna’ go again you say.
I can Remember straight off.
I can beat the record.
I’m that good.
This is where the Memory of
who we truly are, when it comes,
is so incredibly sweet and vibrant,
so powerfully good,
it’s hard to imagine not
forgetting one last time
just so we can Remember again.
It’s hard to imagine what we’d do
without a long, hard road to
freedom ahead of us,
an impossibility to overcome,
and the delicious discovery of Self
at the end of the session.
That’s one option,
but hey, maybe it’s time
to let ourselves know
what Love is like when it’s not
the punch line to pain.
Maybe there’s courage in that, too,
to resign oneself to that type of death.
As you make your way up the trail,
to take your mind off of all
your cliff-hanging glories
you could ask yourself,
does the Beloved pay all those
crazy wrestlers by the hour?
Embracing Forever 
Maybe I’ll walk a while with peace, love and Rumi. The drama path has been exhausting.
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Sounds wonderful! And yes it has. We don’t realize it sometimes until one passes. Cowabunga… Sometimes it seems I’m finding more and more places they are showing up, not less. On the other hand, it seems this march to freedom is picking up speed, and the road is starting to fill with fellow travelers. Such a joy to forget drama temporarily because one’s attention has shifted to the joy of what is simply happening.
Michael
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To freedom from drama 🙂
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Epic!
A well-told tale that had me feeling upside down by my own ankles.
I’ll try it again! I am certain I can beat my last score…
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Good luck! Ha! Thanks for the note… Looking forward to reading more of yours. The exercise of acceptance you described in your recent post seems like a pretty good tool to have with you when you’re hanging upside down trying to remember who you are… unless it falls out of your pocket or whatever…
Michael
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Like a spreading ink drop….Love it!
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Aha! Yes. Thank you, Teresa. The spreading ink drop is the metabolic flowering of our cells cheering in unison as the miracle of right-thinking descends upon us.
Michael
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Sometimes I am so tired – much more tired than this little life could have possibly accumulated by now – and I am pretty sure I’ve wandered out of range of the playing field. The mad wrestlers are star wars bar creatures out here beyond the programers’ interest. Hafiz had to get an extension on the crane to hover near. The reset button gives me 3 more donkeykong trips – but I think it will be a nice slumber just to rest in the arms for a little bit and watch you beat your time. Good show.
Love not as a punch line to pain, brilliante! Without that contrast, never tasted so sweet!
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They have helicopters now, too. “Sky hooks” they call them. You can wander but you can’t hide… 🙂
I’m intending to walk out of the canyon terminal and into the Beyond, rather than catching another luchador-assisted flight, but you never know. The resting part sounds good. Resting in the embrace of all for all. Enjoying a fresh squeezed lemonade.
All the accrued fatigue, makes me think we’re releasing lifetimes of fatigue and misperception. As we become doorways, there’s a back log of misplaced radiance hoping to find its way OUT. Wishing you rest, peace, and zero rhinovirus activity.
Michael
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totally fascinating! very interesting topic, explained with curiosity in mind!
wonderful posts and lively blog
thank you for subscribing to me. Eddie
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Thank you, Eddie! I look forward to reading more of yours. I see your feathers image floating around various pages, and they always bring a sense of peace, like two little whispers, partnered together, ready to fan the moment with meaning.
Michael
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“This is the moment when the
memory of Love returns.
It doesn’t have to be like this”
Thank you…
“maybe it’s time
to let ourselves know
what Love is like when it’s not
the punch line to pain.”
and maybe the pain is in the resisting of “what is”. where would the pain reside if i could completely surrender to the Universe and the messages and messengers it brings me?
surely the pain will find no haven in me.
the pain is not in the message. it’s not in the messenger.
the pain is my resistance to the message and in my resistance to the messenger, who are only part of the Whole.
the pain is in my resistance to the Whole.
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Your welcome, Casey. May you find peace. You need no additional words from me… You are reaching for it, and it is reaching for you…
Michael
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I’m ready to start A Course In Love….
I’ll let you know when I’ve finished the first read-through.
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Sounds great! Please do…
Michael
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(okay, mister… i haven’t read the second course, but the course in miracles is not easy reading… are you planning to tell anyone that it’s going to turn them upside down or just let Hafiz… maybe Jesus… tumble everyone? 😉 )
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Ha! I don’t know! A Course of Love is written more for the heart than the mind, and is meant to be simply experienced. It is far easier to read, and appeals directly to the felt core of our being. There is a pretty good forward that speaks of the differences in the way the heart and mind process this experience of Loving freedom.
In hindsight, I AM a bit perplexed by the lack of mention of Hafiz, or the hanging heels over head shake-down virtual reality we’ve invented.
🙂
Michael
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