Post by gratitude on Aug 30, 2019 19:53:31 GMT -8
Jocko has taught me quite a bit about appreciating Life by holding an awareness of Death. On a silent week-long meditation retreat last fall, a poem came to me.. almost fully in Jocko's voice. I offer it to the community with gratitude and service.
-Poem to Self on Emptiness-
Even your stability is weak,
So hard-earned, and better than before,
It easily crumbles under the gaze of time.
We are here, and then we are not.
Then, we must go along the way that all the others have..into non-existence.
But you don’t believe it.
You would, perhaps, even want to, but you can’t.
No, you stay with most other minds, floating through childhood dreams that tell you you will continue on forever. I, am there too.
But I felt a fear and aliveness today that jostled me awake.
It came from the river that cuts through these mountains, and rushed across the valley, into my mind.
And I felt it: The Enduring Nature Of Change.
It pierced through me; pierced through my practice, my confidence, my self.
And I suddenly remembered the feeling of a childhood summer afternoon, turning into dusk.
All that glorious innocence and excitement of the day beginning to fade.
And me, feeling an ancestral fear.
I can feel that fear now.
But this time, it’s different.
This time, I am somehow bigger.
And instead of the fear closing in on my reality, it is an aliveness, and it opens up, outwards.
—
The churning of time. Like white-water rapids cutting through rock. Aching, everywhere.
Now I remember... it’s always been like this.
Funny, how we never really see it.
I guess there’s nothing left to do, but the work of remembering, and letting go, and allowing in the Warmth of the grief.
-New Mexico Mountains, 2019
-Poem to Self on Emptiness-
Even your stability is weak,
So hard-earned, and better than before,
It easily crumbles under the gaze of time.
We are here, and then we are not.
Then, we must go along the way that all the others have..into non-existence.
But you don’t believe it.
You would, perhaps, even want to, but you can’t.
No, you stay with most other minds, floating through childhood dreams that tell you you will continue on forever. I, am there too.
But I felt a fear and aliveness today that jostled me awake.
It came from the river that cuts through these mountains, and rushed across the valley, into my mind.
And I felt it: The Enduring Nature Of Change.
It pierced through me; pierced through my practice, my confidence, my self.
And I suddenly remembered the feeling of a childhood summer afternoon, turning into dusk.
All that glorious innocence and excitement of the day beginning to fade.
And me, feeling an ancestral fear.
I can feel that fear now.
But this time, it’s different.
This time, I am somehow bigger.
And instead of the fear closing in on my reality, it is an aliveness, and it opens up, outwards.
—
The churning of time. Like white-water rapids cutting through rock. Aching, everywhere.
Now I remember... it’s always been like this.
Funny, how we never really see it.
I guess there’s nothing left to do, but the work of remembering, and letting go, and allowing in the Warmth of the grief.
-New Mexico Mountains, 2019
