F.A.T.E. - From All Thoughts Everywhere

Let us meet this with a tsunami of giving,
Let us each be nameless drops in a great wave of support,
For this is a chance to define our shared humanity,
And reclaim our common lot,
Let us find within an epicentre of love,
One that registers 10 on the Richter Scale,
Let us summon a shift in our perceptions,
As we rise up from humbled knees,
What then would we leave in our wake ?
If not a changed landscape, a better way, a different world.

(On the five year anniversary of the tsunami natural disaster that claimed over 230,000 lives in Asia, I am posting this poem in memory of all those who were directly affected by this cataclysmic event. I wrote this poem as an attempt to feel for an appropriate response to such an overwhelming yet distant experience. The title is taken from a passage in the book 'Conversations with God' where it suggests that acts of fate, like a tsunami, are actually a summation of many millions of individual thoughts that coalesce to generate 'real world' experiences. This thinking is based on the belief that we are creative beings who have the ability to 'move mountains' through our thoughts. Sounds crazy I know but we have all heard the phrase 'mind over matter' and this is simply an extension of this everyday phrase. It's as crazy as every truth for which our 'flat earth' egos are not yet ready to deal with.  Anyway, the poem issues a call for a different manifestation of fate, a tsunami of giving, an opportunity to use the tragedy of the tsunami to come together and define who we are and who we want to be on a global scale. And in this way too, the summation of our thoughts, words and actions has a similar power to that of the tsunami wave - itself a summation of many million 'innocent' particles of water moving in unision. Nature reminds us that this depth of collective expression does have the power to 'change landscapes' , internally and externally, inside and out. And we did give - six days after the tsunami hit a total of £1bn of aid had been pledged to victims of the disaster, a huge wave of money, a huge wave of humanity. A hint at the possibilities of the human spirit?)

Forever Ours to Keep

They're crowding in my throat again,
The many unspoken words,
Jostling and grasping for life,
The remnants of the truth,
Amidst my happiness they open up,
Like many petals in the sun,
Different voices from the past,
Absorbed through the perfect detail of consciousness,
Stored away under lock and key,
Now ready to walk free in this world once more,
So I breath them into this space,
And form vibrations from the emotions they contain,
I give words to the wordless, the invisible feelings within,
And as I speak, my shoulders drop,
I admit to peace in this strange place,
I complete sentences long cut short,
I walk in rooms where I never have been,
Yet I know them through my ancestors' hearts,
Held there in my panoramic gaze,
I see a journey of struggles and pain,
Yet also is there a silent love, a faith and a purposeful aim.

To all those who have lifted us up,
With their invisible grace and their well intentioned mistakes,
I now acknowledge and thank and celebrate,
To all those who died selfless and confused,
Know that this day you have been deified,
For love is eternal yet buried deep,
Love is eternal and forever ours to keep.

(As you get older and stronger and wiser then you can start to get to know your past again. Things that hurt you first time round can be re-visited from a different perspective. What once overwhelmed you emotionally no longer has that same power. This poem is about such a re-visiting of the the past, a re-living, a re-processing of what has been ('I complete sentences long cut short'). And sometimes you re-visit the past and realise that is not 'your stuff' that you are feeling but actually the 'stuff' that was passed down to you in the collective psyche of your family, your country, your race ('I walk in rooms where I never have been'). The poem mirrors many that I have written in that it starts from a personal perspective but naturally evolves into a collective awareness. As this poems reaches for its ending, the collective awareness fills the space completely and assumes a celebration. For beneath the buried hurt of personal emotions and beneath the buried hurt of collective emotions is discovered a different 'strata'; the love of the collective consciousness. 'Love is eternal yet buried deep, Love is eternal and forever ours to keep'. This then the surprising reward from a bout of rueful yet determined introspection!)

Learning to Love Failure

Keep enjoying, keep sharing, keep growing through,
The ups and the downs, the lefts and the rights,
The winning, the losing, the honourable draws,
Loving the failure that allows us to live,
Loving it like our nature loves us,
For this word is too fickle to be set in stone,
Too subjective to be meaningful,
Too lame to stop us walking upright and free,
We do not know nor can we judge what is success or failure,
For our eyes are clumsy and crude,
Just short of reptilian blind,
When we say
'Look at how I am failing',
'Look at how I am succeeding'
Someone smiles and dreams a silent dream,
Shines a silent light,
But a light so bright it will burn these medals to a crumbling dust,
Transforming our fear of failure into a shower of love,
Forgiving our forgetfulness and our lack of faith,
As all this and more recedes in the presence of the unfailing truth.

(I have just received some feedback from a conference presentation that is not what I wanted it to be. Part of me feels that I have failed. I know that there are many responses and reactions I could now have to this situation. This poem captures such a moment - the 'down', the 'losing', the 'fickle', the 'subjective', the 'judgement'. The feedback could lay me 'lame' i.e. it could tempt me to withdraw, recede and lick my wounds. It could tempt me into denial and I just plough on regardless, insensitive and cold. Or I could just sit here with this feeling and wait for it to pass, wait for the 'someone' that 'smiles', the 'light' that 'burns'. I could recognise that a life fully lived must include and embrace these moments in order to be a life fully lived. For without the feeling of this moment, I will not be able to experience the feeling of the other moments - the 'winning', the 'success', the 'ups', more 'judgement'. From this perspective, I am left with the ability to feel, to be human but not to be consumed by my feelings or be limited by humanity. I am left humbled by my successes and my failures as evidence of both the glory of human consciousness and its triviality in the scheme of things.)