that one is or was completely known, understood, loved, and appreciated by one other person. It will be more than enough if one completely knew, understood, loved, and appreciated by one other person.
That will suffice for whatever meaning or purpose in one’s life.
Only then will whatever ongoing nameless dread, anxiety, or restlessness inside be quelled or evaporated.
In that the ultimate fufillment, freedom, and peace which passeth understanding.
“Narcotics cannot still the Tooth/That nibbles at the soul–“–Emily Dickinson
And often one just works hard and long, endlessly giving, doing for others, sacrificing one’s own inner self, giving many performances (many of them hollow, ephemeral) giving, turning oneself inside out for others, hopefully, to see.
And do you ever feel that the long mysterious restlessness inside will never lift and that you will never fully connect with or be very close with anyone else in your ticking life– that you will never truly be fully known and loved for who/what you are, or fully known and loved by someone else?
The palpable ache remains–a restlessness, hunger, thirst, and deep desire so total it makes itself felt on all levels–mind, body, heart, soul, spirit.
And only occasionally the mind may dare to ask: What’s in it for me? What’s it all for? What is my true meaning and purpose that will leave me with no sense of anything vitally missing? Will I ever get back anything half-resembling what I give out and have selflessly offered others, society, and the world?
And one day, if we are lucky, the clouds may part and we shall meet someone remarkable and truly special. And they will begin to know us as we begin to know them- the essential informations shared and turning darkness into light. Like Molly Bloom, we will simply say “Yes” to someone else, their presence, and unlimited love for us and our presence.
And so we’ll respond in kind, finally trusting, letting go, believing in something and someone other than just ourselves, as we heed The Call that will not likely come again.
And all and everything shall open up, and the two shall be both truly free–deeply, significantly, and mutually changed forever.
To be that lucky, to take the chance, to find out what it means to live totally in and for someone else and to feel them doing likewise within us.
To feel the sad, old, depleted, exhausted self magically washed away forever.
To live life, floating in love on the highest, maximally free-est, most glorious heights.
To feel rapturously alive again, and strangely, wonderfully reborn like the child in Wordsworth’s famous “Ode”.
…………………….
(summer 2007)
“The butterfly counts not months, but moments and has time enough.”–Rabindranath Tagore
“To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.”
–William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
………………………….
God is in the detail/s.
“Try to realize it’s all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you’re really very small
And life flows on
Within you and without you.”
–George Harrison, “Within You, Without You”
Nothing left unsaid, undone.No risk regretted.Freeing self and soul for the home stretch.
“To refuse the call means stagnation.” “When the refusal of the call happens, there is a kind of drying up, a sense of life lost.”–Joseph Campbell
“He who kisses the joy as it flies/Lives in eternity’s sunrise.”–William Blake
“They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.”–Aldous Huxley
“Most people perform essentially meaningless work. When they retire, that truth is borne upon them.”–Brendan Francis
“Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.”–Thomas Carlyle
“There is no wisdom without leisure.”–Jewish proverb
“We can never have enough of nature.”–Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“To love what you do and feel that it matters–how could anything be more fun?”–Katharine Graham
“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”–Denis Diderot
“The length of your life is less important than its depth.”–Marilyn Vos Savant, Reader’s Digest (1992)
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”–Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, 1878
“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”–Amelia Earhart
“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”–Miriam Beard
“Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends on the tides of the mind.”–Alice Meynell
“Only those who dare, truly live.”–Ruth P. Freedman
“Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.”–Helen Keller, The Open Door
“Be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.”–Buddha
“It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.”–Ethel Percy Andrus
“In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom.”–J.G. Ballard, Running Wild
He woke up
on an unfamiliar shore
of a spiritual sea
he had been
travelling
for decades
in search of ecstasy
and Krishna.
The beautiful pain,
the sweet sorrow
of transcendent melodies
that came from within.
He could not stop smiling
or loving
appreciating all the gifts
that had been given him
and the world.
He played his life
and piercing love
for all to know and savour–
the sweet sad music
of humanity.
OM……………
“We were talking about the love we all could share.”–George Harrison, “Within You, Without You”
……………………….
And all the other great lessons about life, love, classical musical possibilities, and globalism (McLuhan’s global village was first realized musically by Harrison and Shankar, and Menuhin and Shankar) from the East via this sitar-genius.
One of the most memorable, powerful concerts I’ve ever witnessed, too, at the Winspear. Ravi was truly A Great Soul. He enlarged my ’60s musical spirit/consciousness hugely. A Very Large Life. Multitudes.
“Man is made by his belief./As he believes, so he is.”--Bhagavad Ghita
“When they said, ‘Repent, repent’.
I wonder what they meant.”
–“The Future”
“If dogs run free, the why not we
Across the swooping plains?”
–“If Dogs Run Free”, New Morning
