Orpheus returning from Hades.

Orpheus comes to the end.

He has killed Eurydice with his glance.

He has encountered the underworld and now is surfacing again.

What now?

What shall he do?

Can he find in himself another song, and what shall that be?

A song of mourning, of grief?

A song of love? (He has destroyed the object of his love, he has killed his partner.)

A song of hope? (What hope is there?)

A song of the shadows? (He has left the shadows in Hades, been there, done that.)

 

Enough of the self introspection.

Enough whining, and navel gazing.

There is no bottom to the pool of sorrow, no end to the

vastness of Hades.

When we die, we will die forever, unfathomably dissolved into the darkness or the light, as you wish.

Either way completely gone.

 

I hear the voice of my father, the voice of my grandfathers, and they urge me to action.

Not the confused action of Orpheus before the descent.

Not the search for meaning and love somewhere else,

the desire to be saved.

 

Chop wood, carry water, let the heart and it’s mourning dissolve in the daily work.

Tears and laughter coming and going,

cleaning mirrors, washing floors, making food for my daughter.

The journey to the underworld is necessary.

It’s also necessary to return.

 

It’s necessary for the worm to become a chrysalid.

And of necessity, become a butterfly.

A few days of flying free, and then

the darkness will engulf me once again.

 

 

There’s no need to worry that i’ll forget how to die.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

-TS Eliot

Oneness exists whether i am aware of it or not.

We embark on our voyage.

Over there, the Buddhists are getting into their rowboat.

Over here, the Sufis paddling a canoe.

"Look at the pretty sails of the New Age schooner!"

And when we arrive Home, we scuttle the boat.

Oneness exists. The natural state is not something I can achieve.

And whatever ship takes me across the seas of selfish madness,

doesn't so much matter.

Someday perhaps we'll all meet again at a oneness celebration.

"Hey, weren't you a Buddhist, sitting on your ...... all day?

I remember you, whirling your self into peace.

And you with the bleeding heart, isn't that where Christ stabbed you, and left you to dissolve into eternal love?"

Someday, sitting around a nondenominational campfire of love,

singing songs of merriment, of love, and songs of grief,

and trying our hardest to remember,

"What was that thing we used to call oneness?"

 

I've waited a long time. And i've looked into my soul and seen darkness.

Little failings that seem magnified, by the urgency of our Mission.

We only want to save the world. We only want to share love and bliss until

all identities dissolve in holy water.

The jackals of selfishness yap wildly all around us,

the angels soothe us with songs of heavenly peace.

One flower child dancing in a field of flowers, mesmerized and delighted by the sight of God's beauty.

Two, three, four flower children become a cult, a movement, a religion.

All human endeavors are imperfect. All groups become political.

We thought this would be easy, to return to the belly of the beast,

put our hands on wounded hearts and heads, and let the bliss rain down.

No one has a copyright on love, and on the depths of Being.

Yet in this world of commerce and politics, we pretend it's ours to sell.

The light of love shines outward from our hands, and inward into our hearts.

We can't run. Love is stalking our imaginary identities,

and will catch us in our lies, in our falseness, and our imagined spiritual magnificence.

Only when no identity is left, and no Movement is needed,

will the final explosion of love and bliss descend.

We are the walking wounded, those who have agreed to feel the depths of sorrow,

dragging the past along with us, unable to see the Dawn, sometimes getting lost in the darkness.

Especially when we build an edifice of Oneness prematurely out of our imagination,

and believe in our Dream of Love.

 

Oneness exists whether  or not i am aware...

or not.

Love exists whether i feel it...

or not.

 

We embark on our voyage.

We arrive Home, and know it for the first time.