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| Destiny, Salinas, CA April 13, 2022, Steve Brown |
1. Open to the Pulse of the Moment
I want to write, write well, and maybe say something in the process. Certainly, a lot needs to be said. But a poem is as much an energy as it is a thing that says something. A poet doesn't write poems, a poet is receptive to energy--the movement of clouds, wheat being whipped at forty miles an hour, gunfire at the 7-11 down the street, or simply Grandpa flushing in the toilet--it's motion that counts. When you say something, it's because the energy is right, not because you feel like saving the world. The rest of the time you're open to any pulse you can get, and you put it down.
I was quite young when I wrote the above in 1992 for a magazine a friend and I published.
Maybe a life isn't much different than a poem. Maybe way back then I wasn't just writing about poetry. Maybe opening up to a poem was just my initial way to begin to open up to life. Maybe I wasn't quite ready to view life as energy, so instead, I was given an initial glimpse of poetry as that.
I've been reading and listening to Wayne Dyre recently. He asks a lot of us. He asks us to believe we are already living the divine life we have already chosen, and that by opening up to a version of our self--our energy or spirit--that is greater than our fear-based ego, we can each discover our own individual sacred quest. He's asking us to shift from constant doing to constant being, which he calls inspiration.
I'm pretty open to this idea. Afterall, I do know it is difficult to write a meaningful poem by setting out to do so. Meaningful poems are a result of trusting that the poem will know where it needs to go. It's not a process of creating, but rather of following. A poet doesn't make poems. A poet is receptive to poems. When I wrote poems, I understood that very well. I never sat down to write. I sat down to open. In fact, I named a blog where I will still occasionally post poems The Only Poem Open that Day. The title suggests that the poet wanders around the city and finds whatever poem is open the same way one would find whatever bakery or coffee shop that is open late at night. The poet is not the creator. The poet is the customer. Not all poems are open at all times. You take in and enjoy the one open to you that day.
Maybe it is no different with this book. Maybe I need to stop trying to write this book, and instead, let the book write itself.
Maybe it is the same with life. What if to fully blossom, all we need to do is let go of our ego and just let life happen? What if fear keeps us trying to write a life for ourselves that doesn't want to be written?
Maybe much of the turmoil we feel is nothing more than our ego trying force us to do things against the will of our silent sacred self.
What if we are wild words of wonder stuck in greeting-card prison waiting to roam and wander this great big, glorious universe oh so grandly, but instead we've allowed ourselves to be packaged and marketed by the greeting card company called Ego so that we offend nobody and say little of importance, opting for a life that can be mass-marketed in a world of mediocrity. What if we do that to ourselves? What if we are born into life tart and tangy, hot and spicy, wild and wonderfully grand, and out of fear, we take on silly rhyme-schemes and sentimentality and become nothing at all really, but words forced upon us by the expectations of others?
It's a hard thing to believe we're already living the life we've chosen so far, and that it was something we decided long ago. But it shouldn't be. After all, the life we have is the one that is. What else adequately explains it? Something had to get us to now. Why not simply us? Not that there haven't been outside influences. For some, without a doubt, there have been brutal ones. Not every life is planted in the same soil. It is extremely egotistical and unempathetic to think otherwise. Some of us, like me, are very lucky that way. Some of us got good soil. However, some of us got planted in toxic waste dumps. It's not fair, but it is. Some come from families of love and stability. Others do not. But what if we actually chose that?
I have no clue if that is true or not. However, it is very useful as a thought because it frees us from any resentment that we have against life so far, and that in return, allows us to open up to a life more abundant. If I believe I chose my current now, I can own that and let go, and then I'll be more willing to open up to whatever comes next. Afterall, no matter what life I've chosen up to now, I'm here, I've survived, and I know somehow that I've been up to that task, or I wouldn't be here. If I believe that life just happens to me randomly, I may believe that I am not up to the task, and my ego will shut me down into a dry, thorny, bony twig of existence to protect me from the dangerous life I assume is. I may still exist, but I certainly won't blossom.
I choose to believe I sit here now writing this because every choice I have made up to now has given me everything I need to write it, and if I just open up, the words will come. I express profound gratitude for every choice I've made so far because without making those choices, I would not be here now writing this particular thing, and I would not have all that I need to do it well. Some part of me in the past accepted a life where I would be bullied because I know my ego, and I know how much I crave attention, and I know without the experience of being bullied, I'd be a complete ass. I'm open to the idea that some higher self within me knew that and said, "It won't be fun, but I volunteer for that whole high school geek role because I know it'll do me good, and more importantly, I know I've got what it takes to survive that and move on without a grudge."
Maybe other people said something like, "Yeah, I think I'm up to that whole near-starvation thing" or "Yeah, I think I can still love a real asshole for a dad. Why don't you give me Fred? He can be my pop. We'll duke it out until we both finally give up our egos and grow a bit." What if it is really like that? I don't know, but it could be. And whether or not it is, there is great power in thinking it so. And it's an honest thought-train. Because it incorporates reality as is instead of denying it. It is a sort of is-thinking. I don't have to deny that I needed to be bullied in order to be empathetic. I can accept the real me. The guy with the asshole dad can accept both the fact that his dad is an asshole and love him anyway. I can live in poverty and not hate God for being born into it. I can accept it as is if I believe I had some choice in the matter. And then, because I believe I chose it, and know that I survived it, I can also choose to let it go.
I chose my shyness. I write around it. I'm not sure why I'm not quite ready to move on. Something sometimes screams out from deep down inside me, Shutdown! It doesn't happen at a conscious level, but rather at a cellular level. I don't seem to have any control over it. It comes as an instant panic attack. All I want to do is get somewhere by myself and be alone where I feel safe. I don't know where that comes from. But I believe I chose it, and just like everything else in my life, at the right moment--which possibly could be right now--that shyness will give me everything I need to write or do or say the perfect thing to help someone, and so I am good with it because it is. I have chosen a life where I am now grateful for whatever is because I find reality extremely beautiful on its own terms. I don't need to alter it to love it.
If I didn't panic in the company of others, would I have learned to love silence sufficiently enough to recognize God speaks through the absolute stillness found in places like Death Valley?
I don't know.
Maybe that same peace exists wandering through a room full of people, casually opening up and exchanging energy with each individual, feeling that connection to the one through everyone around you. Maybe there is profound stillness in casual conversation too. I haven't felt it. But that doesn't mean it isn't there.
An experience doesn't exist for anyone until it does.
2. Destined to Break Down
April 12, 2022
It is late afternoon. The sun is a hands-width above the horizon on the ocean, low enough the caps of the waves are starting to get golden-glazed. Marci and I don't get to see that though because we are headed east into the golden hills between Monterey and Salinas. Yet, I know where the sun is above the horizon by the color of the light. Therefore, I know the view back at the place we left behind as well as I know the view in front of me. As Emily Dickenson noted, there is a certain slant of light, and you know it when you see it. Even the darkest oak leaves take on gold tint, and even the wide trunks come to life as the light picks up each crag in the coarse bark. This is the time of day when each blade of dry, golden grass along the tar-crumbles and gravelly shit along the highway sings out in singularity, its individual distinctness dazzlingly divine.
And here we are, winding through a sort of canyon, our heads angled slightly up to see hills blobbed with bulky islands of vegetation surround by golden grass, the occasional grove of trees down in the canyon with us, over-arching the road, sending shadows ticking across each of our faces with time, a metronome of light and shadow.
And then things open up. We are on the flat. There is a long straight road with a lot of traffic on the outskirts of town. We're bypassing Salinas to get to our campground near Yosemite. I notice we're low on gas--just as we pass a gas station. I do a U-turn and flip around.
I stand here, pumping gas. The sun is low--that time of day when the ugliest of buildings becomes gloriously beautiful in intense light. It is an ugly, dirty gas station with not a bush for landscaping, but in this light, it needs nothing. As beautiful as it is, I'm rushing the pump in my mind because it's windy and cold. Also, we have quite a few miles to cover. I hate setting up camp in the dark.
I go in, pay for the gas. I get back in, turn the key to start the car. Nothing. The engine groans a bit. But it simply will not turn over. The battery is dead. What now?
The cars rush by, their lights on--a humming swoosh so steady that in its constant noise it almost creates a sort of silence, like the hum of a fridge or air conditioner. I stand and lean on the car, wondering what to do. An old truck from the 50s turns in, its headlight shining at us. Maybe he can give us a jump. I worry though. I'm an idiot when it comes to automobiles, but even I know that car batteries don't normally go dead in the middle of long drives.
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