So what the fuck is love¿ that is a question? I once proclaimed myself as a gangster of love because of a song i’d heard, talk about your hubris. Master Thay - Thich Nhat Hanh - has little solidarity with romantic love, which was disconcerting to hear, for so much of my interior has been occupied with the chivalrous notions of King Arthur and the “Round Table.” From which, much that i am now certain, is due to the lack of close reading of the betrayals and deceptions during that much lauded epoch - and the same could be said about my reading of the “Tibetan Book of the Dead;” the “I Ching;” even about Doctor Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.” Does this mean i should simply stop reading in search of understanding about what it means to love as a human, or that i should apply more carefully all that i read to the life in which i am intrinsically linked? When i was young, there was much discussion about the proper ways of everything, and from that i was much criticized for being too much "in my head"; yet those same critical mentors failed to realize that without feeling i would have literally been bouncing off walls due to my peculiar monocular visual reality.
I can still remember Patsy Donahue’s freckled pug nose when she was 7 or so, that would be close to 50 years ago; if i struggle, i might remember how she played tetherball - lord g_d forgive me, i sort of wish she was the only female who'd ever captivated my imagination, but i’d be lying. At an older age, i remember cupping Jan Ogden’s waist at a Junior High School dance, thinking what a perfect fit that was as we glided on and off the dance floor of the fully lit auditorium, an experience that was too soon to devolve into darkened light shows with quiet corners that barely contained the vibrant embraces of other young women encouraging my ardent advances - which oddly corresponded to impassioned communiques of “love ever after” and “no one but you’s” none of which actually panned out - though i kept plugging with some well into my 50s · Pop always did say “you’re not a fighter, you’re a lover.”
Still and all this romantic stroll down the clap trap of lover’s lane does not help me to understand how a loving heart such as mine so closely resembles the persona in Leonard Cohen’s simple phrase - “to every heart love will come, but like a refugee.” It is encouraging to me that i am at such a polar opposite with the reprehensible repulsion of our world’s outcasts and feel such solidarity with their plight, however dishonest is my material distance from their suffering. I am now faced with the age old dichotomy of “am i my brother’s keeper?” but face that question alone and without support for myself, save my own prudent path toward my own solitary demise. I am not complaining and am as generous as i know how to dilute the suffering of those around me - be that emotionally, or materially · anymore the distinction feels blurred. My fear is that given my propensity toward “in for a penny, in for pound” i no longer feel the, for lack of a better expression “wind under my wings,” fear has blunted my youthful exuberance and seems to have stifled my native generosity.
Or, i am a wounded warrior in a corner marshaling what is left of my fighting spirit of love and loathe to squander what is left of my “miracle” on the vacuousness of a population brought up on the “con” and more than willing to relieve me of the last of my resources - you tell me. No, don’t i will find out for myself, for one of the advantages of old age is previous experience and the look of authenticity so many use to obscure behavior they are often too stupid to hide. Am i cautious¿ fucking “A” right - but not too much so · more in passing, for my theater of operations no longer includes the entirety of our species, only those i interact with. Master Thay is more than wise, he is loving and mindfulness does not cover a multitude of sins, but illuminates a multitude of blessings. People are not inherently devious, but they are inherently loving, so finding who is so and who is not so, is not as complicated as one might imagine.
The more difficult task is finding within myself that which is devious and double-dealing, or as they used to say when ‘merica was gr8, “talking out the side of your mouth.” There is no exorcism that i have found which will excise the evil in my own being, but i’ve also found that there is no evil within my being that is not subject to loving intervention; when murderous rancor rises up from the bile of my wounded parts and claims agency over my actions, it is the ghost of the “i” banished to the outer perimeters of my soul that can only but obey my determination for mercy regardless of the outrage. Ever closer we march to a place where it doesn’t matter what you feel, only what you have done, while each new instant is an opportunity to do something different than you have ever done before - if you are searching for magic in a world full of grievous wrongs, i can think of no more fearsome weapon than individual choice · love and peace my friends, or bust . .. ···
jts 17/08/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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