Image by Begoña Carreres — used with permission | The author retains all rights and permissions for the use of this image
I beat upon the railings of my cell When I discovered them I found the walls that kept me In my self-constructed hell I walked the steps that then appeared And met the maker of my show The self that I’d projected Onto God and onto you as well
I’d sailed within the darkness And beneath the sunshine’s balmy glow Until I’d brought the storms that raged And fought the battle with my foe The self that is deluded And determined to be bound Attacks with rabid vengeance As my cries to freedom sound
The depths of my discovery That haunted me these live-long years The clues, so reprehensible To all that tried to keep me here In chains of insecurity The fear of being free Of being light and magnitude The power I now see
You can’t beat a cacophony Upon the walls that keep you bound Until you have discovered them And know where they are found You can’t confront the God you made Your maker can’t defy Until you find him standing Deep within your self-fuelled lies
You cannot choose escape Until you understand you’re bound Can’t cast a restless beat upon your bars Until they’re found So make the mission of your life (The quest will serve you well) To find the edge of what you’ve made The railings of your cell
Thank you Shoeib Abolhassani on Unsplash for the image
Do you remember how many times I told you I loved you and held your face So close to mine, my hand on your head Our bodies aligned, all fear erased
Do you remember now you’re in pain Determined to fight with a past you can’t change But can only forgive and render untrue As a twisted perspective still living in you
Do you remember the infinite love The passion we shared for reaching to light The gratitude, wholeness, and beauty divine The determination to rise above
Do you remember your humbler times When arrogance cast to the floor, you could find The gratitude, brimming with love, you were true I watched seventh heaven arising in you
Do you remember? Can you say To me in the clarity of today This instant, ringing clear and true That you’ve forgotten my love for you?
Do you remember how many times We stood together, your heart in mine The greater majesty rang true In every holy breath we drew
Do you remember being in light? Tempestuous pasts redeemed in our sight As everything that was past and gone Was the sacred path we’d journeyed on
Do you believe I can’t see through The jealous haven you’ve quarried to The depths of hatred you won’t rebuke Amidst the storms of desolate truth
Can you believe what I can see? Devotion, loving, true, truly Chasms that open, painful, wide; Your own to choose to dive inside
But you can’t shake the truth I see Only pure, loving memories A life entirely given to The ones you understood could save you
Do you understand what it’s like to find An angel of light right here in my mind Who’s desperate to serve what’s holy and true If only you felt my gratitude!
Do you remember how many times I told you I loved you and held your face So close to mine and we disappeared Into the divine, His eternal grace
Thank you Christiaan Huynen on Unsplash for the image
I wanted to share it with you The gift that penetrates my violent miscreating Savouring its own gentleness, permeating so softly that I can bear its entering
I wanted to share it with you Your mind, open and receiving, yold to depths of gratitude Whose consistency yet eludes my ever-presiding choice
I wanted to share it with you Certain of your implacably honest, infinitely receptive heart I wanted to share it with you The moment I began to wonder if there was another way of thinking
It’s been like cigarettes; a smoker allowing themselves to gorge on filthy air Relying on eventual disgust and derision Perceived pleasure turning to, finally unmistakable, pain The remotest moment from my sanity Gorging insatiable desire for vanity, victimhood and blame Believed inability to change that which I cannot bear Determination not to surrender my desperate need to one who is able To help me
I wanted to share it with you The loneliness of wandering deep in the darkness of my indignation Though always, always, beneath the frosted ground on which I trod In the sullen air I breathed And deep in the mind that raged with clamorous certainty There, unmistakably present throughout everything, Was your love And I could never have travelled the lonely breadths of hopelessness Without you
Finally, I trust, the ring of responsibility will be drawn The peace evocative of gentle laughter will return And I will be my own friend again Lover of all that is beautiful, simple, and as far beyond my raging As the universe of light is beyond the weight of my quilted profiting Though encompassing and dissolving it lightly within its own gown of gentle gratitude
I wanted to share it with you The gleam of projected hope The memory of miracles past And the clarity that remains Though sunk like a small stone within the depths of my murky assertion
I have been plagued by troubled notions Drowning in perceived helplessness Unwittingly recreating irks of my own past troves Digging through subterrene tunnels and wandering on hills of blackened heather In wretched pursuit of my comfort and my love
I have found her, barren and weeping, And though I do not yet know what will emerge from her finding I can see that everything within and around me is still, gently, powerfully With utmost, unshakeable certainty Guiding us both home
I wanted to share it with you The gift of my eventual becoming I need to rest for a little while longer But first, first I wanted to share it with you
Thank you to Aziz Acharki on Unsplash for the image
If you cannot stand, facing, knocking at the front door If the demon is unconquerable through straight, unswerving means If control becomes unwrestable from the devil within And your mind is impervious to tactics you intended to employ Though their theory stands implacable within your belief and understanding
If your heart is wrestling, candid, amongst the many wolves of hatred, fear and peaceless writhing If the context of your practice renders it incapable of penetration To the murky depths in which you choose to sit and wade If the inconsolable nature prevails And the unrelenting assertion never ceases to withstand You can find a side door
Try creeping silently around, knocking gently At one that no one has ever found A window open just an inch, dark, unoccupied within All attention focused on the voracious vocation of hating
Try slipping softly through any open breach, however small If you are patient and merely watch the unfolding There will be an opening, a brick missing in a side wall A forgotten latch, a barrier stood brazen but choked on cobbled floor Pushed closed to no avail A gate that, neglected, has become derelict through the unrelenting poison play of time
There will be a gap, there will be an opening And in the tender twilight of eventual longing For harmony, for gentle remembering, For symphonies of joy cascading between expanding, softening walls You will allow yourself, secretly, to enter
You will feel the entering, and you will not resist Though you persist, focus and fire, fighting foremost in your mind Still determined on your deathful, rageful charge You allow this calm, small voice to penetrate your mind So quietly it enters you did not observe it’s coming Though you felt it’s presence, and secretly welcomed its relief (though we will never tell…)
You can keep your consistency of determination for death’s dying goal You can focus your attention on hatred, attack Anguished thoughts that tear at your heartstrings And cast you into wasted thorny deserts of your previous contention That infinitely interesting, unfathomably meaningless occupation
But still, this gentle voice has entered, and now offers you its council and its plan So gently it advances just a subtle change of plea So noiselessly it offers you a new dream, a new interpretation A universe unenchanted by the mocking, gnarling wolverines of war
You are welcome You are welcome to commit your time and all your energy to hating You are welcome to turn to battles raging and impervious within your veiled mind
And You are welcome You are welcome now to enter in the side door And offer me painless relief from the incessant clamour of my snarling, terrified mind
Photo by Holly Rose Thomas | The author retains all rights and permissions for the use of this image
If I’d been willing to open my heart To recognise all that was crumbling and dark To welcome the demons that wrested the swell From the power that rose up to vaporise hell
If I’d been willing to set my heart free From the hopeless becomings that conjured a dream If my light had been shining, my will had been true I would have made this so easy for you
If I’d been faithful and followed your word If I’d marched to the beat of the drum that you heard If I’d been firm through resistance and mire To dismiss the beliefs that bedeviled the pyre
Of the corpses that past culminations had sown Into patterns unchanging and restless, ungrown That were clearing so beautifully, turned by the flames of forgiveness To smoke signals, peaceful and sane
I’m troubled in turns by the reams of regret The temptation to focus on failure, to let myself Fall from the grace of the sweet moment’s gift To resist the becoming, the swelling, the lift
If I’d only been present, I’d only been whole If I’d only discovered the grit of my soul If I’d only been willing to set them all free Then my mind would have been in divine industry
But the power to be and the power to give Are recognised only the instant that is Are understood solely and only right now Are redundant in pasts that are gone as we plough
Through the depths of the karma, revealed and released Till a space, wide and precious, fertility’s feast Lies there before us, fresh seeds can be sown In the mind that has sent all its past troubles home
So “If only I’d been in the present with you” Is denial right now of the powerful truth That we’ll always be joined in our heavenly task Of becoming the present, releasing the past
We’ve always been here, the unmasking of time to eternity Happens each moment, divine, That I welcome the beauty of wholeness and see That the portal is open, the mind it is free
Holly Rose Thomas 