I think this is a writing for two parts. One today. The other tomorrow. Or soon.
I’m trying to find something in words that isn’t meant for words. Or, is meant for experience that is beyond words. It might be beyond mind, at least for the way that I try to access it. I have the feeling that this “no mind” disposition matters. To find being that is beyond the word, “being.”
So, let’s start with the picture above and a poem. The picture is an iris. Rather large in this photo, but also noticeably large in life. It grows in a small garden near my front door. It’s a garden I tend. This iris hasn’t bloomed before (the ten years that I’ve lived here). I’m not sure why. I have a few other iris in different small gardens that I tend. They are mostly purple. This one, pink. This photo is me with my iPhone. Nothing spectacular. Yet what feels spectacular to me is the energy of beauty. I’m biased here. I’m connected to this iris. I’m connected to this garden. I have energy in it, and I suppose, it in me.
Beauty matters. Yup, it could be in varied form. The barren desert. The stormy sky. The tear trickling down the cheek. The thistle. Beauty is an attitude. Make that, seeing beauty is an attitude. And it’s more than words that represent it. It’s more than mind that accounts for beauty. I have the feeling that that matters.
If all that a person did was to develop attitude for seeing beauty, I bet a lot of very complex things would fall into greater harmony. Hmmm….
Now the poem, which is an attempt to use words to encounter something that feels beyond words. Thanks for staying with me on this. Let’s call this one, On Being.
On Being
The term “sacred cow” connotes untouchable.
Anything shy of unequivocal reverence for said sacred cow,
be that a practice, an idea, a creature, or a geographic location,
approaches absurd and even dangerous.
Yet, strangely, it is known that the sacred
also needs sacrificing time to time,
to renew the scarred and scared that make it holy.
I offer that mind, words, knowing, and seeing
are among the sacred cows of contemporary life.
I’m finding myself seeking to surrender reliance even on these.
For words, beautiful words,
create only representation of that which is.
And knowing, gorgeous knowing,
is always reductionism.
Seeing, lifting relief from cosmic infinity is miraculous
except when it obscures the exponential vastness of the not seen.
And then there is mind, luscious mind,
this finely detailed and impressively scaled organ,
that privileges particles over waves.
What I seek is the being
that though informed immensely by mind, words, knowing, and seeing,
rests wholely in its simplicity
in the unfettered lap of infinity.