Navigating a self-altering future

The attractiveness of 'the law of attraction' in everyday life is that it declares that you have the potential to control your thoughts. Of all things possible to control, one's own thoughts are perhaps the most rebellious of all. It is a sweet victory to be able to claim truthfully, "I control and, indeed, lead my thoughts." Even where one manages to achieve it occasionally, my experience teaches that it remains, daily, an effort. Writing down your thoughts does help.

The elusiveness of our thoughts may be, because many thoughts are not exactly conscious; nor, frequently, are they owned by, or originate from within, the self. 

In 'Staying Connected', Rudolf Steiner went so far as to say that our thoughts are infusions from the spirits of the dead in their attempts to lead (presumaby they could also mislead) us. I have yet to get through, let alone understand, his book Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path. I do not have my own copy and vaguely recall early passages in that book being concerned with discovering one's true motivations; I confess that I still belong to that class of lesser mortals for whom dwelling on true motivatons initiates a definite adventure into smoky territory.

I won't even mention the infusion or influence of thoughts from the living into our conscious- and subconsciousness - I am sure that every person reading this can attest to the confusions, convictions, delusions and intoxications caused by mental and physical continguity with the living. 

Yet everywhere, these days, is the popular slogan seen - 'Build the future YOU want'. On one level, this could be seen as an open rebellion against David's plea, 'I shall not want', in Psalm 23. (Some bright sparks have deemed fit to translate this line as 'I lack nothing', but that is too monodimensional for me.) Yet it would be fair to give the slogan the benefit of the doubt - building what you want can by all means chime with the laws of Nature, or God, or the general good, all of which are forces far more long-lived than the potent little microcosm of your self.

The climate of the times tends strongly towards encouraging the assertion of individual human will over him- or herself, in order to harness and calibrate experiences, decisions and choices, and I strongly motivate for self-control in thought and action - it's a pretty exciting thing to be investing time and energy in, mainly because it grants you the possibility of genuine friendship with the most elusive aspect of your life: your embodied self on this earth, thoughts and all.

Once you begin to be able to change ancient patterns in your behaviour, you are rearing, or re-parenting, your self. This generates new imaginative possibilities for you - possibilities beyond imagining, so to speak. It does mean no longer tolerating stuff that once used, maybe, to be 'inevitable'.

Perhaps some of these free-flowing strands are useful to you as you navigate and build.

Blue cranes in fallow fields. Photo by Sigi Heiss.

 

 

  

Epigraph for Greater Matter - a hitherto unpublished poem by Norman Morrissey

Future

You say

you've finally found

where you must die

– here, with me

or in the aura of my own passing.

That is a future indeed.

– Norman Morrissey, 6^th July 2010

To be

Epigraphs from the first hard copy

The first hard copy will, I hope, allow me the necessary detachment for a decent self-edit ...

The 'greater matter' quip derives from an sms exchange; Norman's poem is one of the first Table Love poems.

Elegy for Norman

Elegy in 7 parts

for Norman (3.10.1949 - 23.7.2017)

1. Still watching a movie

This evening a year ago

we danced you to the end 

of love

and over

to a future you articulated

fully conscious, there for all

that was taking place within you,

about you, with and without us.

No script, no score - we improvisors both

couraged our conversation

by effort of will, of yes,

of grace, here we are -

at THIS juncture.

You knew it better than I

- I who was still lost in impossible wishings,

fantasies -

you turned

and put your teeth I'd cleaned

back in

for sleep.

I noticed, but did not heed

the meaning.

You saw the morning

from a different vantage.

But right now a year ago

we are still watching a movie.

2. Only the Poet's Wife

And when you said 

we must go together

as we thought had been ordained

I chose - replied, No,

the Poet's Wife will die with you,

but not the all of me -

I've much to do!

You nodded. Okay, that sounds fair,

you said, completely satisfied.

3. Legacy

The poet's wife is dead.

Her tokens part of your cremation,

her intimacies gone.

Her poems like yours

a legacy of sorts, a gathering

another must complete.

Who is that other?

Not one who with the poet's wife

would ever compete.

4. For fire

There's a freedom

manned by none

- that fragrance of an honesty,

that chopped fresh wood exuberance 

of being sundered to be used

for

fire.

5. Elemental

You don't want to be my darling,

you don't want to be my Love

- now all you want is

breath beyond lungs

stirring trees and oceans

with gleeful megalomania!

6. Clarify

Death did not part

so much as clarify

the parts we be

- you and I.

7. Pregnant

What happy memories I carry

into the future

I'm pregnant with.

Helping Hand

This is another preliminary note that forms part of the story that has formed quite a few sort-of-poems telling the years. It says so much about the man that Norman was, the spirit he still is.

Helping Hand

When in late autumn I resumed my travels

back to you

– pursuing my new life,

our beckoning future –

the first night was troubled

by anxieties –

I lay in wakeful doom;

mind rewove the day's events

and past months' tests –

a manic loom that utterly refused me rest.

But you

in sleep

turned on your back

and took my hand

to squeeze it

several times

unconscious, deep in dreamland's instinct caring.

You warmed away my woman's quakes

and deftly eased my frowning fears –

Since then my trust

is sworn into,

palm-protected by

our pairing –

the fabric of our fingers

joining our best years.

6^th April 2011