In the Rearview
Voyage of the Ancient Mariner...Part IVLooking up and down the Shores of Eternity,
My sight somewhat blurred by watering eyes,
I saw bones and carcasses of beasts long dead.
And I wondered if I was not one of them.
For while it seemed I had just discovered
My own Divine Light,
And my journey complete…having arrived in this new land,
It was becoming ever clearer, my journey was just beginning.
And while my leap of faith,
Called by some bystander’s accounts as foolhardy folly,
Had landed me in a better place,
I still had much to learn
For here I found myself at a familiar crossroads,
The place where eternal flux meets infinite being…
Where the material meets the spiritual,
Where death meets renewal…
Here I looked up and down that stretch of time,
To see the folly of humanity, the folly of mine,
And I was through with it,
Ready to leave it all behind…
So, as I watched a hand, which no longer seemed my own,
Involuntarily claw at the sand,
As if reaching for its earthly womb,
I closed my eyes for what seemed a final time…
And that’s when I came face to face with the Void,
What seemed to me the Infinite Sea of Possibility…
Where behind me, was all I had been,
And before, all I could be…
And I saw right away,
This was far beyond my mortal understanding,
And as much as I tried to defy that fact,
The best I could do was just go with it…
To listen to the waves upon the shore,
Back and forth, back and forth…
This ceaseless pendulum of the Cosmos,
Its eternal hum resounding to my very core…
In and out, In and out
This was not the abrupt thud of a heartbeat
But the gentle, yet oh so powerful,
Ebb and flow of breathing…which I felt as much as heard
And at some indescribable primal level,
I understood this was the breathing of Creation…
And I was the child in Its womb,
This great diaphragm pulsing in and out of me,
In this the sea from which life comes forth…
Yes, that ceaseless breathing,
It would teach me, prepare me,
Always be there, throughout all darkness and uncertainty,
In that moment, that’s all I needed to know…
So that when this cycle was through,
And I would next see the light of day,
I would know instinctively what to do…
When suddenly an inspiration of fresh sea-air filled my lungs…
And I arose from oblivion, back in the sand,
Back on the Shores of Eternity…
Alive as ever, but somehow different…
Now, what brought me back, you might ask…
For I myself questioned at the time,
Whether I would come back at all…
Well, as a matter of nonsentimental fact, it was quite simply,
Love that brought me back…
Love for my young son I left behind…and his love for me.
Yes, I felt that supreme mysterious force within myself,
How that limitless binder,
In the midst of all change, all separation, all distance,
Holds our souls together…as It manifests Itself.
Thus ends one chapter and begins another...
It seemed I had somehow died and was reborn...
And I think a number of lifetimes
Were lived, both before and since...
And their stories, here and there, I will share...
For, with each cycle of rebirth and return,
I see more and more...
As further ahead journeys my mind,
So too it travels further behind...
For now, good listener, suffice it to say,
I gave up everything that day of my fateful leap...
Everything, that is...except my faith...
Thank goodness, for I would need all of it...and more...
To face in this new place, what life had in store for me next...
