Tag / Understanding

by J M Greff

Storm


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There was I time I thought of myself as “Stormchaser”. It was a label I assigned to offset the difficult times that seemed to follow me as a way of reversing the odds.

I saw myself as not only actively engaging those hard times but as pursuing them in a “if life is suffering and suffering brings enlightenment then, for fucks sack, bring it on” mentality.

I was wrong.

Man, was I wrong.

The hard times pursued like a predator on blood scent and I, tough as the wind, really was bleeding, profusely.

I’ve said before how I’m only now rubbing the sleep from my eyes, but I look back with these blurry eyes and see that young man and rather than think “whaddadouche”, my favorite quote when it comes to ignorance, I can say “good start.”

It really was.

Since then I’ve learned that Life is more often concerned with giving lessons than with leading me to them and that the path of life is much more flexible than I thought.

She is the train
I am the rail
Or more like the spike
Or the ground it’s driven into
Or maybe just a house it passes by
Sleeping

That’s my attempt at Zen poetry, which I’m okay with, in a Zen sort of way.

My point is this:

I have felt the storm.
I feel it now inside me.
I’m not sure it ever goes away.
I’m okay with that.

That, by the way, has nothing at all to do with either Zen philosophy or poetry, it’s who I am.

So right about now you’re probably asking yourself what the hell this post is about so I’ll sum it up in six words …

 

We find what we are looking for.

 

… okay, seven words.

 

 

Audio: “Stormchaser” by J M Greff

 

by J M Greff

Something Lost

Something Lost

With one foot
Mostly
In front of the other
He shuffles
Back and forth
Left to right
Trying to follow
A boulevard
That keeps moving
Disappearing
One
Retracted
Step
At a time
His eyes
His mind
Blinded
By whatever poison
He has chosen
To end his life
I watch him a while
As he stumbles
Up the stairs
Of a nearby school
To empty his bladder
Then into traffic
Horns wailing
Cautioning
Cursing
He is seeking
Something
Something he has lost
I think
You won’t find it there
You won’t find it there
But I hope you do

—————————-

Image: “Anywhere you lay your head” by Bill S. 99

by J M Greff

Life

Almost a year ago I chose to move to Mobile to pursue the possibility of a committed relationship.

I learned quite a bit about love from that relationship and from the bond that remains.

Almost three months ago I made a decision to stay in Mobile to accelerate my training as an independent insurance adjuster instead of heading back North to earn enough money to carry me through until I get deployed.

In those three months I have learned ten times as much as I’ve learned in the last year and I have gained numerous certifications, but I have not worked a single day.

As I write this I lay alone in bed in the rooms I pay for through barter. I don’t know when, or even if, I will get deployed. I don’t know if my car, which I repaired with tape and a prayer after it started on fire due to faulty wiring, will last another month, or a week, or even through tomorrow. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep gas in it. I don’t know if I will ever reach my next goal of turning of writing full time.

While these things and more can and certainly do cause me some stress they do not represent my future nor do they rule how I feel today.

Those decisions I made, to move here and to stay, were based on hope and faith and love and a strong desire and the will to create positive change in my life and because of this they were the right choices regardless of how they turn out.

So all those things I don’t know are really no different than not knowing if I will get struck by a meteor tomorrow, and I don’t see any reason to worry about it.

If I could share just one thing I’ve learned in life it would be this:

I am not defined by the things that happen to me but by how I respond to them.

Am I stressed? Yes.

Will I get through this? Absolutely.

Is this my life? Well, yes. It is.

Am I grateful? Always.

 

 

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by J M Greff

Who am I?

The Buddha was once asked if he was a god to which he replied “No.”
“Are you a wizard, then?”
“No.”
“Well, are you a man?”
“No” he said.
Confused by his answers they asked “So, what are you?”
The Buddha said, “I am awake.”

I can not claim that I am fully awake yet. I still lay in this bed I made and rub my eyes, trying to make sense of the world around me, but that simple answer, for me, begins to define the answer to my own question:

Who am I?

Over the last few years finding that answer has felt somewhat more critical because of the things I am trying to accomplish in life, and while I admit that I feel like I am no closer than when I began, I have begun to understand that it matters less than I originally thought.

Instead, I am finding that it is who I believe myself to be that is more important and that the expression of those beliefs is an expression of the things inside me that I give life to.

Those beliefs come from experiences and those experiences are interpreted through my previous experiences.

If I believe myself to be compassionate it is because I believe compassion to be of more value than indifference and yet indifference, selective and focused to achieve a positive goal, can have value as well. Much like not caring if I smashed my thumb with a hammer because that happens from time to time and does not mean I deserved it or am a horrible carpenter.

However, I would never describe myself as indifferent. In this way my views of Self are presented as more than expressions of those things I believe myself to be, they are expressions of who I hope to be, who I want to be.

So, who am I?

It really is simple. Much simpler than the explanation.

I am the sum and expression of my experiences, I am who I want to be, and I am who I believe myself to be.

I believe that I am on the right path. Making the right decisions despite their outcome because those decisions are based on faith and hope and love. I believe that everything will be okay. That my life will be everything I want it to be. All of those things require that I believe I am already the person I want to be regardless of how transitional my life may appear because that is how I become that person.

I may not be awake, but I am waking up.

——

Image: “Awake” by Martina Stipen

 

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by J M Greff

In search of truth

universe_speaks__we_listen_by_Laura.Siadak

The further along the difficult path of spirituality I started long ago the more clear it has become that the answers I seek are less likely to be found among religion or spiritual teachings or gurus and more readily obtained through careful consideration of the mundane.

A single line of poetry in a obscure work, something a co-worker says without being aware of the implications, the flight of a red-tailed hawk as it rises and falls with the wind. These things all hold a higher value than the books of a modern day self proclaimed messiah or the doctrines of any antiquated or recycled movement.

The truth, though transient and subject to the interpretation and experiences of the observer, reveals itself in its own way and is a personal experience.

The Universe is constantly calling for us to join her but our own voices are so loud that we seldom hear her. My job is to recognize those truths when they are presented and to be grateful for the gift that they are, to quiet myself and the voices of the egocentric prophets and listen when she speaks, to filter out the untruths and find divine perfection in the world around me.

Those are my truths.

Find your truth. Live it.

Image: “Universe Speaks, We Listen” by Laura “Pelick” Siadak

by J M Greff

Fierce grace/fruitful darkness

 

I fear
one day
I will be swallowed by
the things that threaten
to annihilate
and obliterate
the man
I’ve worked so hard
not to be

that in accomplishing my
intentions
I will be left
only
with the mistakes I’ve made
along the way

that in attempting to
achieve
something I will never be
I will become
just a shell
filled with good intentions

that I will
through misdirection
mislead another
and make their life
worse
in my attempts
to make it better

that in attaining
by accident alone
all that I strive
to become
I will lose the chance
to reach higher
never becoming
all that I may ever be

and in that dark place
a place I’ve come to know
too well
I find solace
if I reach for it in faith
comfort
in the depths
a peace that envelops
with the utterance of
a single word
spoken with firm conviction
“Surrender”

I am
exactly
who I am
meant to be
exactly where
I’m supposed to be
going exactly where I need to be

I close my eyes and let go

all will be well

Video: “If I was a Warrior” by Trevor Hall

by J M Greff

Your are unique

The Universe, though largely a mystery, is known to contain billions of galaxies just within our limited view of its vastness.

Each of those galaxies, like our own, contain billions of stars and each star is very likely to be at the center of its own planetary system.

That’s hundreds of billions of planets and each and every one of them has the potential to be home trillions of life forms.

Our galaxy alone could be home to trillions of trillions of life forms.

The numbers are beyond calculation or comprehension when we consider how many potential life forms there are in the universe, which may just be part of a larger system of billions of other universes bumping and squeezing into each other like cells in a body that make up something even larger.

We just don’t know.

What we do know, what we are absolutely certain about, is that among all those planets circling all those stars in all those galaxies there is only one you.

One.

You are unique in all the universe.

And it is incomplete without you.

———-

Image from just a tiny section of space observed by the Hubble telescope.