Wilderness

It has been said that a wilderness is the part of the garden left to grow wild.

*
 
What is this place that sadness echoes here as if the broken heart of love?  
Has love fallen so far or failed so well that hope no longer rises to sing?  
No.  
For I feel her wistful longing in your thoughts and in your words.  
Hope of love has not died but lies wounded in her sleep,
And you cry not in the darkness for what was lost,
But for what should have been.
 
Could you have loved more?  
Could not we all?  
Don’t dwell in a world of broken dreams  
Swept by the chill and bitter winds of self doubt and reproach,  
But rather love again and live.  
Is not the deepest part of love learning to forgive  
– yourself –  
As well as any other?
 
Tears cleanse but have no beauty,  
Save tears which fall for joy,  
Which all would seek to have and share.  
Learn to have joy and you will be sought,  
And your heart shall be found.  
And the joy you’ve worked at shall be rewarded.  
For loves reward is in the giving.  
Learn to let go and give again completely  
And be a beacon to the hungry soul who yearns for a love as yours.
 
I do not feel a fierceness that I once knew.  
Now there’s a depth that allows me to stand my ground without fierceness,  
A depth which has been hollowed out by experience.  
I now know that those things which befell me in my youth  
Were not the capricious whims of fate,  
But rather,  
Had a purpose in the mosaic of my life.
 
Youth without experience to draw on doesn’t understand  
That to be creatures of habit means living in patterns.  
Experience allows us to break the patterns and re-invent ourselves.
To truly live again.
 
Deaths shall come in life,  
Until at length you face you own.  
The experiences should prepare you to face yours with grace,  
Which means,  
We must learn to live in grace.
The loves you have in life,  
For however long the span,  
Are to teach you how to love.  
They enable us to see past selfishness to see what selflessness should be.  
Only as you learn how to love will you learn how to truly give.
 
There are depths and there are inequities.  
They are two sides of the same coin.  
Such is the currency of life.  
In life there are the poor and the rich.
Love does not come in equal shares  
Anymore than pain is always a burden we can carry.
 
Loneliness is the winter of the soul.  
It is the piercing of the veil of the soul,  
Being pierced by no one and everyone at once.  
It tells us our self has no worth because that is what our self tells us about loneliness.
Winter tells us joy is past.  
Summer tells us good times last forever.  
When the seasons speak,  
Remember,  
They only speak of their knowing,  
Not considering they too shall pass
…and yet, perhaps come again.
 
Remember this also,  
That in reply,  
You speak not to loneliness of yourself but speak only to yourself of loneliness.  
Choose your words wisely  
For only in a multitude of counselors is there safety,  
But one may speak a prophesy a multitude of times  
Until it becomes self fulfilling.
 
I once tried an experiment on an old man I didn’t know.  
Each day one spring as I drove past his home I would see him sitting outside alone.  
So I began to wave,  
Just a hand raised off the steering wheel,  
A nod and a quick smile.  
At first he just looked  
And then after a while slightly raised his hand.  
Now he waves,  
He or I first, it makes no difference,  
We’re connected without ever saying a word.  
 
Sometimes
However good or bad
The things laid before me in life
I still feel surrounded
I need to find my wilderness
I need spaces as much as I need closeness
I need to breathe as much as I need breathlessness
As much as I delight in finding out about others
Within me also lies the undiscovered
 
Sometimes I feel lost in a crowd
And sometimes I feel lost by myself
No bearing, no direction, adrift
But still the sun rises and sets
The moon and the stars come out
And a friendly face always appears
Though not always when I want
 
I want to settle down
I need to get away
I want to find myself
And lose myself somehow
 
What is it to be a stranger and a sojourner here?
 
Just like the air I breathe
My hopes and dreams
They’re not little things
They’re everything
To me
 
Yet in you they find life
Find the one who gives you life
And you will find your own