And thus, the art of fearless ingenuity, of passion-full connection and of courageous togetherness was lost to one meaningless voice.
We were lost, and we knew it. The sands in the hourglass of our moment had run thin. The voices were winning and the slope seemed too steep even for us to climb. All we need do from here was await that final breath, and the eternal darkness that followed.
What is, in the minds of beings who protest their awokeness and who can pen messages of hope on thin are, the end? Who are those who can write great works of nature from the cloister of their own fear? What masters are we who have not yet mastered ourselves? What teachers can we be if we, in our own moment of uncertainty, have not yet learned the lessons we so eagerly preach to others?
We are none of them, of course. We are covered in blankets of the hypocrisy that gets our souls to cringing. We are shrouded in the fog of our misgivings, standing at the pulpit speaking words we cannot hear and reading prose we only wish we would have written. Regret, the constant companion of the disciple of fear, whispers hopes of “next time” and oaths of some future accomplishment. If only that stalwart student who trembles in the darkness of his own mind could realize that all he seeks is with him as he sputters; that light is just within his grasp.
For the chosen few who nearly die to find their life, who nearly drown in the quicksand of despair to find a perch high above the peaks, there is a calmness in the darkness. He who has met the Reaper cannot fear it. He who has made friends with the sadness cannot drown in it. He who finds respite in the darkness cannot loath its arrival. We may nap in the sunlight, but real sleep can only be found in the pitch black of solitude. We sleep alone, even if we snore in a crowd.
What is life but boredom without such wisdom? We will always run from shadows we have not befriended. We will always be cut but blades we have not mastered. We will always be slaves to thoughts we have not accepted. Who was I but a boy before I accepted who I am? Who was I but a baby before I knew who I was? Who was I but a thought before I fell in love with heart that colored my flesh and sent tears streaming down my face? I was nothing but a sculpture of other artists, and until I took the hammer and the chisel to my own story did I realize the beauty beneath the stone. From there I could be me without excuse or lie be told. I could be then unabashedly beautiful.
I hold the hand of truth as we walk together into today, dreaming about tomorrow with the certainty that nothing we say may be but a promise, and that one day the aberration may arrive to test our mettle. The warrior will stand tall, bloodied but not defeated, and he will not surrender even in the moments when he gives ground. He will call out to his friends in the darkness, look into the eyes of the Reaper, only to discover that fire burning brightly within him. They will confirm his truth in their opposition to it, and reveal his zest for life in their calling for its end. Warriors, it seems, know victory from the throes of their defeat, and know rising from the harshness of their falls.
What we lose as we fumble in the darkness can be found when we grasp the torch of our truth. We must choose one or the other, we must surrender or find a way to victory. We must either walk through the pain or rot prostrate wallowing in our insanity. Which to choose is ours to choose, we wave the white flag or fight on to plant our colors upon high ground.
It’s there, on that high ground or in the muck of the valley below, that we find the real new earth. It’s beyond what some guru suggests you will find if you just do something they do. It’s past the shiny lakes and mystic ponds others would call “enlightenment”. It seems, to me, to be finding oneself in the muck, in the clear waters, in the rays of sun on a cloudless day and in the torrential downpours of storms and cyclones. The real new earth is, in my experience of it, whatever I define it to be in the moment I seek it. Sometimes its the victory lap, and sometimes its the humility of defeat. It’s rarely the same thing twice.
When we finally stand our ground, accept our sadness and our joy, and stake a claim to the life we choose to live we have discovered our earth, our home, our sacred shrine. It’s our birthright is we just choose to defend it.