TO JOSEPH, AGE 8, BEWILDERED

Dear Joseph,

Given the way you are, your life will tend to be an adventure and a dangerous one at that, since you have no inherent real idea of “normality” or “conventionality.” And though you may feel fear; that in itself does not inhibit you from going to the edge or even over at times. “The way you are” may be the result of your last lifetime in which you were killed as a rabbi in a concentration camp, to be brief: all your “convention” and “obedience” led you nowhere, got you nothing, and was the downfall of your people. Then you were born premature in this lifetime and bonded with no living beings, setting you immediately outside, making you inherently “outcast.” You were attacked by the Richman boys at an early age, then you were beaten by your father not soon after, and noticed that you naturally could move outside of your own body. Soon enough the ghost in your room appeared and opened your eyes to absolutely different realities and stuck around a while as well. Then finally, at age seven, you got very sick and vanished before your own eyes; you learned that you could cease to exist just like that. You may have taken after your father who was impulsive and willful, as well as your mother, who had the “sight” of her Indian blood and its Buddhist-like outlook, though with much of an inherent sense of magic powers, combined with the rousing Irish fiddle and poetic thrust. Your Scots-Irish Cherokee Choctaw grandfather dropped dead rollicking his Irish fiddle in front of his corn liquor still. The fearless love of adventure of your ancient Viking ancestors via your grandfather’s italian “lion” heritage still stirs in your blood along with the blind faith of your great-grandfather who fought with Garabaldi. And so your life will prove to be an adventure often fraught with too much danger. But both the Lord and the Gods will hold you close enough that you may finally come to realize your place in the world and in the context of the Heavens, though, at the same time, it may never come to fruition in this lifetime. Reincarnation is as a “serial adventure,” causing us to return so as not to miss the next episode. And life is Saturday morning 1950s black and white TV for children. All daring adventure mixed with absurd cartoons and craving for cookies and more cereal. However, life is not so simple as watching action series and cartoons on Saturday morning: there is the matter of your fate and your destiny, which are interwoven. Your destiny are the choices you make and the directions you take within the context of your fate, for you are part and parcel of your own fate, that is , of what happens in your life. 

IN A DARK, COLD, DAMP CAVERN WITH NO IMAGES

The cultural and societal directions of this country and the world seem to be regressing, becoming more tribal and defensive and fearful, and dangerous as a result. People cannot adapt or assimilate to new and different cultures and societies, unwilling and unable to adapt themselves. I have become strangely more religious these days. It could be because I can no longer see how I or anyone else can possibly make life better for myself or my world. The fact that too many people suffer “out there” becomes less and less bearable for me. On one hand, I live in Heaven; on the other, I live in Hell. One must be able to live in both worlds.

His moments of life were passing before him so utterly clearly, like water flowing in an icy mountain stream. But he could not sense either the gods or the God speaking to him or to anyone in any way. Time was slipping like sand out of his grip and all he could do was sit and wait—and die more as each moment passed. He waited, not patiently--desperately. It was no wonder existence had become so meaningless and absurd to him; God no longer spoke nor cared and he was utterly alone. Only in his dreams was there any hope, but they too were as empty as himself. He was a shadow; it was as if he no longer existed. And yet he wanted to exist; he wanted so much to be. He was as a voyeur spying upon himself, waiting for a sign of life, waiting for God to notice him that he may notice himself, waiting for the slightest word that he may hear himself. 

The room had not changed but the shadows were not the same. He could not find words; there was only dark oily smoke in the cold cavern; he held cold coals in his hand but his mind was empty of any image. He was a blank and, though he stood there in the smoky, dark coldness, he was nothing. He might as well not exist at all; the embers were barely burning under a deep cover of ashes. All he needed was fresh fuel for the fire and the whistling cavernous wind would cause him to burst into flame once again. What purpose could he burn for now? 

His writing was hopeless, literally and figuratively. People might read it, but he would see that they could only shake their heads in pity at his inability, his pathetic grasping at straws as he sank down drowning in his own hopelessness. His anger came from his last grasps and gasps; he had to pretend that he “had something,” knowing that whatever it might be would never be apparent to him or anyone else. He could only see that he had grasped nothing at all after a lifetime of hoping and praying and grasping. He recalled the words of Leonard Cohen: “Only drowning men could see him.” And here he was drowning, yet still could not see him. Drowning in aloneness, standing in the cold, dark, smoky cavern staring at blank rock face with dumb, frozen fingers and no thought to warm them, much less move them. There was no voice in his soul, no art in his heart, no sign in his mind. He had ceased to exist.

If he attempted to “sit,” he would doze off. He might sit in the hot tub and gaze up at the stars, which were faintly visible. He hated being faced with nothing possible to do or be. He had the thought that this place he was in might be Hell itself, though he knew that the physical pain could make it much, much worse. He was grateful that, comparatively, his life was very “blessed” and that he was in fact very “lucky.” Yet there was a profound sense of sadness and incompletion that weighed heavily upon him. “Next lifetime I’ll be a scale,” he thought, “so that people can weigh heavily upon me.” Such humor. Philosophers and scales share this same fate.

THROUGH LOVING FLOWS "WISDOM"

People do not “find” the Truth or Reality, nor can they “define” it as an understanding of what it is. They can only “be” it, i.e., live it as their lives, but when that occurs, this moment, even in all its heartache and pain, is us, is our life, is me, is my life. We want it not to be so; we want it different; we want it the way it “should” be. When I have said that “wisdom comes through me,” I meant it, in spite of the self-effacing comparison of my wisdom to a “miniscule divine fart.” That was probably a bit too self-effacing. But let’s face it: all we really have is our selves and that which is seen as the Self, the greater component or being of all of us. Whatever we may name that, many of us hold it to be true, some from traditional belief, some from a kind of logic and common sense, and some from both. We as ourselves are not unaware of the existence of many selves, but we know it all only through this one that is our self. This is necessarily true; “ego” is not bad, though it must be aware of itself as part of the body of many selves if it is to function in reality. In truth, we are not separate from each other on most levels, though we are definitely separated on the physical and in the way the physical acts on the emotional and mental “bodies” which we also include; so we may feel and think quite differently from each other, but my own sense and belief is that we are far more similar emotionally than we are different. It’s just that some of us have more of a mental control of our emotional component than others. This may be necessary in a controlled social environment but such events as “falling in love” or as mass anger as a consequence of mass injustice may easily overcome any social inertia or blindness.

In truth, I think I do know how wisdom comes to one. It is never through choice, for the “initiation” into its truth is not one most people would choose at all. I didn’t, but it happened anyway. One could say it was my “fate” or that I was “blessed by God” if one had such an imagination, or simply that it “happened as it happened,” and I “stepped up" to it. One could even say that it really was a blessing sent to change me if I could but accept the responsibility and seize the opportunity, in the awareness to see it as such. As a most self-centered person, I had been pretty much oblivious to others. I was amiable enough, friendly and kind, but my life revolved around me, my wants, my visions, my hopes, my beliefs, which were very overbalanced on the “me side.” I hardly even noticed that my first wife was there. She was a beautiful, kind, intelligent, and loving woman whom I mostly ignored, engaged in my own intense spiritual quest. We went through a lot together but I never talked with her or touched her. I broke her heart, her inherent faith. I never bothered to know who she was; I was more important in the “great scheme of things.” I read so much “wisdom” and meditated upon so much “wisdom” but it never even dawned on me what wisdom even was; I thought it was so much “arcane knowledge.”

In time I had a daughter who was born with severe autism. She became the center of my life. My life revolved around her, not me. For twenty years I took care of her and supervised others who did so, the later time being pretty much just her and me, before she moved into the care of a supported living agency at age twenty. Caring for someone other than myself as I did for a long time changed me. It was my choice; I left my work to see if I could improve her condition, and even if I did help in some way, it certainly improved my condition. Putting someone else first was not hard for me. It was the natural result and expression of my great love for her. I finally recognized that there are others people than just myself. In this time I began to notice in my writing to myself, which I had been doing for years, began to flow with a kind of “wisdom,” a love for all beings, a profound appreciation of life and others, a sense of beauty and kindness that I had never experienced before. She “opened up my heart,” as it were, which still had a long way to go. Then, I remarried, and very quickly, my wife had an accident in which she became disabled and in excruciating chronic pain of fibromyalgia. And again I found my normally quite self-centered life revolving around the love and care of another. I had to learn and am still learning how she feels and how it is to be trapped in a suffering body. I willingly took much of this pain upon myself in hopes that it might alleviate her level of pain. I believe that this is possible but that pain begets pain also. I had to be able to “bear up” under it weight and not be crushed by it, which still remains a rather daunting task after eight years. My wife opened my heart in a different way: I learned what love is. Kahill Gibran’s words on love in The Prophet come to mind:

When love beckons you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you, yield to him

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun.

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart,

And in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s     pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,

And weep, but not all of your tears.

If we can learn what love is, which can only be by our own experience of loving and of being loved, wisdom comes of its own accord, not ours. Love opens us to all of life, which can be most devastating, yet also with overwhelming joy and beauty.