I just read about the passing of someone I knew just a little bit. I would see him and his wife at various places or out when walking but never got to “ know” them.
It made me think, I really don’t know why, but we don’t “ know” people really until we hear some of their stories. It takes time to know someone but then again we can have that chance encounter that affects us profoundly for the rest of our lives.
I do “ know” that belonging to a caring community is vital. This person had such a community of friends and will be so missed by them. We are the product of so many, many encounters. Somehow your poem ( that I read just after hearing the news of this person’s passing ) made me reflect on what has shaped me. The people in our lives…all the past lives, biologically and socially, all our relationships… all our relations.
( I recognise the location in the photograph! Have gazed many a day from there )
Before committing to this Buddhist path I would often wonder about my ancestors. Others who looked like me, had similar gestures, who perhaps had thought fixations like mine. With the growing understanding of interconnectedness and rebirth, this curiosity has grown to encompass all humanity...before, to come, in this time. I especially love this bit in the poem:
I find the middle section of this poem from "slipping off......" to "...channel tides" a bit difficult mentally and on the tongue, but the first 13 lines to "...caught in the song." is full of love and lyricism beautifully expressed, and the second verse a wonderful depiction of our lives, half in half out, a glimmer, stumbling in the brimming dark towards what might be the end of our story. Thinking about David's poem, I just recognise that I am not at all aware of ancestry. For me, life is about the individual experiences of my soul, but in the context of all there is. Not easy to explain!
I love how this poem is so visceral with regards to lineage. It's not about memory or thinking, it feels profoundly spiritual in relating to how our ancestors live and die.
I just read about the passing of someone I knew just a little bit. I would see him and his wife at various places or out when walking but never got to “ know” them.
It made me think, I really don’t know why, but we don’t “ know” people really until we hear some of their stories. It takes time to know someone but then again we can have that chance encounter that affects us profoundly for the rest of our lives.
I do “ know” that belonging to a caring community is vital. This person had such a community of friends and will be so missed by them. We are the product of so many, many encounters. Somehow your poem ( that I read just after hearing the news of this person’s passing ) made me reflect on what has shaped me. The people in our lives…all the past lives, biologically and socially, all our relationships… all our relations.
( I recognise the location in the photograph! Have gazed many a day from there )
Before committing to this Buddhist path I would often wonder about my ancestors. Others who looked like me, had similar gestures, who perhaps had thought fixations like mine. With the growing understanding of interconnectedness and rebirth, this curiosity has grown to encompass all humanity...before, to come, in this time. I especially love this bit in the poem:
me caught
in the song,
slipping
off to other voices,
Ends often in the brimming dark yet perhaps that one last time in the radiant brilliant full glory of the soul.
Or back into
that light
before
everything.
I find the middle section of this poem from "slipping off......" to "...channel tides" a bit difficult mentally and on the tongue, but the first 13 lines to "...caught in the song." is full of love and lyricism beautifully expressed, and the second verse a wonderful depiction of our lives, half in half out, a glimmer, stumbling in the brimming dark towards what might be the end of our story. Thinking about David's poem, I just recognise that I am not at all aware of ancestry. For me, life is about the individual experiences of my soul, but in the context of all there is. Not easy to explain!
I am my ancestors look out through my eyes
So beautiful. I believe we carry our ancestors in our bodies, and in all our experiences and that they are with us as we travel through life.
Beautiful as always.
Amazingly poignant and relatable to so many❣️❤️❣️Thank you!
I love how this poem is so visceral with regards to lineage. It's not about memory or thinking, it feels profoundly spiritual in relating to how our ancestors live and die.
It sure would be grand if I could edit my comments, oh well, the perfectionist in me.
I am my ancestors looking out through my eyes.
Stellar photo