What if losing one’s way from time to time is the way?
Has anything ever been more clear? Anything more obscure?
I’m gesturing around a center core, an absence. Initially, it’s excruciating, unfamiliar. It is a pearl, but not a pearl of “substance.” Hands get it first. They trace the circumference of absence, perceive its vibrancy. Absence warms, suffusing each cell of each limb with feeling. This elegant force radiates the tenderest of affections, encircling vivid (i)mpulses — to banish, to cling. Under the influence of absence, (i)mpulses morph into an (I)ntimate beloved (I) wish to protect. I refuse to close, to crush absence. Yes, it’s true; a part of me can’t stand an insubstantiality which never fully ebbs. As the body de-contracts into absence, the sensation is barely bearable. How grand! Exquisite! And then waves roll in. Hello, my old friends… the (i)mpulse to possess the (i)mpulse to make meaning the (i)mpulse to tell everyone I know, to (i)nterpret this, so the good news will spread far and wide. Deeper still, blessed absence. Hands cup absence, trace its warmth, its depth. I want to guard what I now fear may evaporate, but dare I risk defiling this delicious vapor? Vulnerability surges, then melts into a wish… “I wish to remember what the heart sees.” A gesture. A felt sense. An indescribable image. (I)cons, all. Has anything ever been more clear? Anything more obscure? One by one each dial on a golden lock turns; I cannot say exactly how. When the tumblers align, you’ll know.
Last summer I wrote about the presence of a palpable absence.
Though initially enticed and mystified by koan-like words about absence1, in the words of a wise Quaker chant2, “There is a great difference between comprehending the knowledge of things and tasting the hidden life of them.”3
In the synergy of group practice4, a gesture emerged. This poem followed. Over time, absence has become “tangible and savorous to me5;” though only the teensiest bit more bearable. By nature, it is tantalizingly allusive.
These words are icons. Breathe with them6 if they call to something within.
Bourgeault, Cynthia. Love Is Stronger Than Death: The Mystical Union of Two Souls. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
True Manna by Paulette Meier
Taking the First Bite, Contemplative Abstract by Chad Glazener
Group practice with Gurdjieff Exercises & Movements has midwifed the dynamism of becoming more profoundly than any other practice I’ve undertaken. See Heather Ruce’s offerings here.
Teilhard de Chardin, P. (2001). The Divine Milieu. [First Perennial Classics edition], Perennial Classics. Chicago [Marmot Library Network].
