The Book You Had Always Wanted to Write

Edward Burne-Jones - Arthur in Avalon

There comes a time when you realize that you are the book you had always wanted to write.

That doesn't mean it's a masterpiece, necessarily; just that it is the one you so desperately needed to write. The one that had been pounding on the walls of your own ignorance for so long, pleading to be free. The one that shook the bars of its cage, crying out that it had learned its lessons, and that further incarceration would serve no purposeful end. Yes, that book. The book of your life.

It is in circulation now. Available from the Library of Babel (which is adjacent to the Palace of Mirrors). This book is organized into sections and chapters. It is illustrated, it is footnoted, and perhaps most important, it is indexed and cross-referenced. Oh yes, and self-published, of course.

And this book-that-you-are randomly opens to pages that somehow speak rare truths to the hidden moments. Leafing through the dog-eared, marked-up pages of this book, held as it in your psyche, you realize that it has two great themes.

One of these two great themes is the healing power of love, but there's a plot twist; it's not the love that others' offer that heals you, it is your love of them and of this life itself that heals you - from the inside out. The other great theme is clarity of mind. What do I mean by clarity of mind? Can you remain motionless, inside a house on fire, as the flames consume all that is not truly you. That's what meditation really is. What do I mean by clarity of mind? If you knew that everything and everyone you ever loved would be turned inside out in front of you, would you still choose to love? Yes?

Well, this is how such books come to be. Written in blood, on pages of desire. Bound with breath, and stitched with conscience. Yes, this book. The book of your life.

-- Richard Power

My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.

Straw Dogs

Edward Burne-Jones - The Wheel of Fortune (1883)

Life is bittersweet. But I want more.
Lately, I have been particularly unimpressed with humanity. But I want more.

I am grateful for every day I am allowed here. I am grateful for my circumstances, however challenging at any given moment. I understand that whatever circumstances I find myself in constitute the portal through which I will journey on to the next adventure.

I am grateful for love, however fickle, and for health, however fleeting. I am grateful for time, however ruthless, and for clarity, however revealing.

Don't whitewash the nature of existence with some paintbrush of faux spirituality.
Embrace this life in all of its multicolored richness, in all of its wildness.

We are straw dogs, and the goddess is the fire that consumes us. She is us and we are her.
We are the flames that consume the straw dogs we imagine ourselves to be.

This is the truth.

-- Richard Power

My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.

Tears and Laughter

Man Ray - Glass Tears, "Les Larmes" (1932)

The flow of tears is a great river. It never runs dry.
Although its current cannot unmake your wounds, it will cleanse them.

Furthermore, this great river is an excellent means of accelerated travel.
If you surrender to its current, it will deliver you on-time to your next appointment.

And yes, if you follow it all the way, you will eventually arrive at the sea.

Laughter is an endless thunderstorm. Rolling, roaring, its every paroxysm causes the sky of your imagination to shudder and open wider. Its torrential rains wet the parched, cracked lips of the earth you are, and nourishes the roots of who you are becoming. With every thunder clap, freedom from fear (the truest freedom) takes on an ever more tangible quality.

And then there is the space in between the great river and the endless storm, it is simply called "peace." But this peace is not a neutral state, it is not the absence of either or both. It is ever-pregnant with these twins named "tears" and "laughter."

Yes, peace is the mother that carries these twins in her womb. She gives birth to them, and then watches over them while they play together in the garden of how-it-is-now.

Whenever you find yourself lost or beaten down, remember that one of these three is always within reach, that each leads to the other, and that all three work together to bring you into a brilliant new reality.

-- Richard Power

My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.

Mandela & the Seemingly "Impossible"

Free Mandela Protest, Berlin 1988 (Photo Credit: Gabriele Senft, Wikipedia)

"Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality. He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry." - Nelson Mandela, 12 Mandela Quotes That Won't Be In the Corporate Media Obituaries, Common Dreams, 12-6-13

Mandela called freedom from poverty a “fundamental human right.” Mandela considered poverty one of the greatest evils in the world, and spoke out against inequality everywhere. “Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation — that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils,” he said. He considered ending poverty a basic human duty: “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life,” he said. “While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.” Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won’t Talk About, Think Progress, 12-6-13

I don't read obituaries. And I don't write them.
But Mandela the legend will never die, so I will say this -

Mandela was a strong man, a visionary, an evolutionary. And he stood tall in a dry barren place, and declared, "This is a riverbed." "No," they bellowed, "this is a desert." And they called him dangerous, and mad. And they built a cage around him. But he refused to lay down or shut up. "This is a riverbed!" "No, it's a desert!" 

And then after he had spent almost three decades in that cage, the river came roaring in, and blasted away what they had built around him. And he stood tall, welcoming that great river, with a heart that had not been imprisoned for decades even though his body had been. 

And as the river roared through, he grew taller and taller, until like the Colossus of Rhodes, he dominated the landscape. But unlike the Colossus, Mandela does not have weak knees. His monument will not be brought down when the earth shakes. Mandela will endure.
 
I read Long Walk to Freedom, in my forties, as I prepared myself for what was coming in this tortured nation of ours. I urge you to read it. 

You will never again look at the seemingly "impossible" in the same way. 

Nelson Mandela's First TV Interview (1961)



See also "We Undertake That We Too Will Do What We Can to Contribute to the Renewal of Our World ..."

My new (ninth) book User's Guide to Human Incarnation, The Yoga of Primal Reality is available now from Amazon.com.