Forget Not: A Reminder for Us All
Photography: “In The Night Garden” by Jonathan Taylor — Find more of his amazing talent at https://unsplash.com/@jontaylor
Particular Moments
More Stars than There are
Tag: self-help
September 14, 2019
Seasons
Is it really true---what they say,
“One life ends, Another one begins.”
If so, is it the best one could wish for?
We live in a strange reality, one in which the best lessons are taught with loss and death. We survive the perished, and live our days breathing leftover air.
We go to different places, make new bonds, start and restart new lives---each a second chance, all to one way or another, make up for what we could not rescue in the first place.
"We'll do it Better this time."
It's not so sad as it is bittersweet, like the passing and rebirthing of seasons.
June 13, 2019
Living in A Present End
The Sun rises upon our City,
Shining through
and eventually rising past
the Dust
and Smog of Unspeakable
Terror---
That which some of
US have been Spraying
and Pressing,
with an devilish
determination of Doom,
Upon those defenseless
in our muddy, Earthly
Lot.
You Stand by
the East-facing window,
and Dawn radiates itself
half-muffled,
through our Now
Sedated Sky---
Constrained by its
Silver veneer of death,
Mapped haphazardly
and logically
Overhead.
You Look back
in the Mirror, and
the Silhouette looks
Back sickly,
With Blood-Shot Eyes.
He looks back at you,
as if you were the one
who were dead,
"Have you been suffering obliviously,
If not having had been
Duped
into Half-Hosting
Our Greatest War?
Living one eye blind,
While having lent the other
to play mere Bystander?"
July 26, 2018
An Addict’s Contemplation
What is it like,
to Be
Tonically Alive—
While the Flowers
Remain abloom,
We find
Fleeting affirmations of
Our routinely
Maintained
Lies.
March 16, 2018
Something to Look Forward to
Spring is surely a most wonderous time of the year, but it is not a cliché comprised of magical healing, nor does it promise total restoration of all that’s wrong with ourselves and the world around us. One could stand amidst sceneries breath-takingly beautiful, and still be haunted by inner shadows convincing him/herself that nothing is alright, that there has been too much wrong for glimpses of hope to realize into change or mending actions. However, if one chooses to see in symbols, drawing connections between observed physicality and metaphysical connotations, then a natural phenomenon like The Spring has much to offer: look at the Dandelion, never planted with intention, even conventionally seen as a pest, a weed that besmirches the neatness of civilized gardens; yet without any positive expectations, they flourish nearly everywhere, scattering on the sidewalks, swaying underneath interstate speedways, and sprouting in the middle church yards (as shown in photograph)—embodying bundles of wishes, waiting for the eventual breeze make them come true. Now think of us, how similar some of our lives may resemble that of the Dandelion—outwardly without deliberate meaning: we don’t know why we are here, or what is expected us on a grand scheme. We are scattered upon our Earth to germinate all over the place like the Dandelions. But does this mean we ought not to bloom like them and erect our individual bouquets of dreams and ideals out of the soil beneath? Should we do so regardless of how undesirable or lost we think we are? The Dandelions do…then as their not overly distant relatives on this Earth, could we learn to live more as they do? Make a sincere wish for yourselves this year, and send its silky winged seeds sky-bound—may it germinate and sprout into existence when Spring returns again.
January 18, 2018
Pilgrimage Song of Abolishing
Deeds of the fathers, grand fathers,
and countless fallen aspects
of the passed on elders—
Trickle down into your Being;
you the Reincarnate,
guided vicariously by Karmic arms,
inevitably let your feet doused,
bathing in Ancient Sins.
.
Chewing on the recycled fruits,
Are you on many-a-days,
helplessly gazing down the Abyss
of recurrent, unsurmountable defeat?
.
OH! PRECIOUS SAPLING:
how little do you know—
Reborn and Embodied in You
lives a New Divinity?
Your seed carefully Sown
by Hands Eternal, and Blessed evermore in Passion?
.
How could you then
dare to contort effortlessly
into Another Effigy
along the Ancestral line of
Old Misdeeds!
Fight! Fight—
Fight with all of Your Might!
Abolish the curse of age and history;
Your Spirit mint and radiant,
Defiant against festered creeds.
.
Sins of the fathers,
rusty chains of shame
surely shall to repeat:
Sons and Daughters in the Living,
fulfill not once more
a destructive prophecy—
Conquer the Self, endlessly;
let the cyclic fouls be
Vanquished at your feet.
September 22, 2015
In Steady Defiance
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
—excerpt from Ulysses,
Lord Alfred Tennyson.
September 7, 2015
After Hours: Part 1
Room with white walls; an array of empty armchairs—all vacant but one. It is past dinner time—most occupants of the building have returned to their private lives. The only audible sound is the muffled hum of a custodian’s vacuum cleaner down the dimly lit, after-hour empty hall.
After the day’s work is done, what remains is an optional, yet if chosen, sacred time of isolation.
Sometimes being alone is a choice, other times it is thrust upon one, whether he/she welcomes it or not. Solitude, albeit at times unbearably suffocating, is in fact a vital element in life, for nothing surpasses its potency in establishing one’s true identity.
In a crowd, a social circle, amongst families, friends, and next to lovers, definition of the self has an inclination to morph into a patchwork of largely external obligations: you are how you are seen and behave how you are expected to act—a different set of rules for a different herd—make a few changes here and there, but all the same: out of social decency, we give up some of our true colors—to fit in, to appease, perhaps to even obtain what we want (as sleazy as it sounds).
But in the absence of influence, when all we have is our surroundings, the intrinsic aspects of ourselves begin to take lead. We are then how we think and how we perceive, all without the interferences, considerations of outside evaluations.
.
I often like to stall a little, wait on people to take off to where they need to go, and be the last person in the room. And there I would stay, just a while longer—just enough to gather up a few uninterrupted thoughts.
Sometimes I enjoy a late night walk on the backstreets, and fantasize that there is not another human being in this town.
Once a while I’d drive out when most road vehicles have returned to their respective driveways and garages and parking spaces. I’d roll the windows down, and welcome the incoming breeze. It is only on an empty road that one can truly experience wind’s earnest embrace.
I’d look round and round, slowly and tuning in on all the tiny sounds. I’d try to make everything count—until I could finally grasp the solid person still residing in my shell.
Phew, for a minute there I thought I’d lost myself.
The rewarding notions of affirmation, peace, and rescue from these solitary moments are incomparable to any other instance in the daily rounds.
Alone, I am myself again.
Particular Moments 