getting real

Happy Halloween! This has got to my favorite holiday of the year, probably because it falls within a season where the mountains are splashed with color and the shorn fields stretch out in stripes dotted with pumpkins and the crescent moon cuts like a scythe reaping a harvest of stars from a midnight indigo sky.

This time of year is when my life seems to complete full rotation on it's axis, when things revolve and evolve in such a way that it feels like some force beyond my will--though not contrary to it--is at work.

When I look back over my life, the most radical shifts in consciousness, in being, seem to reach some sort of critical mass on All Hallow's Eve, and though I've had more florid transitions than that which I'm experiencing now, this year is no exception. Mysterious ways.

I've been less than honest with myself. This much is clear. And I regret. I regret because you can't fail to deceive yourself without deceiving others and wreaking havoc in the lives of those close to you.

On some level, as much as I've tried to stay in integrity with my deeper self, I've been adhering to the designs of my ego, operating from a place of fear, and unconsciously recruiting agents of complicity.

This is, of course, all subtle stuff, nothing that any court of law could condemn me for, but having realized my tresspass, my own conscience indicts me, and I can't afford to luxuriate in self-serving guilt when it's clear I need to face the music.

I've been very anxious the past few days, trying to avoid thest things, even avoiding the cushion. I conveniently failed to attend this morning's dharma talk at Kanzeon, because I'm afraid of the starkness of what I'll witness when I sit still long enough to drop the distraction.

But even without the cushion, I do drop the distraction, and for the first time, things are looking pretty "clean," pretty naked, and I feel really vulnerable, like this is just too much exposure, too much pain.

So I experiment with the exposure, I run naked to trusted friends, noticing that even when I get square with myself, square with them, even when my little edifice of ego crumbles under the weight of confession and a torrent of tears, I still seem to be the same person, nothing is essentially different. It's still the same "me" watching from behind the scenes, now and then seemingly submerged under the flailing of an ego too afraid to drown.

leela said something today that struck me: We're all learning at each other's expense. It's something I've thought about so often, but she offered it to me at a moment and in a way that highlighted the bitter-sweet poignancy of the interpersonal dance and it's transformative potential. (Thank you for listening, leela, I love you.)

When I began this entry, I wasn't sure what would come out. This is, obviously, an uncharacteristically sober post, but I think it's particularly authentic, and authenticity is my call to arms right now.


To the person(s) I have harmed:

I am so sorry.
I've been lying to myself and to you
I was too afraid of the truth
So without realizing, without meaning to, I made up my own version
And offered it until you accepted.
I was trying to give you happiness
But I was also trying to protect myself
So my "gift" was actually a bargain
And thus a blasphemy.
You received a counterfeit
And when you suspected your forfeiture of authentic goods
I insisted you were mistaken, even paranoid
And shamed you for your insight.
You loved me freely
You gave me your heart
And I chastised you for not being satisfied with my mind
This was so unfair.
I saw from the beginning you were beautiful
I wanted that beauty
I was afraid to let it go
But it never rightfully belonged to me.
Forgive me for holding you
For denying you what is rightfully yours:
Someone truer than I have been
Who would not purchase their peace with your tears.
Such a one as yourself
Is worthy of the truth
I offer it to you now
And tell you once again,
I am so sorry.