I witnessed you making
Little decisions along the way
to leave your hard hat,
workboots, and feet behind
and float up.
made in moments which
accrued compound interest
over decades.
When we traded your 401(k)
in exchange for a couple of days
of mechanically inflating your lungs
I silently protested
you might be getting a bad deal.
Not because we wanted the money
but because you wreaked
of hospital and defeat.
It's not as if we had a choice,
but your double helix genes
That were done with your jeans
vibrated your blues song
in every cell of my body.
Between lifetimes you and I
decided
I'd hold your DNA now mine
up to a light, to expose
your cache of radiance
and shine
bright enough
for us both.
1 comment:
Stanislov Grof's transpersonal psychology research has accumulated strong evidence that the life history of every individual's ancestors is stored in personal psychic memory. Interestingly, some people have had experiences of identifying with an ancestor during moments in the ancestor's life that occurred even after the conception of the next generation (the example story is an identification with a woman about 12 generations back who was publicly executed - the scene included historical detail that the person having the experience did not know of beforehand and the ancestral historical incident was later confirmed through genealogical research). One possible implication is that the whole life of one's parents, grandparents, and everyone all the way back is embedded in the psyche of the living individual - thus the American Indian saying "Be the person your ancestor's wanted you to be." Other traditions, including Sikhism, would affirm that you can at least redeem your parents by redeeming yourself. Another possible explanation, though, is that this was a layered transpersonal experience where a dual-unity experience (this is a common transpersonal occurrence wherein a person is simultaneously self-identified and identified with another person, most often a beloved, and fully aware of all the subjective contents of the other's experience) occured for an ancestor during the moment of her husband's execution while she was pregnant with the next person in the lineage, and the primary transpersonal experience was identification with the chronologically sequential ancestor.
Your word and phrase choice is very tender in this one, as though you were very sensitive to their subtleties when you wrote it. My sense of the whole is that it's a beautiful and compelling way of envisioning a light in the darkness of the situation.
More updates soon please.
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