[Image: “Double Self-Portrait With Old Man,” by Tom Waterhouse — an old favorite. Found on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!)]
From whiskey river:
Among the Multitudes
I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.I could have different
ancestors, after all.
I could have fluttered
from another nest
or crawled bescaled
from under another tree.Nature’s wardrobe
holds a fair supply of costumes:
spider, seagull, field mouse.
Each fits perfectly right off
and is dutifully worn
into shreds.I didn’t get a choice either,
but I can’t complain.
I could have been someone
much less separate.
Someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm,
an inch of landscape tousled by the wind.Someone much less fortunate,
bred for my fur
or Christmas dinner,
something swimming under a square of glass.A tree rooted to the ground
as the fire draws near.A grass blade trampled by a stampede
of incomprehensible events.A shady type whose darkness
dazzled some.What if I’d prompted only fear,
loathing,
or pity?If I’d been born
in the wrong tribe,
with all roads closed before me?Fate has been kind
to me thus far.I might never have been given
the memory of happy moments.My yen for comparison
might have been taken away.I might have been myself minus amazement,
that is,
someone completely different.
(Wislawa Szymborska [source])
…and:
Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships. Some travel into the mountains accompanied by experienced guides who know the best and least dangerous routes by which they arrive at their destination. Still others, inexperienced and untrusting, attempt to make their own routes. Few of these are successful, but occasionally some, by sheer will and luck and grace, do make it. Once there they become more aware than any of the others that there’s no single or fixed number of routes. There are as many routes as there are individual souls.
(Robert M. Pirsig [source])
…and:
On Meditating, Sort Of
Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
if you entertain a certain strict posture.
Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
So why should I think I could ever be successful?Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
even better place—half asleep—where the world,
spring, summer, autumn, winter—
flies through my mind in its
hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints—
all that glorious, temporary stuff.
(Mary Oliver [source])
