LULLS IN LABYRINTHS

Missive #15 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation

[This missive has been repeating itself in turns and variations for over a week now, in dreams and waking lulls and pre-sleep thresholds. Like a labyrinth itself, or like a puzzle maze filled with dead ends, the sheer number of differences in word, appearance, and shape of this piece have overwhelmed. Never before have I received so many alternatives from the same voice! It is like a ghost, whispering, “It is your choice; you get to choose.” But which choice is the choice I get to make? Do I choose the version, or do I choose the time to transcribe? If I was not moved to transcribe any of the earlier times, were these ‘alternates’ even options at all? Is it really my choice, when to transcribe? I had many opportunities, and yet I stalled at each. Shaking myself today, I simply sat down in a covered space outside, enveloped by the lush sound-insulation of gentle even-toned rainfall, put my pen to paper, and allowed the as-of-yet unheard version to reveal itself. I felt almost hesitant in sharing this one, since it has some violent language in parts. But perhaps it is not yet time to shy away from the violence which has formed so much of our backdrop. Tarry a while in this labyrinth with me, and let us see if we can reach the heart together~] Received 8/25/2023 | ~3pm

Listen to the Recitation:

LULLS IN LABYRINTHS
"I can’t imagine the way forward!"
Excellent. If we could imagine it,
It wouldn't be possible!
Take a moment in the labyrinth, or
Be taken by a moment. Pause.
Can you find your way back to the heart?
There is only one way. There are no wrong turns.
As long as you keep moving without
Turning back, one cannot help but arrive
Back at the heart. The cove. The ovum.
Ovidian. Just keep moving! Trust and Move.
Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.
"Even a soul submerged in sleep is
Hard at work and helps make something
Of the world." (Heraclitus). Exhaustion
Is movement of another kind. A Lull is
Movement in another way. Stalling is part
of Going. The whole project of human life
Is learning how to step aside and allow
What is moving through you to move
Through you. Be still as long as is necessary.
Timing is nuanced and always a bit out
Of hand. Do not try to grasp it.
In every lull, too, there is a labyrinth.
Follow the lull, a kind of personal lullaby,
And by the light of the dark, a door
Shall open, and the way shall announce
Itself: unimagined, and imminently possible,
Already happening in the next new empowering now.
Be led by the lull, deeper into a submersion
With self, with the unknown, with uncertainty.
Shed the skin layer of certainty and plunge
Into your feet, stepping, one in front of
The other. There is always another step to
Take, until there isn't. And then again, another
Appears. Impossible! Yes. Good. Keep going. 

Again and again I forgive myself for my
Limiting beliefs. Everything that has ever been
Has been necessary. What was necessary
Yesterday may no longer be necessary today.
What is true forever today may no longer be true
Tomorrow. "The only constant is change." God is Change.
Chance upon an unchanged place, an unchanging
Place. Change the unchanging. The Unchanging
Is change. Even when fast asleep, it is hard
At work making the world a better place
To be. Change the unchangeable; chance upon
A labyrinth's heart. Wily and Wiry, knotted and
Dense. Every route is clear, every root misshapen.
Sometimes turning back is moving forward.
What is stupid is wise: the Holy Fool,
Crowning "All is Māyā and Nothing Else".
Gaia is conscious. Gaia is complicit.
Gaia is complicated. The complications of
Gaia, dressed in plastics of her own making.
Observe the fluorescent imachinations of
G.AI.A ~ all around us, at play, suffocating herself,
Weaving catastrophes and externalizations
Of fault, of blame, of responsibility.
Who is responsible for what?
What is responsible for whom?
The Unholy Matrimony. This too is Holy.
The faultlines are where geologic shifts
And tensions occur, and are recorded,
For us and all to see. Stories of drastic
Sudden Alteration, altercation, alternation.
This is what they call "alternity"—
The Alternal ~ the only constant is change.
2 comes from 1 and there is no 1 without 2.
This is easily upsetting, and understandably so.
Up-setting is changing too. Irritating.
The faultline is also an interdimensional place
Where one steps from one reality to another
Across timeline, into an alternal place
Where fairies dance along cracks in the foundation
And magic waits behind rounded corners of time
The meetinghouse of minds. Failure is the name
Of the game here. Fai-Lure. Lure the fae
With your faults, across uncrossable lines
In sandstone, through h/edge row and picket.
The hedge witch wanders and whiles
In this tumblesome place, turning spectrums
On their sides to find landscapes.
Every line is a landscape in disguise.
Forgive yourself for your limiting beliefs.
I forgive myself for my limiting beliefs.

The Garden is REAL.
We are all already there!
The insanity is that we AREN'T.
Find the most suspicious and crucify them.
Find the weakest and castrate them!
Scapegoat the beaten and downtrodden until
Their bones form the golden road to paradise!...
Is this really the way, Gaia? This is
The way we have chosen, over and over again.
Powdered bones. Ash. The new clay bedrock
Foundation stones of Zion. Throw a pot.
Throw out the whole lot.
Kill everyone who stands in the way of paradise.
Pave the way with their blood and bones.
Christ must be killed again.
(He is already killed every year)
Again and again until they Remember!
Until they can no longer bear to forget.
And then, and only then, shall the forgetting
Be forgiven! And we shall all achieve amnesia,
The Promised Nirvanaland,
And nowhere shall what is forgotten be
Remembered. And at no depth of conscious/
Unconscious shall it be remembered,
Nor any trace of it ever found again.
The Moorlands of Memory.
We are in the Moorlands.
This is where we've been. Is this where we need to be?
Things will get weirder and weirderer
Until sane. Mycelial networks of
Interconnected small homeostatic villages
At peace with each other, at one, a web of
Gainful ex-change and intercoursings,
Cross pollinations and dilutions and concentrations.
The ways between emerge organically,
Perhaps even without conflict. Need we
Wound and be wounded to wind up
Together, Learned and Wise, Compassionate?
"To the victor goes the spoils"—
This is a very old codex of human and
Non-human animal and Gaian conduct.
Inter-species, intra-species.
I can't imagine how something so deep-set could
Be transmuted. Good! Then perhaps it too
May yet change. Perhaps it too is ripe
To be left behind, forgotten, to become the
Next New Nowway to what is possible
Through the fertile routes of the unimagination.

Come back now, into the Labyrinth where we
Paused, in a lull of our own design.
Blink a few times to reacclimate to where
You are, right now, here in the corridors
Of Destiny. We made our way to the
Heart of the lull's labyrinth. We are
Not yet to the heart of this Labyrinth
of Lulls. When you're ready, take the
Next Step Forward. Be at ease;
There is only one way, and
There are no wrong turns.
The heart of the labyrinth is ahead.

---

Labyrinth in Topsham, Maine (2023)