The Teacher Continues. . . .

When it comes to memory,  how do we separate what is currently ours?  Yet the question should be, what is not ours when we are part of humankind?  What can we separate from since we do not know what it is we have participated in since time began?

Have we lived before?  What is called reincarnation can also be memory banks filled to overflowing.  Yet are there not new souls on this planet who do not have practiced ways of behaving that can only be the result of centuries of living?

Can we say we have lived before when we fumble much in elemental situations? If we are asking these questions, it means the footwork has already been done to bring us to this place.  And since talk shows and self help books have people eager to speak,  what can be brought forth? 

Can this incarnation be one of many?  Can we not be walking in many worlds relying only on custom for this one?  For some, one answer is sufficient.  And for others, if thoroughly understood,  would have worlds spinning into oblivion. 

There are those who have been open to such a degree that worlds have impinged uncalled for.  Understanding can only come when there is a frame of reference to assimilate the information.  There is no mind that can understand everything.  All expressions are needed in every world to begin to uncover the Essence of the Spirit that rules and loves.

In the frame of reference that use the word God in its religious life or spiritual life,  everyone and everything is allowed to express the many faces of God.  There is no mind that completely understands nor completely accepts  all the expressions of Being.  Whether in this world we inhabit or in worlds we give space to in thought.

The Why Of Mine

In me are my mother’s memories.
She still lives with all
of the memories in her and many in me.
Her anguish for rights violated
is felt in me . . . .gut feeling overriding
injustices in my life.

Her family, long dead, live in her
and in me, commingling.
I do not know their faces,
but one day I will wander into
a Memory Bank and withdraw my assets
to settle debits and I will know
for whom I do this.

In me, my father nods his head
and studies grasses neatly clipped
to a measured stance.
His dragging feet refuse to note
the hands on my clock as they did on his.
In me, his glance becomes
a studied look ferreting out a truth
in a lie,  only to be numbed by indecision.

And my eyes hold others’ eyes,
when they meet mine so I can
uncover their treasures.
In me, the textures of my brothers
are bolts of fabric laid straight
and bias to life.

I note the patterns and the places
that fit me me and those that cannot.
The places we meet are enough for now.
In me my sister’s wrath
lays bare my own.
Altogether we meet in several times
but in her  our father roams,

looking for himself in her labor
and in her, our mother stirs derision
concerning old memories kept alive
by today’s unresolves.
I have children who have children,
strengthened by others’ memories
and shaken by habits long thought
to be dead.

Wondrous to see the Refiner’s fire
culling the wooden nickels
crowding the silver and gold
in the Memory Bank.

One day the real money will be counted.

 

 

Painting by
Claudia Hallissey