Message in a Bottle

What is a message in a bottle... but a hope adrift... unwaningly seeking a receptive soul?

If you were to chance upon a message in a bottle... would you descry the hope within? Or would the words within betoken nothing more than vocables plucked from a vulgar dictionary? For there's more to truth, than meets the eye... and there's more to messages in bottles, than epistles from prophets...

Emerging from the Fog

The truest truth is also the simplest one: everyone lies.

Yet herein resides a truer truth: everyone lies to everyone's body, everyone's mind, everyone's heart, everyone's soul... and... everyone's self.

For while we're accustomed to fathoming lies from the mouths of babes and tyrants, we're hardly inclined to scour within to unveil the artifacts that scaffold our myths, our fantasies, our legends... of us. Indeed, how many of our personal histories are fictions of personal vanity, conceit, and aggrandizement? Lest we pierce within and decree ourselves small, pitiable, and unworthy, we clutch our fabricated narratives like talismans that vanish, mists of Avalon yore against unflinching modernity.

The truth?

No one of us is a king or a tyrant. No one of us is a pauper or a slave. For all of us are kings and tyrants. And all of us are paupers and slaves.

Isn't this what it means to be human? To be dark and light, war and peace, animus and anima? To be Janus? Perpetually in opposition... to, with, of... ourselves?

When will we emancipate the swords that we embrace with such pertinacious virulence and prejudice against our own throats? When will we emerge from the fog... into the light of day... to be real, to be human... to be where we're meant to go and who we're meant to become?

Gifts

In the end, when we shed the fog of our chrysalides, we shed our selves as kings and tyrants, paupers and slaves, for a destiny far greater than vacuity and vainglory, pride and pretension:

To be more... to give more... to heal more.

When the world is all said and done, will kings, tyrants, paupers, slaves matter? Will vacuity, vainglory, pride, pretension matter?

Or will what matters... be what always matters...? Authenticity, compassion, generosity. Forgiveness, kindness, sincerity. Hope, charity, faith. Noble virtues, that a power greater than us, instilled in humankind, to succor us through pain, nurture us through agony, inspire us through despair.

Needless to say, despite everything, from brumes of self-pity to brumes of hauteur:

I give myself. I give my everything. And by small measures... one sincere word at a time... one act of kindness and generosity at a time... one leap of faith at a time... we will restore that which is irredeemable... we will love that which is execrable... we will forgive that which is inexpiable...

With a hug for the world and the world for a hug.

Thus, the cure for all that ails all of us, is as simple as our selves.

Verily:

What gives one Janus the right to sup at the table of peace, devour fruit from the tree of peace, ravage ambrosia from the gardens of peace... but not all others who are Janus, too? For are we not all Janus?

Fin

Tomorrow is for the future.

Today is for us.

It is not too late for today to be our day.

To be more.

More

It is not too late to plant seeds of hope.

It is not too late to plant seeds of peace.

For me. For you. For all of us.

It is not too late to be.

Fools Plant Flowers with Courage

Prelude

Who is the fool?

The one who trembles before a trap awaiting to be sprung?

Thus we confer among our selves:

Surely it's not unwise to wear the pragmatist's guise? To be cautiously cognizant of that which are doubtless treacheries in disguise? Isn't this the very axiom that underpins the impregnable stratagems of the supreme logician: caution spares the fool and the wise, certain humiliation and demise?

However the pragmatist is no fool at all; for the position of the pragmatist is that of a man and his measure. Indeed our frailties and our limitations are neither right nor wrong; that they invariably overwhelm bravery in the stifling darkness of the indiscernible, is but the reality of the measure of man.

And though wise and timorous, noble and ignoble... man's measure has never deservedly earned (nor never will)... the contempt, ridicule, judgment... of sage knownothings.

For how many of us... awaiting the inexorable in the arena of life and death... verily succumb to the limits of our measure? For are not those of us who wilt in the abject misery of the unknown... merely human?

Fear and Courage

To face that which we fear is to face fear.

To face that which we fear with courage is to face fear with the temerity of gods.

Yet, lest we feel disheartened and discouraged that we are but pawns in an incomprehensible war between titans, bear in mind this: courage is small; courage is big; courage is grand; courage is invisible.

Case in point:

Small courage: what else but small courage could stir the tulip from slumber, under a blanket of snow, too early in Spring? Big courage: what else but big courage could embolden the chick from an incomparable nest, to recklessly tumble towards predators endlessly on the prowl? Grand courage: what else but grand courage could inflame the king to commit lofty edicts of peace, amidst a broiling throng of bloodthirsty hordes?

Invisible courage: what else but invisible courage... rouses all of us... to walk in our lives and see... speak... feel... to shed the senseless numbness of the automaton's fate... for life?

Are we not all courageous?

Do we not all face small fears, big fears, grand fears, invisible fears... with the temerity of gods?

And do we not all revel in our vivacity, our virility, our passion for life... irrespective of the inexorable, the indiscernible, the harrowing unknown?

For isn't courage... hope?

And isn't hope... eternal? A four letter word that encapsulates that which pierces the bleakest of human experiences... in the darkest hour... in the darkest night... in the darkest of dark places... in the mind... in the body... in the heart... in the spirit?

Fin

With courage:

We will stem the tides of war; we will silence the horns of destruction; we will illuminate the conceits of deception. We will forgive (even that which we believe is inexpiable). We will impoverish our burgeoning lust to destroy our selves and each other amidst colossal clashes, and temper our extravagant fervor to exact terrible retribution and vengeance without mercy or compassion.

For are we not all deserving of mercy and compassion? 

For do we not all have dark realms... within our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our spirits... that have welcomed misdeeds and idolatries? And are we not all deserving of mercy and compassion... for that which we've undoubtedly committed... with our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our spirits?

Notwithstanding... that in the end, there is no freedom from war without freedom... and how free are any of us... if we cannot forgive ourselves... for that which we do... we've done... we'll yet do... who we are... who we've been... who we'll yet be... today... yesterday... tomorrow?

More

Does planting wildflowers in arenas desertified by war... make me a fool? For every today is a new day... and if all of us... make every today beautiful... wouldn't that be a marvel to behold? For what are we guaranteed in life... but today?

Cowardice in Search of Chivalry

Who has courage?

You?

Me?

Does it take immeasurable courage to overpower the weak... to shackle them to prisons for eternal immurement?

Does it take extraordinary courage to expropriate the helpless... of their minds, their agencies, their freedoms?

Does it take prodigious courage to subject the powerless... to abject terror and unfathomable tyranny?

So much courage... indeed... that such acts of nobility warrant untold riches, astonishing power and influence, and of course, incomparable acclaim. To whom better to award medals of bravery, tokens of honor, and remuneration in the millions of dollars... than such paragons of gallantry and virtue.

Verily... this is courage. Is it not? For isn't this, the courage of war?

Generals and commanders, Kings and aristocracy... play with people and their lives, like so many worthless cardboard pawns on expendable cardboard chessboards... for amusement, for avarice, for conceit. And lest we forget... that life is not a game... wars kill people.

So:

What about pawns...

Who gracefully submit... to eternal imprisonment?

Who lovingly relinquish... their minds, their agencies, their freedoms?

Who joyfully endure the most abhorrent, contemptible, and brutal subjection... of their bodies, their hearts, their souls?

All for the vanity, the prestige, the aggrandizement... of Generals and commanders, Kings and aristocracy.

Indeed:

Of pawns and Generals, of toys and Kings... who are the heroes in search of magnanimity, dignity, and grace... and who are the cowards in search of hollow illusory chivalry?

For:

The real hero stands....

The real hero speaks....

The real hero frees....

all of us...

...from a game that indiscriminately toxifies the godfull and the godless... miring all of us in an interminable cycle of agony and despair... that spares no one treachery.

In the end:

Who has courage?

Me?

You?

Or are we all... bad and good, dark and light, big and small... fated to this unremitting Tartarus on Earth for time immemorial?

Love Letters for a Garden of Good and Evil

There is more than one kind of love to which one might attest for which one might compose more than one kind of letter... These are a few that I hold dear... I share them in the hopes of wildflowers abloom with joyous wonder... in a tomorrow for all.  

For Love

Love is... well... love is.

Is it not?

Without possession. Without coercion. Without deceits lurking within shadows. Without secrets within secrets within secrets, creating fogs of wisps... ephemeral and mercurial... there and not there... here and not here.

Love is.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Than innocence flooding hearts. With goodness. With kindness. With tenderness. With care.

Are we not all deserving of all that love is... was... could be? Could not all of us care for each other... today... yesterday... tomorrow... with a love that warms... rather than a love that scorches? A love that nurtures... rather than destroys? A love that lets go... rather than fetters?

Love is.

For me. For you. For all.

For Hope 

Hope.

The most indefatigable of virtues.

In the darkest hour... of the darkest night... in the darkest of dark places... there is always hope.

Galadriel's vial is but a pale mimicry of that which persists... here.

Unassailable. Inalienable. Treasure of all treasures. A four letter word that encapsulates that which pierces the bleakest of human experiences.

While hope may falter in the face of the most terrifying ordeals of the mind, the body, the heart, the spirit... hope never flees.

In the darkest hour... in the darkest night... in the darkest of dark places... in the mind... in the body... in the heart... in the spirit... hope springs eternal.

For me. For you. For all.

For Grace

Grace.

Real beauty.

Not artifice that fades. Not artifice that droops and withers and dissipates with time. Not artifice that... poof... disappears... with perspective, with knowledge, with insight, with truth.

Real beauty is that which is bestowed upon all of us... by our humanity... our inviolable dignity... our perfection. Actuations of the benevolence of a power greater than us.

Real beauty... is grace.

It glows from within. It radiates from the heart. It flows from the soul. It is indiscriminate in it's relentless illumination of every dark corner... in me, in you, in all.

For grace is but another word for truth. And divine grace is but another word for the truest truth. And there is nothing that grace can't purify with the light of truth... 

within me, within you, within all of us.

For Joy

Joy.

That feeling that floods the mind, the body, the heart, the spirit... with bubbles and mirth and effervescence. That feeling that incontrovertibly assures us... that we are alive.

For what is the point of the most timid of pursuits... the most opulent of pursuits... the most banal of pursuits... the most wanton of pursuits... if not to capture that feeling of vivacity that breathes life into our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our spirits?

For joy derives from virtues far greater than greed and avarice, self-conceit and aggrandizement:

generosity and gratitude. 

Too often we confuse the thrill of the hunt... the impassioned quickening of the chase... the ecstasy of consummation... with that feeling of vigor and vitality that is pure and innocent... that blooms within gardens of generosity and gratitude...

within me, within you, within all of us.

For Peace

Peace.

Above all else... I stand for peace. 

To the soldier in the tank... to the soldier on the ground... to the soldier in the sky... to the soldier in command... I give myself... my defenseless arms... my weaponless hands... my bare feet... my naked body... my open heart...

For there is no peace worth the cost of life.

There is no life worth the cost of peace.

In life... there are predators and there are prey. But that which intertwines them... is not war. It's life. A cycle never ceasing. A circle ever circling. Of life. Of liberty. Of limbs free of fetters that ensnare the powerful and the powerless... in arenas of death... rigged for the amusement of royalty and philistines alike.

In the end, there is no nobility from treachery, much less treachery at the end of a sword.

In the end, there is no peace, without freedom.

For me. For you. For all.

For Forgiveness

Life is life.

Death is death.

There is nothing betwixt the former and the latter... that cannot be forgiven... under the full unadulterated truth of love, hope, grace, and joy.

In life... in death... compassion and mercy reign supreme.

Compassion for humanity. Mercy for inhumanity.

Even when humanity and inhumanity are two faces of the same god... forgiveness is boundless.

Even when humanity and inhumanity are two faces of the same king... love is eternal.

Even when humanity and inhumanity are two faces of the same man... grace purifies all.

In the eyes of powers greater than us... no one of us is undeserving... of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness...

...for what we do... what we've done... what we'll yet do... who we are... who we've been... who we'll yet be... today... yesterday... tomorrow...

Fin

I long for love renewed in the light of day, in the light of truth, in the light of who I am... who I've been... who I'll yet be. Without shadows. Without fog. For in my heart... in my life... I've only ever wanted to love true... to love more...

But alas...

Because of me... because of you... was there was never an us...? (Notwithstanding that my heart has always been and will always be... big enough for more...)

Were this but a story... that I could rewrite... without secrets and lies, treachery and terror...

But alas...

We are all bonsai...

Struggling to summon the phenomenal courage to face the truest truth:

That we are all... the pruner and the bonsai.

By our own hand... we bridle our hearts and fetter our souls... for all eternity. The powerful as powerless as the powerless.

For indeed... how powerful are any of us... if no one can rewrite the story... and no one can rewrite the rules... and no one can set all of us free?

There Is No Heroism in Lies

Secrets.

Truths.

When secrets reign supreme, deceits run rampant.

When deceits run rampant, lies become truths: truths of self-interest; truths of self-preservation; truths of self-conceit.

When lies become truths (truths of self-interest, truths of self-preservation, truths of self-conceit), egoism masquerades as heroism... for such truths are in fact: perversions, distortions.

There is no heroism in lies, deceits, secrets... when lies, deceits, secrets... rip asunder the truest truths.

The Truest Truths

Heart. Soul. Mind. Body.

The body hosts wealth more precious than all the riches and baubles and trinkets coveted and amassed by man, for it hosts the heart, the soul, the mind. This is a truest truth.

Even so, the body is the mind, the soul, the heart.

Thus, to plunder the body is to plunder the mind, the soul, the heart; for a body ravaged, is a mind ravaged, a soul ravaged, a heart ravaged. This, too, is a truest truth.

Another truest truth? When bodies break... all is lost. Heart. Soul. Mind. Body. One and all.

Yet... reckless and unbridled distortions of truth fuel the deception that... excepting death... that which is exacted upon bodies, leaves unsacathed, unplundered, unravaged... hearts, souls, minds.

But this is a lie.

For the body, the mind, the soul, the heart... are one. Each cannot exist without the other. And each suffers the agonies of all. This is a truest truth.

The Iniquity of Egoism

Secrets.

Lies.

At the heart of secrets... lies... is egoism. Nothing less than the the valuation of oneself higher than all others. Especially those whose hearts, souls, minds reside within bodies of no ones, from nowhere, worth nothing.

But these valuations are conceits.

For the fair and just valuations of our selves and each other derive from a power greater than ourselves that positions no one of us higher than any of us.

Thus, to exact upon another body, another mind, another soul, another heart... that which one would never exact upon oneself... is to defend the virtue of egoism.

To defend the virtue of egoism is the depraved credo of the selfish. The plunderer. The ravager. The breaker of hearts, souls, minds, bodies.

While the egoist appropriates the mask of heroism to justify truths of self-interest, truths of self-preservation, truths of self-conceit to scaffold lies, deceits, secrets... the hero upholds the truest truths to uplift every body, every mind, every soul, every heart... to greatness and grace.

The Truth Is the Truth

The depth and breadth and power of limitless self-interest, self-preservation, self-conceit... may disguise secrets, deceits, lies... but such facades do not make such perversions and distortions... true.

In the end... the truth is the truth... and to speak the truth... is to be heroic.

For secrets, deceits, lies are poisons... for which the only cure... is honesty.

Lest you relish the exquisite toxification of your heart, your soul, your mind, your body... speak the truth... and set your body, your mind, your soul, your heart... free.

More

Who speaks for the voiceless?

Who protects the helpless?

Who frees the imprisoned?

If not you and me... then who?

Indeed:

When truths are spoken... all of us hear.

When truths are illuminated... all of us see.

When truths are set free... all of us are set free.

If not you and me... to speak truths, to illuminate truths, to set truths free... then who?

Surely no secret is worth... no lie is worth... no self-interest, no self-preservation, no self-conceit is ever worth... the price that we pay...

...when the screams of the voiceless are answered with silence,

...when the pleas of the helpless are answered with silence,

...when the prayers of the imprisoned are answered with silence.

For the voiceless, the helpless, the imprisoned are me... and the voiceless, the helpless, the imprisoned are you... and it's up to all of us to respond to the screams of the voiceless, the pleas of the helpless, and the prayers of imprisoned... with answers.

- M.