I can still see myself writing this poem, sitting on a rock in the sun in Acadia Park. It was just a prescriptive checklist of all the mental constructs that we create around our karmic circumstances and that we use to keep us from ourselves.
We can fixate on the structure or story of our lives as if it really carried the ultimate weight of necessity, meaning, and obligation that defines our souls; or we can allow ourselves to see it as an optional set of decisions, among many, that have led to the continually creative context of our being here.
We can fixate upon the demands of our relationships as if all ultimate meaning, support, discouragement, or affirmation comes from them; or we can remember that they are only the supreme opportunities to practice being present, to practice loving, to practice listening, to practice learning, and to practice picking ourselves up and growing out of our fixations and blind spots.
We can sink ourselves under the weight of life’s business, giving ultimate substantiality to the drama and to our particular cultural dance of survival; or we can remember that the dance is only a collection of occasions and circumstances—which, when it enchants and overwhelms us with a collective sense of burden, diverts our attention away from the simple, continuing, unburdened fact of our own being.
We can fixate upon the great projections of spiritual meaning, or we can remember that even the loftiest callings, philosophies, and benign intentions are, apart from our being, just good ideas.
At this point we are quite ready to be here, whether we take off our shoes or not. But I did find the sunlit granite boulder to be deliciously warm on my feet.