The Good and The Bad

There are some people who only see the good in themselves. We call these people arrogant, self-centered, confident. There are others who only see the bad. These people are the depressed, pessimistic type. How often do we look at the whole?

It’s often hard—almost impossible—to see ourselves objectively, the good and the bad. It’s often hard to see our whole self and accept it for what it is—all that it is. But the truth of the matter is that everyone has good and bad stirring around inside of them. But what is “good” and what is “bad”? Well, actually, they don’t exist. Good and Bad are labels we came up with to identify things. It’s the nature of our mind to try and figure everything out and therefore label everything using binary oppositions: good, bad, up, down, black, white. But there is no duality in the universe. Things simple are as they are.

A notion I have carried with me for some time is this: that we don’t know what this life is. We have no idea what comes before this life and what happens to us when we die, all we are left with is this small fragment of time, cut off from everything else that holds it together. Our frame of reference is so disengaged from the whole, how could we possibly conclude what is truth when we can’t see the whole picture? All we have to rely on is this moment and our inner guidance.

Good and Bad do not stem from our past, our actions, our thoughts. There are things that are indeed good and bad, but they are not the root of it all. Good and Bad, these labels, stem from our mind trying to make sense of this small fragment of time. Why? Because that is the way our mind works, because we are simply terrified by the infinite universe and the finite body we live in, because it makes us feel better to categorize and conceptualize things that we understand, it keeps the mind from wondering.

Each of us contains the entire universe. Though we attempt to label and understand everything, it is impossible to be sure of anything because we do not know the ultimate truths of what this life is, what happens before and what happens after. These labels we devise help us to navigate through life, but they must not be taken as truths. In the end, the Good and the Bad are all the same; it is our trust and our faith in this bigger picture, and the acceptance of ourselves as a whole that our mind and spirit truly yearns for.

Putting It Out There

I have a hard time saying what I want, let alone putting myself out there. Though I don't mind being seen, I often get overwhelmed by my competition, the vast variety that is, life itself. But I'm finding more and more that all that anxiety is not outside of me pushing in, it's from a place of insecurity inside. Recently I started submitting my poems to writing contests and also landed two yoga teaching gigs. Often times, I fall in love with my ideas so fast, yet they never materialize. I'm learning, the good stuff takes time, consistancy, patience. The more I put myself out there for the world to see, the more I follow my heart with what I want to do with this life, the more at ease I will be with exposing myself, and the more people will in turn start to see me. It's a beautiful cycle, like most things. I've included some more poems of mine below.

Grape Pie

Hard to believe
I peeled off all of the skins
On those grapes
For that pie
That you said was your favorite.
I did not know then, as I do now,
The perfect crust is made
With chilled butter
And iced water, mixed sparingly;
Too much flour and touch
Makes the dough
Shapeless and untrue.

A pie that never gets finished
Must be a bad pie.
But it took me nearly an hour
To peel off each inscrutable skin.
Now you say
You regret me most,
And all I can remember
Are translucent grapes
Slowly accumulating
In the yellow colander.



Our Neighbors

Our neighbors have a halogen construction light
Around which they sit
In the late summer evenings
Misunderstanding why there are so many bugs.

They find it fitting
To weed whack into night.
The heavyset woman,
Who never changes out of pajamas
Sits on the steps
Leading from the dank basement
To the grassless lawn.
The dog doing its business at the end of the leash,
Which she holds in one hand,
Her cigarette in the other.

These people have big bon fires.
They burn all the scrap wood
That has accumulated around the yard.
I’m sure they haven’t gotten a permit,
Perhaps they don’t know one’s required.
Though, if the flames got out of control
They could always use the water
From their inflatable pool.



The Mountain Path

This dim lit place
Held together by invisible threads
That have been strung across
The divide, then broken
Like a ribbon at the finish line.

So we walk with outstretched arms
Or sticks, or nothing at all
And listen to the bell buoy call
From its bitter rocking cradle
Its ring is hollow as the ground

Below barefooted children
The moss is most welcome
To toughened soles
Leading to delicate chanterelles
That have remained a secret.

There are not so many places
Where the sunlight reaches
Through the spruce and pine
Intertwined like fingers lacing,
Holding in a prayer.



Turning Twenty-Three

Next week, I’ll turn twenty-three
Years that jam between
What I do not know came before,
So I set my reference on today.

How the years, they have unfolded,
Like one long dream of memories,
One long, littered shoreline,
Brushing up against a changing tide.

One continuous telephone wire
I watch from a moving train,
Bowing and peaking at each pole.
I separate the days,

But sleep does not disengage them
Or myself from the dreams I have,
The dreams I some how hold on to,
Though the days keep tugging them away.