I had a dream that was more like a vision
In which I was floating as if in a dream
Yet I was blind as if I had lost my vision
And had only my trust to guide me
As clouds surrounded me with a glow
That stretched out like a hand to lead
As I struggled once again to find the love
That only a moment ago was in my grasp
Yet was stolen away by clouds that insisted
On love that remained forever floating in a dream
The blue sky above reflects a gentle light
That also glows in the distance as waves below
Crash against my elevated feet that remain suspended
Like a dream floating away in a deep sleep
As the lover returns and takes my hand and
holds it to her breast so that my fingers
Can touch the heartbeats of her love
So that I never forget that clouds that glow
are like a dream that forever floats
beyond the shadows of true love below
And clouds that forever float in distant dreams
Are like wistful waves crashing against the shore
Reflecting glimmers of the sun from the sky above
As the moment for love instead races back to sea
And the dreams are left to float without ever finding home
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Angry Wave
The dream gets lost in words which
Aimlessly disappear into an endless fog
That hides a peaking mountain away
In a thick cloud of gray mass that threatens
To heap a torrential flood of despair onto the
Deepest and most intimate dreams of lovers
Gently walking together hand in hand along
The sandy shores of an isolated beach as '
Towering and merciless waves continuously
Explode upon impact against the gentle sand
Whose delicate softness dances like a candle
Reaching out to embrace the impending explosion
Of an angry wave that blows like a grenade
The dreams have lasted a lifetime and now
The time has come for the endless fog
To reach its end and to say goodbye
To the mountain whose peak is peaking
Far beyond the mass of gray clouds
Whose threat to heap torrential despair
Onto the deepest and most intimate dreams
Of lovers gently walking together hand in hand
Has instead fallen into the rush of a wave
That no longer carries with it the desire
To cruelly crash against a kindhearted shore
As a dancing candle has reached out its arms
To embrace the fury of an angry wave
Aimlessly disappear into an endless fog
That hides a peaking mountain away
In a thick cloud of gray mass that threatens
To heap a torrential flood of despair onto the
Deepest and most intimate dreams of lovers
Gently walking together hand in hand along
The sandy shores of an isolated beach as '
Towering and merciless waves continuously
Explode upon impact against the gentle sand
Whose delicate softness dances like a candle
Reaching out to embrace the impending explosion
Of an angry wave that blows like a grenade
The dreams have lasted a lifetime and now
The time has come for the endless fog
To reach its end and to say goodbye
To the mountain whose peak is peaking
Far beyond the mass of gray clouds
Whose threat to heap torrential despair
Onto the deepest and most intimate dreams
Of lovers gently walking together hand in hand
Has instead fallen into the rush of a wave
That no longer carries with it the desire
To cruelly crash against a kindhearted shore
As a dancing candle has reached out its arms
To embrace the fury of an angry wave
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Surrender
It has been more than two months since I last published anything on this blog. I have had plenty of good intentions about sitting down at the computer and putting together some thoughts, but each and every time my fingers were about to touch the keyboard, I became distracted by one thing or the other and the impulse to write soon passed into thin air. The reason why I have found the necessary discipline to write is that I have discovered a topic that has sparked the flame of interest vital to any quality piece: surrender.
This word has been floating around my mind in various forms since I arrived in Los Angeles four months ago. The fact that I was even open to the idea of returning someplace that contained so many painful memories was an act of surrender, although I did not realize it as such when it first happened. Perhaps this is why it was effective, for the simple reason that I did not see it coming, for if I had, I do not think I would have been remotely open to the idea of returning to this city. But I remember the exact moment of surrendering to the idea that I wanted to live here again. It was a cold and rainy day here, one in which the drops kept softly falling from the sky, sometimes harder and sometimes softer. I was in Los Angeles because the school at which I was working sent me here to be trained in the Hebrew Language program we were using to instruct our students. Two weeks before I came to Los Angeles, I had the unfortunate experience of getting an ear plug lodged deep into my right ear. I thought that the natural process of time would dislodge the ear plug, but much to my discomfort, the foam found a resting place in my ear beyond the reach of my thick fingers. I woke up on the morning after I arrived here with my ear ringing louder than it had it weeks and in more pain than I was willing to tolerate. Fortunately, I did not mind finding any excuse to miss out on the tiresome training sessions that I was sent here to sit through. The closest hospital to my location was the Encino Hospital on Ventura Blvd. It was my lucky day because I did not have to spend the duration of the morning waiting in the emergency room, which would have been even worse than sitting through the training sessions. I was the only patient in fact, and the ear plug was removed with a narrow pair of tweezers about an hour after I first arrived. When I left the hospital, I was literally singing in the rain over the fact that the ear plug was no longer blocking my hearing. A funny thing happened at that moment: I made my peace with this city and I felt like it was time to come back. I also realized that this was the same hospital that had been the last place I ever saw my father alive 13 years before.
I never said that surrender was easy. There are times in fact that surrender is very painful. To make moving back to Los Angeles a possibility, I had to give up on some things that I would have never voluntarily walked away from. The most important of these was my teaching job that for two years had become the center of my life. But through a series of misdirected and misunderstood relationships, the wheel of losing my job was set into motion. The speed of the spinning wheel accelerated so fast in fact despite my best efforts to slow it down that I was relieved of my teaching duties on the last day of school.
Heartbroken I was, yet hopeless I was not. Somehow, I knew that there was a higher purpose to these misfortunes, and if I could only hold out hope just a little bit longer, I would soon start to see this light within the darkness. The going at first this past summer however was not very easy because I knew that I could no longer find courage and hope through the ability to stand my ground and battle through some of life's greatest tragedies. For me to find true happiness from now on, I knew I needed to find courage and hope through a different force, one that I call surrender, even if it meant saying goodbye again. It is through surrender that I have learned to love, forgive, understand, listen, and feel true compassion for others. I have become the person I have wanted through this calm, gentle, steady, and softly forceful energy that guides me more and more each day as I slowly gain the confidence and trust to allow it to lead each and every step I take.
My dreams are coming true less as a result of fighting my way through life and more because I am able to calmly breathe my way through challenging situations. Acceptance comes with surrender, as does the understanding of what my responsibilities are to myself and to others. I am more thoughtful in my actions and less prone to overreacting to situations beyond my control as I have embraced the warmth, beauty, strength, and most importantly the acceptance of this amazing and miraculous force that I label surrender.
This word has been floating around my mind in various forms since I arrived in Los Angeles four months ago. The fact that I was even open to the idea of returning someplace that contained so many painful memories was an act of surrender, although I did not realize it as such when it first happened. Perhaps this is why it was effective, for the simple reason that I did not see it coming, for if I had, I do not think I would have been remotely open to the idea of returning to this city. But I remember the exact moment of surrendering to the idea that I wanted to live here again. It was a cold and rainy day here, one in which the drops kept softly falling from the sky, sometimes harder and sometimes softer. I was in Los Angeles because the school at which I was working sent me here to be trained in the Hebrew Language program we were using to instruct our students. Two weeks before I came to Los Angeles, I had the unfortunate experience of getting an ear plug lodged deep into my right ear. I thought that the natural process of time would dislodge the ear plug, but much to my discomfort, the foam found a resting place in my ear beyond the reach of my thick fingers. I woke up on the morning after I arrived here with my ear ringing louder than it had it weeks and in more pain than I was willing to tolerate. Fortunately, I did not mind finding any excuse to miss out on the tiresome training sessions that I was sent here to sit through. The closest hospital to my location was the Encino Hospital on Ventura Blvd. It was my lucky day because I did not have to spend the duration of the morning waiting in the emergency room, which would have been even worse than sitting through the training sessions. I was the only patient in fact, and the ear plug was removed with a narrow pair of tweezers about an hour after I first arrived. When I left the hospital, I was literally singing in the rain over the fact that the ear plug was no longer blocking my hearing. A funny thing happened at that moment: I made my peace with this city and I felt like it was time to come back. I also realized that this was the same hospital that had been the last place I ever saw my father alive 13 years before.
I never said that surrender was easy. There are times in fact that surrender is very painful. To make moving back to Los Angeles a possibility, I had to give up on some things that I would have never voluntarily walked away from. The most important of these was my teaching job that for two years had become the center of my life. But through a series of misdirected and misunderstood relationships, the wheel of losing my job was set into motion. The speed of the spinning wheel accelerated so fast in fact despite my best efforts to slow it down that I was relieved of my teaching duties on the last day of school.
Heartbroken I was, yet hopeless I was not. Somehow, I knew that there was a higher purpose to these misfortunes, and if I could only hold out hope just a little bit longer, I would soon start to see this light within the darkness. The going at first this past summer however was not very easy because I knew that I could no longer find courage and hope through the ability to stand my ground and battle through some of life's greatest tragedies. For me to find true happiness from now on, I knew I needed to find courage and hope through a different force, one that I call surrender, even if it meant saying goodbye again. It is through surrender that I have learned to love, forgive, understand, listen, and feel true compassion for others. I have become the person I have wanted through this calm, gentle, steady, and softly forceful energy that guides me more and more each day as I slowly gain the confidence and trust to allow it to lead each and every step I take.
My dreams are coming true less as a result of fighting my way through life and more because I am able to calmly breathe my way through challenging situations. Acceptance comes with surrender, as does the understanding of what my responsibilities are to myself and to others. I am more thoughtful in my actions and less prone to overreacting to situations beyond my control as I have embraced the warmth, beauty, strength, and most importantly the acceptance of this amazing and miraculous force that I label surrender.
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