Labor's child

Had forgotten the warm comforting embrace of music (of a work of art from careful labor), of care taken in minute details, of surrender to create something bigger than oneself and of the solace and strength that of itself is to one and all it touches, moves and inspires. Where there is no longer the artist but a life that are the creator's carefully chosen moments strung together over time and now complete and having a life of its own.

‘There is something fundamentally wrong.’

Wonder if wrong-doing and punishment has been wired into our psyche so much that what is possible can go only up to a certain point after which the ‘what is possible’ sphere needs to involute, consciously/unconsciously/subconsciously creating limits and boundaries and to put an effort at consciously thinking ‘beyond’ those limits.  Part of the difficulty in thinking beyond may be dealing with the wrong/punishment wiring that is so much part of the system. The wiring is so much evident in the language, and a whole lot of words derived from wrong/punishment - negative, backward, fail, bad, beat, etc.etc. It is much like there being the primary relationships (mother and father or people who come to represent their role/authority) and then all other relationships with people and things being a derivative of the primary in some manner. 

World in words

A world lies open to the one listening - a world that lies in the words, sequence of words, and between the words - woven from the fabric of the speaker/writer’s mind. Entropy and analysis and whatever else be kept aside. The uniqueness of the person is getting worded, if only one cares to listen.

Limiting

Sometimes what is possible requires a demonstration for the mind to see beyond or to even be present that there has been a limit thus far.

Histologically, cells are said to lose their totipotency in early infancy and get partially potent and then selectively potent with progression of age or with development of the individual. Perhaps that is not an accident. Perhaps that is a physical manifestation of the experience of the unlimited being 'limited,' a consequence of setting 'boundaries' to what is possible, boundaries set by other similarly 'boundaried' individuals, thereby effectively slowing down 'life' and promoting 'ageing.' Perhaps then it is not an accident that the average lifespan of human beings have come down, a consequence of cumulative 'limiting' and 'boundarying' of what is possible?

"I am"

Excerpt from a forwarded email.

Crabbit Old Woman


Who is really inside?

When an old lady died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in England, it appeared she had left nothing of value.

The nurse, packing up her possessions, found this poem. The quality so impressed the staff that copies were distributed to all the nurses in the hospital.

This poem then later appeared in the Christmas edition of "Beacon House News," a magazine of the Northern Ireland Mental Health Association. This was the Lady's bequest for posterity.

What do you see nurse, 
What do you see?
What are you thinking, 
When you look at me?
A crabbit old woman,
Not very wise,
Uncertain of habit
With far away eyes.

Who dribbles her food
And makes no reply;
Then you say in a loud voice,
"I do wish you'd try."
Who seems not to notice
The things that you do,
And forever is losing
A stocking or shoe.

Unresisting or not,
Lets you do as you will;
With bathing or feeding,
The long day to fill.
Is that what you're thinking,
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes nurse,
You're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am,
As I sit here so still,
As I move at your bidding,
As I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten ...
With a father and mother,
And brothers and sisters
Who love one another.

A girl of sixteen,
With wings on her feet;
Dreaming that soon,
A lover she'll meet.

A bride soon at twenty ...
My heart gives a leap;
Remembering the vows
That I promised to keep.

At twenty-five,
I have young of my own,
Who need me to build
A secure and happy home.

A woman of thirty,
My young now grow fast,
Bound together with ties
That forever should last.

At forty, my young ones
Have grown up and gone;
But my man is beside me
To see I don't mourn.

At fifty, once more ...
Babies play 'round my knees;
Again we know children,
My loved ones and me.

Dark days are upon me,
My husband is dead ...
I look at the future,
I shudder with dread;
For my young are all rearing,
Young of their own,
And I think of the years
And the love I have known.

I am an old woman now,
Nature is cruel,
‘Tis her jest to make old age
Look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles,
Grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone
Where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass,
A young girl still dwells,
And now and again
My battered heart swells.

I remember the joys,
I remember the pain,
And I'm loving and living
Life over again.

I think of the years ...
All too few, gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact
That nothing can last.

So open your eyes nurses,
Open and see ...
Not a "Crabbit Old Woman,"
Look closer ... see "Me."


~ Phyllis McCormack ~