Breath of All Things

And continuing The Moon Topple's Phoctober theme...

I want to say at the outset of this post that although I write, my natural leaning is towards prose - fiction and non-fiction. I do not incline easily to poetry - it requires far too much thinking to my mind! - though heaven knows as a teenager I spent hours scribbling "pomes". That said, there are times when some words appear that simply do not fit the shape of prose and so I take them and package them into forms that seem more suitable to what they are. I'm not sure one could or should call it poetry.

I am the wind.

I am the space between the leaves

the breath that carries the first robin’s song.

I am the swell and fall of the ocean

the rainbow on the splash of waves.

I am the silence between words

the stillness between the notes of a song.

I linger between buildings

drift in the valleys

and rest in the depths of a lake.

I rise up above the peaks

and soar through the stars.

I am the space between your fingers

the place within your dreams.

I flow through all things

encompassing and enveloping all.

Infinite and expansive

I am that I am

I am

and

I am is so much bigger than me.

These shots were taken earlier this year along a southern coastal stretch of South Africa known as The Garden Route. It is an area blessed by miles of pristine sandy beaches, rocky coves, placid lakes, deep ravines, tumbling rivers and miles of indigenous forest filled with giant Yellowwood trees. It is yet another one those incredibly beautiful places provided by nature amidst the other insanity that surrounds us.

I am. Am I ...?

Driftwood - Nature's Valley © Absolute Vanilla

There is something about a piece of driftwood lying on a beach that makes one wonder about origins - well, it makes me wonder...

And in my pondering I set to mulling over our human propensity to identify ourselves by what we do, rather than who we are. Why is that, I wonder? Any thoughts?

I was eavesdropping the other day - after all, writers never know where they might find fodder for stories...

"So tell me," said the elegant woman dressed in black, "exactly who are you?"
"I'm Anna Worthington," said the second woman.
"And what do you do, Anna Worthington," asked Ms Black, her eyebrow raised.
"I'm an accountant," retorted Ms Worthington, pocketing her calculator.

See what I mean? Ms Worthington, asked who she is, gives her name. Asked what she does, gives her profession. But this, surely, isn't who Ms Worthington is. Or is it? Have us humans become that shallow that we are no more than a collection of names and jobs? Have our lives become so limited, so intently focussed that we have forgotten the essence of simply being, and of who we really are?

Yep, see, as you may have guessed, I've developed this irritating propensity for deliberately refusing to answer in the normal way - but then let's face it, who'd be normal - whatever that is. Can writers indeed be normal? Can any artist bend themselves to the ordinary and the average? Mind you, that's the topic of a whole other conversation.

So who am I? I am. What do I do - oh all sorts of things - including spending probably too much time contemplating the true nature of life (which, yes, you may call procrastination...) - which is probably why I spend so much time writing stories. It's in creativity, I find, that one really touches the core of the universal energy.

Ba-kaaak!

Ouch! What do you want?

My Aunt Aggie would have liked you...

Really?

She was into the universal energy in a big way...

Uhuh?

Uhuh. For my part, I don't think humans know a good thing when they see it.

Meaning?

If you lot only knew the powers that reside in you and which you've forgotten... Mind you, probably better for the rest of us that it's that way... Much better for all of us if humanity doesn't realise it's true force. Never mind wanting to take over the world, you lot would be after then entire multiverse. What a horrible thought!

Hey! Where are you going!

To save the galaxy! Ba-kaaak!

Damned chicken. Can't take it anywhere, not even back to apologise!

Now where was I. Oh yes, so who am I? I am. Question is, who are you?