It was September when I brought home these uncommonly dark, richly coloured Stargazers. Within days, the blooms were gone. I planted the bulbs in the garden, and all winter I waited.
The lilies became a symbol for my own internal transitions. Unidentified potential skulking about in me. Restless and impatient with containment, angry and eager to burst. Bruised by the longing to be.
And at the same time, a growing sense of all that is alive in the universe that we do not see. Reading about experiments in physics demonstrating that light is sentient and, in its way, senses us. Waits in its own state of potential for us to choose and take part in the co-creation of what is and what will be.
Star Gazer
Stargazer
Underground
Earthbound
Potential seething
Awaiting warmth of sun
Churning deep plum
Like a bruise
Star
Gazing down
A cold and soundless
Observer
Waiting with hint of light
For scent of night
Alive with bloom
I am often grappling with the uneasy coexistence of absolute oneness and the seeming separation imposed by being in a physical body and of an individual mind – the condition of being an earthling, as it were. Here, the antidote to existential loneliness is an acceptance of a connection that is not knowable through my physical senses – a real surrender to my own beliefs. Physical touch is so much easier, yet this other kind of connection is so much bigger. But how do we live that kind of connection in our day-to-day physical world? We have to reach out our hands, answers my intuition. She gives no further instructions.
The Art Of Touching You
Telescope to the sky
A tingling darkness rises within
Shaping me tenderly
Resonating with things too far or too close for the eye to see
Things to be known instinctively
I sit alone with the universe
Embodying its great infinity
Contemplating the boundlessness
And the borders we impose
Intersecting at nowhere
And it is here that I laugh again
Because you are so close
That I can feel and know and love you
You are in my very own particles
And yet you are uniquely apart, as am I
But the art of touching you
This is the quest for which I turn to the telescope
The finer details eluding me
Out there we intersect, you and I,
At every point imagined and unimaginable
Here, I lie back and open my soul
To the immensity of that truth
My cosmology defining nothing while explaining everything at once
In this vast darkness swirling immeasurable light, I surrender and repose my longing
And reach out my hand and accept that you are here
Weather or not
I stand
I hold to my nature
I embrace her presence
Weather or not
She is swayed
And bent
And occasionally splintered
Because we all change form
Weather or not
We persevere
We keep trying
Though the general atmosphere
Is prying at our spirit
Let love reign to the last
Weather or not
I hear a lot of talk about the state of the world. Often, I hear statements that begin with vision and understanding and shift quickly into sentences starting with, “but sadly… .” I hear a lot of voices filled with resignation saying “I hope… .” The implication being “I hope I’m wrong about where all this is headed.” This is not hope.
Hope is not passive.
Hope is not waiting to see what will happen. Hope is not about outcomes. Hope is making choices. Hope is choosing what you do with your thoughts, where you focus your attention, what you do in response to the challenges in your world. Hope is not passive.
Hope is investing in life. Showing up. Being here – for however long you get to be here. You wonder sometimes, “is there any hope for us, for our world?” Youare our hope. Be here! I am our hope. Stand with me! All we have to do is show up, see ourselves in each other and choose accordingly.
What if we go in
What if we go under
Where sunlight doesn’t reach
What if the guards step aside
And let us enter
What if there is light still?
How will we re-configure ourselves
How will we wrap ourselves
Within and around a reality
That is unending
What if there is a way
And we have already chosen it?
What if we surprise ourselves
What if we step aside
And let the mystery prevail
What if we are not masters of our destiny
But co-conspirators
In a great gamble
Of opportunity and chance
Where risk and reward
Are synonymous with play
And the consequence is freedom
What if the guards were put in place
By our own fear
What if they were never really here?
Riders of the Tempest: The Story of WE
by H. Hennenburg
Cover painting by Autumn Chiu @ArtChiu
There is no “I”. There is no “you.” There is only WE. “Reality is in the possibilities,” and Riders of the Tempest is a quest for the heart of what can be.
This collection of poems by H. Hennenburg tells the story of WE. Born from Supernova, we bear the imprint of the universe: the mandate to expand. Gripped by a deep yearning, we march into a tempest…a great storm…a war between our desire to expand as individuals and our desire to expand into the truth of our oneness. We believe we are mere “echoes to the sea and gathering storm,” but there is more to the universe than what we see. We are “more than the caged experience of sight.” Endowed with an infinite stream of choices, what happens in our story if we reach for more?
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If you don’t use a tablet or e-reader and would like a copy, please contact me for the PDF version.
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