Alone.thoughts.remastered.dot.com

Alone.thoughts.remastered.dot.com.

I roar. I am alone. It’s dark here. I roar to scare myself. Away.

In the wood’s depth and darkness, the creatures of my mind linger, waiting to annihilate me in their appetite for meat and drive for a full stomach. Their illusory presence obstructs my path and forces me to stop. I imagine my own personal inferno, where the control centers of my capable mind are habitually abandoned by myself as I choose to obey such demands induced by fears or insecure thinking. We all like to stay small. It’s a human drive.

I see my reflection in a lake in the dark wood, the water black as the depths of my mind.

Is that me? Who is that entity that fears the darkness and the creatures?

I am looking at who is looking. Who is looking at who?

Always, as is true in life both external and internal, we ascend the rungs of the ladder to life’s clarity from within a dark wood before the light enters, first through a crack, then engulfs us.

I decide to change the picture. I want to see beyond the darkness. What is there?

I want to see beyond my own reflection. Who is there?

My mind is hard at work trying to overcome smallness. I want to roar like the lion, sway like the leopard – roar back at the lion, only louder, sway in front of the leopard, only more self-assured so that it will have no doubt who is in charge and where it is not to go.

In my mind, I roar. It’s where the creatures live after all. I roar loud. I look around to see if anyone can hear me. Actually, I imagine I look around to see if anyone can hear me. Actually, I am not the one who looks around to see if anyone can hear me.

I decide. Not. I am alone after all. Alone with me.

I see my man’s face in the lake. The one I love. Sometimes. In the light. He is on the same shore of the dark lake as me, looking at the beasts. But his face is also a tiger’s. He roars at me. Then he lies down and curls up like a kitty cat at my feet. I am not scared when he roars. I am scared when he lies peacefully at my feet.

I decide to change the picture. I want to see his real face. What is beyond the illusion of the roar with wide threatening eyes or the peaceful kitty cat’s gentle eyes?

I don’t want to roar back anymore. It’s a different roar than the first one. Actually, I never want to roar again. Actually, I am not the one roaring. I am the one watching the one roaring. I look around to see if anyone noticed. Whoever “I” am.

I, like Dante, prepare myself to endure the inner roars of the journey and its pitiful steps, that the mind, without prompting, engages in.

I came here to find answers. I dared momentarily to look within and face the creatures of the dark. I had a purpose to come here. I will not turn back. I will let the darkness swallow me up first.

But In the middle of the journey, I come face-to-face with myself within this dark wood. The straight path is gone, and I am facing instead a fork demanding me to choose a way.

I decide to change the picture. I don’t want to choose. Not like I am too small to know which way to go, but I am going to deny the fork and its quiet, but unwavering need to tell me what to do. I want to know what else there is. What is beyond the option of the choices of the fork?

I decide to sit down at the place where the fork starts. I sit with my back to its branches. I look ahead. Or am I looking back? If I turn around, will I be looking ahead or back? Maybe it depends on which fork I take? One may take me back to where I came from. One may take me to a new clearing. Or the straight path. What if there is no fork? What if I just wait right here? What if I can re-imagine the leopards and tigers and lions in my mind and remaster their roars into high-resolution FLAC sounds of intended purpose and clear direction?

I wait. I see a clearing in my mind. The big cats are slumping away, looking for darkness as light is dawning here. A sentimentality clouds me momentarily as my long-time furry friends of the dark leave the space we have shared for a long time. Will I miss them? Are they really just going away? Just like that?

The dawning light is hitting my man’s face in the dark lake. He is handsome like that. He looks so kind. There is a deep unspeakable quality to the image I see. Is it an image? Is it me seeing it?

His eyes are deep green shimmering lakes that seem to encompass all there is. Is that him, for real, looking at me? Like that?

And like Dante, I render myself on that former darkened shore and change my purpose with new thinking. In thoughts, a new action is envisioned, just waiting to be begun.

I stand up - beasts, dark lake, and darkness gone, and embrace him. I can hear my mind applaud me. You got it. You just made it all up yourself. And you just remastered yourself.

Now I see with new eyes. I can clearly see what I couldn’t before, but which was always there. Am I the one seeing? Or am I the one who is seeing who is seeing? It doesn’t really matter. I now know that I can see and imagine what I see. Whoever I am or imagine I am.

I choose to imagine his eyes are love. For me.