So like a ghost I returned to that spot where the daffodil had shone in its brief moment of glory two years ago and in its place there stood a new form as marvelous as the last.
So I took a walk through the arboretum of cherry trees and pondered how things had changed in those two years since that fateful day. The huge horse chestnut tree that had towered above the lawns had been felled by the winter winds leaving only a naked scar in the grass of its now sawn trunk. I remembered in part what I had been thinking two years ago, about how then I missed the beauty of the world I had known with "my muse" - simply knowing her had infected all existence with the magic that I known was always there. My bleaker days then lacked that joy, the cherry blossoms fell as beautiful shapes upon my retina but did not stir my soul. I planned as I walked through those trees an escape, to embark on a voyage once again to the heights of celestial beauty and romance that I had known. But the plans of mortals are dreamed in a real world and the sense of freedom that day was from an ironic loss.
Now two years on I am stepping out of the gloom and my heart was remarking upon the beauty of the translucent cherry blossoms and the sky was opening, and I was thinking that these blossoms are every bit as beautiful as the daffodil, but they lacked one thing; they were not the daffodil, that is the rub always isn't it? that in matters like this only "this one" will do - it is no longer a matter of quality, it matters no more about form, this is what they call love. In love we find the waters that we long to drink, that without leave the world barren, make the once warming sun a burning tormenter. But, isn't this what Buddha warns us against? This is not Love, it is for one person above all others, one flower at the expense of the host. I can't see it yet, but isn't this Maya, the illusion of existences. My delusion, a belief in an individual unchanging being: "my muse", who before my eyes has disintegrated and I still haven't seen the weakness of the form I once addressed as "daughter of the moon". Even the moon changes, yet I am stuck in a phase, my foolish heart abandoning all for the one.
It must be the tragic truth I have long avoided that she died the day I met her, because she was never going to be the same again. That day was gone then, I tried to forget then; I remember still. I knew this, I have written this before; why is this so hard to grasp? What is it about this illusion of existence that is so impenetrable? Why do I insist so deeply against all the evidence that the existences that I desire should be so solid and unchanging? I know, I know, but I do not see.
I guess I fear also that when this illusion evaporates in the waking sun my world will be forever changed, and there is no going back. No longer will there be the security of solid, permanent people and places to rest upon, to take refuge in, to warm my heart beside. I and everything in this universe will be here for a day only, and tomorrow we start afresh. This is not how the fairy tales were supposed to be, this is not how I dreamed life would be, this is not what comforted me as I slept as a child: my father dust, my greatest love dust, the past all dust. I know in this lies liberation, but the medicine is a little too bitter just yet... but at least my heart is awakening from its crysalis this spring, clinging to a blade of grass still glistening in morning dew, to unfold its brilliant new wings to the warmth of a new day's light.
So I took a walk through the arboretum of cherry trees and pondered how things had changed in those two years since that fateful day. The huge horse chestnut tree that had towered above the lawns had been felled by the winter winds leaving only a naked scar in the grass of its now sawn trunk. I remembered in part what I had been thinking two years ago, about how then I missed the beauty of the world I had known with "my muse" - simply knowing her had infected all existence with the magic that I known was always there. My bleaker days then lacked that joy, the cherry blossoms fell as beautiful shapes upon my retina but did not stir my soul. I planned as I walked through those trees an escape, to embark on a voyage once again to the heights of celestial beauty and romance that I had known. But the plans of mortals are dreamed in a real world and the sense of freedom that day was from an ironic loss.
Now two years on I am stepping out of the gloom and my heart was remarking upon the beauty of the translucent cherry blossoms and the sky was opening, and I was thinking that these blossoms are every bit as beautiful as the daffodil, but they lacked one thing; they were not the daffodil, that is the rub always isn't it? that in matters like this only "this one" will do - it is no longer a matter of quality, it matters no more about form, this is what they call love. In love we find the waters that we long to drink, that without leave the world barren, make the once warming sun a burning tormenter. But, isn't this what Buddha warns us against? This is not Love, it is for one person above all others, one flower at the expense of the host. I can't see it yet, but isn't this Maya, the illusion of existences. My delusion, a belief in an individual unchanging being: "my muse", who before my eyes has disintegrated and I still haven't seen the weakness of the form I once addressed as "daughter of the moon". Even the moon changes, yet I am stuck in a phase, my foolish heart abandoning all for the one.
It must be the tragic truth I have long avoided that she died the day I met her, because she was never going to be the same again. That day was gone then, I tried to forget then; I remember still. I knew this, I have written this before; why is this so hard to grasp? What is it about this illusion of existence that is so impenetrable? Why do I insist so deeply against all the evidence that the existences that I desire should be so solid and unchanging? I know, I know, but I do not see.
I guess I fear also that when this illusion evaporates in the waking sun my world will be forever changed, and there is no going back. No longer will there be the security of solid, permanent people and places to rest upon, to take refuge in, to warm my heart beside. I and everything in this universe will be here for a day only, and tomorrow we start afresh. This is not how the fairy tales were supposed to be, this is not how I dreamed life would be, this is not what comforted me as I slept as a child: my father dust, my greatest love dust, the past all dust. I know in this lies liberation, but the medicine is a little too bitter just yet... but at least my heart is awakening from its crysalis this spring, clinging to a blade of grass still glistening in morning dew, to unfold its brilliant new wings to the warmth of a new day's light.
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