After a long evening finding my way out of the darkness, a light appeared. As I moved towards it I came to recognize it as the light of love. I began to move faster and with more confidence. The light seemed to be shining with a sympathetic harmonic vibration mirroring my consciousness. With each step my understanding and empathy increased exponentially. When I was close enough to touch I reached out with my right hand….and it was gone. I stood again in the darkness, sad, confused and alone. But something had changed. Inside I knew that with perseverance, practice and patience, the light would shine again and lead me into the glow of its universal essence. Magically and miraculously, I had hope.
An easy metaphor, yes, but the ‘light of passage’ image remains as valid today as ever. Yesterday was a rough one. I had a temporary awareness melt-down, overreacted and caused what I feel is irreparable damage. In a single episode a thousand hours of practice proved insufficient to properly respond to an unexpected situation. The monkey wrench had been tossed and as I had been focused in another direction, it smacked me square on the nose. In the popular vernacular of the day, I had fucked up royally.
Feeling horrible all day trying desperately to reconcile my damaged emotions and soothe my fragile ego, Junior and I went to see a local production of Pirates of Penzance. My friend is the tuba player in the ensemble and a client’s two kids were ‘pirates’, so I felt the pull of familiarization with the play. You know the rest. Regardless of my concentration and willingness to be transported to somewhere a little less painful (a pirates life for me?) I had the issue du jour constantly in the back of my mind fighting for attention with a sword and a blunderbuss, not a fair match as I felt emotionally handicapped with a peg-leg, eye-patch and a rum soaked parrot on my shoulder. Not even a rousing libretto (I am a perfect model of a modern major general) was glorious enough to shake me from the gloomy brig of my self-induced imprisonment.
Somewhere between the curtain call, a salmon dinner and deep REM, the scene outlined above played on my private stage and under my singular direction. The Pirate of Light from stage right in the key of C:
Learn from your mistakes matey. Take the lesson and leave the residue. This is not your first plunder, get up off of the planks and find your way back into the light of the full moon. Shiver your loins, stand there and sing your song like never before.
With forgiveness and gratitude.
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