I will be on retreat at the International Buddhism Centre at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, Thailand for 21 days, followed by a few weeks on a beach with books, notebook and pen :)
So, no updates until early August. In the meantime, perhaps take a look at some original poetry, prose or my earlier retreat diary.
Thanks for stopping by.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
I just added a new poem to the Poems section, an illustration of No Self and how awareness of it sets us apart from others.
Posted in News, Poems | Tagged anatta, Buddhism, meditation, no self, poem | Leave a Comment »
Just added the following haiku to my haiku collection.
Orion wanes west,
My breath steams in the early dark.
It's winter once more.
Lazy old willow
Hangs loose. First to gain his leaves,
Last to lose them.
My coat outlasted
Us. And they don't even make
Them like they used to.
Lovely-haired mantis
Promised salvation I was
Lucky to survive
Unwitting or not,
I cannot dull your silver
Barbs and razor blades.
This dried lavender
Could it be? An old keepsake
From you, now long gone.
Bodies side-by-side
Togetherness we promised
But I was alone
You were unfaithful
To another when with me
Though I did not know.
Strange scum scoured out from
The plughole on my return:
His come in your hair.
Posted in News, Poems | Tagged cheating spouse, cheating wife, disloyalty, haiku, love, love lost, love poetry, poem | Leave a Comment »
I don’t believe in happily-ever-afters anymore. And it doesn’t feel as though I’m speaking from bitterness when I say that. Just experience really. People have wandering eyes. It’s coded into our gene sequence, and it’s part of our physiology and psychology.
If that sounds extreme, this is going to sound even more extreme: I don’t believe in “love” anymore either :)
It’s all just compassion, filtered through the delusion of a fixed identity. Mangled into some juxtaposition of lust, greed, competitiveness. The compassion is still there, but it gets hidden by the extra, amplified feelings. They are unnecessary and inevitably hurtful. I can share compassion with anyone … e.g., the old guy I did tong-len for the other day. A forty-year-old mother of five. Myself. My dad. A fifteen year-old girl. Why restrict myself to “loving” them first? Can I have sex with any of them? Can I own them? Can I be better than them? No.
Would I want to, knowing that it inevitably causes suffering? No. I wouldn’t wish that on myself or others.
The good news is, when you strip all that away you aren’t left with nothing. You are left with compassion, which is more inclusive than sex or so-called “love” and other such chains we use to bind ourselves to samsara.
That’s not to say I won’t have sex again ;-) Just that I will be doing it for the right reasons. Not out of compassion for myself or others. Instead, it’s like having a shower or eating breakfast. Something we do by nature, leading to temporary bliss. When practised skillfully (and I mean that in all possible senses of the word), sex is another way of expressing ourselves.
But compassion is for everyone.
Note: this material was orginally posted as a reply to Phoenix’s comment on my previous post, Thoughts on Leonard Cohen’s “A Thousand Kisses Deep”.
Posted in Scribbles | Tagged compassion, love, sex | 1 Comment »
I just added a new poem to my collection. Written seven years ago, it’s about life as a single dad, after separation from my son’s mother.
Posted in News, Poems | Tagged feminism, love, love lost, love poetry, misandry, parenting, poem, separation | Leave a Comment »
Today I want to talk about the Leonard Cohen song “A Thousand Kisses Deep”. The lyrics I am working off are included here, they may be incorrect in parts:
The ponies run The girls are young The odds are there to beat You win a while And then it's done You're little winning streak And it's over now To deal, with your invincible defeat You live your life As if it's real A thousand kisses deep I'm turning tricks I'm getting fixed I'm back on boogie street You loose your grip And then you slip Into the masterpiece And maybe I Had miles to drive And promises to keep You ditch it all To stay alive A thousand kisses deep And sometimes when The night is slow The wretched and the meek We gather up Our hearts and gold A thousand kisses deep Confined to sex We pressed against The limits of the sea I saw there were No oceans left For scavangers like me I made it to The forward deck I blessed the rambling fleet And then content To be wrecked A thousand kisses deep I'm turning tricks I'm getting fixed I'm back on boogie street I guess they won't Exchange the gift That you were meant to keep And quiet is the thought of you The file on you complete Except what we Forgot to do A thousand kisses deep And sometime when The night is slow The wretched and the meek We gather up Our hearts and gold A thousand kisses deep The ponies run The girls are young The odds are there to beat You win a while And then its done Your little winning streak And it's over now To deal With your invincible defeat You live your life as if its real A thousand kisses deep
That’s what we do, isn’t it? Sail beyond sight of land, out to the deep, blue water, with only our childhood memories as a compass. When we see a sail on the horizon … we drift closer. Check it out. Sail, sink or swim together for a while … and then if we’re still alive, we drift apart.
I think he’s a bit morose about drifting away, and sure separating can be incredibly painful. Two minds that were once entwined are suddenly ripped apart again, and there’s this time during which the ragged edges just hang in the rift, fluttering. People say unhelpful things like “plenty more fish in the sea” or “it’s not as if somebody died”. But I think it IS as if somebody dies. And there’s not even a funeral or anything. No gathering of family from around the country to mourn the loss.
Yet still, it’s what we do; the way we are. We pretend to mean “forever” when actually we just mean “for now”. It might go better for everyone if we weren’t raised with Disneywood images of happily-ever-after. They are just the decaying scaffolding of Catholicism anyway. Bloody Walt Disney’s got a lot to answer for in my book.
A breakup needn’t involve trashing the friendship. The sad thing is, most people let it.
Your interpretations and thoughts are very welcome and appreciated!
Update: found a spoken-word version of the poem (YouTube) that’s even more powerful I think.
Posted in Links, Poetry Analysis | Tagged leonard cohen, love, love lost, love poetry, Lyrics I Like, non-fiction, poetry | 2 Comments »
To put right what is wrong.
Turns out XYZ has found another man, and there was at least a month’s “overlap” between my marriage and whatever it is that they have.
He goes to our yoga school. She would meet him each morning, while I slept after working till 5am to support us both. They would spend hours talking over coffee. Eventually they “fell in love” and, while I was on a business trip to London, working 12 hour days without weekends, they started sleeping together. In our house. So fuck that.
During the day, I am mostly fine. There’s the odd pang of loss over XYZ leaving me, especially with such dishonesty. But mostly, I can vividly imagine what it would be like if we did get together again. The resulting terror then serves as a reminder of how much more mindful, happy and fulfilled I am when she’s not around. Not to mention less anxious, jealous, misunderstood and generally hated by her.
But about 2am I get the jitters. I’m still working nightshift from home (only 3 days to go!) and I’m forced to sit through it, with no company except Twitter and my journal. Not getting a lot of work done, and I’ve forgiven myself left right and centre for that already.
I just can’t believe and find it incredibly painful. She must hate me so much that she could do this to me.
I feel hated. Totally disrespected.
Completely steam-rollered by her. Forgotten. Treated like a chump.
I’m nobody’s fucking chump. Go and find yourself another slave.
Maybe I should dedicate that song to her on Facebook. Hahaha :) I am sorely tempted believe me.
These jitters seem to be more anger than sadness. I think it’s a Good Thing to be in touch with that part of the grieving process. As mentioned previously I’ve done break-ups before and I thought I was quite good at it. But my guilt-ridden nature never allowed me to express the anger back then. It would take me months to get over a relationship, months of mooching around. Repressing my anger and getting more and more sorry for myself to the point of clinical depression. Now, the anger just bubbles up. I couldn’t suppress it if I tried. That’s something different!
I don’t want to get back together, jitters or no jitters.
[Warning: this post is about to get really, really selfish]
I just want her to really, really regret her choices.
I want her to see things my way.
I want her to do everything she can trying to make it up to me, while I stand impassively by, arms folded, and watch her beg (on her knees preferably).
I want her to hate herself. I want her to be my slave.
Forever. At my beck and call, without question. Obedient and always desperate to satisfy me, emotionally, sexually. And I want her to be good at that. Better than she ever was.
I want her to be one of many admirers that I keep dangling on a string :)
[End warning]
Wow. What a brain we are born with!
So powerful.
So dangerous.
I want her to be faithful to me out of love, not obligation.
Posted in anecdotes | Tagged adultery, anger, cheating spouse, cheating wife, disloyalty, divorce, grief, love lost, separation | 4 Comments »
I have written quite a few haiku lately, and so I’ve started a new Collected Haiku page for them.
Posted in Poems | Tagged haiku, love, love lost, love poetry, poem | Leave a Comment »
XYZ did her absolute best for me. It would be good to remember that. Asking any more from her is like asking someone to levitate. She can’t. She has done everything she possibly can. Everything. I know this.
We both have.
There is no shame here.
Posted in anecdotes | Tagged anecdotes, divorce, love, love lost, marriage, reconcile, reconciliation, separation | 4 Comments »
I would not choose this, but I mostly understand her reasons for doing it. There are no hard feelings. Our paths are different for a while; in future, who knows? These are her stated sentiments, and I’m choosing to believe them, as it will do me no great harm to consider the possibility, and may mean we can salvage a beautiful friendship. And there’s a slim chance of salvaging our marriage — worth it to me.
We separated Everything yesterday My clothes smell like home.
So I’m clear about what and why, but I’m confused about how I feel.
Sometimes I feel relief because there will be less melodrama around everything now, but the relief feels temporary. I’ll soon find other things to stress about, although perhaps I will develop a bit more wisdom around stress in general — can’t say for sure.
I fear that I will lose her utterly and forever. Contradictively, I also feel like we could be friends, close friends, even if we don’t get back together.
What is between XYZ and me?
caring anger old love respect affection humour resentment sadness spirituality contempt guilt yoga jealousy hurt history kindness effort some acceptance some understanding
This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She’s asking me not to care “for a while”. Don’t phone, don’t come round.
I gave her my key to the house.
She’s not answering the phone or my texts.
Anyone on the outside would say she’s leaving me for good. But I don’t want to assume she’s been lying about it. She says she wants “space with a capital S”. We don’t have a Notice of Separation with the Family Court.
I’ve held her through both grand mal seizures. Now I can’t get into our house and she won’t talk. ‘S’pace.
I’m good at break-ups, having left other long-term lovers in the past. I could easily “take the power back” by expunging my love for her. Staying open to an eventual reconciliation, staying vulnerable when I already hurt so much, is going to be, is already, the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
No Achilles I Am he who defends his Home and family
Posted in anecdotes | Tagged anecdotes, divorce, love, love lost, marriage, reconcile, reconciliation, separation | 1 Comment »
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