To Allow Moments

"We live our lives of human passions, cruelties, dreams, concepts, crimes and the exercise of virtue in and beside a world devoid of our preoccupations, free from apprehension—though affected, certainly, by our actions. A world parallel to our own though overlapping. Call it 'Nature'; only reluctantly
 admitting to ourselves to be 'Nature' too.
 Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
 our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
 an hour even, of pure (almost pure) 
response to that insouciant life:
 cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
 pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
 of spellbound ephemera on a lit windowpane,
 animal voices, mineral hum, wind
 conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
 of fire to coal—then something tethered
 in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
 of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
 No one discovers 
just where we’ve been, when we’re caught up again 
into our own sphere (where we must
 return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
—but we have changed, a little."

Sojourns in the Parallel World by Denise Levertov - 1923-1997

Beautiful, sublime - truly. 

But there are not parallel worlds. There is only our one universe - all the rest is make believe. 

And there are no destinies - there are only moments.

For now, we are only allowed brief moments of resonance with our universe - and then returning to what? A patch of gnawed grass, thistles, and make believe? Parallel worlds? Can a world be comprised only of empty human construct - tethers, distractions, and fantasy?

Religion, nation, wealth, status, ‘success’ - shallow human construct all – a cacophony of ignorance and false promise - all of it - originally invented as societal glue so the few could control the many. So, complete strangers once known only to their tight-knit clans would for the first time, fight side by side for god, for nation, for money. All to ensure that the few had their 'power', their 'wealth', their kingdoms and city-states - all at the expense of the many.

If nation were real where did the Soviet Union go? If people stopped believing in the dollar - it becomes worthless. Status, 'success', religion, wealth, power - make believe, all of it. Nothing more than glue to construct false worlds, benefitting mostly the sociopathic and those seeking control, while serving to drown out angst, emptiness and isolation, and our longing for something more. Like mice on a wheel, ants in a line - busy, busy, and going nowhere. 

Resonance with our true universe - how it soothes the soul and frees the spirit - reduced by society and construct to secret, stolen moments.

You say destiny – I say illusion. You say spheres – I say you have too generously assigned a third dimension. You say breaking free - only to return to a patch of gnawed grass, thistles, and make believe? That is not breaking free - that is merely stretching the tether.

Our constructs have served their purposes. It is now long since time to abandon them and to merge with our one true ancient, immense, diverse, and incredibly beautiful universe. 

To allow moments - to become lives.