Comments on: Sidetracked

By: helenl

helenl — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:02:51 +0000

RE: “There is a map. It shows the places to where we want to go. When we look at the map, the way seems so simple: there it is. I put my finger on it. But after I fold the map up, and put it in my pocket, as I go along I’m distracted by the scenery. Things happen along the way; I meet people and there are caravans, hamlets, villages, county fairs, dancing bears. . . .”

Or maybe as Felicia Mitchell says, “There Is No Map.” http://www.deadmule.com/poetry/2008/04/felicia-mitchell-%e2%80%93-there-is-no-map-%e2%80%93-a-chapbook/
I think you’ll like her poems.

Either way, we often say to ourselves, “This is not what I meant to do.”

By: Irene

Irene — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:13:54 +0000

I often think, how in control can we be of what we perceive to be our goals, and how long should it take us to get there? Life just tends to happen on the way there, as you say, Eve. But how do we also find a point of trust, whether it be in the Self or God, that all will be as it should? That we are doing fine?

I really hoped that I would be in a very different place than I am now, but maybe my map was not specific enough. Where there too many shadows that waylaid me? Or is there a Blueprint drawing life around me in a different way, along another path?

Or perhaps I never really wanted what I thought I did. Perhaps I didn’t focus as I should have. Perhaps I really just liked to stay and watch the dancing bears… (which does sound like me… )

All my life I have thought, and become. No escaping that, is there? I understand that through conscious thinking, we can recreate ourselves, but in reality, its been an incredibly slow road. There are roots of thoughts in the deepest places that go beyond thinking. How to dig them out?

By: The Librarian in Purgatory

The Librarian in Purgatory — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:09:59 +0000

I have come to doubt the destination, at least in this lifetime, as much more than an ironic and somewhat humorous ploy to get you on the road. Wherever you think you are going, whatever you are dreaming of, you won’t find it at some destination, you will find it, if you find it, in the journey between where you were and where you think you are going. Happiness, enlightenment, love, life, growth isn’t some destination you can arrive at, it is a process, a result, one that is often inexplicable, of making the trip in the first place.

And my grand detour…it is either an abject and colossal mistake; days spent wasted far from my “real” life, the “real” plan or it is what I needed to go through to become the person capable of realizing my truest desires. Did I miss the journey for the destination?

Be-Going

I’m trapped somewhere
tonight.
Somewhere between
where I am
where I was
and I don’t know how
to make my way
to either.
It’s a strange life
I’ve lived
and the Ocean
doesn’t always smile.
All I’ve ever wanted
was to live
in that moment
that you knew
you could never hang onto, prolong
the friends, the places
the times
how can you
hang on?
No-body wants
to be-come
only to-be—
as if life were
a black and white photo
a moment
never to-be lost
never to-be outgrown.
The future would be
so much more
promising
if not haunted
by the memory
of the past.
To transcend time
(and screw space)
to bring those thousand
precious moments together
into one
grand party—
my god!
Then how we would dance.

By: deb

deb — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:14:28 +0000

“As we think, so we become.”

Thank you for this reminder.