I Believe in Ghosts

I believe in ghosts – mental ghosts. The faint memories of times gone past take away my life and pen me down to a reality that sucks. It sucks the life out of me and I can hear it coming. I feel the clamp close my heart. Vlap! It’s like a heart shade that shuts out the light. I’ll be minding my business and the ghost comes. She cuts me down and I become a pitiful waif – an orphan cut off from familiar ties and comfort zones – a crying babe wanting some attention – some sense of safety.

It is bazaar. Yes, a mind bazaar of horrors – those deep crevices of inner entertainment. It’s better than a Boris Karloff dig. Just dig down and scare the hell out of myself – just blast away those tiny safe spaces and stand naked once again. And the older I get, the more I wish I could stand on solid ground. But the falling becomes flying and the darkness gives way to light and suddenly I’m soaring over the ego - over the entrapment. I’m glad there was no solid ground because I was made to fly, not stand my ground.

The dark night becomes a knight in shining armor and the armor gives way to a peaceful surrender. The white flag waves away the ego “I surrender, I surrender. No more war. I am at peace.” The hunger satisfied, the thirst quenched. I no longer hunt the mental prey that keeps me everywhere but here. The mental drone has lost its way and mind melts and in its place a love of life.

I feel as if I had a jar of fireflies on a shelf and suddenly compassion gave me the wisdom to let them go, to realize that in a jar they could not light the way of lovers and children and saints and in the jar they could not play and be the opening and closing God eyes they were meant to be.

Yes, let freedom ring. May I be the bell-ringer. May I be the one who marches past prison walls and flings open locked doors. May I stand in my heart and give food to the hungry and have the courage to look into pain-filled eyes without recoil – embracing everything.

 May I be present without constant internal assessment. May my mind be at rest and may I be tolerant of everyone and rise in a compassion that is so deep that all creation worships at the same alter. May I hear that alter call and alter my thoughts. May my deeds indeed become the helpful hand that takes us to the promised land. Holy and free, sacred and safe I take the first step to here. One step from mind to heart. A men, a women, a mountains, a rivers, a partheid, a mass, a master, a wake, a gain, a men.