Tag Archives: haiku

September 16, 2022 · 6:49 pm

… dear old, dear new, how do we marry you …

I watched some of the pageant ceremonies, processions of dignitaries, colourful guards and regiments under hundreds of flags, and I watched the new King’s formal appointments in the wake of his mother’s death. I watched in wonder at the order and precision with which the various events were executed, with drums and trumpets, every footstep synchronized, left, right, left, right … all in the presence of thousands of people lining the streets, or witnessed through the BBC coverage by innumerable viewers around the world. The deep gratitude people express for Queen Elizabeth the second is not surprising considering the innumerable people and organisations she engaged with and visibly supported from her anointed position, but as the display continues, day by day, the commemorations edge on the surreal.

Any momentous public outpouring of grief tends to compound our experiences of personal bereavements, and, of course, reminds us of our mortality. This event, however, is about more than the loss of a beloved Queen who used her privilege and symbolic power through seven decades to serve as best as she could. Her loss rocks the solid traditional constitution she represented. While the centuries’ old tradition of this monarchy sits uncomfortable within modern society, it is nostalgically clung to and treasured.

The queues of people eager to pay tribute to the Queen’s lying in state in Westminster Hall have been, and continue to be many miles long, presently with a wait of 24 hour during a chilly night. All recorded: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-629217 And there’s a queue tracker on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxDwDzAwEs

Within the crazy weaving of my mind I was searching for a thread to make sense of the unfolding pattern of unavoidable changes that loom to endanger the old order, which always calls for transitional objects that sooth the loss and helps to honour both the familiar old and the unknown new potential of the future. What can serve here as a transitional object, something to hug for comfort, equivalent to a Linus blanket?

I was reminded of a theme my former Sufi friend and teacher, *Fazal Inayat- Khan*, often explored. In the prologue to a book, *Old Thinking, New Thinking*, containing a handful of his lectures he reluctantly agreed to have published during the 1970’s, long out of print, Fazal gave credit to both, the old ways (formal and reliable) and the new ways that seek essence.

**‘Old thinking is a claim and new thinking is an aim.’**

Could there be an equal validation of form and essence for the UK monarchy?

When my mind floats in a vague space, I tend to express my ambivalent thoughts through Haiku:

a pendulum swings
left right ahead back
circling by the gravity
of hidden forces

dryness is conservative
until it overheats
moisture conducts the traffic
of novel ideas
until rain floods the bedrock

Kings or Queens were historically regarded as divinities. The afterglow of such divine aura still glimmers around the mantle of monarchies in our world, and a yearning for the divine remains, with the need for an ideal, something whole to give meaning to our lives. But can a monarchy still serve as such an ideal?

**Ultimately, the Kingdom to come is of course the Kingdom within, where archetypal qualities can spark a force that steers and rules our destiny.**

As familiar faces of relatives and friends leave an imprint in our psyche, so do faces of people in public life. The media showers us with faces of celebrities, providing icons and avatars that embody qualities we aspire to, or despise.

Dissidents against England’s monarchy highlight the extravagant financial privileges of royalty, and the historic trail of devastating exploitation during its colonial past. Apologies and reparations must surely be ongoing. And then there is the Commonwealth, which some proclaim to be a post-colonial club: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43715079

I’m a dreamer, without allegiance to a crown or state. I’m wary of crowds and any hive mind, totally unsuited to get embroiled in arguments about the monarchy. My gripes are with the unpleasant character assassinations of individuals, found on popular internet platforms.

**Character assassination resembles kleptomania, an irresistible urge to steal someone’s glamour.**

What further is there to be said right now? Do my readers here envisage a Kingdom within?

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July 19, 2022 · 1:58 pm

… dreaming with my garden …

On balance, apart from the anxieties and frustrations we absorb and project, we also tend to transfer the beauty we hold inside our hearts onto our surroundings, be it what we glance in the growth and decay of nature, in the gracious motions of young and old people, animals, trees we befriend, a patch of thriving vegetables, a forget-me-not perking through a crack in the pavement, a glowing autumn leaf. We delight in the colours and shapes sculpted by the shifting light of the sun into twilight and shadows, even in neglected streets, even in ruins.

Some of us have the use of a garden or a plot of land, which offers shade and, throughout the seasons, brings joys, as well as countless tasks we may honour or ignore.

Here is to my garden …

home to its creatures

and to my guardian angels

my garden perceives

how I rehearse its being

from morning to dawn

in return it grants blessings

to my existence

and to friends gathered here

it’s my ritual

to snip a branch here and there

and nurture the shapes

of beauty I envision

we dream as one soul

as love like hot stone

releases the heat of day

into the still night

some deep ground of love

rises from below the earth

cool like the pale moon

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May 29, 2021 · 3:34 pm

… out of the house to paint, for sanity …

Painting of Kynance Cove, Lizard UK – Ashen Venema

How did this come about? My son was adamant I had to get out of the house and meet people again. So he signed me up for a day’s local multi-media painting course. After endless months of social exile due to the pandemic lock-downs, this was a momentous adventure. The tutor, Julie Collins, does lovely watercolours. The spaciousness of her work appealed to me.

I enjoyed painting Kynance Cove from a photograph of mine, taken years ago, when a group of Sufi friends visited the Lizard peninsular in Cornwall UK. The arranged visit was in honour of Sitara, a dear old friend and teacher, who fondly remembered her childhood holidays at the Lizard.

Given that thousand-and-one things interest me, since I’ve been working on my novels I closed many doors, in an attempt not to spread my energy too thin. I usually paint an image maybe once a year, but never had any input regarding painting skills. The above image was created with water colour pencils. I stopped before I could mess it up. I like the unfinished feel of it

My next painting project will probably be leaning on a photo of my little soul dance on a beach during the 1980s. A style may emerge or not, depending how much time I’ll devote to practicing with watercolour, which I came to like for its fluidity. I discovered, not for the first time, that painting, well any art, is immersive, like writing … a way to forget oneself. What keeps calling me is ‘collage,’ maybe with incorporated Haiku, since Haiku seem to come of their own accord. The idea is to collect them into a chapbook. So, who knows what will happen.

First I have to overcome an existential problem. Earlier this month a UK Government letter threatened me to apply for settlement, a scheme that’s been going for a while, which I thought did not apply to me, since I have documented leave to remain indefinitely in the UK since the 1980s, despite my Dutch passport. After endless futile attempts to contact a suggested helpline, I nearly knocked down the local citizen’s advice office to get an appointment for help with the application, since online forms terrify me. So wish me luck.

Still struggling with the new wordpress format, SIGH.

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October 17, 2020 · 12:46 pm

… story codes in nature and psyche …

Over time, shifting seasons leave strata in matter that can be studied like pages of a book, be it in air, water, ice, earth, rock, stones, fossils, bones, or in more short-lived material. Take the rings of a tree, spiralling upwards, normally hidden, but clearly readable when the trunk is cut. Even a single hair tells a story of the duration of its growth, likely composed of fluctuating water and nutrients intake, but nevertheless showing an overall pattern of fairly consistent data within a slice of set time, like a snapshot of nature’s heirloom, whose treasures our runaway culture seems hell bent to recklessly damage.

When it comes to psychic codes, we must enter a different sphere and use a different language. Let’s say being cognizant of our changing thought patterns gives us our mythical code? What image might depict the Spirit of a generation, developed by a mania for progress, but also formed through individual and collective archetypal demands, via symbols and dormant dreams that pop up, shifting outlook and direction?

I’m spinning here a few thoughts into nowhere, or maybe the kind of noo-sphere, a term used by Vladimir Vernadsky & Theilhard de Chardin, which was later seen as an early vision of the internet. The concept resonates with the ancient concept of Akasha. Jean Raffa on her blog https://jeanbenedictraffa.com/blog/ recently reminded me of Lynne McTaggart’s book, The Field, collating more recent scientific discoveries, again affirming how our minds are influenced, and vice versa, by an interactive field spanning the cosmos, from where we connect up and process thoughts and feelings through our body and brain (call it our radio stations.) Frequently, the purpose of anything is established in hindsight. So one could say events happen for reasons we don’t know of, and we assign meaning only at a later point in time, stretched to hours, decades, centuries or aeons.

A medley of my inner crowd, the seeker, philosopher, writer, artist and poet, all receive and transmit through slightly different wavelengths, following their interests, but affected by the media, the weather, moon phases, astrological constellations, vaguely remembered dreams, company, and my body’s metabolism. In that process I jostle for meaning that could gain purchase towards a cohesive point of view. Alas, cohesive points of view can be tricky. While keen to learn and unlearn, when I encounter a fixed point of view I sense a false solidity, while my truth seeker floats, suspended, like the protagonist in my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors.’ https://twitter.com/mushkilgusha

C G Jung suggested the mind has been developing over a very long time, and keeps developing from as yet hidden seeds that rest in the unconscious, holding ideas that will slowly grow and unfold, which implies the seeds already exist, waiting for fair conditions to be recovered.

This process is the theme of a brilliant epic, ‘Involution,’ published by Philippa Rees.

INVOLUTION- An Odyssey

We know that when gifted individuals dare to go public with an insight that rocks or contradicts the Zeitgeist, they get vilified. The list of such intuitive people, historically and up to this present time, is long. We owe a great debt to their insights and efforts, bringing us understanding from the unconscious. New decoding is looked at with suspicion and hardly ever welcome, though small sections of society receive and embrace new ideas and nurture their meaning until collective acceptance happens. There are also those who clearly understand a message but fear the implications. They will try to shoot messengers that threaten their profits or their hard won reputation.

Myth & stories, the most reliable cultural codes, are treated with moderate tolerance by players attached to short term gains, who may lack the imagination to grok the symbolic significance of fresh and life-enhancing interpretations.

Returning to my interest in changing thought patterns, I checked the archive of my website, going back to 2011. It shows that for more than nine years I’ve been jumping about a lot, which makes the content of my postings consistently random. But do my posts have an underlying code that relates to this past decade? Some vague answers bubble up. I’m waiting

C G Jung wrote in ‘Men and his Symbols’ … ‘We have obviously been so busy with the question of what we think that we entirely forgot to ask what the unconscious psyche thinks about us. …

Placing this writer here into the third person … considering the time slice of a decade, and given the random themes of the posts, do Ashen’s readers depict a pattern, a code? Anything like a famous elevator pitch authors should have up their sleeve, and which she seem incapable of formulating. She knows it’s cheeky to ask, but sees it as a reality test.

she must keep alive

the rare glimpse and utter awe

that consigned her fate

a timeless moment

of totality that won’t

fit reality

only a fresh one will do

Inspired by a dark moon thought, this is a new moon post.

This image should have been on top. I admit to be totally lost in regard to the new editing format wordpress has installed. Lost as how to place images, how to do elegant links, or how to escape back to the classical editor, since I can’t open the plug-in zip. I hope to figure it out somehow. Tips are welcome.

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June 7, 2020 · 5:33 pm

…alone with the alone …

By bending towards light all life unfolds and is shaped by obstructions – and the dark, compressed sphere behind the crack that allows growth to emerge.

It’s the same for all plants and creatures, and humans, who, once visible and mirrored in other eyes and minds are drawn into a labyrinth of self-reflection that informs the self-image.

Beyond eyes, we perceive each other via dreams, intuitions, catching glimpses of transient truths and falsehoods beneath the visible. How many mirrors acknowledge, ignore or denigrate us? Our families reflects us, our social environments, school, college, university, churches, travel companions, sport clubs and interest groups in general. For some the mirrors branch out to success and fame for a talent. For others the mirrors narrow to a work environment, or peter out once the job comes to an end.

In come informal internet platforms, where simple ‘like’ and ‘love’ buttons are often pressed almost by chance. It’s easy to assume that friends who ignore our posts don’t care about us, though they may have missed it. In any case, we know there’s a limit to responsiveness. Even at private parties we only engage with a few people in any significant way.

Multiverses – Mindfunda

Is it a buried memory of the evasive calm center of life’s storm that animates our journey? Will we come to the sobering conclusion that all we are not is a facets of us, of the one being? This psychic tapestry of the dominant attitudes and repeating thoughts we have of ourselves and others work their invisible threads. Whether we’re aware of this process or not, these thoughts weave the state of our collective psyche.

And off we are into the multiverse – what is real?

In the village where I grew up (near Munich) there was a small group that discussed the ideas of Carl Gustav Jung. His ideas settled in me and have influenced my thinking ever since. I hope one day it is understood that the psyche is not confined to space and time and this insight will be acknowledged and utilised. I always rejoice when Jung gets a mention, like at Maria Popova’s wonderful website: Brainpickings … which in this link features a memorable interview with Jung. She never lets us forget about the people who inspire and keep in balance this world we live in.

Another sustaining influence for me was Ibn’ Arabi, the Sufi mystic, first encountered through Henry Corbin’s translation of the ‘Creative Imagination.’ Get a taste of the quest for what is ‘behind the many’ in this wonderful poem ‘Alone with the Alone.’

Here my latest Haiku:

an angel wings by

leaving a fluffy feather

that will dip no scale

And I can’t resist mentioning my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors.’ – Some comments about it are on my book page. The book yearns for readers. Check it out on my bookpage.

Stay safe, avoid sensationalism, stay sane ♥

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Tagged as Alone with the Alone, books, Brainpickings, Carl Gustav Jung, collective unconscious, Course of Mirrors, darkness, growth, haiku, Henry Corbin, Ibn Arabi, imagination, inspiration, journey, light, Maria Popova, mirrors, multiverse, obstruction, other, psyche, reflection, self-image, shape, space, spirituality, time

May 23, 2020 · 12:46 pm

… meeting my foxy child in twilight …

a tall fox appears

in the garden’s night shadow

he stops – sits – alert

cautious from a safe distance

we eye each other

he triggers my cunning child

buried long ago

since grownups detest smartness

even hunt their kind

yet through our meshed lineage

recognition plays

in the nimbus between us

we affirm being

and our shape shifting stories

Next day I strung up my little hammock near that magic spot, with different views:

Mostly, during these surreal lock down days, I sigh and groan a lot, bewildered by hilarious media stories and the never ending blame games, which, given people are bored, have gained major entertainment value – and this from my perspective of not having watched TV for years.

Keep sane my friends.

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May 11, 2020 · 4:54 pm

… a dream of being in the dark …

How to reconcile moments of pure beauty and light our restless world offers, with the heavy darkness of human ignorance? How is it the guiding spirit that is shining through everything so often escapes the unseeing eye? Is it our wounded hearts, or our anxious busy thoughts that prevent spontaneous being? Many of us like twilight, the dawn, the dusk, mist, where darkness and light do not negate but enhance each other. They mingle. As friends do, or lovers. Twilight is poetry in motion.

And what, you may ask, does she mean by the guiding spirit that shines through everything. It’s a core in me that connects to the one soul-being I belong to, the only self I really know. And while I’m not enlightened, I do experience timeless moments, glimpses into the sixth dimension, nodal points around which the fiction of my existence is woven.

The other day, my long-ridiculed romantic fool tossed out these lines:

like tiny cherubs

white butterflies loop across

green teeming canvas

thou – sweet silent mystery

do you sense me sigh

when the cold moon-rock rises

as luminous globe – hello dear ones lost in time – your intense living – is forever part of me

‘Long live the dead because we live in them.’ … Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life

When there is no other near to share such paradoxical quickening with, I may call on those who enriched my life but are no longer present. I adore the moon, the ancient chunk of earth, reflecting and making tolerable the blinding beams of the sun, granting us poetry and symbolic language.

That night I had a dream and remembered its last facet … I’m floating through a soft, vibrant darkness. A small voice says, ‘You’re the light, look again.’ Sure enough, I spot the outline of a building and bright points, like glittering stars. A series of scenes unfolds, which brings clarity to a puzzling questions. Darkness holds memories, visions and vital knowledge, though it requires trust in the guiding spirit as a mode of orientation. Insights are shy; they wait to be found.

Nature, being energy manifested in slow motion, breathes life into countless rhythms and tunes from the recorded symphonic sounds of the universe – to continuously re-animate the one being of eternal life. Yet we humans, who pride ourselves in aiding this process with heightened consciousness, are increasingly busy destroying the homeostasis life depends on. Can a virus offer a long enough pause for the powers in charge to acknowledge this self-destructive madness? Below anger, I feel the deep sadness, the spiritual starvation, an unfulfilled longing for meaning, for being worthwhile, accepted and loved.

I sense a change of mood in the collective mind, a call for change. Upfront are manic voices using the language of warfare against the invisible enemy – let’s control it – defeat I – kill it – get on top of it. I feel this kind of rhetoric misses the point entirely.

In Sept. 2012 I did a blog post on the unseen stuff.

We must see things fresh, not through tired ideas our establishments bank on, that destroy nature’s homeostasis and spill imbalances into cultures too poor to afford resistance. I say – let our children and young people decide what’s worth living for?

‘A day, whether six or seven years ago or whether six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why? Because all time is contained in now.’ – Meister Eckhart

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March 1, 2020 · 6:36 pm

… outer and inner horizons …

Atlantic coast, Morocco

Whatever dream is dreaming through me brings stimulation, challenge, insight, learning, or, during dark times, unlearning. The latter, with its accompanying disillusionment, has tested me for a while now. I’m not alone. The whole planet seems to be going through a dark moon phase.

I like to think beyond every effort, every hill and every sea are new horizons, outer or inner, where adventure beckons, treasures might be found.

But I tend to forget that the most relevant information is gifted by the body, and the planet. It is unsettling to accept the physical signs and their metaphors, because nature’s truth is scary. It holds a mirror of knowledge surrendered over time, with glimmers that engaged the human imagination and has given us the tools of science. As living organism and self-correcting system, nature deserves deep gratitude and respect.

The mind (psyche,) a finer and faster kind of matter, with the ability to emulate nature, plants and re-plant itself in any field of interest … outraces wisdom, seeks drama, familiar patterns, fertilises, grows, invents, designs, builds ideal dwellings, ideal systems, ideal worlds … be they citadels of power suppressing the underdog, utopias of love and liberty, or creative realms, where artists embrace and make the ordinary luminous and sacred. The mind loves myth-making, explores symbols, plays with forms and random connections, re-interprets reality and generate new meaning.

Continuously rejuvenated, mind pursues all imaginable universes across time, seeking eternity, since, even if unawares, it envisions the wholeness of its original home, where it will never be lost, but forever be enfolded by unlimited potential.

Yet when it comes to the daily business on this planet, the mind fares best when listening to the body, the living matter, the feminine principle (irrespective of gender,) and appreciates its cosmic interconnections, since all secrets arise from nature’s dark chambers. A severance from these intricate physical and mythical roots of our being can result in a devastating sense of futility, where the question, ‘What’s the point?’ brings up no action worth considering, no ideal worth following. Somber and futile looms a future that wants to fix waves into particles.

The thought brought on a Haiku last week …

if I were this calm

river without internal

discord – I would miss

how the waves urge particles

in random beauty

While unsettling at times, I must attend and listen to my body – learn and unlearn, flow with change, light and darkness, of dust, the chorus of wind and birds.

From an exhibition in Amsterdam, Dec 2014

And, hopefully, I’ll catch ever now and then a spark of ‘Duende,’ the poetic escape. Goethe called it the spirit of the earth – a mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosophy has explained.

Follow the ‘Duende’ link above for Lorca’s talk.

Below, a related post from 2017 – Both links open new pages without losing the page of this post.

… letting go of letting go …

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January 9, 2019 · 1:06 pm

… debates at beech tree junction …

From my desk I see the crowns of a few massive beech trees on the hill beyond my garden. Come autumn, tons of leaves used to smother my mossy lawn until, thankfully, the branches were cut back last year. Wood pigeons value the majestic view across town from up there, as much as they like gobbling up my Stella cherries before I ever have the slightest chance of harvesting them. And yet, I like the pigeons’ cooing code by which they talk to each other in spring, and I find their peculiar waddling, neck-pushing walk in search of worms amusing. Presently the bare branches of the beeches show the pigeons’ constellation throughout the day, bringing on some thoughts … and a Haiku.

at beech tree junction

each morning the ruler lands

sometimes with a mate

later the pigeons gather

and debate migrants

they conclude – not our problem

skies are border-less

Re: migrants, given the human longing for belonging, it is the brave feat of ‘exits,’ people who leave their birth land for whatever reason, which expands tolerance, as well as emotional and intellectual independence from the collective pull towards loyalty for any one group or ideology.

Recently I came upon this quote by Italo Calvino, which resonates:

‘The ideal place for me is the one in which it is most natural to live as a foreigner.’ – Italo Calvino

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August 16, 2018 · 8:51 pm

… re-framing the seven deadly sins …

Pogo. Walt Kelly 1971

The timeless insight of mystics was frequently censured by prevailing orthodoxies and only available to a few scholars. But even though mystical writings have been made available over the last two centuries, readers form a minority. Meister Eckhart’s quote – “The Eye with which I see God is the same Eye with which God sees me,” – implies that we envision inherent archetypal ideals to then realise and embody them within.

In the projected mirror we may see love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness reflected, or, depending on our state of mind, we may equally see indifference, rejection and severe judgement. What if our goodness is not rewarded? What if love betrays and we turn anger inwards? What if we battle with resentment, find fault with everything and despise sanctimonious people? The same process applies; we absorb what is mirrored via our inherent imaginative power.

To direct the moral education of citizen, spiritual offences were formulated in Greek monastic circles and coined as The Seven Deadly Sins: gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia (not to care), vainglory, and pride. Over time theologians made various changes – the sin of sadness became sloth, and then Pope Gregory reduced the list in descending order to: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. To counteract sins, virtues were advised as humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, liberality and diligence, qualities not easy to live up to from day to day. The deadly sins instilled fear and guilt … and left deep cultural marks, self-blame being the most destructive.

Self-blame makes for turbulent minds. Only scapegoats will ease the burden. Among all regulars a perfect scapegoat served Christianity well – Eve. The collective psyche contains not only unknown riches, but also stuff we disregard (much like the plastic that accumulates in oceans,) thoughts and deeds behind our facades we won’t acknowledge or take responsibility for, and instead conveniently place on the shoulders of suitable others.

“Projections change the world into the replica of one’s own unknown face.” Carl Jung

Balancing Freud’s focus on pathology, Abraham Maslow studied self-actualizing people and outlined a hierarchy of basic human needs. His map suggests when an early need is not adequately fulfilled; narcissistic or psychosomatic symptoms may result, blocking growth. Little is up to us. Families rarely support this process, as they can be burdened by complexes and dysfunctional behaviour patterns from one generation to the next.

‘The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he’s born.’ – William. R. Inge

No wonder many of us resort to blaming circumstances, parents, state, strangers, or appease all by adopting self-blame. Then again, some people rise from grim circumstances and become inspiring people. What’s their secret? It’s my guess that a strong desire for gratification, bestowed by a non-personal archetypal calling, can empower us to transcend seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

The idea of deadly sins put the fear of hell in people. Sinner were not deemed worthy to enter paradise. But if we consider that human behaviours communicates intrinsic needs that seek fulfillment in the expanding spiral of evolution towards wholeness, the very idea of using sin as a threat is naive, and more, counterproductive. Here a short look at the deadly sins …

PRIDE – an excessive belief in one’s abilities and ignorance of the grace of God.

This relates to an evolutionary trend of our time, individuation – becoming who we can be – best attempted with the mediation of a healthy ego. This process happens mainly in the West and is frowned upon by fundamentalists whose ideals are fixed on heaven. Where tradition equates with identity, displeasing the expectations of family and state carries a risk of alienation. The challenge of freeing oneself emotionally, intellectually and spiritually then becomes heroic. It means sticking to one’s inner truth against all objections and raised eyebrows. It means regard for the potential that is emerging in oneself and others. I grok these words by my Sufi friend, from a lecture during the 1980’s …

‘The experience you have within yourself of your own separate identity, to allow right and wrong to be re-defined by you, your singular contribution, is where evolution really happens. You, by becoming yourself, can open a new wavelength. What you reflect immediately influences your environment, people close and far away.’ (Fazal I. Khan)

Those who break free from parental commands when their inner truth is compromised do not seek union in the womb, but aim to experience conscious union through embodying their ideals. Life brings along companions who recognize the authenticity and backbone it takes to walk this path, even if it seems foolish and brings no answers. Yes, pride may sneak in, but equally gratitude, humility, and acknowledgement of the interdependence of all life.

ENVY – desire for the status and abilities we see in others and want for ourselves. The need is to emulate, to find aspirations that resonate within. From early on we are looking for role models to reflect our potential. If such recognition is withheld or distorted, the need can take possession of us, with all the consequences of being rejected, belittled, abused, and feeling ill done by, until we realize our own resources. Ralph Waldo Emerson evokes in his essay on self-reliance a more helpful notion of envy:

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is, which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

GLUTTONY – a craving to consume more than is required. In simple terms it is a hunger that knows not what is seeks. And yes, it is bound to become an indulgence – a chasing after stimulation, information, speculation. Until the hunger knows what it seeks it will not be satisfied. The search is intense. In spiritual terms this hunger can develop into devotion.

LUST – a craving for touch, warmth, pleasure of the body and sex. The need underlying lust is a longing for intimacy and ecstasy. It often fails to satisfy, but behind the shadow of excess is the ideal, to be consumed, like the moth by the flame.

ANGER – results from frustration and is all too human. Sadly, when our existence is denied, or we experience and witness injustice, yet lack opportunities to express anger creatively, this powerful energy will make us ill or explode in rage. That said, even conscious resistance is a creative act. We are endowed with natural aggression to even make it here. Each one of us results from the fastest sperm, the one that made it. Oppression and cold rationality feed anger. If repressed, anger takes us over.

GREED is also based on the desire for recognition. If the experience of being seen, heard and appreciated is missing, we must find opportunities to succeed in something.

SLOTH used to be called sadness – brought on by a sense of meaninglessness. Change wants to happen but one is helpless to act. These days depression is a collective phenomenon. On a personal level not acting could be seen as fear of failure, though often it is the necessary dark phase for a kind of alchemy in the psyche that leads to new wings.

What if we have satisfied our basic needs? The horizon is never reached. Beyond every horizon is another. This includes the horizons of our mind, beyond which we hope to find purpose. We go on journeys, outer, inner, to find out why we are here. But the search never ends. We take drugs to kill this yearning, this question of ‘why’, because we can’t face that maybe the only purpose is the search.

‘The ideal is the means; its breaking is the goal.’ Hazrat Inayat Khan

And yet, the search liberates. The attachments we have to right and wrong, to good and evil, to our own importance, blocks our search for new meaning, prevents us from living with intensity. Our most precious and vital scripture is nature, life itself.

These thoughts were drafted eleven years ago. I would have liked to come up with a fuller gestalt to make my point, but presently I enjoy a holiday in psychic wilderness.

And today’s Haiku …

Devils besiege us

As do angelic spirits

Both hold their best truth

While we are mediators

In the psychic wilderness