Shiver

Shiver

I wanted to find the meaning, investigate the meaning, of this experience, of this life. I wanted to express that inquiry into lovely words, into well formed sentences. I wanted to fabricate the beginnings and ends of those sentences such that the whole phrase would be wonderful and satisfying.

I wanted to construct fabulous paragraphs that would speak of incarnation into this universe. Beautiful stories of gazing in awe at the magic of being; tiny human words somehow suggesting limitless eternal verities. I wanted to celebrate vicarious delight in the mystery of existence.

I wanted to cast these words, sentences and paragraphs into the air. Hurl them into the void, toss them beyond the perimeter of my own life toward the abyss where I imagined other souls stood waiting.


Hungry Id’s these other souls seemed to me, yearning for such words, sentences and paragraphs to comfort their long journey through life. We would recognize and commiserate our mutual struggle, the endless movement to penetrate apparent darkness with apparent light.

But I saw that the inner pool from which such words, sentences and paragraphs came was the same vast pool toward which they flowed. Life emanated from itself and penetrated into itself – as a wave upon the ocean, as a shiver on the surface of a bubble.

I saw I had nothing – and everything – to give.

My poverty and my riches were one.