Dwelling On The Threshold

Van Morrison is easily my favorite musical artist. He's a mystic poet of great depth and soul, and can sing like a motherfucker.

Poets are often esoteric and remote; their ideas, language, concerns, far removed from the practical realities of modern life. Modern life is fast-paced, technologically-mediated, materially-focused. It's easy to believe that the poet is fundamentally removed from those practical realities, "above the fray."

But this isn't so. Modern poetic artists live in this world as well. They experience the frenetic, wired, acquisitiveness, too. And they speak to that experience in a different voice, a voice that can yield important insights for us in our own lives.

Van Morrison is one of those rare, wonderful voices for me. Here's an example of the kind of thing he writes that can give me great pause:

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more

I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am

So many of us dwell on that threshold, fearfully standing in the darkness.

I know I, for one, "don't want to wait no more." Today, I only want to be in situations in which I "pierce the realm of glamour" and can be, "just what I am."

That call, the call back to who we are, is the challenge of our time, (maybe the challenge of all times) made extraordinarily difficult by the great speed, remoteness, and lust we've created.

Van Morrison points to a path through those obstacles when he says he's, "seen without perceiving" and, "has been another man." Dwelling in the fundamental truths (the ones that do not come to us through magazines), the quiet recognition of our embeddedness in our lives together, helps us find our way across the threshold to our common reality...to the greater meaning we create together.

Short-lived creatures like ourselves haven't the time to waste in fearful avoidance of the truths that exist between us. We are called daily to speak those truths together so that we can accomplish the things that nourish and enrich us, rather than deplete and impoverish us.

Doing so, as is so often the case, is simple, but not easy. It requires courage and resolve. Great poetic artists remind me of these things and help me to muster the courage and maintain the resolve I need to be sure I continue to work at being "just what I am."

Comments

[Connie]

Beautiful thoughts. Where did NOT living in truth start? I mean how did it take root, if ever things were different.

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks.

Not living in truth is a consequence of human society, and is probably rooted in the desire to keep more meat than the fellow in the next cave. The challenge to us is to push against these ancient aspects of ourselves in order to take civilization to a point of productive, sustainability. I believe this outcome will require a different set of social practices than the ones that currently predominate in organizations.