Angels in the park

The above image is very close in appearance to what I experienced at a beautiful cemetery park several years ago. I’d taken walks there often on the trails between and around the gravestones, enjoying the quiet and relative isolation, away from the hustle and bustle of society. During one of my walks, I heard “someone” following behind me, their footsteps upon the fallen leaves alerting me to their presence.

Wherever and whenever I moved, the footsteps followed me. I was afraid, filled with fear, thinking I was being stalked where nobody could help me, alone in the middle of a big cemetery close to dusk. However, when I finally gathered the courage to turn and look, the most beautiful two deer were standing in front of me, their innocent eyes staring into mine.

They’d been following me, two angelic stalkers waiting for me to turn and look at them. They remained in place for a few minutes, peering deep into what felt like my soul. I smiled with tears of joy, telling them how beautiful they are and thanking them for visiting me, when I most needed it. And then they looked at one another and ran off together, into the trees surrounding the park, as if being called to some other place where someone else needed them.

Those few minutes felt like a special communion I shared with two angels. A moment I will never forget.

Image: “Angels in the park”

Created by: David M. Rubin & Meta AI

Two in One

Sometimes our lives split in two, like traversing a fork in the road, where the two parts diverge and move in different directions. One part continues to circle around an old trauma or deficit, including whatever is associated with the age of occurrence; and another part evolves outside of the pain, but attempts to manage or contain it at the same time, often without complete success, as the pain spills over into one’s relationships and dealings with the world.

Personally, I recognize both a wounded 12 year old—inner child—and old wise man—inner parent—residing within my body/psyche; the youngster still clinging to life, and the elder being the support and voice of hope and reason. Yet, I’ve discovered that acknowledging and attempting to soothe a painful past does not necessarily resolve it; the traumas and deficits being so entrenched within every fiber of my being, that they remain as a chronic condition, following me into old age—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Sublimation through ruminative daydreams and writing seem to be my most effective means of dealing with whatever still hurts or remains in deficit.

Dissolution

“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.”
~ Paul Auster

By middle age, a myriad of wounds had accumulated, one on top of another; the sheer force of their emotional weight clarifying my predicament, that no matter what I do or where I go, the “road of dissolution” is beneath my proverbial feet, poking holes in my existence; an inexorable progression of decline, moving me forward like a conveyor belt, from cradle to grave.

There was and is no turning back, no stop button on this road, no return to the garden of blissful ignorance—AKA childhood—despite my resistance and great protest. The long, painful takedown being an incurable, terminal condition of existence, shared by all of humanity.

Oh yes, the demons of Thanatos are lurking from beginning to end, lining our roads with their pitchforks, poking holes at will; tasked with disassembling and removing the many pieces of human lifetimes.

If I’d avoided my road for a time, then it was only through the wishful illusion of invincibility and immortality, set against the background of my all too human fate: the slow dissolution of body, mind, and spirit.

Existential dread

Note: The following is my commentary in response to a sufferer of existential anxiety. At the time, the sufferer was experiencing a profound fear of death and an associated dread of nonexistence, which came upon him quite abruptly.

“Life is a series of passages. In every passage there is a death of some sort, the death of naïveté, the death of a dependency, the death of an understanding of self and world. And, after that death, there is often a terrible ‘in-between,’ sometimes lasting years.”
~ James Hollis

The above quote captures the essence of existential dread that you’ve described. I suggest examining what may be in transition in your life at the present time. It is possible that you are currently residing within the “in-between” state mentioned in the quote, where you’ve left one phase of your life behind, but without clarity as to the next phase and its time of arrival. It could be as simple as being between relationships, or more complex, such as leaving behind your old sense of self, but not yet having created a new sense of identity. Or it could be something spiritual, such as losing one’s faith in an old belief, without having formulated a new belief. The possibilities are endless.

Continue reading “Existential dread” →

Screams in the night

It keeps me awake some nights, a chorus of screams, pitching up and down. It is not heard, but rather felt as a dreadful depression of the gut, weighed down upon by the memories of abruptly terminated pasts, the cries of a dying present, and an infinity of aborted futures. All of this accumulated and gathered upon me within the night, packed into a chorus of silent screams: An endless, collective reverberation of all that happened and never happened; paths taken and not taken; and my fate having been indifferent to it all, as if nothing ever mattered, despite what I’d once wished for, had hoped for, prayed for, and strived for.

Note of hope:

I was once told that my feelings of distress is a form of depression known as Weltschmerz, or world-weariness, meaning that my vision of how things should or could be, is not compatible with reality. However, it seems to me that reality always defies us on some level, shaping and reshaping itself to avoid the complete fulfillment of our needs, wants, desires, and idealistic visions.

Consider the possibility of this defiance being a kind of soul moving resistance. One that challenges us to continue evolving and reaching for something better, higher, or more humane, rather than it being a force of malicious intent, or an obstacle course of random obstructions.