Confessions

or self-cultivation versus self-control

I confess to a love of rhythm and symmetry, a love of the beautiful balancing to be made daily, the echo of one activity with one breath, the holding the breath for just a moment to heighten the sound of one heartbeat. It is clear, however, that my face will never be symmetrical, my ears are not aligned, my eyes squint haphazardly, and the part in my hair is forever on one side. It is also clear that whatever rhythm I might fall in love with, it will soon fade. It changes daily, what I hear, how I hear, if I listen. But the thing is, a larger wave is moving slowly through me, below me, above me, the pressure insistent, a wave of knowing that has no ties, no affiliation at all with heart or lungs, grounded in some deep sky ocean that has no beginning, no end, no logic, no known entry point, but somehow lives in me and around me without distinguishing which body is primary, mine or hers, his or mine, she or he or they, the trees, the rocks, the road, the pouring clouds, the blue mountains, the ragged sun, which is the the one body, which is the only home.

I also confess to loving the order of the scale, the tiny measuring of each gram of cocoa, the scraping of nutmeg and the moment of wildness when choosing how many grams will be enough. Is it ever enough, enough control that is? I use the clock, too. I don’t like it, but it serves. How many minutes? The numbers remind me heartlessly of The Clan, The Opened Heart, The Marrying Maiden, The Traveller, the endless lessons one can never learn in this allotted life. I want to know that in the end I will have pleasure, ease, simple beauty. Relentless questing, endless transforming, these are the only things over which I can exert control. I take it. I quest. I cry. Useless to blame the numbers for their shameless reference to the infinite, the gawking vastness, the aligning of things through time.

And I confess to my praying hands, the gestures that bring me to tears despite my not knowing why. How many times will I say that I am seeking guidance? Will I ever see what is before me without having to ask? I cry uncontrollably the minute her voice chimes in with the slow drum, it’s very note a kind of poking pain inside my chest. And yet, I do not want it to stop, I don’t ever want the music to stop, the chanting, the breathing, the drumming, the trickle of melody, seeping into the interstitial spaces, the causal layers of time becoming transparent, the body itself dissolved into one sound, one breath, one heart after another.