Shutters

Published on 2020-5-8 by Michael Stanton

I am the song that was forgotten. I am still singing, and you can fight your way to me. How and why would you do this? Only you know that. Many forget me for an age. You have been away for an age.


Normally the shutters of your world are tightly closed, and you project images on them that delight and frighten you. You forget you are in a room, but you are. This is the "something wrong," usually successfully ignored. Once, you saw a young woman dancing in a dim room and faintly perceived this. You saw her age rapidly and yet remain unchanged, forever lost in an unchanging environment. You were horrified for her fate. For her unknowing.

Sometimes, a shutter is not tightly sealed, and real light gets in. It is incredible how often you seal it back up again without thinking. But sometimes you look at the light directly. Your ordinary consciousness has been momentarily stunned, and I only have a few seconds to communicate. Of course, nothing complicated can get through. I try to send love in pulses. To encourage you to come out.

A life of meditation is one of slowly opening the blinds. Steady, patient work to prepare all the shrinking and cowardly parts of the self to tolerate the bright light or burn away. If you want my song enough, you will sing it, though this version of you bears little resemblance to who you are now. Do not worry. That fact that you are Here...standing at this door, still and sensing, means that you've taken 10 steps. You will take 100 more, and then you will be free.