The Energy of Pain

What would happen to me
if I focused every last ounce of my pain, my sorrow,
my grief, my mourning, my loss, my loneliness, and my torment
onto one place, one shape, one pattern most desired?
Would I finally see miraculous magic in my life?
Or would I go irreversibly mad, or suffer a nervous breakdown,
or witness the catastrophic collapse of my physical health?
I once heard that the most intense supernatural power
comes from the most intense personal emotion. And oftentimes,
that emotion is pain. I also heard that the entire Universe
consists of only two things, energy and pattern,
and that one cannot exist without the other.
How can I even begin to channel the overwhelming grief
I have just suffered when I prematurely lost both of my parents and a dear friend
over the past two years, grief that could produce more energy
than a trillion Hiroshima-type A-bombs?
Do I even dare try to channel it,
at the risk of being driven irretrievably insane?
Sometimes,
the pain is so great,
I just want to sit there,
in my bedroom, in the silence,
and simply shut down.
Sometimes,
I am just too tired
to shed yet another lonely tear.
Sometimes,
I wonder how I could have lived for more than half a century
without having created any kind of enduring legacy,
as if I've been living a wretched lie all along,
betraying my true self with every last step I took.
I sit there and wonder, where did I go wrong?
I keep asking myself, how many wrong turns did I make?
My patriotism died in 2013, when I learned the awful truths about America.
Then my mother dies in 2014, then my father dies in 2015,
and then one of my dear friends, who used to be my girlfriend,
dies in 2016, this year, as if the pain wasn't through with me yet.
And Los Angeles gets more and more overcrowded by self-absorbed outsiders
who just moved here yesterday, and the traffic congestion keeps getting worse,
and the cost of living keeps rising while the quality of life keeps falling,
and the pollution keeps worsening,
and the competition keeps getting more vicious,
and the water supply keeps dwindling,
and the number of power failures keeps increasing,
and the overall insanity of overpopulation keeps drowning out all sense of
dignity, kindness, peace. I cannot recall the last time
I had a good night's sleep.
And I keep lingering on the idea
of cultivating my power
from a pain deep enough to detonate supernovae and cause whole galaxies
to spin. If I just simply embraced this immense, nightmarish colossus,
and allowed my tears to flow without reason and without end,
would I finally have peace after all?
Or would I finally lose my natural mind
after all?

Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

Letting Grief Happen

        For most of us, our parents are the first source of truly unconditional love. And oftentimes, they are the greatest source of all. Our mother and father welcomed us into this life, nurtured us when we were helpless, comforted us when we were sad, healed us when we were hurt, and taught us everything we needed to know in order to be mature, intelligent, respectable, kind, virtuous, decent, loving people. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter how mature we are or how old we get. Whenever anyone's parents pass away, the sorrow associated with losing those two unconditionally loving souls can be far too deep to name, and the grief can last for years, even decades. The tears will always be true, the painful feeling of loneliness will always be honest, and profound grief will always be sincere. The more you have loved your parents, the deeper the sorrow you will feel when they pass away. I have had to learn that whenever I suffer these overwhelming moments of tearful sorrow, I simply need to let go and let them happen, for as long as they need to happen. This is how I grieve the loss of my mother, who passed away on May 27, 2014, and my father, who passed away on February 1, 2015. And because I loved both of them very, very deeply, I am truly uncertain as to whether or not I will ever be able to mourn their passing without any overwhelmingly tearful grief. Ultimately, I must allow all of these waves of grief to move freely within my heart, and I must accept everything I feel, so that I may truly be healed.

Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved