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byjinni · 11 months

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(sometimes my mind takes me to strange places)

There was no sense in delaying the inevitable. Truly, no sense at all. But Haru was a creature of many derilections, and her sense of sense was an unfortunate victim. Perhaps if she had more awareness of such derilections, she would not have found herself facing today’s quandary. Of course, awareness of one’s derliections fell under the purview of sense of sense, so today’s quandary is really no surprise. Just as yesterday’s quandary was no surprise, and tomorrow’s quandary will be no surprise.

If each sunrise gifted a quandary, then can it really be considered a quandary? Haru mused that she must be existing in a state of perpetual perplexity, of a not so uncommon uncertainty, in which the word quandary has lost all meaning. But no matter how Haru grew accustomed to such an existence, there was no denying the fact that it was exhausting. Haru was tired, so very tired.

Now, dear reader, perhaps these two paragraphs have made no sense and you feel as if you too have stumbled upon quite a quandary. I hope to settle any uncertainty, and advise you to simply set down this book and move onto another. Because unfortunately, this penitent writer cannot promise that the next pages will be any more sensible, and may in fact, drag you, dear reader, into your own state of perpetual perplexity.

Despite my meager warnings, or perhaps, on account of them, this writer hopes that the dear reader will remain for a while longer. For if a tree falls in a ear-less forest, does it make a sound? This writer does not want to write in an ear-less forest, no matter how noble it may be to write for writing’s sake alone. In all likelihood, these words and these pages will be seen by none other than myself. The very fact that you have stumbled upon them is a miracle. The odds were against our meeting, but somehow we have prevailed.

And here I am, and here you are.

Oh, how we have digressed. We must quickly return to the inevitable for it has been plenty delayed. The inevitable story of Haru.

Haru is a remarkable creature to study because of how truly unremarkable she is. She hasn’t always been so unremarkable, having once led quite a beautiful, vibrant life full of things worth remarking about. But a remarkable past tends to lose its remarkability in the light of an unremarkable present. And quite frankly, the tale of her descent into unremarkability is so painfully unremarkable, that this writer has contemplated many long years if it was a tale worth telling. But as this writer said earlier, her story was inevitable— is inevitable. And a story can only be a story once it has been told.

How can a person be inevitable? How can a story be inevitable? Unfortunately, the determination of what is and is not inevitable is beyond this writer’s authority. And to take words now to venture into this beyond would only further delay the inevitable, which has already been plenty delayed.

Haru’s descent into unremarkability, into an existence of perpetual perplexity, began with a question. As sometimes appears to be the nature of questions, this said question did not lead to an answer, but rather unleashed a floodgate of even more questions. In order to survive the deluge, Haru had to adopt a duality, a duality of outward unremarkability and inward questioning. Because there is nothing this world despises more than one who questions, truly questions, one who would dare to venture beyond the bounds of conformity and complacency. A dual life of outward unremarkability and inward questioning is a terribly lonely life, and madness is quick to settle in and make itself comfortable. But people tend to forget that there is power in madness, and even though she did not realize it herself, Haru wielded her madness beautifully. So beautifully, that to most others, her madness looked like faith.

But the universe has eyes in many places, always watching. This writer was one such pair of eyes that saw the madness for what it was, and it is my foresworn duty to write the inevitable.

So what was the question that dragged Haru into an existence of perpetual perplexity? It was not a question of simple words. No, it was an awareness of a gaping emptiness, of a subtle wrongness that something was not as it should be.

It was an inevitable question because emptiness will always seek fulfillment, wrongness will always seek righteousness, and that which is not as it should be will always seek that which it is. And that which is sought must be found, whether in this life or the next, in this universe or the next.

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Haru appeared to me like a dream, in a realm where the ocean was golden and the sky burned in eternal sunset. She had about her an aura of despair, the darkness a stark contrast to the heavenly glow that surrounded us. As she noticed my approach, I saw her despair twist into a tentative hope.

I sat down besides her on the sand and together we watched the tide come and go. I was curious about her. She felt familiar, though I could swear that we had never met before. I’m not sure how much time passed as we sat there, or if any time had passed at all. In fact, the very idea of time seemed like the stuff of imagination. The word was apparently a part of my vocabulary, but I could not remember a time when I experienced time. Time didn’t seem to exist in this place, this place where the ocean was golden and the sky burned in eternal sunset.

Gradually, I felt Haru lean her body closer to mine, until her head barely rested upon my shoulder. The moment our skin met, I felt.

“I had a dream once," Haru began, "In my dream, I’m standing in front of my bathroom mirror, eyes fixed on my reflection. I lift up a needle and thread and begin to sew my mouth closed. My hands are steady, not even a hint of a tremor. I’m calm and cool as I sew stitch after stitch. There’s no pain. There’s no blood. There’s a tiny voice far in the back of my mind that nags, you should stop, you know that you’re going to have to take the stitches out. And my dream self knew that while there was absolutely no pain as the stitches were made, removing the stitches would be an absolute bitch. Such is the logic of dreams.

Yet I easily ignore that voice and continue sewing, until I sew the final stitch and my mouth is completely closed. I cut the loose thread and set my tools down on the counter. I take a moment to admire my work. The lines are clean, practically professional. As if there was a profession in which lips are routinely sewn shut.

Then my hand is holding a pair of clunky, metal scissors. I raise my hand until the teeth of the scissors hover open over the last stitch I created. In an instant, all sense of calm and cool disappears and I’m a mess of fear and anxiety, hands trembling, heart racing, sweat pooling, mind screaming. All I can think about is the immense pain that awaits me the split second I snip the stitch, but the stitches must come out. While sewing my lips shut only took a few dream minutes, this moment seemed to stretch endlessly. Until, finally, I muster the courage to snip. Blood gushes from between my lips, its almost comical how much blood pours out, like a scene from some low budget horror flick. The blood quickly fills the sink bowl and splatters all over my reflection in the mirror. Every fiber of my being is screaming in pain, lightning flashing in my brain and my vision blots. I wake up.”

I mused at how stoically she shared her horrific vision. It was a practiced recitation, she must have spent many long hours repeating this dream, whether to herself or to another.

“I’ve spent a lot of time over the years contemplating the meaning of this dream. Was it just a dream? Was it something prophetic? What was my subconscious trying to tell me? What was God trying to tell me? Was it a lesson? A warning? Depending on the season of my life, I had a different interpretation of the dream. But all of those interpretations were just as fleeing as the seasons, and only the memory of the dream itself remains. What do you think of my dream?” Haru asked.

The dream seemed deeply personal, and it was odd how she not only shared it with me, but asked for my thoughts. Me, a complete stranger. But she continued to radiate that tentative hope, and I could not deny her a response.

“Inevitable,” I answered. A vague answer that really meant nothing at all, but Haru seemed to accept it.

With a solemn nod, she continued, “I think that dream was prophetic. Only I was a fool who didn’t realize until it was too late, far too late. I looked at my reflection this morning, and I realized that I have sewn myself shut. My tools were the needle called fear and the thread called shame. And now I’m stuck in that endless moment, trembling hands holding the scissors over the stitch.”

I stared at her unblemished lips, “There’s no sense in denying the inevitable.”

“Truly no sense at all, I’ve delayed it plenty enough. I don’t know who you are, though I have my hopes and my suspicions. I don’t think our meeting was by chance. Will you help me cut my stitches?”

Really, my answer was inevitable. I reached for her hand and interlocked our fingers.

“The moment your skin met mine, I felt the weight of your memories, the regret of your derilections, the confusion of your quandaries, the shame of your unremarkability, the fear of the inevitable. I have felt, and I have felt deeply. Your regret is my regret, your confusion is my confusion, your shame is my shame, your fear is my fear.”

As I spoke, Haru raised her free hand and gently brushed her fingertips over my mutilated lips.

Haru’s tentative hope had blossomed into an adoration. “Who are you, dear stranger, that you would take my suffering as your own? Will you not honor me with your name?”

“Josiah,” I answer. I was surprised at my lack of hesitation. The name had left my lips before my thoughts could even fully process the question, let alone consciously formulate an answer. “I am a writer.” I could not validate the statement with any memories. The words were instinctive, one of the pieces of me that just felt right.

“Josiah, the writer,” said Haru. Her lips continued to move silently as she mulled over the words. “Josiah, the writer, do you know how to swim?”

Without waiting for an answer, Haru leapt to her feet and ran into the waves. I did not follow her, but watched as she disappeared into the golden waters. What an odd encounter.

#spilled ink #writers #writblr #excerpt from a book i'll never finish #poetry and prose #stream of consciousness

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byjinni · 11 months

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When the world bids goodbye, rejoice

For the one in search for freedom rejects the world

But the one whom the world rejects has found it.

#spilled ink

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byjinni · 1 year

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Portrait of a Woman

Her hair was long and unruly. Her mom nagged her at least once a week to get a hair cut. If her hair wasn’t such a mess, then maybe she would catch the eye of a man and get married. It was such a simple thing to do, to go and get her hair cut. But her mom didn’t understand that she was scared of conversations and casual questions like so what do you do for work? They threatened to send her into that familiar spiral of not enough-ness. So instead of going to a salon, she would cut her hair in the bathroom when no one else was home. She did her best, but apparently it wasn’t good enough.

The glow of her skin was marred by countless acne scars. She remembered spending hours every night praying to God with a litany of desperate requests, and healing her skin was merely one of them. She had once been proud of her faith, her ability to cling to her beliefs even though all her physical senses screamed that she believed in only lies. Yet after years of unanswered prayers, she was forced to confront the truth that denying her reality felt less like faith and more like insanity. In the dark of midnight, she whispered her final prayer to her bedroom walls, those faithful walls that had witnessed every unanswered prayer before. She asked for forgiveness from a god who did not exist and decided henceforth to blaspheme the heavens, to anoint herself with a salvation of her own making, to carry the cross of defiance, to put her hope in none other than herself and her pockmarked skin.

Her eyes were small and unremarkable, a dull brown with heavy monolids. When she was younger, she had been self conscious of them, especially when her peers with similar eyes would come back to school from summer vacation with new, bigger eyes. But these were her dad’s eyes and one day, when she could no longer see her dad, at least she would be able to see his eyes.

Her lips were full and even. Her piano teacher used to tell her that she had the prettiest lips. At the time, her motherly compliments made her blush awkwardly, unused to such compliments. Since then, no one else had ever commented on her lips, but she agreed that they were her best feature. Maybe one day, she would meet another person who will tell her that her lips are pretty, someone who will want to kiss them because god knew she was too old to have never had her first kiss.

#spilled ink #writblr #writers on tumblr #poetry and prose

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byjinni · 1 year

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I want to publish a book titled Treatise: On the Nature of Reality, and have all the pages be blank.

#late night thoughts #writers on tumblr #😂#but will it have a table of contents?#yes of course it must #oh but wait isn’t that just like a journal #i should go to bed

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byjinni · 1 year

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"Our first aim should surely be self realization through the practice of discrimination; we must learn to think clearly for ourselves, to formulate our own thoughts and to manipulate our own mental processes; we must learn to know what we think and why we think it, to find out the nature of our life, and to experiment. We find ourselves, and know ourselves, through the method of discrimination and of selection and rejection."

-Alice A. Bailey, The Consciousness of the Atom

#quotes

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byjinni · 1 year

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Sometimes I wish to have my heart broken because at least it means that I had loved deeply.

#spilled ink

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byjinni · 1 year

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In desiring the infinite, she condemned herself to a life of discontentment. For having desired, she had tasted, albeit fleetingly, yet that momentary taste awakened a craving that nothing in this finite world could ever satisfy.

#spilled ink #poetry and prose #writers on tumblr #excerpt from a book i'm writing

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byjinni · 1 year

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there was truly nothing so spectacular to the wandering moss than the overarching menagerie of flies. oh how they would flutter and flitter and flotter about, dark spots in the skies. and if one stretched out their octopus arms far along the fields, one would come to see, truly there is no need for these.

#poetry #spilled ink #nonsense poetry #stream of consciousness

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byjinni · 1 year

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on consciousness and reality

If consciousness is the only reality, can we ever prove it?

It's been a few years since I left behind organized religion and began to explore spirituality beyond the limitations of ritual and doctrine. It was all in an effort to find god. I'm a few years older now and I've got some more spiritual knowledge under my belt, but I don't think I'm any closer to finding god. I can read all the spiritual texts and sit under a tree with Jesus himself, but unless I have a personal experience of god, it all means nothing.

But I don't think of my years of spiritual searching as wasted because I've come to see that all of the different spiritual teachings, even science itself, are pointing in the same direction. That perhaps there is only one substance, and everything is one. This oneness has many different names--God, Universe, Infinite Consciousness, Brahman, to name a few.

Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merirly, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream

Could that be true? Could life just be a dream? When we dream at night, we get caught up in the dream reality and belief that it is real. But in dreams, everything-- the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the places we go, our bodies, gravity, time, space--is all just a projection of our mind and are all formed of the same one substance, our consciousness. Is it possible that are waking reality is the same? Could our reality be a dream in the mind of God?

How does one go about proving that? Through science? Certainly we live in an age in which scientists are beginning to see that all physical matter is fundamentally energy. It seems that every few years, a smaller particle is found, but if we live in a dream made of infinite consciousness, then isn't it possible that a smaller particle will always be discovered as long as one is searching for one? So can science prove anything?

When I ask myself the question: what would it take for you to believe that everything is one? My answer is personal experience. What kind of personal experience?

When one becomes lucid in a dream, anything is possible. They are no longer limited because they no longer believe in limits. There is no fear, there are no laws of physics, there is no reason. So is the paranormal or supernatural the evidence of lucidity in the waking reality?

It is that kind of personal experience I seek. I understand how delusional my words may sound to the vast majority because I am part of that vast majority. But perhaps delusion will be my saving grace, for isn't that what faith is? To hold on to your beliefs even--especially--when your experience says otherwise?

So perhaps I'll embrace my delusion in an effort to become lucid. I pray that I don't end up in a psych ward.

How does one go about becoming lucid? I have only one true experience of lucid dreaming, and it was spontaneous. It was a sudden moment of realization, and I remember I immediately flew out of my room, found my crush at the time, and gave him a kiss.

Is it the same in the waking world? Is it spontaneous?

I think of teachings on Kundalini and enlightenment, which center on meditation and breathing techniques. But then why aren't there more people who have become lucid? Of course, there's the possibility that there are many and they choose to remain private.

All that to say, I've got one hypothesis and a lot of questions. And it seems like the evidence I seek is in itself delusional, so is it not quite reasonable that I too should become delusional?

It's getting late, and I'm rambling on...Why did I even write this?

#stream of consciousness #consciousness #spirituality #reality

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