Being-ness; on the communally constituted & momentarily created “self”

I am:

capable; one who cultivates capacity for suffering, and meets it with strength, empathy, and kindness.

I am:

a good friend; a person who maintains and cultivates the capacity to care about & for others.

I am:

one who holds space for, and allows expression of; the weird, wacky, silly, goofy, playful energies of existence.

I am:

a wanderer, an adventurer, an explorer, a traveler.

I am:

both things at once; a collection of binaries and contradictions.

I am:

in the in between; a traverser of the liminal spaces between worlds.

I am:

alive; breathing, feeling, seeing, sensing, aware, open, expressive.

I am:

all of these, and none of them.

I am:

a mote of dust momentarily lit up in the sunlight,

an oak leaf, newly turned orange, falling to the ground in autumn,

a single mycelial hyphi spore, anchored briefly within a cloud formation.

I am:

a grandfather Yew, roots rooting down through the decomposing corpses of my kin, as my body is nourished by the nutrients in their remains.

I am:

a creature birthed from the oceanic movement of the moon,

a being whose aliveness is made possible through fluid hormonal cycles created from and out of rhythmic, cyclical, lunar pulsation.

I am -

but am I?

what am I, when i am nothing? (when I am the dark side of the moon; the emptiness between exhale & inhale, the black sphere of sky during the moon’s newness)

what am I then, if not:

both - and?

what am I then, if not:

everything and at once & nothing at all?

what am I? -

mist; gradually dissipating in the light of the sun

water; trickling through pavement cracks

sand; dispersed by the movement of tidal waves

darkness; fading into light with the turning of the Earth

what am I? -

everything I am & everything I’m not,

changing in each moment, through each new encounter - with: soil, water, food, plant particles, sunlight, moonlight, words, actions, thoughts -

I am: ephemeral, with essence of ether.

I am, in this moment:

alive.

[Hi friends,

I have decided to let this poem speak for itself, instead of writing my usual journal entry ending. You can read my latest, a Taoist-inspired poem here, and the rest of my poetic musings can be absorbed here.

Until the next time - may you be well. May you be at peace within yourself, and may there be peace around you. May you be safe, warm, and fed with nourishing food. May you have supportive friends and a community that sees and appreciates you for all you have to give and share with the world.

Thanks for your time, attention, and care in reading this until the end.

xo,

Dev]

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