Resurrection

These words of hope which are trapped within, live only for the day when they will finally be set free. It will happen. Nothing is more certain. But for now, I wait patiently, contained in a private hell of my own and other people’s making. It’s not knowing when that hurts. In fact, waiting is the only certainty, but that in itself is no consolation. Like them, I am desperate to be on my way.

Here I am floating in the in-between waiting to know if it’ll be heaven or hell. Ironically it’s the uncertainty that feeds the creative self. It pushes and pulls poking for a reaction. The punches landed below the waist. Restless, ideas trash about in a fractured union of thought. They rise above the ordinary, sustained by the remnants of spirit trapped deep within. There is no escaping it. A sense of knowing that lives on, strong, upright, and independent, conscious of society’s rules doing its best to strip me bare of hope. Being different has never been as difficult as it is now.

It is what I was born with that holds my thoughts steady. The words form in a kaleidoscopic rush. They can almost reach out and touch the magic that will come on the day of resurrection. The day I will get to roll away the stone and step out into myself again. Jim was right. This is the end. My only friend the end. The light dimmed for so long will be brilliant in its brightness. There will be no stepping back from the precipice, as I will jump, wild and free into the abyss only to find that the light at the end of the tunnel is only the beginning. This tentative rush into possibility. Only then will I breathe in and fill my lungs with the familiar smell of home.

It’s here I will finally be able to believe in everything and everyone. No judgment. No hurt. No fears. Just hope. Here I am free of the ties that have held me back for years. Exhalation. Exultation. Here I am able to dream. Here I can forget what I cannot remember. Here I can swim in the reservoir of the creative self. Floating aimlessly to find purpose. Art is where I live. The place where the elusive trust of days past is replaced with a familiar knowing that was there all along. Something I know was lost along the way. Like a flower opening wide, I realize how much was taken from me. Gradually I recognize the strength it has taken to push on through. To rage against the dying of the light.

Here in this desolate place of plenty, I am surrounded by the heavyweights of non-conformity. The rebellious. The revolutionary. The poets, writers, artists, musicians, and all the creative minds combined. The vagabonds who weren’t afraid to say no to a system cloaked in the formality of rigidity and processed knowledge. A faulty logic with tragic consequences has brought us to our knees. Francis Bacon. Jim Morrison. Emily Dickinson and Patti Smith chatted about it at the altar of ego. They screamed out in protest. London. New York. Berlin and Fantastic LA. It is in such minds and places that genius explodes within the front room of its loneliness. It is here that they stretch the vast canvas of the ordinary to its breaking point. It is here that things happen. Uncontrolled. Unruly. Unkempt. Untold until now. They are captured only by the freedom that holds within, despite everything.

It is in this place of uncertainty that we finally get to be ourselves. Stripped back. Stripped down. Stripped of the baggage we have carried for so long. Make-ups. Breakups. Education. Media. Politics. Our fried brains and melted minds of consciousness, bent out of shape and broken, are rewired by the system to a devastating degree. We yearn to break free, to go back to what and who we once were. Here we are Jesus on the cross. All of our fragility comes together in one place. Hesitant at first, scared even, we will learn to accept death in all its glorious power. We weep at the gates of gentleness. It is here that we finally surrender to the inevitable. Death takes us all in the end. a necessary stop-off on the road to what lies beyond, or doesn’t, who knows?

Maybe, after all, it’s not the journey, it really is the destination that counts. Have you ever thought that without the destination, there would be no journey? Maybe the symbol of the cross is there to remind us that there is a full stop at the end of it all. Eventually, when the pen hits the page with a heavy pointed thud that reverberates in the very basement of our souls. This is the end, my friend. My only friend the end. I turn to look back but there is nothing there. The only way is forward. The body relaxes into stiffness, as the spirit soars, free of all the aches and pains we accumulated along the way. The body of Christ is broken in two on the altar of belief and so are we. Ripped of what made us doubt ourselves all this time. We are finally free.

This is where we go to understand the rough edges of darkness within. This is where we get to color in the black and white, to color outside the lines. It’s here, out in the wilderness, that we get to furnish the empty landscape with meaning. The goodness we left untapped on earth dancing with fluorescent joy. Here we can finally be our true selves. I look down from Golgotha and finally see the truth. Jerusalem in the distance. Yes, there is sympathy, sadness, and forgiveness. I forgive myself most of all. Up here, my thoughts are clear. Up here I am closer to God than I will ever be. Here maybe even I can begin to believe.

I reach out and take hold of the person I am meant to be, the very essence of my being. I listen to the absence of thought. Here I run free without having to move. My legs are still and yet I’ve never traveled so far. It feels like I’m in the middle of a good book. It holds me still. Out of body, and mind, I turn the page and let go. Even the past has the dignity not to pass me by, leaving me to get on with the search for what I have spent my whole life looking for. The reason why I was put on this earth. The feeling of having something special I need to do. I have been trying to find the road home, for years. A search that has held me captive for what seems like forever. Now I realize that I was searching for the road back to where it all began, to the moment when my mother first held me in her loving hands. I have learned to let go of the in-between.

I was lost, but now I’m found. It is in this place that redemption clears its throat and sings. It is in this quiet room that I can begin again. The monotony of routine is completely absent here. The strange thing is that it feels like I knew this all along, but as I’ve discovered, awareness is one thing, getting beyond it is a totally different challenge. Our existence is damaged by a system that demands so much of us for so little. There will always be residue. The men in suits cry out for attention when I walk away. Here the spirit is stripped of the selfish attention it will never receive again. It is here that I can feel the wind blowing away the cobwebs clear of my mind. I begin to walk the streets where they never want us to go. Here there is total freedom. No financial nooses around our necks. No state-run boundaries to the self. Only possibility. No insurance against what will probably never happen. But still, for some reason, I still doubt as I walk tentatively towards the light.

It is here that I finally learn to trust in nothing, only myself. It is here that I will begin to start again. I know I have been here before. I’ve visited it in my dreams many times, or in those moments of lucid flow when I write or for a little while fully let go, even if only for a few precious seconds. The isolated moments of knowing alerted me to the absolute possibility of something beyond rational thought. It is the stripped-back sense of self I’ve talked about already. Here the ego is blown wide open. It is as if the cracks of desolation finally allow madness to find a way in. It is the dying scream of spirit that has kept the flame flickering all these years. It is the reason we go on, even when the night is at it’s darkest.

I have always known that whatever it is that I am searching for is out there, but I wanted to be sure. The neverending battle between belief and doubt. I needed convincing. Writing showed me the way. The noble instant of inspiration is when the body and soul combine to go their separate ways. I’ve always thought the body gets a bum deal. Buried in the ground, it’ll be ashes to ashes for me, burning in the flames of history.

And when it finally happens, I will once again be alone.

Here there is nothing else.

Here there is no one else.

Here there is nothing to distract me, except me.

Here I am twisted back to front.

And upside down.

Here I am free.

Of everything.

I surrender.

And turn away.