SPIRIT WORLDS

by Hugh M. Lewis

I do my utmost to attain emptiness

I hold firmly to stillness

The myriad creatures all rise together

And I watch their return

The teaming creatures

All return to their separate roots

(Verse XVI, Book One of the Tao Te Ching, C.D. Lau, 1963:72)

We can be oblivious to the fact of death around us, and yet when it comes to even the hint of the possibility of our own demise, we retreat into a world of fear and neurotic compulsion. When we learn to see in the death of others, even of other beings, the possibility of our own death, we become aware of the possibility of feeling, suffering and life in the world around us. When we come to understand that their death, which is also a part of our own death, is even indirectly caused by us, then we become sensitive to the importance of a nonviolent orientation toward life.

It is the fact of our inevitable death that links us to the natural order in a bond that transcends all our other ties. Death is a natural state--a part of the process of living and dying. While we envy those who have a long life and saddened by those who have very short lives, the fact of eternal life or of extraordinary longevity is a fiction beyond our science.

But there is a sense that a spirit world fills in our imagination the great and absolute void that death creates for us. This spirit world can take many forms--angels in heaven and demons in hell, or just a vast cycle of rebirth. I prefer the version of ghosts and spirits inhabiting the landscape, because it then infused the world with an animated sense of being, a force, an energy, and a sense of possibility which lies beyond our own sense of possibility. It renders us vulnerable in ways we do not like to be.

This is not merely some narcissistic projection of our insecurity of death. It is a symbolic coming to terms with death in a way that it can be celebrated as a part of life. It can then be understood as something not evil or equal, but as variable and different. Then lamentation ceases, propitiation and respect begin.

We die many times during the course of our lives. We face death in small ways almost everyday. Each time we relocate to a new surrounding, or part from a friend for a final time, we suffer a small episode of death. Part of the cultivation of our sense of earth being is the development and sensitivity to the fact of continuous dying and death, and of learning how to accept these facets of our life as integral to it.

Learning how to put a spiritual handle on death is indeed vital to the cultivation of a healthy sense of our earth being. Only thus can we overcome the hold that an uncontrolled death has over us, as well as the projective neurosis, the compulsions, the anger and the violence which are the product of such uncontrolled death.

I walked by the stone lions

still guardians of the gate

warding off errant spirits of darkness

nearly five hundred years

and in better condition

than the concrete

upon which you rest

the sensuous flow of your smooth surface

the curving grooves chiseled by the anonymous human hands

of some ancient master stone-carver

how many gate-ways have you graced

by your stately presence

how many souls have passed between you

on their wayward journey

how many spirits have touched you

your strange lines and form

the product of a different reality

in stillness you stand

older than everything around you

anachronisms of a bygone epoch

the majesty you were designed to protect

has long since disappeared from earth

your disregarded silence is a supreme testimonial

to the wisdom of the way you embody and protect

to the spirits that embrace you

your blind eyes have witnessed many events

that strange expression is like no other in existence

composed of emotions of an alien timber

of a different stock of human experience

near you I stand next to solid ground

while the cement beneath me crumbles

upon you I can bring my hopes and fears to rest

you immovable solidness

a veritable fulcrum of spirit history

Guardians of the way

you speak not

but your cold silence tells

all paths pass here between you

at the gateway of Heaven and Hell

many minor spirits have hurried past you

too busy to acknowledge you

too impolite to show you the proper respect

Kingdoms and empires have come and gone

before your feet

and you still stand

motionless in strength

immovable in the way

for those who pass and do not notice

you shut the gates

for those who stop to pay homage

in admiration of the invisible hands

that created you

you open your invisible gate

allowing passage beyond

for all pilgrims

to safely continue upon their way

token hands that touch you

are touching a bit of time itself

your stillness moves

your way is clear and open

your massiveness reveals its purity of purpose

your essence remains untouchable

flesh and blood

transformed to stone

Mysterious Magic in a piece of marble

Autumn is always a sad time for me

leaves turn brown and fall off the trees

life withdraws back into the earth

the days grow shorter

and the nights become longer

the skies turn sullen grey

and cloudy all the time

It grows colder by the day

until the first ice comes

soon followed by a thin blanket of snow

I get depressed late in the Fall

and seek refuge and warmth in my own little inner world

I look back and the worst events of my life

have always happened in the Fall

and it still follows me like some weird seasonal Kharma

I suffer my many little social deaths in the world

as I risk its separation from my life

too afraid to brave a single ultimate Death

like a coward I've run from my past

rushing impetuously and blindly into the future

I wake up each morning

not knowing what the day might bring

I start out each week

not knowing what I may be doing

I lose track of the time of the clock

and the dates of the calendar

and the months of the year

All I have left now to show for myself

are a few yellowing manuscripts

just collecting dust upon the shelves

Fall has always been a bad time for me

a hard season to face

without a Halloween mask

I once looked death in the face

It wore the mask of a young red-headed man

A freckle-faced father with a pregnant young wife

bleeding from the ears and nose

bubbling blood

oozing from the lips

moaning and groaning

calling for Mom

Death came quietly

in a final exhalation

a body punctured of its life-force

I tried calling the young man back to life

but death would not relinquish its hold

Death disappeared with the breath of the boy

and left a lifeless, empty corpse

It wouldn't have been more dramatic

nor any less real

if it had been a staged production

instead of just a fragile social construction

suddenly shattered in a barren ravine

I, the solitary spectator

clapping my hands from the far off balcony

calling for an encore

by all the strutting officers of life's illusions

and their staff and stage-hands

the spotlight faded out

and the curtain finally fell

I was left alone in a dark and empty theater

with nothing but his broken body

lying on its back

upon the deserted and silent stage

I used to look for you

when I was a child

Sometimes I thought I found you

Lurking in the darkness of my bedroom

I thought that maybe you hung around at night

hovering there over my bed

hiding over there in the corner of the room

The children would hold a seance

block out all the light from the windows and doors

sit around on the floor holding hands

and call for you to appear before us

in the darkness

the older I became

the less I looked for you

I became busier with the real things in life

the business of growing up

without a guiding hand

I used to shut my eyes real tight

and wish with all my might

that you would return to me

even for a little while

I would open my eyes

and sometimes see a strange spot of light

obscured within the shadows

but that's the most of you I could ever find

now that the business of growing up is over

and I've come face-to-face with my meager destiny

I can think back on the many things you had taught me as a boy

when we still had the time together

with a baby of my own to care for now

I no longer need to look for you any more

but I remember your lessons well.

I sit again by the fountain

the sun is shinning

the water is splashing

the mist is spraying in the breeze

I look down the pathway

and notice the deep perspective

of people walking in the distance

I sit for several minutes

Intent on what's going on around me

and only gradually do I begin to realize

There is a big banner strung across the pathway

Just above my line of sight

It read "Parent's Week" and was brown against a clear blue sky

It struck me how I had failed to notice its presence before

How only gradually it came into my field of notice

Though it was so blatantly in front of me

Was it something about the words

I unconsciously blocked out

or perhaps it was the big brown banner

I decided not to notice

It did not come to my attention immediately

But only gradually, as if from a vague blue

Into sharper focus

The words just seemed like yellow letters

in a meaningless row

The ropes supporting the banner seemed more immediately interesting

I thought it strange how much we miss

In the world around us

How much important detail passes by us ignored

How when we fix our focus upon "interesting" things

All the rest becomes obscured to our field of vision

Even when we are not intentionally searching for something

We still fail to see a great deal more