Large Fierce Mammal

To speak of the Warrior Path is to conjure images of life and death. Of strife and struggle. Of blades and guns and martial skill directed toward a goal of death and destruction. But as the Warrior walks the Path, it will soon become clear that if his reason for being there is to subjugate others or right perceived wrongs through mastery of hurtful arts, then the full right of Warriorhood will as swiftly be denied. The True Warrior treasures Life, and lives it in the gift of every day. He understands that his greatest struggle will forever be to come to grips with his darkest self – not as an enemy to be destroyed, but rather as an ally that, once brought to a point of mutual respect, is best to be cultivated. That the greatest enemy of all is ignorance, willingly bought. ~ The Forest of Truth

Today is what modern Western society has deemed to mark the end of a year. A calendar year actually, because speaking in celestial terms, the next cycle began 10 days ago. For reasons of business, I find it necessary to maintain a foot hold in the former artificial structure of time measurement, but for all True reasons, only the latter is of consequence.

By now, those disposed to it will have proclaimed their “resolution” for the “new year”. They may have proclaimed more than one. From there, as with all such things, the outcome will be, as we say, fuck all. How do I know this with such certainty? Well now Goode Reader, the answer is obvious, and lies in plain sight in the words “new year’s resolution”.

One may successfully silence an incessantly barking Dog by means of a collar that administers an electric shock when the sound of a bark is detected, but without foreknowledge of what has motivated the Dog to bark so much, only the outwardly expressed symptom is erased while the reason for it remains. Remains to manifest in more destructive and toxic ways.

One may have grown dissatisfied with one’s appearance as it has changed over time, and become caught up in  squandering time, thought, and treasure in a fruitless battle to recapture a fondly remembered moment of perfection, and hold it in stasis forever. A moment of perfection that never existed; for perfection, for each of us, is not a thing that existed once upon a time, but in the moment that is now, and if you can’t find it there, you won’t find it anywhere.

When one gets on an airplane, it is with no need to state an attendant intention to eventually get off of it. So it is that “going on a diet” is like going on a trip – the act comes with the presumption that when a specific goal is reached, the activity will end, even if the perceived necessity for the diet, or trip, is born of misfortune of the traveller’s own making.

All “new year’s resolutions” will fail because they are born of procrastination, and those self-deluding sods who proclaim and embrace the concept trumpet their lack of resolve by the simple act of putting off all their life changing actions for one magical day. A magical day that, like tomorrow, never comes, because in the end there’s always another New Year, right?

Wrong. Find the moment and your perfection in it.

I’ll close this season of A Long Winter’s Night with a revisiting of my poem, Trails, originally published here just short of two years ago. Reflect on it in health Goode Reader, and may our perfect selves reconvene this time next year.

Trails

by LFM

Every act, decision made,
Is ne’er a job that’s done.
Instead, it makes a path to tread
Down which your fate will run.

No matter how well planned your course,
However pinned and plotted,
Deciding to turn right or left
Affects how life’s allotted.

As life unfolds before your gaze,
And things come into view,
There’s risk you’ll trade a well lived life
For one that’s just lived you.

One trail may run both smooth and straight,
Through vistas wide and clear,
So most may choose that one before
The branch that’s dark and drear.

The one that weaves through gnarly woods,
‘Cross rivers needing fording,
With promise of adventure laced
And evils needing warding.

But they who seek the easy ways,
Those free from strife and test,
Will come to learn all gentle paths
Don’t lead to peace and rest.

What’s good in Life eludes the grasp
Of those who miss the fact
That what we get from living it
Springs from our every act.

Myself, I worry not about
The path on which I walk.
My care is for the place I AM,
And action before talk.

My every act, my every thought,
My every given damn;
My death will come, unflinching met
Quite happy where I am.