Atypical Enlightenment??

Those willing to ask the stupid questions
   will become the great masters
because they are willing to be humiliated for the purpose of wisdom.

Those willing to stumble in risks of great uncertainty
   will become the next yoginis
because they are not afraid to be humbled for thier mistakes.

The stupid will be wise in heart,
       The ugly will be beautiful in form,
            The fool will find the Great Perfection by kissing the edge of a toilet seat.

-Oct. 7 2006


For the last two years I've contemplated a deep desire to become a writer. I've pursued reading to an almost insane degree, mainly philisophical texts and psychological theories. I've entered school and pursued academic credentials in order that people might look at me with respect. But over the last six months I've found that the root of my striving, although a beautiful exploration has often been driven by a deep need to prove something, to hide a deep shame... A way to cover over many painful memories, such as the fact that I didn't know how to read or write until I was in the fourth grade and that I failed my grade 10 year. And no I didn't fail because I was some brillant artist who couldn't be bothered with the elementary teachings of highschool but because I smoked so much weed that I couldn't grasp onto a concept in math if my life depended on it. I hate to admit that I cared more about what my hair looked like and how to starve myself than who authored the great literaterary works of our century.

For four years I've done nothing but work with every ounce of being to run away from that past... to feel a sense of pride and worthiness by covering up who I was. By trying to make an artist out of a girl who had lost all ambition. But when I started to think back to childhood I remembered how much I always loved asking big questions and was always stumbling over my feet in my search for sincerity and love in the world. There was a pursuit of a question that was so strong until I hit my teens and somehow felt the cruelty of the world not worth letting in anymore.

I suppose its from these fleeting thoughts that this poem arose.  A recognition of how I often find my deepest dignity not in what I can produce or how I can cover up the past but in creating art that embraces the imperfection, the mistakes, and the beauty of being such a lost soul, but a soul that was also willing to be found. Somehow being found is so much sweeter when you've been so deeply lost.

And of course its about finding beauty in the overcoming of aversions, finding art in the ugly, finding truth as we kneel at the mercy of a toilet seat.  And yes I really did kiss a toilet  seat... the Great Perfection smiled back at me(: