Passages » introspection http://passages.hardlyneutral.com ...expressions of random clarity... Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:36:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The worst thing under my bed as a child was… http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/the-worst-thing-under-my-bed-as-a-child-was/ http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/the-worst-thing-under-my-bed-as-a-child-was/#comments Sun, 17 Oct 2010 03:59:01 +0000 Eric http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/?p=113 Prompt from RadicalVantage

Its quiet in here. A quiet that fills my ears with a roaring so intense I feel as though I’ll surely be deaf from its static sound. I feel the blood rushing through my veins, pounding behind my eyes. I’m scared. Something is down there. Something is waiting for me. Waiting for the right moment to strike. The right moment to rend both body and mind. What is down there? From where does it come? How long must I fight my fear before sleep overtakes me and I awake with this memory as a half forgotten dream? There must be something there! This can’t be a conjuring of my own mind. I can’t be doing this to myself, can I? I have nothing hidden. I have nothing lurking in the recesses of my mind. Nothing dark. Silent as the absence of sound around me now. Thick and hungry as my pulse. I’m not afraid…of myself?

]]> http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/the-worst-thing-under-my-bed-as-a-child-was/feed/ 0 I Like It Here http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/i-like-it-here/ http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/i-like-it-here/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:04:10 +0000 Eric http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/?p=99 I like it here but I need someplace to go. Someplace to grow. Someplace beyond what I know in the day to day flow of my life. I want noise and joy and busy life surrounding me and drowning me in the hum of its movement. I want quiet and solitude and midnight hours enfolding me and soothing me with the peace of stillness. I want faith in the loud life and the soft life and just in life in general. I want a center that isn’t harder and harder to hold on to as the days march by and leave me standing at the side of the road, watching. Watching all the travelers move through their days with fear and love, with tears and smiles and all the while I’m waiting. Waiting to fall in step and let my burden go or walk away from the silent, lovely show.

I want to want no more.

]]> http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/i-like-it-here/feed/ 0 An Excerpt http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/an-excerpt/ http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/an-excerpt/#comments Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:11:59 +0000 Eric http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/?p=86 Original Piece: To Whom I May be Concerned About
A letter to someone from the past.

Why couldn’t I save you? Why couldn’t I have helped? What is there left to say? I know. Remember. Remember the gazebo in the park on that perfect day. Fall leaves circling around us. The crisp breeze lifting your hair. And the colors. Oh the colors. Like a landscape painted just for us.

“I love you.”
“I love you to.”
“Will you dance with me?” I asked
“But there’s no music.” You said
“There is always music…you just have to listen…”

]]> http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/prose/an-excerpt/feed/ 0 I See Through http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/poetry/i-see-through/ http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/poetry/i-see-through/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:47:20 +0000 Eric http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/?p=43 What I see is warped and twisted,
I can’t discern the reality.
Its like some childhood kaleidoscope revisited,
a distortion of actuality.
I see through…

Its like a pane off a stained glass window,
colors and light reflecting.
Everything is tinted and bright with shadow,
my eyes afraid to be adjusting.
I see through…

A reflection of myself emerges,
I can hardly recognize the sight.
Then the light of understanding surges,
and I see I was anything but right.
I see through…you.

]]> http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/poetry/i-see-through/feed/ 0 State of the heart of the mind… http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/blog/state-of-the-heart-of-the-mind/ http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/blog/state-of-the-heart-of-the-mind/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:24:12 +0000 Eric http://passages.hardlyneutral.com/?p=36 I was reading through some of my old writing and came across a piece that quoted Charles Dickens at the end.

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

I find a great deal of meaning in that particular passage right now in my life, but am also intrigued by how it meant something completely different to me at the time I used it. Intrigued by how I can internalize it so completely at different points in time in radically different ways. Items like Tarot cards and the like can be used as tools of self discovery. Ways to bring into the light that which burdens your mind, heart and soul at any given step along life’s journey. I think that each and every sight, sound, smell, taste and touch can be seen as tools of self discovery. Ways to gauge meaning and gain clarity. Ways to measure the shifts we make as we grow and learn and change from who we were to who we are.

An open mind needs no key.

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