Reflections of Life

Today I had the opportunity to reflect upon my life.

I was thinking about the passages that every man goes through in the colonial world. Mine has been a very fortunate destiny. For this I thank my ancestors.

We all seem to go through a pattern in our lives. As a Man, I think about this pattern in a particular way.

We are born into this world helpless. We have to reorient ourselves to this new existence and turn our consciousness away from the land of the dead to the land of the living. What memories we have of our previous existence begin to fade soon after, and if we are given a fortunate destiny, our time of purity within the incarnate world is not defiled.

Everything that we will become in this life is set during our time of purity. We absorb so much in this time. From the perspective of an adult, these learning capabilities seem almost magical.

Soon we pass into our time of childhood where what we have absorbed is refined. We begin to actualize the personality that was only a possibility during our time of purity. Our destiny begins to display itself in the games that we play and in the way that we interact with others. With proper guidance, we can begin the life-long task of integrating ourselves with our family, our community and our society as a whole.

With all things, there is a time and a place. Our innocence has come to the fullness of its becoming. Though we still will hold it to the end of our days, it will never guide us as it once did. Like all things that no longer have purpose, our innocence is directed toward destruction. This is the time of adolescence. When girls become women and boys realize the possibility of becoming a man.

Many are those who never see life beyond these days. Though we still draw breath, we are dead to adulthood. Those who survive, dive, headlong into the pool of life and swim deep into her warm waters to settle in the depths of living, loving, working, giving and taking. If destiny were kind, we would all rest peacefully at the bottom of our comfortable lives.

So it might have been for me, but I cannot hold my breath forever. I must finally kick my way from the bottom of this pool before it becomes stagnant and cold, before I loose that last ounce of breath and my heart beats no more.

The urge to breath is a painful taskmaster. I must claw my way back to the surface of my destiny, or drown in my misconceptions and lies. So it is that I have come to this place, treading water with the last strength within me, breathing the air of truth.

Each breath is bitter and cold, burning the last remnants of water from my throat and lungs, but I cling to life like a child to his Mother’s breast. I suckle on it and feel its fire flow into me and I am enlivened with the joy of it.

There is still so much to learn.