Thus I Live, Alone and Forever

26 Replies

“till human voices wake us and we drown”
(T.S. Eliot-The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

Thus I live-alone and forever
                     Sha’Tara

Am I alone?
as alone as I feel
swimming an alien sea
full of motion and noise –
restless, meaningless
(to such as I)

(and the alien thought
                said:)

Well, yes.
One,
by definition
can be but alone.

In the sea
I hear people:
they come and they go – and
it doesn’t seem to matter where,
nor even why:
it’s all the same,
one day follows another.

Some die:
more each day
become silent –
their emptiness passes,
brief, phantasmal and
nothing more:

I cannot follow them,
cannot touch them.
They are gone.
They never come back,
only their pain remains. 

Eons have I been;
ages in this place,
prisoner of fate,
a curiosity
to my own mind.  

I do not know who I am,
only that I am
Some-here.
Wherever this is.

“Age brings wisdom”
the living say.
I have age
(more than many:
age is not counted in years
but from awareness)

I do not claim to be wise:
to what could I compare
myself?
Who can truthfully make
such a claim?

There is knowledge,
the knowing of things,
of data or of memories;
impressions, experiences,
feelings.

I discover myself here,
again and again and again
and though I am not hiding
I remain
Alone  

Always
(and it would seem)
Forever.

 

Thus I keep
what could pass as sanity:

From somewhen I remember
a sun shining.
Above clouds, it shines
and night is but illusion:
the shadow of a planet
and only the sun’s light
can make such a shadow.

(Thus I remind myself,
thus think and thus persist.)

26 thoughts on “Thus I Live, Alone and Forever”

  1. George F.

    Jesus that’s such a brilliant poem I thought it was ALL T.S Eliot! Quote most theft worthy: Eons have I been;
    ages in this place,
    prisoner of fate,
    a curiosity
    to my own mind.

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      2. Sha'Tara Post author

        Popped in and truly enjoyed that segment. Also left a, hopefully not to lengthy comment! Quite the tour-de-force I say. Oh yes, how foolish Akira’s “insects” are to think they are alone and superior. I’ve known of those “eonic” presences for a very long time. Though it may come across as empty boasting, I can truthfully claim that I’ve also met some of them… and some of them are quite scary. Of course they’re “here” all the time but they are masters of disguise and they have armies of brainwashed slaves to carry on their very specific agenda. The really ancient ones, likely the very first ones to conquer (take over) this universe we dub “the Time Lords”. They are the ones who “fashioned” those we subsequently came to think of as, and call, gods.
        PS: I had to look up Hype’s reference to the number “42” as the number of the depth of the universal rabbit hole. I was surprised at the number of interpretations but this is my favourite:
        “42 = The Meaning of Life Because if you add all the sides of a dice it equals 21, which is also half of 42. So 2 die go into 42, die being the plural of dice; Therefore the meaning of life equals 42 and 42 equals 2 die or ‘to die’.” There you have it, hey? 🧙‍♀️

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Sha'Tara Post author

        That’s a popular number. At first I thought he was referring to Jackie Robinson – #42 – the first black man to play in the major league, for the Brooklyn Dodgers…

        Liked by 1 person

  2. katharineotto

    Sha’Tara,
    I contend there is no objective reality, so in that sense each is alone, with a unique perspective. It makes for a deep sense of loneliness, but it is also freeing to recognize you are free to perceive “reality” any way you want, within the constraints of physical limitations.

    There is connectivity, but you may not always recognize it. The fact that you blog and have followers who read, shows that you are connecting to many people, and they to you.

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    1. Sha'Tara Post author

      Thank you for commenting on this, Katharine. That we create our own, very personal reality, cannot be contested. The scenario of several individual asked to describe a particular scene they all observed together answers that: not one single answer is the same as another. We see what we want to see and we interpret what we see from our particular viewpoint. Which explains that collective enterprises must first wipe out individuality through massive propaganda before they can be successful. We are born individuals and despite gargantuan efforts to wipe out our individuality, particularly through religion, public education, politics, organized sports, mass media, it remains true that only when enough individuals have their minds put to sleep do they become a mob. (In my world, all collective activity is mob activity.)

      As for connectivity, that falls in the same category of empowerment versus disempowerment. If I need the connection to feel fulfilled, or whole, I exist as a mind slave to whatever power has convinced me I cannot have a full life without it. If I don’t need the connection to be fulfilled then I can interact freely with it without ‘it’ taking over my life. I can take it or leave it. Because I can observe the collective slaves sometimes enjoying themselves as they interact I may feel as if I were missing out on something and may even feel lonely time and again. But these are feelings and feelings can never be relied on to base one’s long-term decision making. Feelings turn into emotions and emotions… are but the exhaust of an idling mind. Sucking on exhaust is not a healthy thing to do.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. katharineotto

        Sha’Tara,
        I always enjoy your perspective, which is unique, and dare I say “individualistic?” I think of individualism as a refreshing sparkle in the humdrum monotony of the reality that has been created around us. I name that appreciation for diversity “connectivity.” It’s not a “need” but a “preference.”

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      2. Sha'Tara Post author

        Thank you for the clarification. Sorry for the misunderstanding, although I think we were approaching the same “target” from different tangents.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Sha'Tara Post author

      Thank you Frank. Does that mean I have to learn to like poetry? Makes me wonder, if I don’t like poetry and I always seek to avoid it, where does that particular form of communication come from and why would I use it? That’s a rhetorical question, I suppose.

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  5. colettebytes

    And so alone, are we all.
    The physical arrival and departure can never be shared. We do take only our self awareness at the end… And even that will be lost.

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    1. Sha'Tara Post author

      That we are always alone is something I became gradually aware of as all my ‘collective’ commitments fell by the wayside, one after the other until none were left. Then I came to see that I could be much more effective community-wise as an independent, individual, self empowered being. If money needed to be spent I didn’t have to contact some club president or treasurer to get my “project” approved. I used my own money and time and discovered, surprise, surprise!?!? that there was more money available then at any time I tried to milk some from a group’s treasury. So I learned that a committed, focused, empowered individual is more powerful and more effective than any collective. So much energy is lost in the transfer from an individual pair of hands to the collective hand which works mostly as a collector, not a distributor.

      As for individual self awareness, my clear remembrances of past lives and my forays into the future – up to about a thousand years Earth time – have shown me, beyond any shadow of doubt, that self awareness isn’t lost at physical death, nor is there any old angry god waiting to cast you into hell because you did not, or pointedly refused, to kiss his ass. As below so above (try it that way instead of the other way around!), we always reap what we sow. Death is not the great leveller. Death is one of the tunnels on the highway of life. Some tunnels are well lit. Some are dark. Some are long and some are short. In my world, it’s that simple. I’ve gone through one of those tunnels many times. I’ve looked into a few tunnel entrances already in this lifetime. The trick is to not be claustrophobic… 🤢

      Liked by 1 person

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  6. Phil Huston

    “Your poetry is your best work.” And very close to as succint as is possible for you. Best line, my .02.

    I do not know who I am,
    only that I am
    Some-here.

    Is just is. Paint your canvas with intention. Because no one but you will ever hold your brush.

    Liked by 1 person

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  9. wolfess

    At this stage of my current life I enjoy — even revel in — aloneness … is that because over my years I have experienced too much of what this ‘life’ forces on us? Or is it just because I am in good company when I am alone? Or do I simply require that ‘alone time’ to keep my thoughts coherent?

    I think l need to know more about these ‘lives’ you talk about — I have some ‘remembrances’ that don’t really seem connected to my 67 years on this current life plane, but I can’t honestly say if I’ve simply forgotten that I was ‘in’ those experiences, or it is simply my mind going its own way …

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    1. Sha'Tara Post author

      Thanks for commenting, Wolfess. Two paragraphs, two topics. I’ll deal with each in turn.

      It’s easy for me to speak on alonesss: it’s my preferred place. When I was young in the somewhat wild and gregarious Sixties, I did groups then but it soon became apparent that invariably I’d mention, and defend, a viewpoint anathema to the spirit of the group. Politically I was a lefty but I had strong arguments against those who thought that communist China, or even the Soviet Union were on their way to usher in Utopia. Where “pot” was king, I refused to smoke it and I also had very strong opinions about the value of any mind altering substances. To cap it and get me the proverbial strike three, I hated rock n’ roll – and I still do. I learned many great lyrics sung to the clashing and clanging of drums and bass guitars which I referred to as “industrial noise and there should be a law against such deafening crap”… so after a few too many times as a wallflower I learned to eschew collectives unless they spoke my language: not many did. Aloneness, I found out, is good. You don’t have to be lonely to be alone. The world is filled with potential friends, particularly in the animal kingdoms! They don’t care about my opinions and they don’t like rock n’ roll either!

      I began my long and steady foray into, and learning how to properly “remember” past lives when entering my thirties so I’ve had time to figure it out, to know when to pursue a particular remembrance for its value to me in the present, or to let it go as irrelevant or having been satisfactorily concluded at the time. It’s usually very easy to know if a memory is a piece of “this” life, or of some other time. If I remember a life as the blind woman, Tess Seymour, in Scotland, circa 1800, everything about it says “that time” and not any other. I remember hearing some news about Napoleon, for example. I remember what I wore and taking rides in a 4-wheeled wagon pulled by a team of horses. I distinctly remember the prevailing social attitude toward a person blind from birth. First, it was a divine curse, probably deserved, and second, it was a known fact that blind people were retarded! Incidentally I had no friends in that short life (I was in my mid thirties when I died of something or other) except for an old general caretaker who looked after me whenever I was sent to spend time outside. He never talked down to me and we had long talks, mostly about his own life of which details I forced out of him so I could make up stories in my mind – I was of course unable to read and no one would take the time to read stories for me so everything I knew was what I heard, and sensed. The purpose of remembering that is to remember what it feels like to be utterly dependent on others as a pathetic charit case the world would be better off without, and to be labelled. Just one example. Remembering true past lives is difficult because of the programming we are forced to live under on this mind-prison planet. A religious person is allowed to believe she is going to heaven when she dies, or may go to hell if she doesn’t carry her Jesus/Allah eternal life insurance, but otherwise you are only allowed to believe that when you die you terminate. It’s annihilation. Nothing remains of who you were. Pretty grim, however you cut it. The good thing is, it only takes one solid bit of remembering to break out of the programming and open one’s life exponentially. BTW, those who claim past lives as some famous historical character… are just so full of it they should choke on their BS!!!

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      1. wolfess

        I started the sixties as a child, but was a wife by 1969. I lived in a Midwestern ‘hick’ town where there were goat-ropers and hippies … I was decidedly not a goat-roper; neither did l have all the ‘behaviors’ of a hippie (except that l have always been a free spirit).

        What I remember of this ‘vision’ or dream is that I started having it as a young child; I was out in a completely open field picking sunflowers when I would hear a train horn; it wasn’t loud so I kept on picking flowers, but suddenly the track the train was on veered toward me with the train barreling straight for me; I would drop my flowers and run for ‘safety’ and then wake up. I haven’t had that dream in decades, but lately I’ve been thinking of it again, and what strikes me now is how completely I remember it even though I haven’t dreamed it since I was probably 6 or 7. I know that I was adopted as a baby, but I was 3 months old when that happened so that dream didn’t come from any direct experience I would have had prior to being adopted; it wouldn’t have made sense to me when I was having that dream, but it seems so strange to me 60 years later that I am thinking of that dream/vision when nothing in my current life relates to any part of my life at the time l was having it.

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      2. Sha'Tara Post author

        You just bought up an interesting possibility, that dreams could also be part of some past life remembering. I’ve got a list of my most “memorable” dreams, but nothing in that I could related to a past life, or even future life – but I may have totally overlooked that possibility. I should post some of those dreams, at least the ones not so personal I wouldn’t consider sharing. I take my dreams as lessons rather than memories. Yours though, would seem to be a very real memory, but it could be your birth mother’s memory? Do you know anything about her?

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