What Is There Beyond Knowing

What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me? I can’t

Turn in any direction

But it’s there. I don’t mean

The leaves grip and shine or even the thrush’s

Silk song, but the far-off

Fires, for example,

Of the stars, heaven’s slowly turning

Theater of light, or the wind

Playful with its breath;

Or time that’s always rushing forward,

Or standing still

In the same-what shall I say-

Moment.

What I know

I could put into a pack

As if it were bread and cheese, and carry it

On one shoulder,

Important and honorable, but so small!

While everything else continues, unexplained

And unexplainable. How wonderful it is

In Mary we see such consistent homage to pantheism – the mystery and sacred interconnection is here in the life before us. In this poem I see emerging a thread of panentheism – god is all around us and beyond us as well – in time, in the sky and wind, and in the mystery. Perhaps it is a relief to be able to turn away from the face of god as she comes to us in insect and bird song and towering tree. We just need a break from all the glory so that we may be empty and therefore be vessels ready to fill up with what is. For if we try to know what is, we have sealed our soul’s containers. I myself am like a Starbucks coffee cup – I do place a lid on my spirit by wanting to know and to control, but then an accident comes my way, I tip, I leak, and I spill myself out. It’s a terrible mess, believe me, and often the catastrophe happens in public. But what could be more pleasurable than to be holding an empty cup, headed towards the coffee urn to be filled up with the stimulating unexplainable? - The natural stimulant of not knowing – and accepting our lot, eh?

What do you accept or resist not knowing, or knowing?