Locating ourselves can often be hard as we aren't always aware of where we are going in life. Thank you for sharing Jude.

Newfie Hugs, Rose

Existence is all a big paradox isn't it Jude?
The juxtaposition of the thoughts intensify them.

Hey Jude,excellent poem,fantastic piece

EDWIN

A nice long walk in the woods or along a beach are places to clear the mind a get a better perspective on what carries true meaning...

Be always safe,
Karen

sounds and reads like you found the importance of being earnest, and bring meaning and purpose to life,
Cheers
Alain

fantasic write-i love the honest, human truth of it!

Stimulating and well thought-out images you produce in this work, Jude! Read it twice to be sure of your meaning...left me with nothing to question. Great write!!
Blessings and Love - Micke

this little doxology puts the "dox" in paradox with a pointed poignant pinkie aimed randomly at each uncatalogued aspect of everyone's no-one in particular and a force that is superimposed specificity writ in a largess so profound it might swamp the whole ocean of meaning it sublimates, and I know I understate its significance.

A beautifully wrought circle of life poem, in so many aspects as we get to ponder how much greater it can be in the next phase...always so ahead of the curve Jude!Kudo's!

I think most of us suffer from evaporated actions. Excellent write.

Profound write my friend and all too true. Just one suggestion..your last few writes the font has come out realy small, hard on these old eyes.
fee

Oh yes! ... Thumper's at it again! :)) Tappin out his very own version of Morse Code! Love Sage and Julianza's comments: it's the subterranean rivers that run the deepest and longest within our internal landscapes and it's THEIR source that we both flow from and back to, perhaps. Like the special frequencies of whales, dolphins, bats, we emit an unheard language like a homing device which bounces off our environment, off each other, until it finds its clear-voice wavelength that it can both heed and speak to without hindrance or interference. It's a stillpoint you speak of: our epicentre of energies that we focus down on. This write seems both a hearty proclamation and a concentrated quiet. It's both inclusive and exclusive; social and isolate; expansive and contracting, emitting highly-charged impulses. Jurassic poetry, I'd say, emanating from the navel chakra! :)) It has the same awe and contemplative tone as your good old favourite, Designing Thoughts. Other than that, I have a very kitsch image of it being as A Song Of The Superstars, caught up in their own charisma and glamour and being swept along by adoring crowds, belonging to everyone yet not owning themselves... but that may be because my very own Hollywood Dreamboat, Nick Cage, is switching on the Christmas lights in Bath this year and my mind is already working on how I can possibly sneak under the barricades and land him a quick smackerooney... Think that's quite enough from me, so will now tip-toe Kwietly away... xx

So it is better to be bigger after death. By staying small, we create our greatest work, only to be found by others after our death.

Ron

The smallest molecule of our being can explode to become something greater than our wildest imaginings. The energy that we are is integral to the whole and can be the catalyst that causes all motion and matter to radiate light and emotional completeness. Mind bending poetry, Jude. Enjoyed.
Take care,
Sherry

this is one piece of work with depth and weight! a very elegant and beautiful description of the human journey, which involves the uncovering, discovering and discarding of the material trappings of life to arriveupon spiritual plain of awareness. the "aha" moment, when one admits to their innermost selves: "everything i've been searching for on the outside, is right here inside of me." and it only took 80 years! damn!

I've sometimes thought (when indeed I think) of those adventurous
times when I wear my inside out. Somehow, Jude, your fine poem reminds me of those times. And of this quotation from Camus: "To keep going to the end means not only resisting but also relaxing. I need to be aware of myself, in so far as this is also an awareness of something that goes beyond me as an individual. I sometimes need to write things which I cannot completely control but which therefore prove that what is in me is stronger than I am." -gene.

A thought provoking piece Jude!!

Love Tinka

An explosion into nirvana, the power inherant in smallest things, you are your smallest thing always, your energy, your inertia, your all, that which cannot be destroyed. Mark Twain, you have reached the deepest point, a wonderful exploration, precice, compact, and beautiful, you have explored the essential of the universe and being, this is a mark you leave behind on your travel.
A most approbiate read for a Sunday morning. To your essentuallity Blessings! Jasmin Horst

Few have the courage to step outside themselves. It's akin to growing old - it's not for sissies. Great write dear friend.
Peace and Light,
Marcia

This is one not to be read lightly: I like "we grow from remaining smaller." Less "I", more everyone else?? Must read this slowly and let the message sink in. Excellent, Jude.

(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.

Quite thought provoking. Especially like, 'we grow from remaining smaller.'

in one of the reliefs at the ancient temple of Ankor, there's a frieze purporting a man looking onward searching to locate himself in an inner universe.
Perhaps the ancients were smarter that today's "progressed" man?

Georg

I sometimes think, instead of living in the here and now...so many of us are searching...trying to find that thing...or things...that we think will make us happy, when really, it's "ourselves" that cause much of our happiness or unhappiness.

Jude, Sometimes one must step out of ourselves to gain a better perspective. Looking at ourselves from another viewpoint or vantage can be quite enlightening. I, myself, go to the ocean for solitude and rejuvenation to find what my mind and soul really desire. A few days brings a new sight, and with this clarity comes decisions and renewal and possibly a path toward your final destiny. I have learned, throughout my life that living in the present moment is the only way to live. Not fearing what is to come or dwelling on what was. I do not live in a world of rose colored glasses, nor do I live in a negatively charged world either. I am a dreamer of all that can be through what I do each day toward where I am suppose to end up. Nothing is by chance, everything happens for a reason, and going with the flow of the earth's intuition is how life can be lived to the fullest. I love this poem, it speaks to the core of my existence.

It is good to have you back in our presence.
Much peace, love, and light,
Amber "V"

applause...i love this one

Zen resonance, Jude, with multiple possibilities.

John

In another place and time, locator suggests the possible route of an ancient watercourse. There are layers of geology in these lines,

"we diminish our presence
to expand our whereabouts,
residing in the middle of everything
we move away from"

The totality of this poetry is a landslide following landslides over the centuries - a landslip with massive kinetic energy inundating everything. Locator could very well be a roadmap for a real historical event describing Odysseus in a 3,000 year old narrative written in Homer's Odyssey. This poetry dates the Bronze Age, Jude.

Love,
Sage

I like this, Jude. It is what i was trying to say in White Labyrinth. But I like the compactness of yours. I like paradox, period. I read recently, from a friend's forward, that apathy leads to creativity. I hotly debated that, as apathy is apathy. But perhaps we have to get to that inert place, or just let it happen, not resist it, or even hasten it (but that would also violate the concept of apathy) ---- in order to find ourselves by letting go of finding everything but ourselves; i.e. letting go the world. it's a kind of know thyself thing, isn't it? Who and what are we in the world if we are but masks? But a friend said,"there is no authentic self, no core, to find, (re my poem), because we are constantly changing. I disagree. I do think there is a self to find -- one forged long ago --- and to which it is often healthy to return. I really love the last two lines (fix the spelling of achieving). Now, if I have completely missed the point, please let me know. I've been writing all these years (well poetry mainlyfor a couple; the rest, prose) --- and I seem to find poetry still difficult at times. Once, I was at a reading by our poet emeritus here, and she was reading my favorite poem of hers. The audience was all laughing, but iwas not. Afterwards, I asked her,do i miss the point here? And she said no, you got the point. That made me feel a bit better! Anyway, I'll bet you have a treasure trove of poems from your travels. Growing by remaining smaller, as you put it -- is detestable to most minds. Ego ego ego --- i like the wisdom here, if I understand it correctly. Given human nature, I don't know if it's possible for most of us, but i do like the sentiment. julie