Witnessing the beauty within

by Michael McGregor

“To contemplate your fragile self,
Is witnessing the beauty within,
This new found source of wealth,
All wills dissolve like in an ocean akin,
Emotions flow through you,
Like the tide they’ll soon recede,
To flood back making you feel anew,
This timeless joy you now receive.”

Notes by the author:
Contemplation or meditation, self inquiry. This poem is inspired by the times I spent alone in the wild which favoured a deeper connection with nature, knowing that humans are not separate from it. Water an essential element for the existence of life and was chosen here to illustrate emotions. When we take the time to contemplate ourselves then comes a realization that we are fragile inside below our shell and the mask we need to show in society. This frailness can be viewed as being beautiful and at the same time make us realize how precious our lives are ; also I used the verb “to witness” like when being detached and perceiving ourselves from a third point of view.

When in contemplation we are in connection with this source of wealth and the wills which are motivated by desires are, in this moment, dissolved like in an ocean (which could be the ocean of consciousness). In this state whatever emotions arise are accepted and not rejected, flowing through you. As everything is temporal and governed by change the emotions will soon recede (comparing them to the fluctuations of the tide) to then flood back… Which can also be seen as a death and rebirth from the point of view of an experienced meditator. I end with the expression “timeless joy” to signify that we can find this joy of being connected to ourselves in disregard of time which is non existent. So this joy is timeless and was felt in the here and now.

© Fotos Fabian Gehweiler