When gently gazing at my disease to please in the mirror . . . I compassionately see your own need to be needed reflecting back at me. Are they really any different? Such attachments invite seductive medications, like band aids or other life support systems. But when we find the courage to go beyond drinking the Kool Aid or ingesting anesthesia; We have the opportunity to take back our projections. There is an awakening into a mystical quest through the Dark Night of the Soul . . . A rebirth flickers like a light at the end of a tunnel. These inner dimensions are worth examining! Old relationships have been built on the bonds of attachment. When they burn in a funeral pyre, they are called by the fire to transform. Alchemy is sparked on the inside. A ripple effect is felt by others, whether realized or not. This is cosmic karma at play . . . When a minority healthy perspective lives in a room full of insanity, it is easy to be seen as an outcast. Because from the position of normative madness, wellness can feel like the odd man out, or woman if you are one. Except that from a clearer perspective, you see from a new reality that is now as obvious as it once was hidden. Another entanglement with form has been released . . . A dismantling of an ego-identification is not without feelings of loss. And then there is grieving in the death of the old self with that. Spirits are lifted and freed from their entrapment of excess baggage. There is a relaxation from feeling suffocated or feeling tugged on by suffering. A full bellied breath of fresh air is empowering; Now that’s soul liberation!
About the Poet:
Ari Bouse is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, ReikiMaster, Published Author, and Educator. He has over 20 years of social work experience, and has been working in Public Schools in Maine, for over 15 years. Ari has been a husband for decades, a dad for many years, and an animal lover too. Also, Ari chairs the Wellness Committee, facilitates the Mental Health Awareness Team, and serves as co-advisor for a Civil Rights Team in the school community he works in. Ari was born in Alaska, grew up in the MidWest, and New England, and lived in Australia while studying abroad in College. He has hiked in the Andean mountain range in Venezuela, and also all of the 48/4000 footers in the old White Mountains of New Hampshire. Ari’s name means lion in Hebrew, he was born in the Chinese year of the tiger, has lineage connections to a band of gypsies that fled Spain to Italy during the Inquisition, Judy Garland, and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
Ephemeral Elegies 