RedFlame DeepWater (pt.2): Return to the Scene

The deepening of spiritual awareness can go through many stages, some repeating and bringing up old patterns to make conscious, some with new, unexplained events to experience. I am currently working on a long narrative poem called RedFlame DeepWater. I previously posted Part 1, RedFlame Initiates Destruction, about the sudden events that can enter our lives initiating a potential for deepening our awareness. Whether we take that opportunity depends on our choices during these challenging times.

Part 2 of RedFlame DeepWater, Returning to the Scene, picks up where our cherished life, identity, beliefs, feelings, thoughts and possessions have been burned by a consuming RedFlame erupting suddenly. As fast as the destructive flame entered our life, it left, leaving us to believe that now we can go back and rebuild the life that was destroyed.

Part two is about the stage of the “dark night of the soul” when you try to rebuild your previous life after suffering tremendous loss and trauma. However, the “dark night of the soul” is about spiritual growth and not just recovering what was lost. So, when we try to restore the past, we find out that is not possible, the process is continuing to cleanse us and transform our lives. But if feels like our lives are being taken away, and we can go into denial, rage, and depression, and refuse to go on unless we get what we want. But Spirit has more wisdom, and more in store for us.

Personally, I feel like this stage of my “dark night of the soul” is much more difficult than other more painful crises and events that have happened in my life.  But, you can have the potential of deeper internal experiences during times of loss and suffering.  This deeper potential requires giving up what we hang our identity on, what we use as our security, and throws us into a dark abyss with no promises of bringing us back out. This is the painful stage of releasing more of our sacred attachments.

RedFlame DeepWater
Part 2

Returning to the Scene

The path leads me back
to survey my previous life,
now burned by RedFlame
into unrecognizable rubble.

I return to look for what is left.
Black Ash is smoldering,
smoke is thinning,
revealing alien landscapes
jutting out oddly.

But maybe it is not so bad,
Maybe all is not lost.
I’m sure I can find
remnants to repair,
to redecorate,
to renovate,
my world to re-create.

I know I can,
I can see some of my things,
still where they collapsed.
I run to this
cherished place,
blind to the extent
of destruction.

As I go towards my home,
I remember
how much I love,
my things, my life, my identity,
the people, places and perceptions
that define me.

I really want it all back.
My life depends on it.
I feel secure in familiar spaces.
Friends and family expect
THIS
to be me.

As I get closer
I look down and
I see–
Red coals still glowing,
an echo of RedFlame,
threatening those that may touch.

I try to touch beloved possessions,
barely recognizable,
so loved & cherished.
Each touch,
melting and searing flesh,
with Pain Unimaginable.

I must be careful now –
I see my possessions,
I try to grab—-
but it –
burns & falls.
Well, that is gone –
Maybe just this one thing,
burns, sears, snaps.

Maybe just this-
slices, cuts.

I fall on the rubble
bruised, battered, cut & sore
bleeding, belligerent, bedraggled.
I slowly stand
in pain…

I look further.
All I can do is stare
in disbelief.
Nursing burns.
My tears fall on the coals,
I watch them sizzle & evaporate,
repelling even the slightest moisture.

Latent explosions, falling debris,
continue to sound.
A hellish landscape,
Now black with death.
Such beauty destroyed,
in a long instant.
Death all around, in and through.
Numb shock sets in.

Pain Unimaginable,
loss, grief, & death,
are everywhere.
Disbelief and denial set in further.
Frozen watching,
unable to move
no where to go…

Stuck suffering.

Stuck Suffering,
This didn’t really happen!

Stuck Suffering,
I don’t deserve this!

Stuck Suffering,
This shouldn’t happen to me!

Stuck Suffering,
Someone must save me!

Stuck Suffering…

I don’t care…

Part 3 of RedFlame DeepWater is called Becoming Invisible…