Gratitude for the Unknown

Gratitude for the Unknown

Feb 10, 2025 | Spoken Poetry

Gratitude for the Unknown

by Robert Levey

There is beauty in the unknown,
unknown in the beauty
of the unknown
is the beauty
of the unknown,
which is beautiful
on an unknown sphere,
so dear,
here
in the unknown
beauty
of the unknown
is the beauty
that rests,
waxes
and wanes
and seeks not to interpret
nor explain
the beauty
of the unknown
beauty
within the unknown
that hurtles
through internal and external space
in the tears
and the lines on the face
that grows old
within the beauty of the unknown
is the beauty
and the softness
that yields
and flows past childhood
and the memories
we lose
so we may gain
the wisdom
of what we cannot know,
or explain,
because
beauty is not an experience
that resides in the brain,
but in the spaces
within which we move
in bodies,
on bodies
spinning through outer spaces
and nebulae and black holes
and foundations
floating through time
and rhymes
about the beauty in the unknown,
the unknown in the beauty,
and how two is three
because space
has presence,
character
and grace
within every fold
and untold beauty
and a secret
tucked inside the unknown
times
of space,
elegance and pace,
the dance inside the space
of the unknown beauty
is a place
plus one
and two
is space
in the dance
of happenstance
and chance
is the beauty
of the unknown
in the spaces
of space,
past the beauty
beneath the place
inside the heart
of every body
is shared space.

Wading at the Edges

Wading at the Edges

Jun 23, 2024 | Transformation

All my life, I have essentially waded at the edges of the proverbial pools of life–a condition that does not lend itself to transformation, an idea I recently gleaned from Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) by Robin Wall Kimmerer. A book that weaves Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants, Braiding Sweetgrass is stunning in its simple wisdom that is really not that simple at all.

Is parenting simple? Is love simple? Are the truths peddled by various experts in any number of fields (business, marketing, real estate, etc., etc.) actually simple? Must every question have a definitive answer? Must every question beget a (pick your number) step solution? Is anything linear?

Perhaps the answers to these questions lie in the waters around (and within us). Am I speaking metaphorically? Kimmerer certainly is not when she says the following:

Among our Potawatomi people, women are the Keepers of Water. We carry the sacred water to ceremonies and act on its behalf. “Women have a natural bond with water, because we are both life bearers,” my sister said. “We carry our babies in internal ponds and they come forth into the world on a wave of water. It is our responsibility to safeguard the water for all our relations.” Being a good mother includes the caretaking of water. (2013, p. 94)

Kimmerer says, “Transformation is not accomplished by tentatively wading at the edge” (p. 89), and I cannot help but interpret this statement as descriptive of my approach to life. It has been easy to hide in my role as marketer, pitching ideas in service of systems and processes developed by others–and yet, what is my responsibility to others, to Earth, to myself now that I have completed my doctorate in Transformative Studies. Am I not transformed? Am I not now charged with a (sacred) responsibility to be of service to others?

“In one short life where does responsibility lie” (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 95)? Indeed, how do I answer this question? Perhaps, I can look to the apple tree for this answer:

The apple tree leans out over the water and makes for a shadowy arbor. In spring a drift of pink and white blossoms send plumes of fragrance wafting down the hill and a rain of petals on the water. For years now I’ve watched her seasons, from frothy pink blossoms, to gently swelling ovaries as the petals fall away, to sour green marbles of adolescent fruit, to the right golden apples of September. That tree has been a good mother. Most years she nurtures a full crop of apples, gathering the energy of the world into herself and passing it on. She sends her young out into the world well provisioned for their journey, packaged in sweetness to share with the world. (2013, p. 95)

I’m not sure I will ever look at a tree (or mother) the same way again. I also cannot imagine I will remain content to continue to wade at the edge(s). What can I offer? What can any of us offer? Questions like these speak to a scarcity paradigm, a concept explored at great length by Canty (2022) in Returning the Self to Nature.
References
Canty, J. M. (2022). Returning the self to nature: Undoing our collective narcissism and healing our planet. Shambhala Publications.

Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed editions.

Great Pains

Great Pains

May 1, 2023 | Spoken Poetry

Great Pains

by Robert Levey

Great pains
Love is not a place,
or strategy,
direction,
or inflection
of voice,
or choice,
thing,
way,
or dream,
even though
it may seem
like one
to me,
a man
lost in his own sea
and multiple versions of ‘me’,
each one a fortress
designed to shut out the mystery
of self
and the feelings in my head,
as I struggle to remember
what I meant
when I said
my soul had limits,
and boundaries,
and things no one could understand.
———–
As I bid adieu
to the many versions of you
who
were me,
I wonder at your place
in my story,
your history in my space,
as I age in place
without an observable trace
of the pain I experienced
and caused,
the scars
inside my heart
that will not heal,
because some questions go unanswered
and perhaps are not real.
———–
In a world full of 6-figure dreams,
it seems
like the cost of what I gain
causes too much pain
inside my heart
and the nature of my soul
tucked away inside
the forest that is childhood,
sprawling,
crawling
with wonder
and hope and sounds
within smells inside memories
caressed by small hands
that held nothing
except everything
I needed in moments
framed within a boundless imagination
near streams
and stones
that knew
and know
that the nature of myself
is but a ripple in a sea
that is and is not me,
and so we
undulate together
in a galaxy
far, far away
on a summer day,
dreaming of childhood’s end
and what’s around the bend,
future and past
nearly touching a charcoal sky,
stars twinkling,
I ask why,
but is that the question
I need answered before I die?
———–
I guess the answer depends
on whether there is a distinction
between the means and ends
and how I tell my story
and whether I frame myself as a hero
or simply a man
without any answer
or plan.
The universe is vast,
but is it grand?
Is there land
beyond the sea
that is me?
Is there a hard edge to finity,
or might I slip through
my own reverie
to discover I am
but one blade of prairie grass
swaying in the great pains of life…

Small Hands

Small Hands

Apr 4, 2023 | Spoken Poetry

Small Hands

by Robert Levey

The past
is both place and theory,
seems dreary, though,
to wallow in my history
and lose the mystery
if I hold on to my version of self
and not embrace
the softness
within my heart
and the feelings
that flow like a river
that connects
to earth and her heart
within mine.

I choose
to lose my self
in this natural flow,
renounce what I said I once knew
and know,
let go
of my notions
and other elixirs and potions
centered on logic,
right and wrong.

I believe there is a song
in my heart
and in hers
with a melody so refined
that it feels like cool air
on Saturday afternoons
near bodies of water that sway
when hands are held,
hearts meld
into one
underneath clouds
and sun.

It is not often
that a string in my heart has been strum,
but when it happens,
I feel numb
in my brain
and in response to things
that attempt to explain
that I am not of this earth
and that my body is not real.

While here,
I choose to face fear
and listen
to the wisdom of the river
and its flow
and the sounds that smell
like memories
floating through space time
inside my words
on the wings of birds
perched inside dreams
and small hands
that hold my heart.

Stepping Outside The Shadows Of Myself

Stepping Outside The Shadows Of Myself

Mar 25, 2023 | Love

Those two boys to my left are my sons when they were much younger and I subscribed to a much different paradigm of life, so different in fact that what I am about to write would have been unthinkable when this photo was taken.

All my life, I have hid behind my ability to write, spin tales, mesmerize (myself) with philosophical anecdotes that I now believe reflected a very limited conscious awareness of me and the world. As a white man, I am afforded the opportunity to not have to cultivate the ability to engage in any kind of ‘double consciousness.’ This term describes how marginalized peoples view themselves due to their racialized and other forms of oppression and devaluation in a white-dominated society.

My Consciousness
This kind of consciousness, however, leads to deeper reflections of self, world, and the relationship between the two. As a white man, I have not had to look at myself or my actions in such deep ways or through the eyes of others.

In my doctoral program, my focus is on transformation and dismantling the hero’s journey as a relevant conceptual metaphor in a world in the midst of an ecological crisis. This crisis, I contend, begins in the heart—and for me as a white man, I must deconstruct thousands of years’ worth of cultural assumptions in order to understand my heart or that of any other life form.

My Heart
My Heart
To reconnect with my heart, I must open it up and share it. A couple months ago, a friend of mine in the PhD program at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) put up a post about being vulnerable and sharing one’s heart and how that is the absolute most powerful action one can commit. The sentiment rocked my world, and I realized that is the one thing I had never done in my entire life.
No, I have hid from people all my life, fearing that my delicate sensitivities could not withstand the harsh realities of the world. I packaged myself for people. I’m the philosopher, the dad, (secretly) heartfelt man, the writer, the marketer, the fundraiser, etc. What I did not realize, however, was that I was a fraud.

Not once in my life, until recently, had I shared my pain. I held and compartmentalized everything inside. I held my pain, and what I have realized is not only is that weak, it is destructive—and I refuse to continue the charade that was my life.

My Pain
My two sons are in jail and have been for a few years. I have privately held onto this pain and cry by myself. I even held this information from my partner, who lived apart from me. I could not bring myself to share my story, and the damage that I caused by holding back my pain and vulnerability is unfathomable.

I fell into such a dark place in my heart, but I acted as if I was fine. I had press releases to write, websites to build, boxes to check, miles to run. I was fine, I said, to my parents. I shared my life with no one. I thought I was ‘the hero’ in my own story.

As I continue to evolve and explore transsubjectivity, a liminal space in which my conscious interpretation of reality both informs and is informed by my experiences of everything, I feel an interconnectedness. I am no longer a single man alone on some path, but rather a strand woven into myself, others, and the world. I was not fine. I had a broken heart and slipped into a deep and dark depression, unsure of anything in the world given my inability as a dad to somehow redirect my sons from unfortunate choices.

In December 2022, my longtime partner and I split—and she was and still is a supernatural human being to me, so lovely in every way. My inability to embrace myself, love, or even her, however, had devastating consequences, and the unthinkable occurred when we parted ways.

I am still in love with this woman and will always love her, and yet the pain I experienced opened up a pathway on which I now walk with attention and care. This latest file in The Philosopher Files is my attempt to accept my responsibilities and share my vulnerabilities.

Me and my boys
My Apology
Until December 2022, I lived a life in the shadows, holding onto ideas, feelings, perceptions, and ways of being that appeared fine to the outside world, but were privately destructive. My personal life reflected my internal chaos.

At the same time, I had countless conversations throughout my life where I expressed knowledge on something. I (subtly) dismissed perspectives, acted impatiently, and otherwise did not consider the feelings or ideas of others in the ways that I believe with all my heart are so essential to a compassionate life.

To anyone with whom I ever spoke prior to December 2022, I apologize for not holding you with the love I feel in my heart but was afraid to express. I have hurt people, chopped down trees, stepped on spiders, and acted in ways that do not reflect a love I hold for the universe and everything in it. To every life form—even in microscopic form—I apologize and thank you for your existence.

To my parents, I love you. Your consistency and support has been a rock in my otherwise fluid existence that often times flows in directions I could neither understand or love. As you age, I feel new emotions and will watch over you to ensure you are safe and happy as you define these terms.

To my sons, I love you with all my being. I would not change you in any way nor would I wish you to be different. I am proud to be your dad and love being your father. I have cried a million tears of joy and a million tears of pain as your dad, and each drop was beautiful. The love I feel for you has no conditions. I cherish you both.

To the woman who went on her own path in December 2022, I am sorry in all universes. I really did see you, and I believe you saw me, too. The love I felt and feel for you is wild, durable, expanding, textured, soft, gentle, malleable, regenerative, evolving, real, forever, boundless and will never dissipate. I love you more each day regardless as to whether or I not I ever see you again. You are that kind of woman.

To the universe, I have infinite love, which does not mean I will not make mistakes, or feel sad, or confused. It does, however, mean that I have stepped outside the shadows of myself…

Robert Levey Now