Time Warp

Coming back to Southern Ontario in the muggy summertime, nearly 30 years past my youth. All this music and freedom in my heart, and a certain amount of discovery. I didn’t know what I wanted to find, so many years ago at age 16, when I first came here.

Now I do know – it’s freedom. Personal, spiritual, soul freedom. The kind of freedom that makes you bust your heart open. The kind of freedom that really makes you sing from the bottom of your lungs, digging deep into your guts. Th kind of freedom that gives power to others, as well as oneself. The kind of freedom that is compassionate and caring, but not limiting, jealous or possessive over anyone. Th kind of freedom that truly celebrates everyone’s unique power.

It’s hot here, though overcast. But the birdsong sounds basically the same as at home. I hear the city of Toronto bustling away at its business – air conditioners, road traffic, the energetic hum of millions living and cooperating and striving.

Just the same as when I arrived here in 1993 from my small hometown, riding the 401 highway flabbergasted by the sheer immensity and volume of humanity around me – now, I still find myself overwhelmed thinking about all that’s going on, all the layers above and below of people working and buying and fucking and living, and how it all flows on and on like a mighty river.

Somehow it all flows on, and I give thanks for that.

All the currents and eddies swirling, pushing, feeding into tributaries and trickling into tiny streams – all of this eventually soaking into our thirsty human bodies as we drink up the nectar of life.

We live. I live.

Not separate but together, belonging to a whole. And who knows what eddy might grab me and toss me in circles for awhile? Who knows what current might take me? Who knows when I will change form and evaporate into the sky, only to gather and condense and rain down again in some other part of the world?

How much of this trajectory can I control? How much should I try to contain it, without freezing or growing stagnant?