Going with the flow Yet you do not know That the flow goes all directions
The natural lines that blind your mind These barriers of glass Create channels, rivers, currents Patterns Where the water The flow Simply goes
When you are always in the rapids When your point of view is rabid Only reacting Not responding So swept up in the current You flail, flounder, following Helplessly
Yet little do you know The flow goes all directions You are never alone You are a node You are the ocean Not a current You are everything Youβre worth it You are the moment You are worship You are attention pointed out Barriers are but illusions Your life is lilting, tilting fusions But becoming the ocean is not always easy Itβs massive, the motion makes us queasy Most of the time we are in our own streams Funneled by barriers as real as our dreams But funneled nonetheless Carried away
The process of growth Is slowly raising yourself out of the stream Slowly Gradually Adding moments of response Instead of reaction In that act We find branches In the stream And therefore choice We can paddle Change our course
The world opens up We are not the ocean yet But on our way As you lift yourself higher Out of the stream You do begin to see The flow goes all directions Flowing into the sea Not only are you the ocean But you are every stream
You float above this aquatic landscape Coursing rivers like veins across the living earth And, here is the magical part: You can choose where to swim
You dive in Headfirst You are birthed This is divinity Infinity Each moment of consciousness A fateful flux Between ocean and stream Between finite and infinite The macrocosm above The microcosm below The cosm in between
You are Here Now The barrier between the mundane and the divine The band of fluctuation You are the frame In which This artwork unfolds
That is what happens when you can choose When you lift out of the stream
On one level, you choose the next moment
On another level, you choose any of the infinite realities that your mind can imagine
On yet another, you are consciousness, the great ocean of light Choosing which point to dive into the universe Which river to course through
To enter a life of conscious experience To sing the body electric Be born and live and die Be born Live Die From ocean to stream and ocean again
The stream will be your entire experience While you are underwater
But never forget: This is Water
David Foster This is Wallace
Meditation is learning how to swim To realize this is water And dryness is within Then you learn to rise Float above the water Ascend Transcend Fly So high Then choose your stream Dive in Up and down In and out Like a dolphin merrily moving through the ocean A smiling sine wave Flowing seamlessly, dreamily No wonder they are smiling As free as one can be They are the ocean and the stream A realization that is probably easy When one is born under the sea
We are the water in the stream And the sea Stretching across infinity We are the force flowing through the tree Splitting, branching Diverging from the whole But connected at the soul
In actuality We are fractality
This poem was originally published on Medium with some pictures to accompany it to help illustrate the vision I'm trying to communicate, please check it out if you're interested! https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts/the-stream-and-the-ocean-d4a34c9f1a