the *dialectic of ever-bigger circles

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the will to win
We drew a circle and drew him in.

– Edwin Markham

The walls of human understanding have various purposes, textures, designs.  But their intent is often to keep something–a person, a mental state, a group, an idea, a dogma, religions and spiritualities–safe from challenge and on-going discovery of the truth of inherent polarity.  It’s not that what the wall is protecting is not-true.  Both the wall and the wall-challenger have aspects of the truth, as truth is not unilateral. It is this-and-that. When this-and-that are mixed up in a fine stew it can be called wisdom.  And from wisdom comes compassion.

She says:

you’re out of bounds

out of grace

out of luck.

I think:

what the @#$%?

Am I different than

I’ve ever been

just because the Question

has come to life through

my cracked vessel of a voice?

Love says:

Down, girl.

Small thinking is just big thinking

with the wrapper still on.

Responding in kind is not kind.

I say with my feet:

Call me fool

because I am that.

But

Heart cannot be co-opted

to live in a place

once cozy

now

grown too small.

However,

if you’d like to come

visit for a cup of tea

in my new digs,

delight in

a laugh and

some bread, cheese and wine,

what’s the harm?

Fire in the holy of holies

burns while I

beat out the rhythm

of my welcome

bare-footed

open-hearted.

*Hegel’s dialectic: as a thesis arises it is met with its polarity/antithesis; synthesis is birthed in conjunctio or the ‘this AND that’ mentioned above. Synthesis in turn becomes the new thesis, only to be met by antithesis..and its ‘deja vu all over again’.  This dialectic has been such a helpful construct for understanding how things work.  It has led me to the place where the instinct and impetus for pre-emptive destruction for the purpose of renewal is part of the warp and woof of my being.  “If the thesis is firmly in place, let’s begin to anti-thesize it, and get on with it! There’s synthesizing to be done, already. Burn, baby, burn.”