The Poet (delayed) (00:01)
Hi everyone, we wanted to welcome you to Torchlight and I'm Allie, I'm the owner of Sweetcake Bakeshop and I'm really excited about this event. So I'm gonna do a quick introduction.

to Scott Edgar. He is a father of five. For those of you who don't know, father of five, he is an attorney and he's an amazing poet and has written some really, really incredible things. Just a really great man. So, so glad you guys could all come and I'm going to turn the time over to Scott.

I want to thank Ali for letting us use this place. This is cute little shop. It's like a Hallmark movie in here, kind of. So the idea that she and I had is to do this torchlight program. Each month we want to invite a new artist, writer, Oops, there goes my glasses. Somebody to come in and give a presentation each month, kind of the idea being to connect through art.

through the community. ⁓ just, know, Ali and I have, how long, two, we've known each other for two, not quite two months. So we just barely met actually. But we just hit it off and this kind of just fell into place really. And it's been a lot of fun getting to know her and like planning this. And so we're, I appreciate everybody coming tonight. And ⁓ I just have a little presentation here. Let me grab my glasses and we'll get started.

All right, so the title of the presentation tonight is What Steals Your Sleep? The Human Condition and the Need for Connection. maybe we don't all haven't heard the term the human condition, but if you haven't heard it before, you've experienced it because it's just that, the human condition. Loving, suffering, in fact I think if I were to boil it down to one word, I'd probably say suffer.

That's the human condition. Nietzsche says that to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning. And I love that. And he also says that it's not, he said it's the meaningless suffering, not suffering itself is the curse that lays across mankind. And I like that because to accept and acknowledge that

Being human involves suffering. We spend a lifetime trying to avoid suffering. A lot of our activities are to try to avoid that, but it's inevitable. And the idea then is not to avoid it, but to find meaning in it. So tonight what I wanted to do is kind of go through my experience with the human condition through my poetry. I started writing poetry really in earnest about five years ago.

And when I decided to do this presentation, I just started kind of combing through my poetry. And surprisingly, I found poetry that just seemed to fit right in. And so I'm going read some poetry tonight and talk about kind of going through my life, actually. It may resonate with some of you guys. It's my story. But we have being human in common. So.

it'll probably resonate some of it.

Without further ado, let me get this started. So, February 6th, 1974 is a big day for me. That was the day I was born. And I'm going to start out with a poem about that day. It reads, thrust into mortality, new and unbroken yet, and you, having just crossed the valley with tender reach, pull me close to your body, which was broken for me.

In your safety, your heartbeat communicates to me of love, of possession. I belong to you. In that moment, I alone am your world. I alone am your joy.

You guys know who Gabor Mate is, anybody? He's a, Pat knows who he is. He's a doctor, he talks a lot about healing and emotional trauma and so forth. He says that as children, human children, need two, there are two things that we need specifically, attachment to a caregiver and attachment to ourselves, our authentic selves. And so, this poem kind of represents that, attachment to my mother. And I had that.

This next poem I to read is titled In My Marrow. It reads, this has to do with the second part of Gabo Amate. I am drenched in freedom, soaked to the bone. Even more, it's in my marrow. I brought it from the womb and will take it to the dust. Place chains on my wrists, yet I am free. Make my walls into iron bars, yet I am free. For my mind is unchainable.

and my heart uncageable. Abdication is my only threat. I'm Socrates free. I'm William Wallace free. I'm Solomon Northrup free. I'm Victor Frankel free. I am human. I am free. It's in my marrow. And so first day, I was doing pretty good, two for two. Attachment to the caregiver, attachment to my authentic self. So not too bad. And I think most people did pretty well the first day.

two for two. But as time goes on, are subject to the vicissitudes of life. Some of us do better than others, and a lot of it as children is not, we have no say in what happens. And both of those, attachment to the caregiver, attachment to our authentic selves are attacked.

Sometimes ⁓ there's nothing we can do about it. So I don't really have a whole lot of memories up until I was 10 years old. do you have a lot of memories? This is my sister Melissa here.

⁓ The best sister you could ever have, by the way. Well, except for my other sisters, too, because they'll be listening, I hope. But anyway, ⁓ so I don't have a lot of memories. I have child memories. They seem to be good memories. I don't have a lot of ⁓ traumatic memories. But for those of you who know me, ⁓ you understand that, or you know that there was another big day in my life, and that was April 8th, 1984.

And that was also kind of a rebirth for me. That was the day that both, I would kind of characterize it as both, those attachment, attachment to caregiver, attachment to myself were kind of shattered. And that was the day my mom passed away. And I was 10, Melissa, you were 11.

So this next poem is actually part two of a longer poem that I have called On Becoming a Black Hole. the poem itself is a parallel between the life of a star and my life, basically. And.

The birth and death of a star. we've got some more people coming in here.

Hey, Brian, come on in.

Welcome. Some seats over here.

So ⁓ this poem, it's a parallel between the birth and death of a star, basically. And effectively, part two is my rebirth, the day my mom passed away. And so this kind of represents, in this poem itself, it's a little bit longer poem, but it represents both the way I kind of see it interpreted as the.

that attachment to my caregiver and attachment to myself kind of being wrecked. So let me read that for you. And this is part two of the poem. The part two is the title, Achieving Equilibrium, the Boy. And it reads, and let me give you a little, so she passed away about 10 p.m. at night after I'd gone to bed.

And it reads, in the darkness, the boy closed his eyes and sleep came to him as death. And it brought death before his eyes opened again. And in the same darkness, while the sun burned low beneath the horizon, he learned of it. She was not coming home. And the darkness moved into him and it was heavy and expanded, full of confusion and death. And he was conceived in that darkness to be born again, not of water or of the spirit.

And in his core it incubated, an embryo it weighted, his new self, for the boy to lay it down, his old self. But in that moment, the crush of the expanding darkness was repelled by the oblivion of his grief and tears and a tenuous equilibrium. But his ears were filled with sadness and nothing else. And through his salty vision, the boy looked around and saw the sadness. There were so many tears and he saw them all, but only a few hands to wipe them away.

And those hands were earnest too in explaining the mysteries of God. He needed her, so God took her away. But his confusion only grew heavier because he needed her too and had no other options. Confusion wracked his heart increasingly and the darkness grew massive proportionately. Its weight was unbearable and violent, crushing him inward in contraction. He was little still.

and his body was soft still, and his soul was tender still, neither fortified yet to resist this offensive. He couldn't hold his boundaries, not on his own, and he was on his own. So he abandoned them, his boundaries, also his wants and needs.

and laid his hand upon his mouth and became nothing, and there was no light in him, and equilibrium was lost, and so was the boy. But then, in an instant, he felt at a calmness against the relentless contractions on all sides, and it radiated outward, and the pain stopped. He was delivered from the darkness, and he was born again, his newness worn as a mask. But there was no crying at this birth. He wiped away his own tears. Also,

No wanting or needing as at his first, and no one questioned his silence. Instead, they welcomed it. It was a sign of a healthy boy, they reasoned. Well adjusted. Also, one less child to worry about. And the calmness expanded outward to every part of him, leaving an emptiness in the place where the darkness was. But he felt it as lightness and welcomed it. He shines now from his reflective mask of newness and

Others are drawn to him to renew themselves. He shines for them and reflects them and makes no demands, but absorbs their praise of his conformity and converts it to euphoric energy that radiates outward in relief against the emptiness that grows heavy now and works to pull him inward. But he is just a boy and doesn't know the true cost of his sacrifice or that one day he will pay that cost in full. But for now he shines and

he is even.

I mean, it's pretty traumatic to have your mom pass away when you're 10 years old. And I just remember ⁓ crying for about an hour, then getting up at 1 AM, or getting up, stopping at about 1 AM, because we found out about midnight, and then just not crying anymore, starting to get ready for school, until somebody came and told me that I didn't have to go to school tomorrow. Plus, it was 1 o'clock in the morning, and plus, my mom passed away. So I didn't have to get ready for school. And I remember kind of just becoming

I don't want to say stoic about it, but I look back now and I think that should have been a bigger deal than it was. It should have wrecked me, but I don't recall really ever talking about my mom's death. don't know. I don't remember ever having conversations about it. Sorry to involve you in this, Melissa. Should have told you beforehand. ⁓ In fact, I look back now and it seemed more of a subtle wound. And this next point I want to read is titled Subtle Wound. And it kind of expresses

the feelings that I had about it and how we just kind of moved on. just, that's, know, yeah, it hurts, but you just got to move on. And then when you stop, when the pain stops, it's over. ⁓ This poem, again, titled Subtle Wound, reads, You left me when my world was measured by a child's stride. You had to go away for a while, I was told, to ease me into the truth. You were gone and not coming back.

It was involuntary, I know, you're leaving. But intent is not part of trauma's calculus. So I was not spared. Though the wound went unnoticed, there was no nervous response or reflexive recoil as when you touch a hot pan. It was subtle. No bleeding, no blistered flesh. Just a change in routine and one less setting at the table.

And that's how it felt to me is just, we just got to move on. God needed her. He took her. I had no idea that there was this gaping emotional wound that I was dealing with. I had no idea what to do with that. I just have to move on. Meanwhile, I was kind of emotionally bleeding out and had no idea. And so in situations like that, I look back now and I think, what did I do? What did I do? And there's lots of insecurity. I didn't.

know it as insecurity, didn't know it as... ⁓

I didn't know it as a problem. I just thought it's difficult. That's just my lot in life. I just got to take it and go. I didn't realize there was something that could be done about it, but I just moved on. was just a kid. ⁓ But there are problems. We experience problems when we, I understand this now better. ⁓ When we have these emotional deficits, we react in unhealthy ways. And I express that in this, ⁓

poem titled The Economy of Emotions. It reads, in the economy of emotions, when life feels like it's all or nothing, a panic grips the market when peace becomes scarce. And then the price for peace skyrockets and knockoffs abound. And that is why some give up everything in exchange for nothingness, because it feels like a reasonable price and nothingness feels close enough to peace for those who are desperate.

And I, as a kid, I look back now, of course when I was younger I didn't recognize what was going on. I just thought, I need stability, where can I get stability? And what I look back and I see now is I found that stability in religion. And it was good for me. It gave me a metric to measure ⁓ myself by. Like, am I doing okay? Well, these are the rules, these are the structure that gives me. How am I on this structure? Where am I on this? Okay, I'm here.

okay, I can feel good about myself. Or if I'm down here, okay, I don't feel good about myself, but I see what I need to do. I mean, I could see it. And so that was very helpful for me as a kid. It wasn't very helpful in helping me know me though, because I had to abandon myself, I felt like a lot. And it became...

I'll just say I developed an unhealthy relationship with religion. That's what I'll say. And it became an obstacle for me, I see now. But at the time, it was something that I needed. So I have no animosity at all. at the time, it was something that I needed. But it was not helpful for me. But this next poem kind of expresses how I, these next couple poems express how they impacted me. This first one is called Motherless Pieta.

It's reference to Michelangelo's Pieta where it's Mary holding Christ after he's come down off the cross. His body is he's crucified, he's draped across her lap. So this one though is titled Motherless Pieta. reads, behind the curtain, the cottonmouths speak, sending their words through the air. Sacrifice and self-laceration, bloodless. Lift the hands that hang down and succor and suffer. Then heaven waits.

He listens with prejudice and certainty, but his hands hang lowest of all the hanging hands. My hands will be lifted, he says, as I lift others. So move on, let me be. I have work to do. And his low hands raise stones to a single-eyed altar. Then he lays himself down, body draped over the altar stones, a motherless pieta, self-sacrificed, savior to none. But heaven waits, they say. The message that I got, rightly or not,

sacrifice yourself and then you'll be good. And so I struggled. I really tried to do that. I tried very hard to... ⁓

meet those metrics that I saw, to the point where I started creating my own metrics in that system. Like if this is good, then maybe this is even better. And I got to the point at some times where I almost was pharisaic in a sense, where I was creating my own hedge around the law, creating a system where, well, this will keep me from getting there.

I will note though that it never did. I always fell short, I felt like. So this poem actually is titled Fersik and expresses how I felt a lot. I tried to create things for myself that I felt like would help me be better. It reads, with the sound of soft strides, he passes his days as a panther in a Parisian garden, caged and subdued.

ashamed of his God-given clause and their potential. He pleads to God, take these clause from me. But God remains silent and he feels them still. He feels them every day, terrible and twitching and full of potential. So he paces his mind and soul numbing circles again and again and again. He will answer his own prayer. And so I often set my own metrics and tried to

do what I felt God would have me do even though he's not doing it. ⁓

And these things never really brought me peace. I had a lot of shame. so eventually I just found my own way, I guess. I found my own way. But in the meantime, as I tried to live my life, tried to find peace, tried to find stability, my life was moving on. And one thing that I did realize is that the wounding that I was getting from other people was...

I it doesn't stop. We're all wounding each other every day, like billiard balls on a billiard table of life just crashing into each other, intentionally or not. ⁓ And many times, the wounds that we create, we, like the wounds that we...

cause in others we can do nothing about. And this next poem addresses that. It's titled Injustice. It reads, I'll speak of injustice. She had the strength to harm you, to strike the blow, to score the wound, but not to bind it up. She cannot heal you. She has no salve strong.

And let me speak of injustice again because I have the strength to harm you, to strike the blow, to score the wound, but not to bind it up. I cannot heal you. I have no self strong enough. So I am being wounded and I am wounding and I can't do anything about it. Sometimes we wound each other to the point where, well, to the degree or in a way that we can't heal. The other person has to heal. I have to heal wounds that I've received from other people. Other people have to heal their wounds that they receive from me.

That's a thing to do. It's hard thing to accept. ⁓ And often, my experience is that those who receive those wounds from me are my closest, most intimate family, friends. And that's probably the hardest. Most of the wounds, I don't think are intentional. But again, as I mentioned in subtle wound, intent is not part of trauma's calculus. I think we're wounded whether there's intent or not. And that's hard to deal with.

Her eyes were worn in red as her pain raged from her. Her mouth was dry and frothy as she tried to use words to express the death inside. But he was unmoved, emotionless, and her voice broke. Her words, her pain, they went through him, but he kept them from his heart.

these wounds you tried to repair and you can't. And sometimes things fall apart because of them. Despite the trying, this next poem, Why Things Fall Apart, he tried and so did she, but neither understood the other. And that is how things fall apart despite the trying. And I think that's the hard part about this is you can give everything you've got, but sometimes you just don't understand each other. And what do you do?

I want to talk about that a little bit later in the presentation, but that's hard. And not just, I think the most difficult thing for me is as a parent wounding my children inadvertently most of the time.

and feeling inconsequential ⁓ as a parent. This next poem addresses that ⁓ because I feel inconsequential a lot actually as a parent. I don't know how you guys feel. But ⁓ at what point is my absence inconsequential? When they're too young to know the need, but that time is gone. Certainly not now in the midst of life's straits with foamy waves pounding and hidden reefs lurking beneath an angry.

fluid surface? No, not now. Now they need a captain. Is that presumptuous? A captain who has already navigated a similar course, more hazelwood than Magellan. Well, all hazelwood and no Magellan. little side note, hazelwood is the captain of the ⁓ Exxon Valdez, by the way. So a little context there. Perhaps that time will be when they've helmed their own ship. Is my absence inconsequential then? Can I cross the bar then?

Of course, they'll think of me and perhaps want to see my face and hear my voice or have me hear their voice and see their face. But would my absence harm them in those later years? That is the question. But here's the better question. Would my absence now

be better than running them aground again and again and taking on salty water to no seeming end? I've given it a go, but the ship lists endlessly and the course seems fucked. Would the idea of me be better than reality? That is the real question.

I've come to the conclusion that the answer is the reality is better than the idea. ⁓

There's another friend, Hathlain. Come on in, have a seat.

So I struggle with that a lot. Wounding and not being able to heal other people or not being able to help other people. In fact, I think that's the most difficult part, especially with the kids.

And the problem is that for me, I don't know, for me I have nights where I feel hopeless. I feel like it's just not getting any better. And by the way, this is a hopeful story, so it sounds real depressing. It sounds real depressing, but it's not a depressing story. It's a hopeful story. You'll hear it. It's a hopeful story. And I hope I'm not the only one who's resonating with all of these things. I hope it's resonating with you guys a bit. But ⁓ this next poem, Dark Canopy, reads, hopelessness covers me.

Like a forest canopy on a moonless night, it covers me. I see no way or path to deliver myself in the darkness. It fills my eyes. And they are unable to see the torchlight of rescuers from May approach. All is black and dead. Every gleam is only a phantom, the only variations in light are darker shadows waiting to finish me off for good.

And so there are nights, days that I feel that way. ⁓ Kind of wish that I hadn't woken up in the morning. Wish maybe that ⁓ I could just check out, maybe head west and not look back.

The tomb is my home. Its silent tenants bid come, rest your clouded heart. Lay your warm bony flesh on the cold stony floor and sleep. And again, death is not fearsome to hearts heavy with despair. Come, lay down your load. So there are days and nights where I feel, I've felt like this is just too much. And again, this is a hopeful story. So these are.

These are dark or maybe sad, it's just a little note here. Poetry has been a very good outlet for me to express and deal with these types of emotions. And so it's been very good for me. But death is not always fearsome for me. There are nights that I would lay awake thinking about one day death will be here. And then what am I going to look back on my life and think and say? Death comes and he walks.

We are the quarry, we all. He takes whom he will, employing no subtlety, for we're tethered finitely." And I think about that a lot. Our days are numbered. And I would lay awake at nights thinking about that. Like, it's coming. It's coming. Am I going to get to the end of my life and look back and just regret? What am I going to regret? What am I going to regret? When I was in 2017, was in the south of France with my family.

a little town called Arle, which is where Van Gogh was for 18 very productive months. And they had this national park there called Camargue National Park. And we wandering around. They got pink flamingos, these white stallions, a beautiful place. And we're walking around, and I saw this old stone building, this old stone house just kind of starting to crumble. And I love stuff like that. I like to think about who built it? Where are the people who built this? Where are they?

What was their life like? So I started writing a poem then, 2017, April, finished it I think in like 2021, so put it aside for a bit. But the poem kind of expresses that sentiment I mentioned earlier about.

regretting getting to the end of your life and regretting like what am I going to be remembered as? Am going to leave anything or am I going to just think?

was just part of Earth's existence, that's all I was. But this poem is titled Ruins de Tourville, which is the name of the building and house that I found out later. It's tribute to the builders of the broken stone house in the Camargue National Park in south of France. It reads.

Where are those hands that broke the black earth and raised you up? That cut your stones and fit them one upon the other? Where are they now? Was the black earth broken for them? Has that same earth brought them back into itself? And who wept for them and kissed them in their cold blast moments? Or did they go still in silence among unfamiliar faces with you, a crumbling house, their only vestige?

So I think, what's gonna be my vestige? It's gonna be an old crumbling house or is it gonna be anything? Or is it gonna be children that remember me fondly? Grandkids that remember me fondly? What is it gonna be? And so I've thought about that a lot. ⁓ Now again.

These are thoughts and feelings that I've had. still have these. I'm moving out of this, but these are things I still struggle with. But I have a different perspective now. ⁓ Because during all that time, I would have clarity. I would think, OK, things aren't so bad. There's something you can do here. This is not such a bad situation. And I would see with clarity, like, you can do this and this and this.

but it usually was momentary.

that clarity came, but not very often. This poem addresses kind of how I dealt with that. This poem is titled Forgotten Walls. my friend Josh who's here, he's the first one to point it out. Like the first two lines of here are passive. And when I wrote the poem, I didn't realize it there. I wasn't thinking that I'm going to write this in the passive voice. But it was in the passive voice. And when I read it now in the passive voice, I think, OK, I understand now why I wrote in the passive voice.

So that was Josh's insight right there. Reads, clarity comes and the walls reveal themselves, tall, strong, and immovable. In the haze and fog which is his daily walk, their existence is blurred. They are forgotten. Though he was there when they were built and even added stones, now in clarity he looks to bring them down stone by stone. And so he works relentlessly with pick and hammer.

as his salty sweat stings his eyes and his muscles in mind fatigue. Yet his only yield from this Sisyphean task is bloodied palms and frustration while the stones remain one upon the other. Then slowly and imperceptibly, under cover of his exhausted heart and mind, the fog seeps back again and hides the stony barricade. And that was, happened to me a lot. Clarity would come.

I would think I could do something about this. I'd put effort into it, but then that fog would seep back in. I'd get exhausted, no real effort. I'd get just on and on and on and on. ⁓

Eventually, I started to seek out the clarity. And a big thing for me actually, I started to read Friedrich Nietzsche, and it gave me another lens to look at life through. it helped me, like things that I had thought and felt before, and I just had to push them aside, I that doesn't make sense to me. I mean, it makes sense to me, I feel it, but I don't understand it. And then when I started reading his writings, he was putting things into words that I was feeling.

And I started to feel seen and I thought, okay, I have another lens to view life with. then I started to, something happened. I started now to like see these possibilities. And that was kind of a revelation for me. One of these possibilities, I wrote this in my poem, Besieged, reads, so short one, possibilities march on my walled city of certainties.

and lay siege. And so I started, now I'm having siege as I think about the possibilities from the outside. And then on the inside, I've got my pick and hammer and I'm trying to take the walls down. So now we've got this going back and forth. And I began to see the walls more clearly. Even when the fog seeped back in, I knew they were there. Whereas before, I would forget about them. I would forget about the walls. And I just get back into my same patterns and just

Wake up, do my stuff, go to bed, and just feel unfulfilled every day. That's what it was. But I started to change. ⁓ I began to see myself more clearly. I began to know myself more clearly. ⁓ It doesn't mean things got easier. In fact, there's ⁓ a steep learning curve. actually, my experience was it got a little bit more difficult. But I did see it. ⁓

This next poem was kind of a revelation to me, actually. It's titled Terrible Potential. Some of my poems I write and they just come, I spend a lot of time working on them. Some poems just come right out. This is one of those poems that just came right out. And I go back to this poem a lot to remind myself of who I am, to remind myself where I'm at, and to remind myself that...

you're going to be OK. so this poem, I feel.

want to use word personal scripture. Maybe that's appropriate, but it's something I go back to a lot. The title is Terrible Potential. It reads, I see it now. For years, I only sensed it or saw the dissipating dust tails of its approach, but it filled me with terror. And there was no cover or protection, so I ran as fast as my child's stride could take me, not even knowing what it was, only that it was coming.

But that made the fear so much more in my little mind so I ran harder until I forgot why I was running, only knowing that I couldn't stop. But I see it now. Its shape is fluid and undefined, and its terrible potential fills my mind. I want to keep running, retreating, but it won't stop. It's closing the gap, and it's more terrible than I ever thought. But it's real. I see it now.

And I know there's no escape, there never was. But I want to keep running anyway until it overtakes me. I won't see it coming. It will just happen and be done. But my insufficient legs refuse to carry me anymore. So I prostrate myself as an offering. I know you're coming, I whisper. And I offer myself willingly. This is not defeat, I reassure myself. Then lower my eyes and brace for its fury.

Let me pause. You guys remember the claws that I was praying would be taken from me? Well, they were never taken.

but my mind keeps moving defiantly. It knows truths that my body forgot and reminds me. You were born with claws and they're with you still. And I remember them. They are deep, but I feel them and they're there. So I raise my body from the dirt and my eyes to the distance. It is closer now, the gap disappearing, but not my fear.

My fear is growing, broadcast loudly by my beating heart. But I no longer want to run, nor offer myself willingly. Instead, I watch it come, and I wait. In fear, true. But I wait to receive it, and I steady myself. I have claws, and I feel them. And I will meet it face to face. I have terrible potential too. I feel it now.

And so as I read this poem and remind myself, you don't have to back down from stuff. You might get your ass kicked, and that's OK. That's part of life. But you don't have to back down anymore. You don't have to run anymore. You can stand. You can face it. I began to, this didn't happen to me overnight. These are like a slow progress. I don't always feel this way. Sometimes I revert to that running.

Sometimes I just, I want to run still. Sometimes I want to hide. Sometimes I want to get out of it. I don't want to turn it. I don't want to fight. I want my claws to be gone. I don't want to do it anymore. ⁓ But the deal is when you know it, you know it and you can't unknow it. And so if you run, you run, but it's going to be worse. It's going to be worse. There's no excuse anymore. ⁓ But I'm seeing life differently now. You know, one thing that I've really...

The parable of the prodigal son has really hit me differently.

I used to my life or try to live my life like the brother who stayed home and do everything that was asked for him. I wanted to do that. That's what I was trying to do, creating my own metrics. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. Just do that. ⁓ I don't see it that way anymore. Now I want to be the prodigal. And I think that's what my opinion is. That's what we are supposed to be. That and this poem is titled, We Are All Prodigal. It reads, we are all prodigal.

me and you, the whole lot of us, or we should be at least.

There is no power or virtue in never transgressing someone else's commandments. All you get is what they have and the price is your soul. So go into a far country and live riotously if you must. Some may even waste their time with harlots, literally or figuratively, but go and live your life. You'll know pain and you'll get lost and you will need to find your own way, but go anyway. And with any luck, you'll end up among the swine.

wanting to fill your belly with the husks they eat. But that is where the lucky ones end up, with the swine, because it is there where the dead are made alive again. It is there where the lost are found.

and then given robes and rings and shoes and feasts made of fatted calves. But most importantly, after your life in the far country, it is there with the swine where you see clearly and finally you come to yourself and there is power and virtue in that. ⁓

And as I've thought about that, think, yeah, that's what I need to be doing. I need to be living my life, not trying just not to do evil. I need to be living my life and growing. And as I've started to do that, I feel like I've started to recover myself. You know, as I mentioned at beginning, in Gabor Mates, you have to have a connection with yourself and your caregiver. And I think for me, I've started like, need to start connecting with myself. And these are some things I've got for Haiku, in fact.

These are the haiku here in calligraphy. So if you didn't get a ticket, let me know later. We'll get you a ticket because we're to be drawing. But anyway, so these are my four haiku about things that I'm learning as I've started to become aware of, as I've started to try to recover myself. The first one is titled Modern Argonauts. reads, modern Argonauts in search of the golden fleece. Seek it in your hearts.

We all know this story of Jason and the Argonauts looking for the golden fleece. ⁓ That golden fleece has been interpreted in many different ways. The one that I like and what I kind of am referencing is here. It's a symbolic of self-discovery and transformation. So when we're seeking this self-discovery and transformation, seek it in your hearts. Seek it in yourself because that's where it is.

Next one, healing alchemy. Healing alchemy, that load you struggle under, is it lead or gold? And that kind of expresses the idea that life is suffering, to live is to suffer. We have a load, we all carry a load.

Lead or is it gold? I think we can choose. There's no reason that suffering needs to be lead. It can be gold. We just have to find a way. What does that mean to us? How do we turn it into gold?

The next one is pain is part of life. Pain is part of life. To avoid it is a death. Find meaning instead. And that kind of reflects what Nietzsche said, to live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning. And so to avoid pain, to seek comfort always.

That's not living. was talking ⁓ with my friend Pat and I, he's here. Last, I think about this a lot since we were talking about the other day, the last July or November, I don't know why July, but last November, he and I went to Southern Utah over Thanksgiving break, Thanksgiving weekend, and it was cold, really cold. We hiked a lot and it wasn't a lot of comfort. mean, Thanksgiving dinner was a freeze dried. ⁓

What's it called, Pat? ⁓ yeah, freeze-dried chili mac. So there we were, middle of nowhere, 30 miles either way from any civilization. ⁓ Just us and the Milky Way. And it was cold and it was uncomfortable. He had to put up with my snoring that night. ⁓ But you know what? That's one of the highlights of my life. We had such a great bonding trip. And so...

What is suffering? Find meaning in it. And the last one, this is one, this next one, this is what I'm doing now, torchlight, sitting in front of you guys, reading my poetry, talking about this, is for me, an example of what this one expresses. This is just called grief work. Maybe grief work is just an expansion of life, dilution of pain.

This is me trying to expand, trying to do things differently, trying to grow into myself. ⁓ So I've been learning a lot of things. So this is a hopeful story. This is not a sad story by any stretch. One thing I've learned though is just because I'm learning and growing doesn't mean that the pain is gone, doesn't mean that it's not hard anymore. ⁓

At times, it feels like I'm being torn asunder, but not in a fatal way. All my vital organs are intact, just in an excruciatingly painful way. This is a good thing, right? To be torn asunder on occasion, short of death? The torn parts will heal, I'm told, and my heart will continue to beat in the meantime, and my lungs will continue to breathe in the meantime. It just hurts in a way that I wish it were fatal.

But it's a good thing, right? I know it worked out for Osiris. And I don't even care to be a god. I'm aiming much lower. I just want to be whole again. But also, if I'm honest,

The underworld does have its appeal, at least during the being torn asunder moments. And so there's still pain, still difficulty. One thing I've learned that has been incredibly helpful to me.

is to learn to cry. And that may seem weird, but I didn't cry for long time. In fact, there were a few times I can remember where I could hear myself cry and I would stop because I would think, you sound ridiculous. What are you doing? Stop crying. sound like, you sound silly. But I have learned last, I would say five, six years, the power of tears. Release your tears. Let them flow.

They are holy water whose source is pure and they will heal you. And I believe that. Tears will heal you. ⁓

So I've learned to I cry a lot. Usually I cry by myself. I don't cry with other people usually. But I had an experience about a year and a half ago. It was a particularly difficult day, morning actually. It's pretty bad when your bad days start when you wake up and then an hour later you wish it was over. But I remember I pulled up to my office and I don't remember what it was.

It was just the weight of everything, I think. And I sat there in my car at my office, and I was just weeping. I don't know a better word than weep. Just weeping. I don't even remember if there was anything specific.

And I wrote this in my car right then. This is one of those poems that just came out. How many mornings, and this titled The Capacity of Your Tears, how many mornings are filled with desperate tears that never sound in another's ears because you feel they are hopeless and only serve to ease your pain for the coming day? So why worry others when the tears will come again regardless?

but how many mornings before your pain exceeds the capacity of your tears.

And I remember just sitting there thinking, yeah, I need help. I need to learn to ask for help too. I'm learning to cry. But now I've done this work. I'm trying to recover myself. But you can only heal. You can only recover yourself so far. And I realized I need help. I need to talk to people. And I started to think about

so many people who have been there for me. ⁓

I lived in my office for a few, like six months. Very, very trying time.

Some of my darkest, hardest times happened there. And I thought about my sister, Melissa.

⁓

And it was a moment where I thought, I just can't do it anymore. I'm just done. Laying there in the dark of my office and...

seven o'clock on a February, mid-February, and the day is dark at seven o'clock on a mid-February. It's dark. And then add to that what I was going through. And I was just laying there in the darkness in my office on this little three-inch foam mattress, and then my phone lights up and it's Melissa calling me. She says, I'm outside your office. She knew what had happened. And she just...

I don't know where she was, but she just decided I needed to go see him. And she just sat with me. I don't think you said anything, Melissa. And I just cried for like two hours. And I thought of another friend of mine who found out I was in my office. He says, we gotta get you out of there, Scott. It's not good for you. The next morning, knock at my office door at 8 a.m. and he's got homemade parfaits, one for him, one for me. says, come on.

It's time to get up. We gotta get going. We gotta get you an apartment. You spent the whole day looking for an apartment with me. And so I'm just thinking about all these people, my Uncle Russ.

I I was having a very hard day and he met me at Melissa's house actually. He left work and came to sit with me and we sat down and the first thing he said to me was, Scott, I just want you to know, before we get started, I want you to know that there is nowhere else in the world that I'd rather be than right here with you right now. And I needed that.

Thanks for coming, guys. And I needed that. To feel seen, to feel loved.

And so I just, started thinking about all of these people and realized I don't have to do this on my own. I don't have to cry by myself anymore. I can talk to people. so I, well, and I even thought back further. thought back.

the days, weeks, and months after April 8th, 1984, the love that I received from aunts and uncles. And this poem kind of reflects that. It's titled Beacons. It reads, I remember you in the days when my horizon shifted and the gifts you brought to me, tenderness, love, and protection. But in my youthful confusion, knew not how to receive them. I had known them from a different horizon.

But that horizon went dark in an instant without warning. Though not entirely, there was protection still, but love and tenderness, those beacons were extinguished it seemed until they flamed up again, but now on your horizon. And without warning, you brought them to me unconditionally and ad infinitum.

And I remember as a child, I didn't really understand what they were offering. Now I look back and I realize what they were offering. That love that was now absent from my life. even though I lost it, even though I didn't recognize it back then, realizing it now at this age was healing to me. I felt...

I close to them and I felt loved. ⁓ And I thought about, when I write my haiku, I like metaphors. And I thought about aspen trees. The grove of aspens is basically one tree, same root system, they're all connected.

Each Aspen unique, yet strengthened still by the Grove, you are an Aspen. Each of us. We are all connected. We are all each individual humans, but we are connected to each other and we need each other. I know that. I know I do. ⁓

And what I found is...

that people have been there for me, sat with me, and helped me, and loved me. And I've been able to do the same for other people as well. that is, like when somebody comes to me and asks me, hey, I need to talk to you. Is there something, you know, I need help or do you have a moment? I'm honored. I'm honored when somebody does that. And this next poem reflects kind of how I feel about that. reads, it's titled Harbors.

A friend is a harbor. A friend is a harbor calm, in whom is found a healing balm, and asks for nothing in return save this, that if the tide should turn, there I'd be, ever true that he with me might harbor too. ⁓

So to go back to Nietzsche, to survive is...

is to find meaning in suffering. I that meaning that we can find in suffering is a connection with each other. I'm going to kind of improv here a little bit because I've got these last few poems and I wasn't sure what order to read them in. So I am just going to...

Let start with Moab. So July of 2023, I took a trip down to Moab by myself. And I went to watch the sun set at Canyonlands. ⁓ Uppheaval Dome. You guys know Uppheaval Dome?

crazy, looks like Mars, but it's on island in the sky there in Canyonlands. And I remember I was watching the sunset by myself, nobody else was there. And as I watched it set, just as it dropped below the horizon, all of a sudden I heard off in the distance north of me in some canyon, somebody yell like, woohoo. And I thought, all right, I'm not alone after all. And I thought about how cool it was that we as humans are drawn to these same things. And as I was driving back to my campsite, I

I started thinking about the island, about Moab. And line came into my head about Moab, her wounds, scars, and shadows. And then I wrote this poem titled Moab. It reads, this land wounded and scarred and full of shadows, she turns his head to her to see. And he sees her stillness and her beauty. And he understands what can be.

And as I thought about this poem more, I thought, people flock to Moab from all over the world. And why do they flock to Moab? Because of its wounds and its scars and its shadows. That's why we love Moab. And I thought, I have wounds and scars and shadows too. And so does everybody I know. And I felt, that's why I'm drawn. I think that's why we're drawn to each other.

Not just that, because there are some people, we all have those, but there are some people I think that don't see them, and it's harder to connect with those people. I've had some disastrous attempts to connect with people who don't see what's going on, and they only see my scars and my wounds and my shadows. That's all they see, and they don't see theirs. And that's hard to connect with those types of people. And I think the reason why is when we see it in ourselves and we accept it in ourselves,

then it's easier for us to see it in others and accept it in others and be gentle with others. And we become what I've learned of, the term I've learned, a fair witness to each other.

And that's this poem, Fair Witness. You were wounded again and again, and I am witness to your pain and wounds. In your hopeless nights that were blurred by your quiet tears, I saw you. And when every path you knew went dark and fear consumed you, leaving you trembling in despair, I felt you. And in your moments of loneliness, I felt your heartbreak. And in those moments when you betrayed yourself in exchange for comfort,

and received nothing but threadbare numbness instead, I was there. And I watched you lower your listless eyes in shame and resignation. I am witness to it all, though not with my eyes. Instead, these are my wounds too, and my pains too, though from different sources and to different degrees. But they are the same, and I see you through them, and I see you more clearly than I ever could with my eyes.

I am witness to them, so let me carry you and help bind up your woundedness.

The last poem I have to read tonight, What Steals Your Sleep? And then I want to wrap up and just about my thoughts on, we're going to go back to Nietzsche. What Steals Your Sleep reads, talk to me. I'll listen and break my heart if you must, but talk to me. My heart is big and my shoulders are broad to carry pain and not just my own. So let me hear the wounds you carry.

It is true I cannot heal them, but I can sit with you and be on watch for enemies and arrows so you may rest. Tell me, what steals your sleep?

Going back to Nietzsche.

To live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning in that suffering.

And perhaps the meaning that, or one meaning that we can find in suffering is that it's something that we all have in common. And when we see it in ourselves, we can see it in others. And it's.

And when they see it in themselves and they see it us, we can connect and have a relationship that we couldn't have otherwise. ⁓ think suffering, when we accept the suffering, we accept our scars, when we accept our wounds and shadows, when we accept these things in ourselves, it breaks our attachment to things. And I think we're more drawn to each other. That's been my experience. My experience is I'm more drawn to people. And I have developed deeper relationships. I have felt love deeper.

And so my thought is that maybe that's one of the meanings that we can have through suffering or the meaning that we have in suffering is that when we accept it, our relationships deepen and we have the suffering anyway. So we might as well accept it and accept others and then come together and

love each other. that is all I have. Actually, just last a little bit because

One thing that I know is that you, none of you can save me, but I need you. I can't save any of you either, but you need me. I know that. And that's just part of being human. So with that, I'll wrap it up. And if you guys have any questions or anything, otherwise.

Well, thank you.