A Fateful Choice

Without faith―faith in any sense―, what does one have? Doubts, uncertainty, fear? Pretty wretched equipment... Faith is a beacon in the hopelessness of rough seas, a light that will lead one out of darkness. One must not lose the faith only because of being told not to believe.

A fatalist, who is it? Maybe just a puppet in the hands of fate, a shipwrecked soul thrown upon the shores of existence, a mere observer of the course of events, a motionless figure in the madness of running time? When we say, "It is or was supposed to be thus," not only do we humbly see that we are part of a bigger whole, exceeded by a higher power, but we also find a deeper meaning in the given event, seeing its transcendence, perceiving the end turn into a new beginning with a light that has started to shine in the dark, as we have finally found the good in all the bad. If something or someone enters my life, it is not by coincidence for sure, and yet I choose whether I open myself up to them at that point, how I respond, which predetermines what follows.

Much is a question of choice: What has befallen me or is happening to me may be my destiny, still... I can but do not have to stay, face it, resist it, fight it, withdraw into myself, shy it away from me, flee, hide... What happens if I stay, and what if I go? If I am open to it, what will I be willing to sacrifice? What will my sacrifices, loaylty, devotion hold for me? What if it breaks my heart? What will my arrival at peace and surrender bring to me or take away from me, and what about my resistance? One is a creator by choice. Our power lies in freely electing our response to any situation we have found ourselves in. 

Destiny cannot be a predetermined answer to the question of my choice, not in absolute terms, as my choice is a question of unpredictability, a faith in boundless horizons. Here and now I stand at the crossroads of life and elect one of the possibble paths ― yes, each path has a destination, which may be predestined; however, I have taken the path, albeit without knowing where it will lead me eventually. The step I take gives impetus to a chain reaction. My choice co-writes the story of my life, it co-paints the map of fate. Destiny is an inner landscape in which I dwell answering myself to the question of whether I let it perish, go wild, or turn it into a blooming orchard.

We are rovers in time, but how much time have we been given? How quickly should we go, and where to? What path should we tread, and why? Shall we set off for the journey at all? Have the cards been dealt and the die is cast ― and even if so, has it not been me who has drawn these cards from the deck so as to play with them? (...) Unless I ask, there are no answers to be found, but even if I do, there may still be no answers to come. Then, it may not be a matter of questions and answers, neither may there be an answer to some questions ― and even if there is, it is not the one and only unshakeable truth, as it is, rather, one of the possible points of view.

Therefore, in this time and place, in the labyrinth of a thousand roads, I make my choice, whereupon comes my surrender to the hands of Providence.

A Fateful Choice © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Osudová volba"

The Inner Way

When it comes to sense and sensibility, what unwittingly pops up in my mind is a cartoon featuring an achy-breaky heart above which looms a reproachful brain with a caption, "I told you so," which is to suggest that the heart was "foolish" once again and came to harm because of not listening to the "wise" mind.. While some would swear by pragmatism, it just presents itself not as a way to deliverance;, but, rather, as a blank and unbreakable wall in front of which I stand as a street artist; while some put their faith in rationality, I dare ask doubtfully whether it is what truly drives most of human behavior...

I do not know why the mind tends to be so glorified when it causes us--or me--so much trouble! Engulfed with myriads of constant thoughts, producing masses of mental constructs oftentimes inconsistent with reality but still capable of hurting and spooking you! The mind can become an impediment when trying to intellectualize the impalpable, as it creates boundaries out of fear of infinity -- and your soul IS infinite. Nah, without controlling it and attaining inner peace, it is going to do you disservice. 'And you, as a thinker, ought to ask yourself whether you identify yourself with the mind, or whether the mind is part of you and yet an entity apart, which, in a broader sense, will lead you to the question of who you are...

The heart sees clearly what the mind is blind to. I believe in following my heart, for it always tells me the truth it is a bearer of. Ask your heart what your true longings are; it knows beyond all doubt, as, deep down, your heart and you have an understanding. Feelings--much as disturbing or overwhelming they can be--are messengers and should be received as such, as they come with a meaning and a reason behind it to be sought out.

We must do things from the heart to be truthful. Father Jaroslav M. Kašparů once observed that, we are to forgive from the heart, saying that the mind will always keep a record of grievances, whereas, a heartfelt forgiveness will make them weigh less heavily upon us, for "all life springs from the heart" - indeed, "when your mind stops, you live on; when your heart stops, you die". We must not look back though, as, to use a parable, "once you start plowing, you must not turn around", lest you destroy the field instead of plowing it up.

The heart will fix itself. It is your mind you need to worry about. Your heart already knows how to heal." said Nikita Gill. I find this very accurate, having felt for long the need to get out of my head, or, better put, to prevent my mind from controlling me, given all its obstructive clutter. To be fair, the mind still offers some answers on the mental plane, but there are things that cannot be tackled intellectually, especially the deeply emotive ones, not to the full, and it is the heart that is the emotional master worth following.

At times, it is better just to feel, to perceive, becoming a peaceful observer, embracing the situation, giving things and people space and freedom, sending the energy out into the universe while beseeching it to grant your wishes and yet giving in with all the faith you can muster in its all-embracing wisdom and innate goodness.. As if the answer lay in acceptance; as if letting go meant attracting. As the universe speaks, listen, go with its flow, if it is a free flow, as there is no gain in violence.

The mind is a control freak; it keeps knocking on the closed door. But it is the heart that holds the key. Look within it: The heart is a temple wherein all love dwells and whence love radiates into the world,. Open your heart! Love is the answer to all there is., says the starry-eyed romantic in me. And it is the soul that is said to resolve this unending dissonance between the two--the mind and the heart--, so let us embark on the soulful journey. Listen to your inner voice, not to the voice of others, as deep inside of you dwells the truth of your innermost desires. What makes you happy that you are alive? The answer lies within you, not in the outside world. Others cannot tell you, as they are not in your skin,. Divine guidance is not a thing apart - the universe permeates all.

I believe that, the Divinity speaks to us through the soul, which sheds light on the why the soul possesses wisdom that transcends us, providing you with inner guidance. The soul intuits things, knowing that cannot be known at a given point of time, even fortelling the destiny of your chosen path. It is reliable in that it knows even if there is no way of telling: no past experience, no outlook into the future. Thereupon, there is no better proof than seeing it happen, is there? And I have! The soul is a sage and a seer. Given that we are endowed with it, we may as well carry within us the answers we so desperately seek only if we gain access to this inner weatlh. Deep in my heart I know the way..

The Inner Way © Ladanseuse

Magnanimity

The only way of stopping the perpetuity of pain and suffering is to stop it with you: to be magnanimous and take the blow(s), swallow the bitter pill, and forgive lest the hurt magnify. Only if peace is made within can peace be enjoyed without. One can transmute dark into light, bringing in more hope and love. Therein lies liberation for all concerned. Whence stems alchemical healing. This is the way of the cycle breaker; this is the path I wish to tread.,

The thing is that, many opt for an easy way out, or for personal comfort, if you will, but I believe that we should disregard the level of difficultness when choosing among options. What is easy is not always right but what is right is not always easy.. Personally, I have always headed down the road that I consider as right, even if it was hard—the one of thorns. and roses, as it were—, the one to be walked if I wish to get where I need to be on a spiritual plane: Whence things can be sublimed.

Nursing of grievances, whether they be real or imagined, and bearing of grudges will likely become the entrance into a dead end, particularly when the other party is impenitent and unresponsive, whereupon, ultimately, one will likely poison oneself with the negativity nurtured within (and even the righteousness of one's indignation does nothing to change that] rather than ever live to any kind of redress. There is an apposite Buddhist quotation that says something to the effect that, holding onto anger is like a foolish act of drinking poison with the expectation that the other person will be affected by it. In refraining from it, one peacifies oneself in what constitutes an act of self-love, a self-transcendent love that is like an outpouring of underground pellucid spring of water transformed into a life-giving lake..

Some believe in "an eye for an eye", mistaking it for justice when it is, quite frankly, but a revenge, and no matter how justified it may be or feel, it only perpetuates misery and lowers one to the level of those who hurt one. The bad cannot be banished by the bad – the good is to be given more space instead. The strong forgive, freeing both sides from the shackles of shame, and will not compromise their principles,, such as decency and loving kindness. This is not about morality, albeit nobility is contained within it – it is just that, the low road will not lead anyone to heaven. There is no good war and neither is there any bad peace, as the wise know indeed.

Magnanimity © Ladanseuse

Originally written in 2020, edited in 2021

The Moment of Truth

I want my feelings unalloyed.

The present moment is the truth that I wish to be ever-lasting 

because when this instant ends, its truth is followed by thought that disproves it.

I love straightforwardness and a random course of events when one hits the scene totally unawares but still must act having no time to think or doubt.

That is the moment of truthfulness, as one must follow one's heart and cannot be but oneself, in which self-revelation there hides an immense strength, whether it be to fight or to surrender.

The Moment of Truth © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Okamžik pravdy"

A Change of Heart

 Sometimes I cannot seem to put all my thoughts in order, 

so they accumulate to the point of engulfing my mind in complete disarray.

How to define the undefinable? How to find the essence in a sorrowful cry? How to call back the elusive? 

Deep down, I am insecure and fragile. I want to take all the blame and conjure a smile.

How can a single fixed gaze of mine be disconcerting then?

Out of the blue, after feeling down for hours, I radiate calm and rock-solid peace... 

Then, all of a sudden, it is the the other eyes that wander,

all of a sudden, the other hands move confusedly searching for mine,

and, all of a sudden, closeness replaces distance;

and a smile floats like the moon that looks like a piece of glittery gold.

Then, all of a sudden, here comes my warmth and goodness,

and, all of a sudden, I see myself as

one who is of great worth;

one who does not beg but gives;

one who just is, who is oneself, and that is enough.

Then, all of a sudden, I am all-embracing to the point of a surprise.

And I sit still, accepting in anticipation:

nothing that disappears in me ever returns – I am a bottomless depth.

I want all to be infused with life;

a life that I love.

A Change of Heart © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Niterná proměna"

The Inner Cosmos

 It floats like the moon on the waves of my gloom;

it burns like the sun when it sets in the dark;

submerged in the deeps is all 

that has been swallowed by my soul –

words cannot capture it, you shall lose your sanity:

Once the whole world is contained 

within your psyché, 

you will see...

The Inner Cosmos © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Vnitřní vesmír"

Phantasma

 You'd linger here, adrift like a thought in time;

your laugh, ignited in echoes, felt...

like the wind that blew away the wail.

✩

You'd speak through the resonant spirit of a drum, 

shivering in the eyes

like a blaze of sentiment 

drowned in an unreachable depth.

✩

You'd appear like a flitting shadow

in a remnant of prehistory,

materializing in figures infinite –

a bogus, still palpably real.

✩

You'd come in hypnotic visions,

like obsessive flashes of light,

enchained by insanity

of stray souls in the dark.

✩

You were embedded in omnipresence,

an inexplicable entity of a phantasmic kind,

immaterial, as if nonexistent,

and still entrenched in life.

✩

You flared up, afloat among stars

in a sacred dimension beyond time

of the eternal conjuncture of instants.

Phantasma © Ladanseuse

Loving Traces

My soul flows multidirectionally,

who has deluded me into feeling forlorn?

With those past stories brought to light

that sweet kisses and caresses fill

but have fallen into oblivion...

✴

These are the traces left by God

when sending me joy, pieces of heaven:

You, you, you and you...

Even if these are but words impressed onto paper,

thoughts having taken shape,

the mind will no longer entrap them, neither doom will befall them;

even if they are untouchable, neither do they fulfill emptiness,

still, they are alive,

just like memories are...

✴

Living

like a being with eyes full of love

that does not wait

for the dawn

as the clock strikes.

Loving Traces © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Láskyplné stopy", written ca 2003

Nostalgy

If something ends,

it has no continuation:

It gets frozen in time

and can be recalled ad infinitum,

but it has no life other than imaginal,

neither can it be found in the reality of now.

Nostalgy

is absolutely bittersweet,

as it tries to revive 

the past,

which would be 

a window

open into the future.

Nostalgy © Ladanseuse

Written ultimately on 16. 5. 2021

The Lunar Traveler

Human is like the moon,

going through life,

each phase of which is a passage;

visions of the landscape change,

but the pilgrim,

albeit not unaffected,

at the core stays the same.

The Lunar Traveler © Ladanseuse

Written ultimately on 16. 5. 2021 

In the Desert of Your Heart

In the desert of your heart

my seeds won't start but die out;

in the desert of your heart

there's no blossoming to be found;

in the desert of your heart

I cannot survive;

in the desert of your heart

beauty cannot stay alive.

If a flower is withering,

it is not to blame for it;

if in a desert I am losing my life,

neither am I blameworthy.

Like love,

I am crying out for

a living, rich and fertile ground

wherein I can dwell and thrive,

flowering all around.

In creative ways, places and people

I need to seek out

that flowering ground –

only then,

if I knock,

the door will open

with the key I carry in my heart.

In the Desert of Your Heart © Ladanseuse

Transl. "V poušti tvého srdce", written ultimately on 15. 5. 2021

Sweet Dreaming

  In the depths of the earth

dwells

a dream

and

I –

wake me up!

I am scared, but...

only in my nakedness

may I meet with God.

This is but

a sweet dreaming

in the grave

of my oblivion...

Sweet Dreaming © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Sladké snění", written on 25. 11. 2019

Embracing

 Thoughts had engulfed my mind

in maddening amounts,

which threw me into silence,

and I created an illusion,

which was not a sham –

I'd been down in the dumps,

asking myself,

Why would you choose to be with me

if you could''ve spent those hours

among shining happy faces?

Embracing © Ladanseuse

The Parallel Realms

 What is it like

to live between two realms,

to carry parallel dimensions in your heart,

to be here and there,

now and then at the same time?

What to do

about dreams that are shattered

by the godlessness of empty eyes,

in the misty presence

of all around?

Life is like 

a landscape:

It passes by;

you observe its changes,

its going low and high

until it vanishes 

with your traces.

Like a colorful kaleidoscope,

beads on a tread,

you cannot be

and escape from hours;

just go, you are like the wind,

but so are they!

And you are and were and will be –

These are the parallel realms:

then and now and thereafter–

only you remain who you are,

like a tree that stays a tree.

The Parallel Realms © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Paralelní světy"

The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination

 With the image of a fabled realm in one's mind's eye it tends to be tough to accept reality, beneath the dark--yet often illusory--appearance of which hides the content of a beauty as yet unseen, the luster of which outshines all imagination: For this reality is the truth, which is the most reliable guide on the road, in whichever direction one sets off, and is the only rescue from the deadly fall into a torturous falsehood that uglifies all that one looks at, throwing one into a wild sadness the only tiding of which is ruination.

And sometimes one thrusts oneself to the ground in despair, full of questions and accusations that all that one touches vanishes, that all that one looks at disappears and that all that one has heard falls into silence... calling it a nonsensical, painful loss, for one is absolutely confused. But what if one's intrinsic existence has predestined it to fall? What if one's words have shied away understanding and one's silence established confusion? What if one's thoughts have created a destructive energy? What if one's deeds have built the end? What if one oneself is the creator of the end?

And yet, nothing is lost! There is a return even from death: For can't death be but an ominous projection, a fear of ruination that brings ruin itself? Can't "the It" make that which I dwell on evanesce and that which I dread bring to life? But what is "the It"? -- I cannot be the victim of life or the martyr of death unless I respect any boundaries... boundaries created by my mind out of fear of infinity; the mind that has subdued a longing that will not strike any fire from a vacuum, from the confinement with which it has been endowed.

The only way leads through unshackledness, as only it will open doors to any challenge of the world.

Aye, the world conceals a lot of evil, but even evil is not unlimited: It is just that one must not let oneself be caught up in illusion and be ensnared in it, for there always exists a way both "there" and "back" -- and who disbelieves this will never get out of there.

It is not about a shiny facade, neither is it about material things -- it is about inner wealth, faith and that unpopular otherness that will detach one from the outer world but fulfill one with the beauty of the inner world. One must be different to remain oneself; one must die to be reborn; and one can find happiness only in pain... The consciousness of the world matters not, what matters is the truth!

The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Bludička zmaru", written on 19. 10. 2001

The Power of Vulnerability ⇇

What Lies in Silence ⇇ ⇇

The Power of Vulnerability

How peculiar it is when certain things that one used to turn one's back on will with one's penitence turn into one's pillar, a stepping stone to the heights of heavens;

when one turns the mirror, as yet turned to the world, to oneself, plunging into the real depths of things and overcoming the pangs of disillusion, the outward seeming, all of a sudden, one sights the truth, hidden deep within one, the threads of which lead to love...

... when one reveals oneself to be subjected to denouncement, one simultaneously opens up to lovingness, for all that one once withheld will surround one and all that one was once surrounded by will disappear in one; one's world is polarity, one lives on both sides, both the beginning and the end...

Thus, at once, one ceases one's raging fight, which has totally confused and disintegrated one's identity, and discovers that it suffices to take a little step in order to enter an obliging world; that it suffices to turn away from the darkness to sight the light; that but a single thread suffices to connect one with one's wildest dreams...

One is one's biggest enemy if one yields to unknowingness, if one lets fear and apprehension stop one, if one is misled and deprived of one's conviction: Then, one will search the silence for voices that one will not hear unless one cries out oneself; one will vainly look for traces that will never appear... 
A chance lies in the dust like a gem in the dunes of your dread.

At times, it suffices to accept instead of rejecting; at times, it suffices to give instead of taking...

The Power of Vulnerability © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Síla zranitelnosti", written on 19. 10. 2001

 What Lies in Silence ⇇

⇉ The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination

What Lies in Silence

 Sadness has assailed me and is suffocating me. Silence has fallen, as if the door snaps shut and one self-soothes by listening to subsiding steps, only waiting, as one cannot detach oneself from one's nature, tear one's essence out, for the heart will not be deceived.

And the silence contains a trace of an ill and fateful omen: It is a way enveloped in fright, for all the world's encyclopedias crumble here in their ghostly nothingness, by which they circumscribe everything and yet are limited by their inability to capture fleeting touches of the soul, which forces all forward into a chaotic current of events, which end up in the universe of no return.

It is like the sun that lights up and fills the whole Earth with its warmth, which is plunged into the cold of darkness anon, as if untouched in the cycle of time, which has no beginning or end, keeps on passing by and inevitably rushes from birth into demise... but it is just a seeming, the will-o'-the-wisp of time: Nightfall is but a kind of anaculothon, but passage on the long way that leads towards the light.

What Lies in Silence © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Co ukrývá ticho", written on 19. 10. 2001

⇉ The Power of Vulnerability

⇉ ⇉ The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination

The Still In A Storm

The distance revealed a familiar silhouette,

my eyes fled towards him and then away;

he was just sitting there... by himself,

sadly enchanting,

reading something perhaps... hidden in his reverie.

He would not have spotted me but I spoke up shyly:

greeted him, asking how he was

(he went, "well" ‒ and how was I?);

his look was remarkably warm,

veiled in silent, tender kindness.

I meant to continue talking,

but was just observing

that living miracle of an instant

arrested in silence...

and invoking eternity to remain there.

'twas stifling there, I was thirsty for droplets;

disharmony was floating in the air

as she was dancing lifelessly with a strange indifference

and he was playing tentatively and meekly from experience;

certain estrangement was seeping in...

Like a floating sadness

a dead ocean with bubbles of life,

into which I made an unwanted dive,

was all around, having engulfed me,

but my fire kept burning inside...

The whiteness in which he was enveloped captured my heart;

I wanted to stay there looking for eternity,

but my fright confused me ‒

then in his eyes I glimpsed

a wee bit of a smile, a radiant shine.

There was more I was to have told him, given him,

but 'twas his melancholic lure,

that dreamy stillness in the oppressive gloom,

the power of which both attracted and frightened me

as if I was flying up as well as getting drowned.

The Still In A Storm © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Klid v bouři"

Evanescence

 Like a flash of distinctness in sameness

there was an instant

at which a feeling mirrored in his glance

long, as if in a dark brushstroke,

and 'twas filled with unswerving sadness

floating towards me in a wave

'till my eyes ran away...

It's hard to say

if 'twas before or then,

he may have wanted

to utter more than

a silent greeting;

my mere "hello" and my eyes fleeing

let him, or made him, go away...

I tore one piece, 

a short spell of another kind,

out of one and the some mozaic

in search for a meaning;

I sensed his aura everywhere,

but still 'twas as if I wasn't even there...

Evanescence © Ladanseuse

Written on 29. 1. 2006

The Shadow of Gloom

You showed up, poker-faced, solemnly impressive,

a phantom lay heavy on you;

I said, "Hello," and something got changed:

There's just a momentary, hardly noticeable flash

as you mumbled something deep...

Then you just stood there with a cigarette you'd lit

looking sorf of abandoned -- I didn't dare say a word,

and this I regret.

The Shadow of Gloom © Ladanseuse

Written on 8. 12. 2005

The Temple of Bliss

 If I glimpse your way

surfing on a delicate warm wave;

if your face is charged with sweet content

in a smile that flashed, in our eyes that clashed ‒

all that coming from you far away,

the aura of yours ‒ oh, how it tastes!

Is it addressed to me?

Or, is this just a joyful, illusory, visionary instance

in which I luxuriate?

I've been gathering bits of this

to build an inner temple of bliss.

What if it's just a dream ‒ would I endure?

What if it's real ‒ would I be born anew?

What does this indicate?

I'll be patient to learn one day...

The Temple of Bliss © Ladanseuse

Written on 8. 12. 2005

Deliverance

Shadows had gone wild in an empty silence of a dreamless night,

in a wakeful, weeping dark all was out of sight,

I was burning with the desire to erase all cold distance,

and something within got arrested and was facing bereavement.

In a boundless vacuum of discordance

I could not but look on how all is falling apart,

visualizing that sweet something

which my heart would not kiss goodbye.

At last, thoughts had stopped in their ceaseless flow,

my sleepy eyes, full of the night, refused the dawn,

and life, the well of dreams, embedded in a miraculous sphere,

opened my heart, made timid the pain stabbing at it and let it part.

Saluting life, I dared to tread

the crooked stony roads that lead back to an old prophet's age, 

to the arrested facing death,

it had fallen to oblivion -- I found the pages blank.

At last, my psyché went through deliverance,

the fear, it was once engulfed with, was no longer mine;

instantly, the door was flung open -- the truth was bare.

Deliverance © Ladanseuse