The Third Eye

What is it that senses this phantasmagoria?
That place in my head that witnesses
everything?

My senses analyze and dissect,
chop and cook the natural world
and feed it to my reason,
to give me purpose and meaning,
that the past might be known
and the future predicted.

Reason -
sometimes known and
often obscured - even from myself! -
Yet I come with broom in hand,
to brush away the cobwebs and dust bunnies of apathy,
the weak justification and senselessness of blind obedience,
the bad habits and sad wardrobe of conformity.
I wish to see only what is
in all its sloppy imperfection
that I might know my place and realize
I am not only necessary
but wanted.

I can be what I want to be.
I can deal fairly with my neighbors
and reap the benefits of a high-trust society,
or I can act the cancer
and hate everything and everyone
- and eventually hate myself too.
I've been there before.
I think most of us have.
The rest of us are just young.
Who has not suffered at least a few days of self loathing?

This is what I see:
Life is rough on everyone,
so be kind and gentle to each other.
But don't take no shit -
there are those willing to use and confuse,

it is not our place to be the instruments
of our own destruction.

Tell the truth,
so your words always have the power of truth behind them.
If you don't wish to tell the truth,
say nothing at all.
Lies only destroy the intelligence of those that hear
and muddle the sight of those that tell.

Work diligently, but take time to rest.
We are not meant to work twenty-four seven three-sixty-five.
If we only work, we become bitter
and the fruits of our efforts
are never as enjoyable as they should be.
Yet, we must work.
If we only laze about, nothing we receive will ever satisfy,
because we've done nothing to earn it.

To work is nothing if we do not work for our good.
To speak is nothing if we do not speak truth.
To see is nothing if we do not see only what is there.
That is the power of the Third Eye:
to see the path that lay before us
with all it's danger and reward.
That we can navigate, and be what we are meant to be.

Or we can close our eye,
give into our fear

our hatred

our distrust
of ourselves.

And we can fail.
Sinking
into the ever-ready Earth.

To forget,
and be forgotten.