Impossibility Pieces

The concept of fate is probably not the best to turn over in your mind late at night when no one but your cats stand to interrupt you and your persistent thoughts. It’s easy to get caught in destiny circles or fate cycles where one seems to lose both grounding and control. Fate is a tricky one to mull over. In times when you know you’re out of control it’s comforting to think that your current loss of grounding has some reason or is at least part of something that will add to some course of destiny. Though sometimes I am comforted by this as a believer in fate and destiny, I also get wrapped up in questions of which of my actions are changing fate, going against it, aligned with it, or if any of these categories hold any relevancy at all. And than I get into that cyclical trapped thinking of what causes what and who influences who. Ultimately, I will never know which actions are pushing up against a fate current that’s maybe real, maybe not. But whether the fate current exists or not, the constant back and forth of loss of control, denial of loss, and fate in all forms of thinking and action turns daunting when you know there is an unwanted piece in your own schemings of destiny.

My mom who has already had cancer is facing possibility of a different cancer in her lung, so is having surgery. Thousands of miles away I am scared of the new fate and destiny options that have arisen for both her, our family, and me. People often talk about the importance of creating your own future, standing up for a life you believe in and want. Usually in this context, the speeches, the words, and examples are all motivationally coupled with smiles and prompts. All of these inspirations are usually directed at attitudes people develop when they have loss faith and have accepted their own acknowledgment of loss of control as a loss of self. Since the tone is motivational, inspirational even, these words, prompts, and smiles lack the knowing that even though you can create your future, there are often hefty road blocks you have to either work around or incorporate into the creation of your next road section of the unknown. As I consider a shift in the way I am constructing my future, I know the shift is only present in the construction, not in the ending product, process, or whatever it is you end up with at the end of your days.

Yesterday one of my kittens died. I dug a small hole for it in the backyard, grabbed a candle stub, an incense stick, and the Bhagavadgivta as the current holy book I had on hand. The kitten had lived roughly seven days so I flipped to page seven where Krishna speaks to Arjuna in the Book of Doctrines. I first just whispered what I was reading feeling somewhat stupid and embarrassed squatting in my yard reading to a dead cat when funerals for people have been occurring in my village almost weekly. But then I read this part aloud knowing that all my neighbors already know me as a crazy white girl who spray paints her walls and cycles to no particular destination.

Mourn not for those that live, nor those that die.
Nor I, nor though, nor any one of these,
Ever was not, nor ever will not be,
For ever and for ever afterwards.

…

So come there raisings-up and laying down
Of other and of other life-abodes,
Which the wise know, and fear not. This that irks—
Thy sense-life, thrilling to the elements—
Brining thee heat and cold, sorrows and joys,
‘Tis brief and mutable! Bear with it, Prince!
As the wise bear. The soul which is not moved,
The soul that with strong and constant calm
Takes sorrow and takes joy indifferently,
Lives in the life undying! That which is
Can never cease to be; that which is not
Will not exist. To see this truth of both
Is theirs who part essence from accident,
Substance from shadow. Indestructible

Reading over this I thought about how people, or at least myself have trouble feeling strong and constant calm in the soul. This might explain how I don’t really feel I take sorrow and joy indifferently and often don’t often find substance in shadow. Though my soul was feeling queasy trying to know the words of Krishna, I reeled it into a calm when I found myself sucked back into thoughts on fate and love.

One of my professors in college remarked one day how he did not believe in true love. I didn’t really have anything good or tangible to throw back at his disbelief, but it did call on me to fully think out if I did believe in true love. I came to the conclusion that sometimes I believe that if you do what you love, you find who you love, and there’s a lot of truth in that. Other times I think fate has assigned other halves, completions existing in pairs, who at some point you’ll crash and dissolve into, losing grounding you no longer care about and gaining something you never knew you had colliding in a newfound craziness of sustainablerootedtrustingsoulexplosion. These thoughts on true love relate to what I had previously thought god was. God being the transformation of space between people when good and humanity is recognized and acknowledged between them. I assigned god as a space of transformation between people where there could be truth, dissolving, love, and crashes. I am revising this.

I think people of course recognize the good in each other, and the knowing and seeing of humanity between people is spiritual and transformative, but I think maybe god is something else. While people can face up to their lack of control, while they can end denial that they have great powers over events and people, I think they can also confirm that in them, between them, and around them, is something that doesn’t have an ending. Fate brings things to a closure, to an end, and though as a believer of fate I acknowledge its existence and power, I also know people have pieces that go on, that don’t end, and that are built and continually created by memories, miracles, hope, trust, and love. Rather than defining god as space, I am changing my mind and beginning to see god as fusion of recognition of people pieces that go beyond faith and as an action, as action of igniting, creating, or finding this piece in others, a piece that can allow a constant calm for soul, a piece that knows soul strength beyond reason. A soul strength that only knows the logic of miracle creation and people crashing into each other. Though the creation of my future may currently include a full two year Peace Corps service, ultimately all I really want is to attempt to ignite some miracle logic with a whole bunch of soul crashes on the side. While this may be quite the pursuit in the end, it can be pursued anywhere. Currently I pursue it in Malawi, as a Peace Corps volunteer, but if it at any point my mom needs an affirmation of people’s fate defying soul pieces, I will go home for her and all the constant calm she has never failed to give me. I will go home because the constant calm and strength of her core is worth pushing to that fate denying indestructibility that both Krishna and I know exists, and that exists in her. Whether I end up continuing work in Africa or back in the states I work for pieces of impossibility that when ignited in people and in the spaces between,spark possibility dreams that go beyond any ending fate may want to write.