Brittle Star

Skin Falls To Soul

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Listen Here- Author Read Version

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Photo by J.Millard

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Brittle Star

She moves so fast
The moment howls
and bangs shut the window
If I get close enough
I might catch a glimpse
as the wind takes off her clothes
Silence and sound meet as a sigh
Becoming moans
Echoing into the sweet kiss of being
under the slow shivering erosion
of skin falling into soul
The sea gives up her dead
Like shells upon the shore
Water wearing down stone
Revealing who I was
before I existed

© Jamie Millard

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Time. Space. Meaning.
Sand. Bones. A Word. A Poem.
Living into the questions. A never ending song. We are stardust.
Was I here? Ask the dust.

Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time.
Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Socrates

Walking along the wild Atlantic edge of Scotland I came across the skeletal bones of something my eyes had never ever seen. Was it a starfish? It had legs! A quick trip to the revelation of the net gave me a name. A brittle star. How poetic.

Brittle stars and starfish are closely related, yet they are two completely different species. Each brittle star has a distinct central disk containing all of its organs and five slender, flexible arms. A brittle star is an animal without a brain. It does not fall into the Cartesian illusion of a mind/body split. Brittle stars don’t have eyes. They are eyes! Knowing is entwined into its very mode of Being.

We as humans are limited by the physical confines of our five senses. We are limited by the languages we speak. Our senses allow us only a brief glimpse of reality. Language lives to label and is unable to truly describe the wonder of being here. If we watch closely in silence, language will take off her clothes and we can catch a glimpse of the nameless nakedness of knowing. These moments invade us. Born of being. Poetry remembers. To witness and to attend is a revealing into a glimpse of deeper knowing. Unnameable. Beyond the serrated edges of words. Beyond the labels of language. We will never know our world in the way that poetry aspires to intimately know it. Yet we write on. We write to unfold. We write, as only Neruda could express, “to fall out of the skin into the soul”.

Meister Ekhart proclaimed that “metaphor is the eye that both the world and the poet use to see each other.” Knowing in communion with Being. I slowly shed my skin for soul through the eyes of the questions that we can only live into. Doing eroding into Being. I reach for the sacred as a revealing, beyond what the words can describe. Existence is the very poem that will write me.

Poetry is an act of resilience that opens up the door of Being.
Poetry is a brittle star!

Poetry helps to enhance and deepen our experience of existence, not just by the use of words, but by the fact that despite their use something else is carried along with them.

Don Domanski

We are the poem.

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The audio version can be found under the main titles above.

I have been writing on Substack, almost weekly, for one year. My goal was to share the power and the practice of poetry while living into the very questions that can never go away. Cuoreosity. The heArt of Being. I have read some wonderful inspirational writing and poetry. I have met some incredible creators. I have received tremendous support. I am at a loss of words on how to truly say thank you. Thanks to the wonderful few who have read all fifty posts as well as a heartfelt thanks to those who have read only just one. We can only ever share the circle and it only takes one ripple to keep the love alive. Just one ripple.

Life calls us to different projects for our own growth and for a few months I will be leaning into some larger writing and coaching tasks beyond the algorithms and spaces of this platform. I will continue to read and support the creativity here. Keep writing, we need you. I need you. I plan to return. I may not even be able to stay away and will post as medicine for my soul shall it grow hungry. Prior to my sojourn I plan to release one more essay and poem this month on the theme of What Are Poet’s For? It is a question that I live into every day of this wonderful gift.

Thank you for being here!

Lots of Love,

Jamie