Listen Here- Podcast Style
In the universe, there are things that are known,
and things that are unknown,
and in between, there are doors.
Doors!
The jury might be out on who truly spoke the words above. It echos of William Blake but this has never be proven. Aldous Huxley has been implicated as well. The quote above is very close to the actual words of Ray Manzarek, who in 1965 with Jim Morrison, co-founded the rock ‘n’ roll band The Doors.
There are things you know about, and things you don’t, the known and the unknown, and in between are the doors—that’s us.
Ray Manzerek
In between the known and the unknown.
Thats us!
The human experience.
We are the doors!
Maybe we are here to just open and close doors?
To be here is to live a paradox. Flesh and dream. Light and dark. Failure and success. Saint and sinner. Mystery and mastery. Certainty and uncertainty. Good and evil. Unconscious and conscious. The list of dualities goes on and on. Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “the self is a union of the infinite possibility of the spirit with the finitude of the body and of everyday life.” Body and soul. Being human is to be a poem that dances between both. We are everything and we are nothing. In between there are doors. That’s us. We are the doors to the space between.
Those doors allow us to lose our self and attend the present. Disappearing into a moment. A place beyond the narrow confines of self. Beyond the senses. Beyond a self. We can’t see it yet we feel it. A feeling that is beyond us yet within us.
We can’t see the wind yet we see the grass bend and the leaves fluttering into dance. Our hearts change in these moments and we can only see the effect through how we meet the world. These moments have changed us. We see what we have versus what we don’t have. It’s beyond the ordinary yet it’s found in the ordinary. Beyond yet within. Opening and closing doors. Losing that sense of self. Renamed. Attending to presence. Am I a falcon? Am I a storm? Am I a never ending song? All and none. A door to the spaces in between. A body in a soul. A widening circle of consciousness reaching out as a ripple on an endless journey home.
The Burning Bush
The journey is ours
yet we share it
The night holds us
Mornings meet us
Days flow
in and out
of moments
Sometimes we catch them
Sometimes they catch us
The doors are there
the spaces are narrow
If you turn sideways
you can just slide through -
To stand in the place
that gave you your name
© Jamie Millard
Thank you for being here. Poetry is a door to the spaces in between. Like the photo above represents, the doors are often simple and right in front of us. Read this poem out loud, slip off your self and very slowly turn sideways. Move back and forth gently and slip into that space between these words. A door into another world is patiently waiting to reinvent your name.
The full audio podcast style can be found above, under the main titles.
Lots of love,
Jamie
"a door to the spaces in between" makes me think of a meditation I did on focusing not on the tree or the branches, but the space in between. the pause in between breaths. that is where we reside.
Jamie, you appear to have the ability to capture our most valuable human traits, existential questions, and desire for transcendence in so few words, combining spirituality with philosophy, poetry and writers, psychology and life; you are a one-of-a-kind alchemist. Keep doing your magic! I'm here to stay :)
This quote will be preserved next to my drawings and poetry journal as inspiration for future drawings or thoughts; thank you!
"Our hearts change in these moments and we can only see the effect through how we meet the world. These moments have changed us. We see what we have versus what we don’t have."