I Am Not (The Empath’s Moment)

May 23, 2018 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: abuse recovery, empath, inspiration, intuitive/intuition, lightworker, love, mindfulness meditation, personal recovery, relationships Leave a comment

may 22 2918 pic

I am not the energy that flows through you
When you awaken in the morning
And embrace the fresh day’s energy

I am not the hunger that fills you
Or your stomach when it aches for food
Or your heart when it aches for love

I am not the hands that touch you in passion
Or the arms that hold you so tightly
Or the fingers that glide across your skin

I am not your ears that hears the singing birds
Or the tattered voices of the lost and struggling
You encounter during your day: I am also none of that

I am not your organs functioning
Or malfunctioning as you live
Or fall ill
Or stumble toward death
I am not the pain in your in your body
Or soul

I am not the sensuality that fills your daydreams
Or the desires that drive your passion and your glory
Or your orgasms that arouse your senses
Or your lovers
Or your spouses

I am not the sunrise that warms your soul and face
Or the abundance that surrounds you
Or the love you send into The Universe
Or you send to those who mean the most to you

I am not your desperation that lurks in your most secret fears
In your darkest moments
Or your hopelessness
Or your rage and rebellion
Or your self-pity
Or your compassion

I am not the bliss that makes your life worth living
Or your faith and your hope
That nurture your strength;
I am not your strength

I am not the ravages of age and time
I am not the illnesses that claims your abilities
I am not your physical pain
Or the accidents that befall you and your family

I am not your healing
Or your growth through evolution
Or your achievements
Or your enlightenment

I am not the innocent love of your child
Or the beacon-like smile it gives your life
Or the cruelest hatred of your vilest enemies
Or the hyper-vigilance they make your every moment

I am not the serenity that stills your troubled heart
Or the inspiration that drives your grasp closer toward your reach
Or the ambition that fuels all your dreams

I am not that floor collapsing under the weight of all your troubles
Or the ceilings that prevent you from touching the sky
And dancing with moon and stars

I am not the mistakes that you have made
Or the follies you have invested in
Or your regrets
Or your sins
(Your lust, greed, envy, pride, gluttony, sloth or wrath)
Or your redemption

I am not your triumphs that line your sacred space
Or your skills, abilities, strengths, and gifts
That you employ on your warrior path
Or your struggles as you evolve

I am not the fists that have hit you, the taunts that have wounded you
Or the insults that have made you cry so deep inside
That you had nowhere left to hide

I am not the one who betrayed you
Or deserted you
Or back-stabbed you
Or humiliated you

I am not any of them
Or any of those
Or any of that
Despite feeling
And experiencing moments
Each and every one as my own
Before or while you do
On my path to knowing you

When Visions Come

May 20, 2018 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: faith, fasting, healing, inspiration, lifestyle, lightwork, mindfulness meditation, personal recovery, spirituality, visions Leave a comment

September 26 2015 111

When visions come
All these things
I see I hear I taste I smell I feel
That you and you and you
Cannot will not ever want to
Come flowing through my consciousness
Coursing like water through a pipe
Creating endless curiosities
In my silly logical mind

These visions are not me not mine
Not you not yours
But are briefly of me of mine
Of us of them of everyone
As they cross my awareness
In dreams in waking slumber

Death love pain bliss success failure
All woven into a cosmic blanket
Draped over my naked soul
I am nobody I am everybody just then
I am that vision that scene that place
So torn away from my corporeal self
Wandering Earth a lost and found spirit
Until it drifts away to memory
Until it becomes manifest
In the now in the then in the later

You must warn them
The fearful say
Saving the innocent
And defeating the demons

You must use them
The ambitious say
Taking all that is yours
And manifesting your destiny

You must disown them
The religious say
For knowing such things is evil
And you must please God

You must stop them
The doctors preach
For having visions is crazy
And require me be treated

No mortal not even I
Know my role my sanity
Even after visions come
Am I cold to the victims’ blood
For listening to The Angels
Who speak from beyond religion
Who speak from beyond morals
Who speak from beyond reason
Who speak to enlighten me

No Devil No God
I have looked into both eyes
And felt their touches
In my spirit in my life

I am
My path my future my past
A thousand times each moment
Knowing what is mine
Knowing what is yours
The visions make them ours
For an eternal moment

Knowing being doing
Are the eternal problems
Grounding grounding grounding
Meditating meditating meditating
Fasting fasting fasting
Are the eternal solutions
When visions come

Thirty-Nine Years On

May 14, 2018 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: abuse recovery, emapth, healing, intuitive/intuition, mindfulness meditation, personal growth, psychic, Sedona, suicide recovery Leave a comment

July 14 2015 Sedona and Phoenix 093

How broken me nineteen
Bits of pieces scattered around
A room, rented
Out of money
Out of home
Out of love
Out of time
Nothing but a razor in my hand
And determination to stop being

No hero me
Just a child felt tossed away like scraps
For the flies and carrion birds to feed on
This homeless victim orphan drop-out

T-shirt faded
Wrapped ‘round my bicep
Shiny razor in hand
Scratching, scratching, scratching
From wrist to elbow to wrist to elbow
Steel and skin waiting their final
Dance into oblivion

Eyes mine saw hand upon my steel
Mine all mine all mine all mine
My choice my action made so ludicrous
Just then and then and then and forever

Hand mine holding death’s instrument
Like a pen in search of my blood’s ink
This is what I am doing to do what I must?

Homeless orphan drop-out failure loser me
Put down that blade
Loosened the stained t-shirt
Felt blood flowing just then
From wrist to elbow to wrist to elbow
Still within my veins beneath that scratch

No disappearing that day or nevermore
No matter labels no matter wounds
No matter pain no matter losses
No matter solitude no matter fears
No disappearing that day or nevermore

Turning pain into prose poetry
Suicidality into intuition empathy wisdom
And all that into abundance love bliss
From weapon of self-destruction to warrior
From self-hating to sending healing
From lost in darkness to flying into sunrises
Living each day each moment each now
Even during this glorious anniversary
Thirty-nine years on

Mothers Three

May 13, 2018 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: enlightenment, family dynamics, healing, mental health, mindfulness, Mother's Day, parenting, persoanl growth, recovery, recovery from abuse, relationships 1 Comment

Mothers Three May 13 IMG

Mothers three I’ve had this life
The first from who I emerged
Fought and fought and fought to live
And did so but for her shortest decade
Before paradise crumbled all around her
And she called my name in darkest night
To protect her and her other children
From all the Hells Dad and her imagination
Created and re-created in worlds real and deluded

Before she crossed over, I knew her fate
Though remained her loyal son at all costs
Believing the unbelievable
Accepting the unacceptable
Controlling the uncontrollable
So many bruises my fists did make
Upon both flesh and souls

Mother Two loved Her Jesus
Blaming Mom for her own death
And saw us six kids as sinners to be rescued
Through neglect and abuse
Justified in her mind when converting
The Poor Higham Children into Christians

Her hands I grabbed when she tried to hit me
Her life I held in mine just then at the top of the stairs
Balancing her just so ‘til she promised to never hit
Never try hitting me again during that Summer of Hell
Wise in her terror, she backed down and I too softened
To her words though remained on guard until
My siblings and I could find another mother

Mother Three was there as best she could
When I was desperately lost and called to her
When all my pain roared forth and threatened to end me
In my freedom that became my Hell that only she could stop
Though when she later ended our relationship I laughed it off
During my three-minute visits at her office
Filled with conversations planning for arrangements
Destined to never take place

On this Mother’s Day I know Mothers Three
Each did their best to love and nurture
On my path I now see bits and pieces of each in the mothers
Who come through my office with their troubled children
Trying to make sense of the illogical
Trying to be wise in the face of chaos
Trying to show love toward the hostile

Their paths are never easy and their burdens are many
This I know in more than a few ways as I
Send in The Angels to their lives their souls
And to the Mothers Three

Photo: Mom (Circa 1945)

Snake (Transmutation)

May 12, 2018 By John David Higham in poetry, trauma, Uncategorized Tags: healing, mindfulness, personal growth, recovery, transformation Leave a comment

Snake (Transmutation) Image May 11 2018 IMG-3866

This road that punctured my skin
Injecting venom into my viscera
How it stopped me on my path
And brought death so close
That I had to stop living and breathing
And just be in the flickering twilight
Where language lost all meaning
Where love lost all feeling
Where time lost urgency
Where will lost all power

Too scared to move as the creature
Wrapped its head around my world
And sprayed its stream into my every limb
Rendering each lifeless and flaccid
I knew not life
I knew not joy
I knew not me

No pain I felt except in thought
As numbness now coursed through
My each and every fiber of my being
Freezing everything and everyone about me
Paralyzing me in my poisoned pool of me
Others could not see because I did not show
Others could not hear because I did not speak
Others could not know because I did not educate
As what I called life was sucked out my veins

No crises answered could they try
As this road’s fangs were mine to remove
From my violated flesh though this beast
Not an enemy to be once removed
But instead placed gently on a heated rack
For it to bask so that I will always know
The lessons it had brought in changing me
From that someone I had once been
And no longer need to be

Dreams August 28 Night

August 29, 2017 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: consciousness, dreams, dreamwork, humor, mindfulnes meditation, mindfulness, personal growth, spirituality, surrealism Leave a comment

Raffery Bedroom Ceiling August 2016

Dream two:
I am shitting
On the toilet
In the office
During the meeting

I am self-conscious
Though everyone shits
On the toilet
In the office
During the meeting

A lace tablecloth
Covers my lap
So delicate
So white
As my colleagues
Take notes
And speak of projections
Revenue streams
Writing notes

I shit self-consciously
No one gives me notice
It’s my first time shitting
On the toilet
In the office
During the meeting.

Dream one:
I am driving an 80’s Caddy
At winter’s night
From the passenger seat
The driver is half-in, half-out
We know each other well
But we are on snowy roads
And I need his help
To turn on the windshield wipers
I tell him and he obliges
We are both comfortable
With my driving
With his half-in, half-out
In an 80’s Caddy.

I Am Here

August 26, 2017 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, tarot, Uncategorized Tags: blog, connectdness, consciousness, faith, healing, inspiration, lifestyle, love, mindfulness meditation, personal evolution, personal growth, personal recovery, relationships, spirituality Leave a comment

I Am Here 8 26 17

I am here
Alive and ready for this path
No matter the joys the pains or how often
My feet may pause or my tongue may become still
Though my eyes may not appear to see
All going on around me on my path
And my ears my not seem to hear the laughter the crying
And my hands may not move to heal pain to defeat evil

I am here Smelling the trees as they quietly grow season to season
And looking over the grasses and the flowers and the skies
And sending joy out to all who look upon such scenes
With their eyes with their imaginations with their memories
As they seek refuge in their darkest night or to make their noon brighter

Together, we grow our strength ever beyond strong
Fed by hope and love even as whirlwinds uproot lives all around us
And give rise to fears from hellish pasts or intimidating futures

In the stillness of our souls as the power of The Universe
Cleanses our every cell, flowing through us replenishing us
No matter how far apart we are measured by mere miles mere lifetimes
As we remain eternally joined through our souls

We are here
Alive and ready for our intertwined paths
As The Universe’s DNA

Photo: Meditation Landscape (Lewisburg, August 26, 2017)

Dear Death

August 22, 2017 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, trauma, Uncategorized Tags: death, empath, faith, grieving, healing, inspiration, intuition, mindfulness meditation, orphan, personal growth, suicide, suicide recovery, trauma recovery 1 Comment

Death 8 21 17

I sense you
I feel your long pale fingers
As they touch and take the lives around me
Indeed, I sense the coldness of your touch
The killing frost that you are to all who could grow

Twenty-five years ago
I learned of your path into my body
You either didn’t think me a listener as you whispered
In that Reiki Master’s ear or else figured I wouldn’t feel her
Remorse when she recognized your energies entwined with mine

You fool
I had heard your dirges over a decade before
When we played together in my room late at night
A cord tied tightly ‘round my neck
As you patiently waited for my feet to step off and into your arms
Even before you seduced Mom with promises of release
As “How Long” and “When Will I See You Again”
Sang questions that I alone answered aloud to both myself
And you in the crumbling bunker of my adolescence

You didn’t scare me then
As instead the living called to action by The Angels
Forced me so deep into hell that I then begged with my razor
For you to escort me to my ancestors

As a child of nine thirteen years earlier
You caught me off-guard just once
Because then you were just something that happened
To people on TV named King and Kennedy, not Higham

You broke into my life a little at a time back then
Stealing Saturday afternoons and chess games from me
A secret companion Mom shared only after you had come and gone
On Mother’s Day as if her not mentioning you until after you stole Dad
Might make you forever disappear

I sense you
In the faces of a friend’s child
Those who ask me for prayers and energy
On Facebook
In the news
In my waking world
In my dreams or
In the future wrinkled faces
Of my children

I feel the bones the lives the families that you will shatter
As I walk among the ruins you’ve created
My tears and my grief are not for you
Even as I will continue to sense
Who you will only touch and who you will take
And how you will finally take me
But I will never again fear you
Or again deceive myself
Into believing you should
Into persuading you must
Embrace me before your time

Photo: Death (August 21, 2017)

Victory

August 20, 2017 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized, writing Tags: abuse recovery, healing, inspiration, love, marriage, menatl health, mindfulness meditation, personal evolution, personal growth, PTSD, romance, romantic relationships, Sedona, serenity, Victory Leave a comment

Lillian 8 19 2017 Chimney Rock 1st

My battle won marked by the calm of surrender
No celebratory words or songs did I shout
As the oppressive miraculously became inconsequential
Layers of pain melted away and flowed like dirtied waters
Off my skin
Off my soul
And became forever purified
At these moments of ascendancy
When bells were to ring in celebration
And my soul would discover the highest mountaintops
On which to spread my new-found and infinite bliss
Would make my once dreary world
Would make my once dreary soul
Dance with a child’s delight

Victory
Sweet sweet victory
How I had waited with all my endless hope
All my rabid persistence and obsessive planning
To even see any sign of you emerging from life’s hellish fog

Victory
You had intermittently exposed yourself
Before desperation and despair had obscured you from my sight
To prevent you once again from accompanying me
So many conditions everyone everything told me
I would have to meet
I would have to know
I would have to be
Before
Before
Before
I could have a fleeting moment
Of hearing your voice
Of even feeling worthy
Of your briefest whisper
Of your encouraging word
Before evil and despair
Resumed their suffocating siege

Victory, now that you have made yourself
So clearly my eternal companion
And all evil has been
Defeated
Chased
Transmuted
Transcended
Annihilated
Re-framed
Forever condemned
From its perches in my waking world
And its numerous thrones in my dream world
Where its myriad grotesqueness stared me in my every face
In all the lives I lived was living and planned on living
To now merely squishing under my feet like warmed moist beach sand
I am lost, lost, lost
In a land of sunsets and pleasant surprises
Tranquility and love

What becomes of this warrior
When all my battles have been won?
When I have calmed my roughest of storms?
When I have transformed my deepest of fears into karmic punchlines
And my loving adventures have
Exterminated my fears and hyper-vigilance?

This redemption I do not know
For so long the weapons of war
I have held in my hands
In my soul
That my not grasping them feels odd
And renders me naked, vulnerable
And not nude, innocent
As Victory embraces me

Victory, how odd your warmth feels
Against my skin
Against my soul
In our forever embrace

Photo: Lillian’s First (Sedona: Chimney Rock Trail Looking North: August 19, 2017)

Sky Eagle River

July 29, 2017 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: inspiration, mindfulness, recovery, relationships, Sun Leave a comment

Don’t be afraid to be the sky
And share your beauty and inspiration
So that all will look up at you
And see themselves

Be endless in your passion your life
And see the love in all
No matter if your mind makes them
Of your above of your below

Be boundless in your life your space
And open to others being within it
Breathing in your air
As you breathe in theirs

Don’t be afraid to be the eagle
And show others how to fly alone
Even before they’ve grown their wings

Be generous with your gifts your wisdom
And stay grateful to receive all things
From all who you encounter
While you soar

Be patient in your flight
With those who aspire as you did you do
Hope and aspiration
Lifts many an otherwise grounded wing

Don’t be afraid to be the river
And quench the thirst of those who drink
And cleanse wash their wounds
That would otherwise stain them

Be patient when they block they impede
And instead bounce off
Always cleansing always connected always flowing

Be willing to join others
Yet know when you need to transform
Evaporating up to the sky
Crashing back down to Earth

Don’t be afraid to be the mountain
And stand firm in your storms
Remaining formidable to your foes

Be open to allowing others to explore
Your vistas your dark crevices
As you both discover your mysteries

Be fearless in allowing the river
To erode your valleys your gorges
And turn your stone into rich soil
That helps feed others you may never know

Don’t be afraid to be the wind
And blow away fears while bringing passion
To those in the doldrums and caught in their webs

Be forceful and present in your passion
Be quite and still in your solitude
Carrying voices like secrets
Accepting that they are not yours

Move around move over
As obstacles mean nothing
Though beware the collision of hot of cold
That can mold you into a tornado
That can mold you into a hurricane

Don’t be afraid to be the rock
And allow others to balance on your firmness
To see beyond their worlds beyond their limits

Be resolute and know when to yield
Accept that you must become the soil
And be transported by the wind the rain
As part of your journey off your mountain

Don’t be afraid to be the sun
And illuminate both your path and those on it
With your abundant hope and optimism

Shine light accept light
Others give off by just being
No matter their universe
Illuminate their darkness your darkness
Heat your cold their cold

Sky eagle river
Mountain wind rock and sun
Be each at your time
Know each in your day
As each calls to you

Photo: Being at Thirty-Five Thousand Feet

John David Higham

Empathic Perspective

Category Archives: Uncategorized