Kundalini Splendor

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Friday, May 05, 2006

The Visionary Prepares to Leave (poem) 

This poem picks up two common beliefs about dying--first, that as we die we relive all of our past experiences. And second, that we actually leave earth in a final moment of ecstasy, as the kundalini energies are fully released within. Those who undergo "near death" experiences often report feelings of unconditional love as this sweet energy sweeps through them in the last stages of their death process.

The inspiration for this poem came, oddly enough, when I was reading a critic's comment on one of the late poems of W. B. Yeats. He said that Yeats had been preparing to write this very powerful poem all of his life, for in it he drew on all of his past experience both as a seer and as a poet.

It occurred to me that all of us do much the same kind of summing up, as we enter the "final moment" of our lives--thus in this last moment we become our own poem.

The Visionary Prepares to Leave


I see now how it happens.

How all the twisted strands
of memory and desire,
the moment on the cliffs
above the raging foam,
the quiet interlude
among the redwoods
gathered round like saints,
the scent on the veranda
hinting of ripe fruit on the wind,
the velvet breast
brushing the arm—
everything that has come forward,
imprinted forever on who we are,
even the threads of feeling
playing in their silent dance
beneath it all
like muted music,
how each enters
this resonance
of voices
conspiring now
in one last coherent pulse,
one final gasp
of knowing,
brief moment of
ultimate bliss.


April 28, 2006
Dorothy Walters

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