Retrospection

Retrospection and quiet meditation are powerful companions in life. On so many occasions when I feel myself unable to trudge onwards anymore, stubbornly refusing to fling my diminished carcass upon some old rock to peer over a darkened horizon, I only have strength left to conjure a vision - one that situates me at the centre, at the intersection of wheel spokes; reliable fulcrums of memories, sweet and painful alike, extending outwards unto plains and domains that I once treaded upon. No sooner did a figment pass my eyes, before it assails me again. Happily then, there is silence, there is confident anticipation, there is definiteness underlying the vissicitudes. Sometimes the wheel spins, and flings me off to an undefined limbo, a perfected bardo. Then all I need to do is lay back and await the forces of grace to propel me back onto my carousel of fate. Indeed it is easier to view my life, one-third uncannily extinguished, in this way. Not having to strenously peer forward, nor experience the pangs of regret looking backwards. Not dragging a tired consciousness through the years, lest the wounds deepen. But merely standing, spinning, balancing on one heel, letting a myriad of images converge, a stream of dreamy technicolor swell into placid whiteness. These arcs, these recapitulations...equally near, equally far, equally precious, equally painful, equally there. And suddenly, nothing seems too hard to bear.