By Tim Weidman

Recorded by author

When we find ourselves buffeted by the winds of our ephemeral ethos,
our spirits becoming thinner, ever more gaunt,
When we cannot bear the pain and loss that touches each life,
twisting us into a gnarled knot,
Let us not cling tighter to what is already broken. 

Let us instead know our sorrow as gift
and allow this kiss of anguish to annihilate all grasping,
plunging us ever deeper within
where suffering and beauty simultaneously arise. 

Let us ride our horse into the land of grief
giving full reign to its innate knowing of our finitude,
Let us ululate with/in the rocks and crevasses,
our inner and outer canyons
reverberating with our lamentation 

Let us get down on all fours
and rest our heads on the ground,
creating an echo chamber,
amplifying the intensity of our despair,
until we become luminous
dark glorre. 

Let us hear the world respond to our wailsong:
the trees groan, the ocean rumbles, the cats mewl, the
flowers droop, the bees plummet from flight,
the very earth quavers;
the deep darkness weeps with us.
Let us wail until we know that there is ever only one heart.

As we hold this death in our heart,
let us hear the pristine note,
its essence a mourning and morning,
our spirits empty, holding no-thing
and yet
magically
love floods from the depths,
rippling with possibilities.
Let us arise, together,
as new day dawning from the bottomless deep.

Tim Weidman: I was born on a path of light nestled in the warmth of my extended family.  Life appeared as a golden tapestry spun with threads of joy.  Predictably, darkness entered stage left.  For many years I denied this darkness as part of me, instead treating it as enemy to overcome.   The fruition of this struggle found me interred in the underworld.  I screamed to be let out.  But no one answered me.  One day instead of beseeching the sky, I let go my grip of my tombstone and spiraled deep within. My art is the story of this journey.

Bio recorded by author