Fable of the Man Who Found the Mystery

author’s note:

I am not the man in this poem.

But we share one thing in common: we both believe in animism.


FABLE OF THE MAN WHO FOUND THE MYSTERY

As a child he owned
a toy car and a ball of string
and not much else.
So by the time he became an adult
he felt he needed
many many things.

And so he worked hard
and felt pretty pleased
when he got all the stuff he wanted.

And yet
all that stuff didn’t seem to be enough.
He began to wonder
if he should now do
as others have sometimes done
after filling their lives with stuff:
seek enlightenment.

“Should I chuck all that stuff
 and go on a spiritual quest?”
 he asked a hip woman
 with wise lines across her face.

She told him:
sit still and go on a journey within—
go deep within
until you feel the mystery

then rise up and go back out
and feel that same mystery all around you.

That unseen unknown ingredient
pervades everything—
everything—
even the air we breathe.

Our hero then did as told
and soon discovered the ineffable mystery
within and without—

a truth he now experiences
every day
because every day
he goes within
then goes back out
sensing the mystery again.

He now feels he’s found
what was missing before.
And the stuff he’s got
no longer seems so empty:
because he now feels the mystery
in all that stuff.  In fact
he feels the mystery
in all the stuff of this world.
And so he now believes
all that stuff has spirit

including the stuff of trees
and mountains and fields and streams—
including the stuff called animals
and among the animals
the stuff called human beings.

Following this belief
the rich guy has now become a rich man.

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