This one is about 30 minutes old. The obvious and superficial answer to the question “where to?” is that I’m off to another day at work in about ten minutes, but it’s clear to me that the question (and the state of mind, spirit, and psyche) expressed in this drawing is much larger and far deeper than that.

I’m still kind of amazed to see the sort of information that comes out when I simply let the lines form themselves into images. Maybe from now on when someone asks me how I’m doing, I’ll just draw them a picture.

If I Stopped

If I stopped for a year
to read the classics
what would happen?
If I stopped for a year
to visit art galleries and museums
would I ever work again?
If I stopped for a year
to dance and climb mountains
would the boardroom bell
not sound for me?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn who I am
in the angry eyes of our tender youth?
If I stopped for a year
could I feel the seasons change
and hear ants talk?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn how to breathe
and wake up the senses
I have long since forgotten?
If I stopped for a year
could I remember the birth canal
and the bright, white light called life?
If I stopped…

Sean Casey LeClaire

Sean is one of the facilitators of the upcoming 2nd Annual Arjuna Men’s Conference, which will take place June 5-7, 2009 in western Massachusetts. Sean’s work is practical, vibrant, and deeply necessary, and I’m sure the conference will be beneficial, encouraging, and inspiring for all who attend.

spirituality is a vibrant awakening consciousness
a deep and present awareness of ourselves
of everyone and everything around us
it’s knowing that our words and our actions matter
even when no one hears and no one sees
it’s listening to the heart and the mind and the body
to moon stars sun and trees
to wind fire rain and earth
to animals and plants
to dreams and daydreams
to grief and anger and hunger and sex
to all of the feelings we’ve been told not to have
and all of the thoughts we’ve been taught not to think
in the right balance
in the right time.

spirituality demands critical thinking
it requires curiosity
a desire to know what’s real
a willingness to strip off conditioned patterns of perception and habit and belief
layer by layer
regardless of personal cost
because otherwise
truth and truthfulness are lost.

spirituality is facing the mysteries of life and death
without hiding from questions that cannot be answered
and without the comfort of tall tales passed down through a million dark nights
it’s knowing that we are not alone
because we’re all here together
and it’s all up to us
together.

(PDF version)

you can’t hold any of it.

we don’t own anything
we don’t get to keep anything
not love or money
not friends or enemies
and certainly not
time.

my life will become
someone else’s life
my memories will become
someone else’s memories
even my face will become
someone else’s face
sooner or later.

someday I’ll be a fish again
and I won’t remember
the taste of a hook in my mouth.

someday I’ll be a baby again
trying to stand for my first time
falling down and getting up
over and over til I get it right.

someday I’ll be a tree stump again
nothing left of me but my roots
watching the other trees rise and fall
slowly fading to dust and dirt.

someday an arrow will take me down
pierce my heart
empty my life
finish me
and when it does
I’ll be an arrow again
the arrow that pierces
someone else’s heart.

(PDF version)

we have everything we need to live in paradise
for everyone
but we’re eating it all up
and crapping it all out
as fast as we can
faster faster faster
more more more
hoard hoard hoard
mine mine mine
consume dispose consume
until it’s all gone
while high-def flat screen phantoms
shiny electrodistractors
and cell phone brain parasites
eat our time and our minds and our lives.

we live and die in a group trance
a mass of mass dreams
in which someone else’s dreams
are more real to us than our own
whose dream is this
whose dream do you serve
your conditioning is more than you realize.

stop
take a moment
take a breath
check your body
and ask yourself
am I awake right now
or am I dreaming someone else’s dream.

(PDF version)

tonight he dreamed of a reunion
with all of his high school peers
no one had changed too much
then he woke up
and realized
everything had changed.

while he’d been struggling with how it was
and dreaming about how it oughta be
everyone else had been getting on with it
getting married
having kids
building careers
making money
growing up.

now the arrogant aging wonder boy
looks in that yearbook in his head and sees
doctors lawyers businesspeople
bosses owners academics
masters of government and commerce
kings and queens of the corporate world
wily investors
and more millionaires than he probably realizes.

he jolts awake at four in the morning
sweating
heart pounding
no wife
no kids
rented apartment
lousy job
a few thousand in the bank
wondering if there’s still time to turn it all around
scared to death there isn’t
worried it’s already too late
worried that the same reverse jedi mind tricks that got him here
will keep him here.

so here I am at four AM
in the dead quiet of the dark
the only sound I can hear
is the ringing in my own ears
peter pan at midlife
plus a few years
wondering what the hell happened
where it all went
the former smartest guy in the room
mister know-it-all
a victim of my own inner hype
narcissistic
grandiose
egotistic
idealistic
moralistic
unrealistic
overcompensating underperforming
king of the world
(population: one)
slapped down by time
and my own inflated pretensions.

even my dreams lie to me now
no one got older
nothing has changed
plenty of time left …

wake up sleepy man
time is ticking
am I gonna get real
or
am I just gonna get old
or
is it too damn late now anyway
no matter what I do.

(PDF version)

when I look inside I see
dresden and berlin
after the firebombs
tokyo and san francisco
after the big ones
a black and white landscape of rubble and ruin
stretching from horizon to horizon
like a nightmare scene on some faraway planet
abandoned and forgotten by god.

when I look inside I see
a teacher who doesn’t teach
an artist who creates nothing
an explorer who’s afraid to leave the house
a lover with no one to love
a healer with no one to heal
a priest without a god
a body without a soul
a blindfolded boxer lost in the woods
exhausted
throwing punches at nothing.

I came back from the dead into a life that’s not mine
I woke up in a temple that’s been destroyed
I don’t know how I got here or
what to do about it
how do I find my way out of this place
how do I remember who I am.

(PDF version | Video version)