WHO AM I?

HOW DO I REFLECT UPON MY BEING? How do I get to the core of my life? I have wrestled with that eternal question for what appears to be forever. But I have always been afraid, afraid of the answer, afraid of myself, and I have always stood before the mirror comfortably clothed, lest I should see myself naked.

THERE NEEDS TO BE AN UNDRESSING, a peeling-off of the layers. I look at myself and I know that I am. I am what others have made me. Millions of tiny little hands have run their tiny little fingers upon my being and left their mark upon my soul, and I am.

I breathe and still I feel the heavy shoes of those who walked upon my life with heavy shoes. I am the configuration. My rooms are furnished with their presence in my past. My floors are carpeted with their love. My walls are inscribed with the graffiti of their being, and I am. They have played upon my instrument and my life is filled with their music and there is both harmony and discord, and I am. I am all this over which I had no control. I am an accident, a fortunate or an unfortunate accident.

I can now wail my despair, like baying at the moon: “My life is not my life. My ship is not my ship. I have been thwarted and not allowed to be. I have been molded. YOU have molded me”. Oh! Joy! I have someone else to blame for my being. “Behold what you have done to me!”

NO! THERE IS MORE. There is more. There needs to be a further undressing, a further peeling-off of the layers. I look at myself again and I know that before, and beyond, and beneath this, I am.

I am the seed. I am the genetic phenomena. I am the plasma and mine was the life. Mine was the clay out of which I was molded. Mine were the rooms that were furnished. Mine were the walls that were dressed. Mine was the instrument that was played. And I was not idle and I was not placid. I reacted. I reacted to you. I reacted to them. I am not the configuration. I am the totality of these interactions. I am the composite.

So here I am. And there you are. I am me and you are you. We have a separate and distinct existence from each other, an identity created by the interplay of people upon people. We are separate and yet we are one. Why? What is our common denominator?

THERE IS MORE. There needs to be a further undressing, a further peeling-off of the layers. I look again and I know there is more. There is my self which is underneath me. There is my self which has no form, or shape, or identity, just essence, pure essence. And as I look I am overcome because my self and your self are identical twins, two cosmic ions of energy, two infinitesimal drops of water out of the infinite ocean of life, the source of my being, the womb of my spirit, from whence I seek the answers to the enigma, our common denominator through which I know your self by knowing my self, through which I understand your self by understanding my self, through which I am your self by being my self, and I am.

Jay Frankston
Little River, CA 95456
wlp@mcn.org