Welcome to the Gate of Disenchantment

Welcome to the Gate of Disenchantment

The Gate is open.
Do you knock?
What did you seek?
Payment of debt?
A wind of mercy?
A happy life?
A friend?
A noble purpose?
A badge?
A faithful following?
A kiss from God?
And no one listened?
No answer came?
All recommended paths
led nowhere wonderful?

Welcome to the Gate of Disenchantment
After all the bad news you can take
At breath's end,
The Unknown calls halt
asking three conditions
to pass through
an empty heart
a clear mind
and a love like no other.

-Cynthia Winton-Henry

On the first day of May, this poem surfaced from my archives.

I entered through the gate of Disenchantment. Struggling with dilemmas of ancestry, biology, personality, and cultural illusions of goodness, I learn that the human propensity for genocide only seems to grow when Progress is our God.

I need disenchantment in order not to become cynical. There is some serenity as I learn to live in Reality, with all its violence and greed.

Idealism lies cracked at my feet as I reexamine my purpose, to foster freedom. Without honoring one another, there is no freedom.

So with eyes wide open, what else can I do? I take up my begging bowl and pray to reenchant life with realism. To do this, I slow down. I dance. I drop into my heart. I listen. When called, I act.

Are humans evolving, progressing, improving? Perhaps it is time to stop and praise all who want to play and be.