Embracing another’s perspective
A mirror from your past
The good, the bad, the ugly
Of shadows that were cast

Perspective is a river
Fluidly it runs
The mis-steps drawn and harbored
Keeps us locked where it’s begun

9/12/17 #2

Note 3/28/21. I like this poem but find it perplexing, as if I’m reading
someone else’s words.

It’s my perspective that when we have an opinion or judgment about
something, it’s a mirror into ourselves. Energy can’t flow if the circuit
is off. Running into situations where we are generated to observe what we
think, that opportunity gives us a chance to look into our own mind.

The problem here rests with the idea of embracing someone
else’s perspective. We could obviously write it off as them needing to see
something in themselves that our encounter gives them an opportunity to do;
but that would deny the aspect of attracting things or people into our
lives as a way of learning. It would be a denial of nature’s method of
teaching altogether.

OK, as I’ve gotten all of that out of the way I’m seeing the poem
differently.

The first stanza is referencing ‘shadow’ or ‘shadows’ ; they represent that
aspect of the self that might be hidden. Tendencies that we have perhaps
that we’re not clear about. So, the first stanza seems to be saying that
as we look or think back to situations where we’ve been drawn together with
others people or even just other situations where a side of us showed
itself that was not altogether productive or would be something we’d hope
others might not know. . . then the second stanza comes in and suggests
that if we recriminated ourselves for the past “drawn and harbored” then we
won’t allow ourselves to move forward.

As a by-product of analysis, if we look at it juxtapositionally, holding
onto the emotional baggage drawn from situations involving other people,
our perspective would quantum mechanically hold them from further
development; but releasing them would also release ourselves.

If you got something else, different or more, I’d love to hear from you.