What is Essence?

What is Essence?

My post this week is a poetry selection from my friend and fellow student, John Craig, from the Northern California Center. Poetry about the Work is often transferred to the heart and mind very well by the pen of an "experienced" poet. This selection is from his book, The Well: For a New Civilization, and is available on Amazon.com. Hope you enjoy it.

Essence and Personality

Personality is learning sculpted into a shape

that safeguards the wounded child. One’s essence cannot survive

the violence of the world without a shield. As the soul

must wear a body here to protect its pure becoming,

so the child is bruised and cut in his joyful nakedness

and early made to wear a coat of callous, a disguise

of learned behaviors and expressions bound in chains of thought.

In Schools, the unity of aim and the regulation

of behavior minimize the need for social masking.

The child is free to love and to aspire. Transformation

is supported, so inevitable human travail

becomes fuel for being, not cause for fear or hiding.

Essence is protected by the love of friends and the bond

of intercourse with Angels. Joy and delight are not mocked.

In the world, the poor prisoners entertain each other

with unconsciously learned identities. Some take power,

some live to please, some lose their minds to make believe disease:

their personalities are adaptations held unto death.

The child within is put to sleep and never wakes to feel

the wonder quickened by the Presence of a higher world.

So rare the return of the buried and forgotten child.

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The Girl in the Picture Frame, Rembrandt