I used to be a werewolf but I'm not nowwwwww

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by Nowayout

Wow, I think your poems are truly getting very good, and the homeless man.

Truly remarkable.

The paths, the journey some people are on. Amazing....

Generation X and Y next-gen undefined.

My mother is Polish and was living on a farm in Poland when the Germans marched in. Then the Russians, and they were all shipped to Siberian labor camps in cattle cars. Her entire family died there except for her and her brother who moved to Australia, she came to Canada and had me and 7 others.

She's still with us, 85 and smart as a whip!

Thanks for sharing, touching story. God bless.

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by Ariaecheflame

Hi, how cool that you too connected to this story some time back. I connected to the trauma experience as well and his story kind of gave me a sense of how resilient the human spirit can be.

I find your reply to be very encouraging. I have always felt quite restricted in my writing, especially on a spiritual website!
I am naturally drawn towards telling all sorts of stories about people and places and experiences which connect us all as human beings experiencing a whole array of colours on an endless spectrum haha.

All the talk of oneness is lovely and comforting and it belongs within the whole story of course... There is a whole big world out there which has so much to share and it's there to draw upon and add to like a moving artwork or something lol.

Yes it's interesting that we put on the lenses, come to terms with what is spiritual ? Coming to terms, labelling and sometimes boxing off possibility and as you hint to - Aliveness. We take a cup of water from the river and sit and watch it, perhaps to some degree we are all frightened of that river for sure. And prefer to sit and hold the cup of water. Using language to explain spiritual matters doesnt always do this of course and some people as you know yourself have used language excellently to investigate, the great beyond. Michael Stipes of REM used the same title in the song the Great Beyond.

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground
I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

Deeply symbolic of course. So as you say the stories are out there, and the poet Patrick Kavanagh, that Advent poem, was always using images from ordinary life to capture the universal, a trapped stick in a canal, a bent gate that a lorry had crashed into, etc. etc. One way of approaching it. But i see also that you mean life stories too etc. etc. Thanks for the chance.

[Wisdom keeperro]

What you have posted here Ariaecheflame is one that touches the heart much. Compassion comes from what you are writing, and it will touch many hearts. It has certainly touched mine. Took me back to something iv kept for a long time now. I hadn't thought about it much till I started reading your writings. it was a poem by a homeless guy I met on the streets of Manchester UK near to were I live. I had much conversation with him, but what struck me is that his happiness came by his poetry a passion he said he held tightly inside so I would like to share.

STREET LIFE

On the street I have no home
in a door way all alone
At night it gets very cold
No one for warmth to cuddle or hold
Day after day its always the same
People rush past in the fast lane
Some where to go, something to do
Oh why cant I have a life like you
Instead iam sat here on my pitch
Waiting and praying to get a hitch
I have my regular who shops with a smile
That make's getting cold worth while
Sat out here like ground hog day
So until I get my break that's
just the way

By J. L Smith

[Ariaecheflame]

Thank you Wisdom Keeperro and everybody else for sharing your stories here with me. I truly appreciate it all.
That line about the regular shopper who stops to smile means a lot to me personally too. I have heard many people reflect on similar sentiments.

I grew up knowing a degree of poverty but not quite to the degree of homelessness, almost but never so, thankfully.
I was once in the supermarket as a teenager with a friend at Christmas time and we were hungry and wanting to buy and share a quarter of watermelon but where about a dollar short of change.

A lady saw my friend and I counting our silver and discussing how we would have to go without and she came over to us, smiled and gave us some money to buy the watermelon. It made such a mark on me that I have not forgotten her kindness.

I have relied on the kindness of others more times then I can count and I know what it means to be offered even just a moment of time shared from another.

I am feeling quite moved by all the replies here, overwhelmed even in a sort of way but also very appreciative to be able to read along with the unfolding stories.

[Nowayout]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

Thanks for sharing, touching story. God bless.

To add to that, and Aria's sentiments too, My Mother said the only reason why she and her Brother survived was that the Camp commander's wife took a fondness to them and would throw them scraps of bread and a little milk at times. Youth worked in her favor, as her older sisters and brothers, Mother and Father died from extreme labor and starvation. It was a death camp!

Kindness can be found in the most trying circumstances, there too the heart opens.

The most captivating story she told me was that in the early morning mists at times she would see the Ghosts of the departed.

I believed her!