Identity

Does every expression
have a private identity of its own?
A painting, a poem, even you?
Being such egoists,
at first we think yes,
but upon further consideration,
we are compelled to admit: no.
There is no personal identity.
It’s like a shadow
that seems to exist, seems to
touch and tickle the ground,
but doesn’t actually,
being without substance.
Just so, personal identity
never touched you, me,
or our creative effort.
The supreme Creator,
transcendent Mind
is the only capacity
able to call itself I AM.
Starry Night does not have any
personal identity of its own.
Even after traveling different
centuries and continents,
it still can never
be separated from Van Gogh.
Like anything we have made
that wouldn’t exist otherwise,
we are nothing in ourselves,
but completely an outcome
of a larger Source. And just as
our paintings and poems
and good deeds
represent us, and help us
see and understand ourselves;
that is what the divine Mind
that produced us
needs us for as well– such is the
importance and essentialness
of our role, while still
quite derivative.
Remarkably, even though we are
an effect and not a Cause,
we get to know and experience
both ourselves and our Creator
as an inspired, reflective
manifestation.
(And this is much more than
our own outcomes can ever do!)
Regardless of the
incomparable gift
of consciousness,
identity is not
in the form of expression,
but rather, residing squarely
in the ultimate, infinite Mind
which initially commenced
the whole radiantly miraculous,
cascading, domino effect.
Just as we expect
our paintings and poems
to be humbly obedient to us,
with no independent, rogue hubris,
we need to respond likewise to the
one Origin that generated us all,
by compliantly mirroring forth
with absolutely no ripple
of anything else.

By Polly Castor
5/10/21