“Where Does Something Actually Begin?”
Action, experience, singular, collective…
A seed comes from a tree that comes from a pod
that falls from a branch that sprouts to a root that sends up a bud
that grows to a tree that moves
Upward, outward,
Ever onward,
All the way back and all the way forward

Where does something actually begin?

The ricochet of causality, the multi-layered path of interweaving lines of happenings, dominoes hitting, propelling, generating, responding …
Action and impact, action and …
A ripple of unstoppable flourishing, Becoming, active, relating …

Where does something begin?

Imagine an endless source, no beginning and no end.
Reason enough to embrace some Big Bang,
And take a breath at the awesome gesture of Becoming Universe,
marked with a start …
Ready? Ok, Go!

And yet, even a Big Bang comes out of something, some place,
Some unimaginable Suchness or Void …
A timeless, measureless, Infinite pulse of Emptiness …

But Imagine this Emptiness not quite empty, not barren,
See It filled with layers and waves of possibilities, and
When these layers, intimate and by chance, rub against each other (…inhale…) …

WHAM !
A bang ignites an Unfolding,
Rippling and ricochetting emergent possibilities,
And,
Depending on the vibrational tones of these particular kissing layers,
Breathes forth a composition of patterns and energetic signatures
Discovering
The laws of Nature of
This Particular Emergent Universe.

I like the idea, the perception,
The experience of being part of a larger, breathing, becoming Being,

I can rest here,
No longer needing to hold together the boundaries of me,
so that
I AM
NOW,
Interweaving, available, released from a known and fixed identity.

This is a time of shift, of redesign
For me in my life, and in the vast hungry World of human activity.

So, when I lost my ID card last week,
Or, rather, when it escaped my known biosphere,
It seemed to have just disappeared,
Here one moment and the next, just gone.,

I imagined it materialized in another, parallel universe laughing,
Enjoying its escape …
Gifting me the metaphor of releasing
My current identity –

I am unravelling, a little, in this particular Circling of the Sun
Things are breaking around me,
Dropping, getting scratched as the boundaries of me
And what I thought I had become
Dissolve and
I search for where this All began,
For what is always already Here

And I wonder –
What layers of Emptiness will I brush up against and ignite into Becoming Now?

About Bonita Winer’s Poetry
As a College Professor teaching the art and craft of Cinematic Editing and Storytelling, I have found rich territory to explore with young filmmakers, a gift of a place and space to wonder together about the nature of Being, experience, creative possibilities, and the impact of the stories we tell. Especially as they prepare to enter the larger world. We have discovered Big Ideas thinking of Editing as Poetry: The joining of images and sound in such a way that emotions are raised by extending a shot just a few frames longer or placing music under a sequence that splinters the image with questions, revealing something deeper underneath. Teaching for so many years and practicing the spontaneous expression of writing in the Writing Circle, words have become a vehicle to thread the interior of experience onto a page or into a lesson, into a story or into critiques of works-in-progress. And now, as I am stepping away from teaching at the College and find myself released from the definitions of that work, place and community, I look for the ground to find me where I am. Or for me to get comfortable with the dissolving of boundaries and a known identity. Writing, creating worlds, characters and journeys that come from the curiosities, wonder and awe of every day is a tether in an untethered life. And a boon to the imagination and possibilities I wish to explore.