Jean-Paul Moyer, my cat, has proven himself a poet with 22 publication credits within his first year of writing. More recently, he has taken up painting with the same aplomb.
Each morning, while the oven preheats for breakfast, I prepare newspaper, canvas and paint, which is then covered with cling wrap and a top sheet. Jean-Paul waits until catnip has been sprinkled atop it all and then hops onto the setup, moving the paint with his body.
Like a Poem Living or in the Time of Imaginary Wolves Roaming
(a reflective prose poem epistolary on the atmosphere and aura of place)
Where is my love?
Where is my love?
Horses running free
Carrying you and me
-Cat Power
-Where is My Love?
I recalled the east places and their essence. East of the city, anyways. I suppose once it was a good enough area with quiet bungalows built after war/time and during. I think anyhow. I looked n time upon the concrete forms they built stairs with then, and retaining walls sometimes. A retaining wall series that has dirt and a garden growing is a world and a marvellous one. Osho says that if you plant a small garden you will find out something, that the world is for you, that the world belongs to you. This is something true, if you understand.
Those houses were handsome and steady whereas some these days are overwrought and gaudy. Community. Positivity. Ease. I wonder if a poet or writer or painter was born there. Maybe it was in the night I was born. That’s what a mystic said. The time was unrecorded. People and places carry karma. I can see that area in my mind’s eye, which might be interchangeable with the ajna chakra, the third eye. It’s not a great place now. But there were parks and some ok people. It’s a bit of a nowhere place, in that there is no landmark or sought-after destination that people discuss or enjoy. I’m thinking thinking thinking…a pensive type, mercurial, actually born under the rule of that planet, Mercury. Gemini and Virgo share the same planet,- and it races the fastest around then sun. It’s the messenger and is supposed to make a good communicator, journalist, writer. I have no more affiliation with that place. Lots of buildings. And industrial zones. Hydro wires. Strip plazas incredibly old, their signs broken or dismayed and dishevelled, crooked, lacking the original colour. Faded displays and faded hearts.
I kept going back there long ago, and didn’t know why. But I think it was because I had psychic roots. from a womb and area. Hmm. Strange to consider it all. Ghostly. Phantom-like. I don’t like it. I have decided that I don’t like it. But there were moments. Like an old relationship. It obviously didn’t work out if it is an old relationship. Yet, there must have been something good at some point. What is place? What is time? Can you surpass these circumstances? Maybe it’s tied in with the old question of free will versus biological determinism.
Osho says both are true, have their place. He says evolution brought you here, and now with man, conscious evolution is possible, that you have to become a seeker, a seeker of enlightenment. In nonduality if you awaken, the world awakens to an extent also. But nonduality looks like nothing, so mysticism comes in, for mysticism is better looking for its romanticism, adventure, promise, eccentricity. Osho says for both you will have to come to him, for he is a master and a mystic. He initiated me with a smile once in the astral planes in the autumn of 1993. But I still say Christian prayers. I like Christian prayers and Eastern meditation. Runes cards dreams visions gurus prayers palmistry numerology mediums so on and so forth.
But yes, that place. I saw an old-time psychic there. She put a rosary on a table and did a reading outside for the summer day was so calm and tranquil. See, I guess that place is not all bad. Why did the soul chose to incarnate there? I don’t know. I can’t remember. Osho says it’s the only the gift of the advanced yogi to choose his or her birth. He said he waited seven hundred years or something to find the right parents, the correct circumstance.
And that the man who poisoned him last time came to poison him again and Osho said, ‘Again? Again you have come to poison me.’ I don’t know if it’s true but that what he claimed. Anyhow, the town. I think it was called a town or township before it became part of the city-proper. I remember the hockey rinks because I played in them a lot. And a girl named Laura who used to go with her friends to watch us play. Electric light and spiritual light I associated with her because she was so magical. She had blond hair and I think dark eyes. Denim. A bit demure, coy. She was really cool and smiled a lot. Birds. I just had a vision of birds I the sky. Birds in the sky in that grey and rainy place. It means that there is hope and air and agility and grace and life. That is good. It is good to have a vision. The birds are going up and separating and thriving.
All those old homes and aged places. Somewhere people unknown, good souls, walk in their plain clothing to the stores. I see them. There is nothing fancy about them. They are just people. I like that. They are more trustworthy than the others. Areas are different. Intonation of voice, body language, apparel, taste in things. Everything is different. There are even respected and much less respected colleges and universities. I picture the brown brick hospital where I was born. It is not the hospital I thought I was born at. I was at first mistaken. It is one further east. It’s closed down now I believe. But then well I picture wolves roaming, actual wolves travelling in back of this hospital on the outskirts of the civilized world. Tall wild grasses. Feral lands that lead almost right up to the back of the hospital.
I keep picturing that, more from the imagination but much like a vision, an actual vision. So, rugged lands with streams, the overcast rainy place, a brown/brick hospital. I try and picture the circumstances of birth. The woman I chose to be born from or the angels led me to is alone. Her family doesn’t show up. Her own mother passed way years before. A storm has been storming all day and goes into the night. How alone must it feel for a woman to go through all that. Taxing. Trying. Surely painful physically, mentally, spiritually, psychically. I’d better try and write a good poem, at the very least, I’ll say that much.
Matters and mysteries, all this being born thing. but I read there is a spiritual school of thought that sees being born as an unfortunate thing, being incarnated into all this trouble once again. An interesting take on existence. Quite cosmic. I was born there from an unknown father and a little known mother. Science says one is from northern continents and one from southern.
My name the lady could not remember after. She must have been in distress. The nurses told her I was being taken to rural farm lands and would be raised in an idyllic lifestyle amidst ranch owners and nature and animals, many horses. None of this was true and none of this happened. But I understand. They were probably trying to calm her down. I understand. And the name…they changed it anyhow.
I was then brought up in the culture of the others, my peers, and the entire generation. Music. Toys. Books. School. Some travel. Sports. A democratic and flourishing society. The zeitgeist, right? Yes. We are not as original as we think yet we also are more original than we might imagine. We read the same and similar comic books, see advertisements, go to movies. Do you remember your first kiss? Of course. How about the calm and refreshing sleep, a slumber so divine and healing, the house perhaps empty and the warmest breeze from a window travelling in, the air like angels? From what spirit world did we come from? Wild. And we then sat in the same theatres and walked the suburban and city streets together. Thinking we are fashionable, trendy. Khaki pants. Converse. Things can be light and bright, even illuminating the night.
Nature and God are immensely strong and vast. We are born and borne from nothing less, and will one day go back into them, some happily and some reluctantly. A few or even several decades is not a long time. What will we do in the meantime? Build an engine, nah. Create art, yes. There is sometimes an electric eclectic ephemeral atmosphere, at dusk, just there, just there for a while, especially in some summers when it feels like rain, like the air is pregnant w/intensity. It’s not dark or light. Something nascent, inchoate, new, is happening. The boulevards even change colour then. I thought it was like a poem living.
“Reading is the nourishment of the mind, heart, and soul.” — Virginia Woolf
Aziza lived in a small town, her heart full of dreams and aspirations. She loved learning, and her eyes sparkled with the desire for knowledge. But her parents, like many others in their community, held traditional views. They believed that girls were meant to focus on home duties and marriage, not academics.
Every time Aziza expressed her dream of studying, her parents would gently but firmly discourage her. “Girls are not made for education,” her mother would say, “they are meant to be wives and mothers.” Her father, too, was insistent that marriage was the best path for her. But Aziza couldn’t let go of her dreams. Her heart yearned for a different life, a life where she could learn, grow, and make her own choices.
One day, after yet another attempt from her parents to convince her to accept a marriage proposal, Aziza made a bold decision. She had already prepared all the documents she needed to apply to university, secretly working on them in the quiet of her room. She knew that her parents would never understand, but she was ready to stand up for her future.
“Why can’t you just be like other girls?” her mother asked, frustrated. “You’re not thinking of your family.”
Aziza looked her mother in the eye, her voice steady but filled with determination. “This is my life. I deserve the chance to chase my dreams, to be educated and find my own path.”
Her parents were taken aback. They had never seen such courage in their daughter. After a long silence, they realized that their love for her should allow her to choose her own way. With heavy hearts but a new understanding, they finally gave her their blessing.
Aziza faced many challenges along the way. Moving to the city was not easy. She felt lonely, overwhelmed by the fast-paced life, and sometimes doubted herself. But each time she stumbled, she reminded herself why she was there: for her dreams. For her future.
One day, after a phone call with her parents, Aziza realized that they had come to accept her decision. They were proud of her strength and her courage. That moment marked a turning point, where both Aziza and her family understood that education was not just a choice — it was a right.
Aziza completed her studies and became a successful professional. But more than that, she had proven to herself and others that no obstacle was too great when it came to pursuing your dreams.
I am Nurmatova Aziza Oybek’s daughter I was born on August 21, 2005 in Nurota district of Navoi region. Currently, I am a 2nd-year student at Navoi State University, Faculty of English Language and Literature. I have taken pride of place in reading contests, as well as a participant in international seminars and meetings. I am a winner of contests and competitions dedicated to corruption and a finalist of the “Discussion” contest.
