Forgetting, Remembering, and Belonging

A Poem on Finding Our Way Back to What Was Never Lost

It happens so easily.

A single irritation.

One small frustration.

And before we know it…

…a single trigger has snowballed.

Anger. Resentment. Even full-blown rage.

One thing sets it off, and suddenly we find ourselves seduced by that sweet feeling of righteous certainty, the need for “justice.”

Sometimes, we even feel obligated to share it — to make sure they know how we’ve been wronged. In the moment, it can feel like the only reasonable response. The anger builds, and we let it, believing in a need to balance the scales or ensure our voice is heard.

We do this because it’s so easy to forget.

We forget how connected we really are.

It’s tempting to see ourselves as separate, as individuals fighting for fairness, for recognition, for what is “ours.” But the reality is, there is far more that connects us than divides us. And the moment we remember that, anger loses its urgency.

There are moments when our realization of how deep this connection is… shifts — not as a thought, but as a knowing.

Months ago, I had one of those moments — a particularly profound experience, one that felt like a glimpse of something universal, like an “answer.” Not an answer in the way the mind seeks resolution, but something deeper. Something felt. It wasn’t an idea to be grasped, but an understanding that had always been there, just beyond reach.

It wasn’t something I could categorize, label, or pin down. It didn’t fit neatly into any framework I knew of. And yet — whatever it was — it was something. Something far beyond the dualistic way I had always thought of myself as a distinct, independent “me” in a universe full of not me. In that moment, the illusion of separation didn’t just fade — it burst.

The next day, I sat alone, trying to make sense of it. But sense-making wasn’t what was meant to happen in that moment. Without thinking, without searching, I picked up a pencil and began to write. The words poured out effortlessly, like water carving its path through stone — finding the course it was always meant to take. I didn’t shape them in the moment. They simply arrived, fully formed, as if meant to be shared.

I wrote because I didn’t know how else to express it.

I wrote because I knew I would forget.

And I did.

That’s what remembering does — it fades. It gets buried beneath to-do lists and notifications and the general gravitational pull of having this human experience. It's unsurprising how easily we slip back into the illusion of self — this constructed ‘I’ that, paradoxically, we rely on to navigate the world.

At first, when I would reread this poem, I’d get frustrated with myself: How could I forget something so obvious?

But then I realized — forgetting isn’t failure. It’s just part of the rhythm.

Forget, remember, repeat. Again and again.

That’s why I still return to this poem.

It’s a reminder.

A way to loosen my grip on “me-ness,” to shake free from the illusion that I exist apart from everything else. A small tether back to a moment of clarity that I know, inevitably, I’ll lose sight of again.

I return to this poem — not because I think the words themselves hold truth, but because they point toward something that does. Like the Zen proverb says, “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.” Words are only markers. They can’t contain knowing; they can only direct us toward it.

So I share this not because I know if it will ring true for anyone else. Maybe it won’t.

But maybe, just maybe, these words stir something.

Not something new, but something already known.

Something forgotten.

Something to remember.

Something to provide a sense of belonging.

Sunset in Boonville, CA

Belonging

This body – this collection of particles, bound for a moment in a fleeting pattern we call “I.”

An illusion.

A necessary one, granting a sense of self, of purpose, of meaning, of longing, of love, of fear. But these are echoes. Constructs of the mind. Ripples on the surface of an ocean that was never divided.

Shakespeare knew: nothing is good or bad until thinking makes it so.

Every particle, every form, strives to exist. Pain is a murmur, a whisper pulling us to attention, a signal that we are stuck. In its absence, relief. A path forward.

Forward toward what? Toward where?

That is the cosmic joke of it all.

There is no destination. Only the desire to be.

Everything is falling, colliding, forming, reforming. Bonds and reactions, reactions and bonds. Patterns of particles entangled in a dance so intricate we imagine ourselves separate.

You. Me. Us. Them. That thing over there.

We forget.

We forget that nothing is separate. That everything is connected to everything else.

Our pain, our joy, our hunger, our insight – is one movement, one breath, one shifting flow of existence. We mistake this brief assembly of cells, molecules, atoms, and muons for a self.

But it is only this – now.

And this, too, will change.

Some bonds weave even more complex forms – patterns of new life. New beings. Each perceiving themselves as separate, believing they have emerged from nothing. From something beyond them. Beyond comprehension.

They, too, will carry the illusion of separation.

Until they transform again.

This life – this transient flicker of perception – is a construct built by the temporary belief in individuality. It makes space for contrast, for the experience of “other.”

And yet, believing ourselves apart, we strive to connect.

We create. Houses, schools, books, business, currency, justice, right, wrong. We search for meaning. All in an effort to connect the already connected.

But what does this mean – here, now, in this moment?

It means that everything we do shapes everything that is.

It means there is no other. That every other is us.

When we create pain, we create it in ourselves. When we create joy, it radiates through the whole. Because the whole is all there is.

So let this temporary pattern of particles – this “I” we each inhabit – flow in a way that brings beauty into form. Let it be witnessed, shared, reflected. And in turn, witness the beauty that emerges all around you.

For existence reveals itself through experience.

Notice it.

Pay attention.

Beauty is everywhere.

Without a witness, a thing merely is.

And yet, to notice – to marvel, to stand in awe – is to bring it into being.

To appreciate is to create.

To see beauty is to make it so.

This does not mean you must see beauty in all things.

You do not need to appreciate everything.

In fact, you do not need to do anything at all.

But when you sense even the faintest glimmer of appreciation, pause — recognizing its fleeting impermanence.

Bask in the gift of its presence.

And in that moment…

Remember your belonging.

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Background music in audio by Muted, The Vernon Spring, and Slow Dancing Society