Two-Factor Authentication

from Out With Lanterns, a daily poetry practice

And I was thinking today about two-factor authentication and how it’s a lot like how I must treat myself, going inward and saying, How are you? Then going deeper and saying, No, really. How are you? Because the first answer begets a digging for the second, and maybe the question isn’t how are you but rather, What is haunting you, and Have you meditated today, followed by The spirits are watching you flit here and there and you’re not really truly paying attention. So start. Paying attention. 

I took social media off my phone and iPad and the resulting dopamine drop was real, and we’re all just pavlovian dogs, and the ancestors do not like it –how we’re hypnotized by little soundbites and I don’t like it either, but of course I love it want it need it so don’t bother me. Look at that cute dog /Oh that poor horse/ The government is doing what now? 

It’s not easy to sit in silence and listen for something no one else can hear– a voice on a wind gust just loud enough for only your ears because it's meant just for you. 

Every time I have a past life reading, there’s a woman in early America. She is moving west, and she has left everyone behind, or maybe everyone has left her behind. She's alone with hungry children and endless yellowed grass, not a tree in sight. Two factor authentication for this soul: One lifetime in 2025, one in 1825. She and I are still trying so hard to listen. 

Photo by Samantha Sheppard on Unsplash