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“’pray for nothing, say every night in bed, I have been a king, I have been a slave, nor is there anything, fool, rascal, knave, that I have not been, yet upon my breast a myriad of hearts have lain.”

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Mohini Chatterjee by Yeats

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I don’t believe in reincarnation <Yeats did> but this stanza made me think.

My first thought.

It has to do with living life however the cards are dealt and, regardless of whether you are a fool or an intellect, you will find someone ‘upon your breast will lay’ <that means you will have love & loves>.

I like that.

Doesn’t matter who you are and what you do … there will always be someone for you.

Oh.

And beyond having someone love you <assuming you allow it and you stop worrying about whether you are good enough> there is a really big thought in there that there are lives within lives. I imagine another way of saying that is you can live several lives within one lifetime.

That’s what I think when I read this.

That’s a lot but I think it is a lot of good stuff.

Yeats wrote a lot about his belief that the soul of man is eternal and that existence is cycles within cycles. I may not buy that whole “eternal” thing but I do believe that Life is cycles within cycles. It really only has one true beginning and end, but multiple starts and stops, and detours and exits, and … well … you get it. Cycles within cycles. What that means, in a practical sense, is there really are no fresh starts, no do overs, just endless cycles of opportunities and challenges on which you can jump on or ignore <choose wisely>.

With that in mind I wanted to end this  with the conclusion of this poem: “men dance on deathless feet.”

Birth-hour and death-hour meet,

Or, as great sages say,

Men dance on deathless feet.

Awesome. You are either living or dying. But your footsteps on Life will never die.

Oh. One last thought <regarding this quote>.

If you truly believe that you live many lives within one life, then isn’t it worth setting aside desire and ambition as secondary to whatever type of life you want to lead?

Ponder that.

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Written by Bruce