[tweetmeme source= “unmaskd” only_single=false]
INTO THE FOG
When sea is rough,
When life is tough
And treats you like a dog,
Sometimes you’ve got
To show some gut
And head into the fog.
Its milky softness is a trick,
Its calmness is a lie,
Whatever makes you walk and tick
Will meet its probing eye.
And once you pierce the creamy veil
You’ll find yourself inside
An endless, soft and murky jail
That leaves no place to hide.
This cloudy land is yours to roam,
Yet there is no way,
No path that safely leads you home,
Which seems so far away.
But as you peer into this mist
That wants you to abide,
The stubborn pulse inside your wrist
Will shout, “Look inside!”
And there, inside, you’ll find the light
To rip the fog apart,
And realize: The hardest fight
Is always in your heart.
Unmaskd 
Beautiful! I saw myslelf in that mist! the description brings me there…or maybe it’s that cloudy morning here in Barcelona…
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“The Hardest Fight Is Always In Your Heart.” – that line really got me.
It is so true that when we find ourselves not feeling good or in pain, we will search for the remedy or the solution in outside forces, thinking that they are at fault for our trials. Sometimes they will lead us on and even make us stray from ourselves and where the struggle is really going on–inside us. When all along we really need to first figure ourselves out and get things straight in our heart and mind before we can move on in life and find some sort of peace. I mean, how are you supposed to deal with a world like this if you cannot find a home in yourself?
Thank you for giving me the spark to start thinking about this. Maybe my interpretation was completely off what you were trying to say, but nonetheless it made a connection to something I have thought a lot about before. Your posts/writing/lyrics just keep getting better and better in my opinion.
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TY! Very evocative…
…It about sums up my *Irish experience* too…at times a misty; foggy uncertainty which threatened intermittently to overwhelm.
This kind of emotional *Exile* (you describe) is not easy to cope with…but the fight to win through is the stronger urge…to acknowledge the life force which pumps the veins and leads always back to the heart…(unless you have very bad circulation!)
INto the fog…is perhaps not such a murky dark experience.
The smallest glimmer of light and hope will see you through the tunnel…
The beauty is ultimately you are guided back around to what really mattered in the first place … back into the Heart of what counts, carrying new insights, appreciation and greater wisdom…
This is an awakening; a refinement of the soul…a *Foggy* experience (the mystical dark night of the Soul) which leads you towards the promised land (home)…
Which is at the end of the day YOU…
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The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil. ~ Thomas Edison
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I love this. First of all, I like to think I have the strength to get through almost anything in my life, and to not come out the other side destroyed in some way. Secondly, I like to think that the reason I have that self belief is because the tough stuff I have already been through has made me stronger and other trials in the future will do the same. It is a belief that the answer is ALWAYS inside myself, and not external. Now don’t get me wrong, these theories have been severly tested at times, and sometimes I even conclude that I was wrong to ever think like that- But eventually I always come back to those ideas. It pushs me on, gives me hope, makes me belief in myself. I think what you have hear unmaskd, is a version of some of those ideas beautifully created into poetry. If we can challenge ourselves, and know ourselves well enough to realise where the problems are INSIDE then we are well placed to deal with any fogs that come our way. People tell me I think too much, but I think they don’t think enough. All the thinking means that I know myself very well. I know my faults, I know how I can potentially f**k things up before it’s even happened. Sometimes I take myself by surprise in these things but that just means going back inside again to figure it out and get it fixed. It feesl like a constant movement, within myself and back outside again, to navigate through life’s trials. Getting specific on the poem [coz everyone needs a critique 🙂
“The stubborn pulse inside your wrist
Will shout, “Look inside!”
is great. When I lie awake at night and can’t sleep I often feel the pulse in my neck [weird, I know]. It grounds me in some way. I think it helps because it reminds me of the essentials and also reminds me that what goes on around me externally is not half as important as what’s going on inside. Whatever it is, it’s a great calming excersise and this is a great post unmaskd 🙂
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I loved when you said “people say I think too much but I think they don’t think enough”…AMEN to that 😉
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damn straight!!!
i am always fighting a losing battle with my heart
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Thank God for the pulse 🙂 A reminder that you’re still alive. Curiosity and strength to keep on. It would serve us all well to go into the fog! Allow ourselves to go into the unknown..into ourselves. It isn’t always pretty as unmaskd has vividly portrayed for us and “leaves no place to hide”. Once we are in the fog, we are forced to face ourselves. Good and bad. And once we reach the mist outside the fog things will become a bit clearer although still a bit fuzzy. But there is a light along the way and it will guide us through. It will light our path. It will calmly reassure us that all is well and our journey will have an end..because we can now see the end. We are no longer in the dark scared and blind, feeling through it with faith. We have visible proof that we can make it. Release the light!
As for the ending, “and realize: the hardest fight is always in your heart”. Perhaps Unmaskd is saying that through all of this, we are holding our own self back. Not the fog, not the darkness. Or maybe that the fight within us (in our heart) is even more tough than facing and learning ourselves? The heart is a tricky thing. Although it is very pure and many of us want to follow it, it is also sensitive and guarded and easily broken. So I think this comes down to trust and faith..2 very difficult things. Personally, these are my biggest struggles. It’s hard to trust things you cannot feel with your own hands or see with your own eyes. Then I’m torn because I also want/need to follow my heart. It’s like a war within myself! Hopefully I’m not alone on this..LOL. My heart begs me to follow it but my brain steps in and says “this isn’t practical”…and then it’s on! 😉 We just have to find some way to trust in ourselves, have faith in ourselves. Nobody can stand in our way any longer because we will not allow them. I think when that is accomplished..our battle is won 🙂
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I can’t help but think about a love relationship when I read this. Just my interpretation. Nice 🙂
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It ends off so beautiful, like your poems always do. And everything you right always seems so true, I wonder what gives this sense of awareness you have. You tell the truth and we agree. It’s like you’ve lived it all. Great job.
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Even when all other senses are numbed by *fog*…the heart beats true…
All the could’ves, should’ves, better-dos and have-tos diffuse in the haze…
What is left is *silence*…
The silence which shows you which road to take….
…finally!
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@amy- i also thought of a love interpretation when I saw this… most problems we have in love are not with the other person, but with ourselves, and our reactions and emotions towards that person.
@ashley Ireally like what you are saying about trust and faith. I’ve been thinking a lot on them recently. As I said above, I put a lot of faith in myself but I find it hard to put it in anyone/anything else. I esp. agree that it’s hard to have faith in something you can’t see or touch. I am not religious but from speaking to people who are it seems that ironically, this faith in something unseen relies a lot on their own heart-what they feel inside. Again bringing us back to the Self.
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I must be officially *strange* …I find it easier to trust in what I can not see or touch than in what I can…
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@psychicsarah it’s not strange, just another way of experiencing the world!!
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Haha …TY …
Yep the inner *know* is more reliable than logic…(that is when it is a genuine knowing as opposed to a delusion)…
I think the struggle we sometimes experience with the heart is that deep down we know this to be true; yet we don’t roll with it or trust it.
Possibly we have been hurt by following the heart in the past and we are afraid to go there again.
Yet really what alternative is there?
An intelligent mix of heart felt oomph and logical application works.
But what happens when the heart contradicts the *common sense* option (as so often it does)?
Its back to the choice of Red or Blue…
Danger and authenticity?
Or safety and possibly stagnancy?
Really not an easy pill to swallow either way when you think about it!
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Soooo…Maybe sometimes we are better off NOT doing too much thinking…
Probs best to ride the rollercoaster and ACT on the feeling rather than live to regret not doing so…
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@psychicsarah–I totally agree with your last 2 posts. 100%
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My daily commute is about 45 minutes through a semi-rural suburban part of Tennessee on the outskirts of Nashville. Many mornings my drive is pretty foggy which is inconvenient to say the least when you’re in a hurry. However, most mornings the fog is only a temporary inconvenience. I love driving along in that grayness and suddenly emerging into bright yellow-orange light of the rising sun. That beautiful morning light brightens my mood and lifts my spirit almost immediately. I have no choice but to drive through the fog if I want to accomplish what I set out to accomplish. Sometimes you must go into a fight blind to get what you want and trust that you will emerge the victor on the other side just as you trust there will be light on the other side of the fog. Just as the sunshine struggles to burn off the fog, your heart struggles to overcome all the barriers you set for yourself. While you may not be able to “drive” out of your fog and that murky grayness, I know your heart is good and that light inside you will lead you into the sunshine eventually. Or maybe it already has.☺
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The beauty of the fog is it forces you to slow down and focus on your surroundings. You have to use your common sense and sometimes “gut” instinct to make it through the haze. I believe a lot of us who have either been in a bad situation or are currently in one are aware, and have known all along, what is the right direction/decision. Sometimes it’s just a matter of deciding to walk out of the fog as brazenly as we decided to walk in. If you’re feeling lost hopefully you are, or will be, lucky enough to have a ray of sunshine burn through the murky vapor and guide you home.
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Your heart will race, your breath will quicken.
Could this be the way?
The answer comes as truth and light
will melt the stones away.
The fog will lift, the heart will lighten
the burdens of the day.
The answers come one by one
as questions rule the day.
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So beautiful ! Thank you for posting.
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Look for me in that endless, soft and murky jail. I’m the one with the damp cheeks, holding a glass of Vodka & Coke.
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Pretty awesome piece. It’s easy to feel like this everyday. If you’re doing it right and you have courage the fog can be a daily adventure!
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To Do The Frog
When life is sad,
Lost all you’ve had,
Can’t hear another song.
Sometimes you’ve need
To slow your speed
And go and kiss a frog.
Its gooey green lips call to you
Please make me a prince
Does the frog speak what’s true
I’ll need more to convince.
Once you put your mouth to his
You’ll find your heart does hope
You close your eyes, pray to the skies
Holding tight the end of rope.
This fairy land can all be real
All roads point to this
But you must trust the fairy dust
The frog is now a prince
But now you look inside your soul
“Is this my dream of you?”
Setting free the frog so he
can make my dreams come true
I looked inside, gave him a kiss
The frog turned into light
The hardest part in trusting this
The Pricess Prince Frog Fight
*BOOM!!!* take that 🙂
hehehe
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Frogs *rock!*
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Brilliant 🙂
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I’m so glad you liked it! I was cracking up the whole time 🙂
My Twitter handle is AisleView
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Unmaskd, I love it! I felt it and experienced it so I really connected. I was so inside the fog a few days before you posted the poem–I had done so much thinking that I almost wasn’t going to come back to your blog because of it. Why go to a blog that just makes you want to dig deep then in stirring things up you feel like a wreck inside? The good part is the clarity that comes and leads you out of the fog! I thought I had it (life/me) all figured out. In my emotional fog, I discovered that no matter how healthy you think you are in your body or your mind, as humans are all in the same boat and deep down have the same core of longing in our hearts and experience the same emotions even if we don’t show them on the outside, they’re in there. Unmaskd you’re dead on 100% correct in your blogging—how do you do that? I’m intrigued with your impeccable perceptive analysis of life and the emotional core of man. We need only go into the fog once in a while to meet that probing eye where you may be able to hide from the world, but can no longer hide from yourself. I hate to admit what I found but let’s just say what I dared to say in another post, I was wrong–I felt that in the fog along with a couple other things. Thankfully I bounce back quickly just like a dog wagging its tail happy as can be.
The below two songs have the same feel for me of that place in the fog in the poem. Two artists with completely different perspectives and clearly different beliefs yet I find myself satisfied with what each song offers. Each so different yet so similar and just like in unmaskd’s poem, all 3 of them talk about light being the thing that brings the clarity. It is in the darkness that you see the farthest (think of night and being able to see the stars—you can’t see that far during the day…so you almost need the contrast of the dark to see the light). My guess is that most of you have never heard these songs before–at least not both. I enjoy hearing music/lyrics I’ve never heard before…how about all of you?
Listen to the 7th song titled “The Unlearning” by Stig Nielsen (even though the website is in Danish, press the translate button to see it in English—the songs are sung in English). If you click on the title of the song, you will be able to read the words.
http://www.bandbase.dk/stignielsen/
Listen to song # 5 titled “I Hear You” by Susan Ashton
http://www.myspace.com/susanashton/music/albums/wakened-by-the-wind-9505851
I was listening to some health info. recently and the speaker said that feeling worse is getting better, feeling better is getting worse and that taking away symptoms doesn’t make you healthier. The speaker gave the example of a coffee drinker who quits coffee and initially often gets a headache from caffeine withdrawl (feeling worse) but upon withdrawl symptoms if he starts drinking coffee, the headache goes away (feeling better) but taking away the symptoms doesn’t make him healthier. I think the same is true with our inner well being and going into a brain fog is a good thing. The physical body’s solution is continually working to keep homeostasis (balance) and if it’s not getting what it needs to survive, it’s going to take it from another area (example – phosphoric acid from meat or soda needs to be neutralized with calcium and if there is not enough calcium in the body, it’s going to take it from bone, teeth, etc.). Maybe that’s the key in every aspect of life—giving ourselves what we need to maintain balance.
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It looks like that post isn’t taking you directly to Stig’s page (it was working before but not now), so try this one:
http://www.bandbase.com/stignielsen/Track/52295/the-unlearning/ and of course, you can always just google stig nielsen the unlearning and you’re sure to find it that way or just copy and paste the original link I posted.
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@Sunshine, I looked up both song suggestions. Beautiful! 🙂 Very poetic, very full of love and longing. A reach out for a savior of sorts–very romantic. In one, the “Love’s” voice is the only thing the writer hears to find solace in his mind..a safe place. In the other, the writer is longing for the “Love” to reach in and pull him out of the darkness of the cave. Where the “Love” will once again be a savior to the writer, allowing him to “unlearn” what he knows of life now and learn new, wonderful things. Being the romantic I am..my heart skips a beat reading this and the visual really puts me there in the emotions. I’d like to think that the follow up to these songs is that “Love” reaching into the darkness and pulling that soul out where they will walk towards the light together. They are holding hands and not allowing each other to get lost again. Happily ever after 🙂 Yeah, that’s how it ends. I’m convinced. 😉 LOL
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@Ashley “I’d like to think that the follow up to these songs is that “Love” reaching into the darkness and pulling that soul out where they will walk towards the light together.”
That’s totally how it ends! 🙂 I agree.
p.s. You should write songs. I’d listen 🙂
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This might sharpen up your *signal* Sir!
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I love this!!
You have such a talent 🙂
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“This is not the real reality. The real reality is behind the curtain. In truth, we are not here. This is our shadow.” ~ Rumi
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The sound I hear on this is a combination of Journey’s “Open Arms” merged with a slowed down version of Kansas’ “Dust In the Wind”. Then to represent being in the fog adding some of Enya’s “Orinco Flow” to add a dream-like lost feeling. This would make for an interesting mix as long as it’s not too busy. Does that work in your head? How fun to play on equipment to merge songs, sounds and grab and move it all around to create what you hear in your head so others can hear it too.
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Unmaskd, I copied your photo used here for my site to match a musing I wrote. I couldn’t resist that shade of blue. Words are flowing like water.
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When life is tough
And treats you like a dog,
Sometimes you’ve got
To show some gut
And head into the fog.
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