The Pearl

Header

Oh my, the power of falling in love! It all starts with seeing something in this significant other, may it be a lover or landscape, a song or sight. All of a sudden my eyes are being opened and the character of this other touches me. This is where stories begin, this is what makes the world turn round.

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:26 The Pearl – Solo
• 00:04:33 To see it makes it be it
• 00:13:08 The Pearl (Remix)
• 00:18:42 Outro

Transcript

The Pearl

I stood and looked into the dark
Black sea is quiet
Softly

When I took my breath
Carefully and deep
And let me
Be kissed by this
Cold kiss

As I sunk deeply
Became one with this
To find the wondrous ground
A sea of life around me

I glided weightlessly
Along the beauty
Up to that rock
Where I stopped
To find a pearl
A crumbled treasure

With her in hand
I found
I found my way
To light and air

I took her home
To share me
In my careful touch
I cleaned her
Helped her into her beauty
Loved her that much

Placed her into a cast
A many hours loving labour
Pure gold is what I gave her
And all my heart for that
Until that last exhale
After the finishing task

I took a bath
To groom me
Put on festive cloths
Golden yellow velvet pants
Wide around my legs
Finest red was my shirt
Bold as a pirate dares

How long I stood
Before the fire
Two candles shone her beauty
As luscious Pearl
So boldly
So all enticing
Enflamed this lover’s heart

I’m dancing softly
I sway my hips
As we made love

And with a final glance
I put her on my ear
That’s where I’ll wear her
From now on
Thru life’s peculiar dance

It all starts with a glance

©️ Laughing Brook/Peter Müller 2025

To see it makes it be it

Well now, there are numerous takes one could have on a poem like that. And, be my guest, go and have it your way! 

But wait a minute, let’s take a pause. 

If that is really the case – I read it and see, say, a certain sleazy analogy for trickstering your way into someones pants; you read it and are moved by the passionate and tender and committed attention of our pearl diver; your friend, though, feels the lonely lostness of the pearl and her way of being kissed by passion into beauty and into the shiny light of a golden throne is a song of joy and hope…

There is a very curious and fragile thing about communication, where it is not only the actual message that is being given, but also the context of the one sending and the one receiving that determines what is being heard. And this is true for a lot of ways in which we interpret the messages we get from our surrounding. We all get the very same impulse, but as it lands in us, chances are, it has become something very different for me and for you. For you come to it with your set of experiences, cultural agreements, your current mood and oh so many more factors that influence how we perceive something. As do I. 

When you think of it, how much misunderstandings and arguments may be coming just from that – me assuming you would experience the same thing? And yet, there are of course also those wonderful moments in life where it feels like where all seeing the same thing, be it in lovemaking, at a concert with virtuosity, a political rally or whatever connects us.

Now when you ponder, you may begin to wonder. You could begin to wonder whether we are all ghosting our way through one giant cabinet of mirrors, and each of us sees what they want to see  . It’s a kind of an obvious thought here. 

Let’s change perspectives here and move into something of a more philosophical or spiritual view, by looking at consciousness. Those different interpretations I just spoke about are from the perspective of ”me“. So, let’s try to change perspective  with something that you may have encountered in reflexion or meditation. 

I observe myself having a certain reaction to, say, a poem. As I do so, I may note that there is the ”me“ that has the reaction, but there is also some sort of ”me“ observing me in having the reaction. But then I can’t really help but noting that there is a version of ”me” that observes me observing me. And I can go on and on, there is always another level that observes. So there is this least conscious version of ”me” in which I am in possibly mindless, helpless identification with all the notions and emotions that go on inside of me. But when I step back and learn to see all this, I gain a certain freedom, as I become aware: Ah, this is what you are feeling right now. But then, if I practice that for a while, I notice that there is an other observer to observe all of this going on. So I may become aware of this new observer, and then note that there is yet another observer, observing all of this. It’s turtles all the way down.

 In following those observers this thing I call I or me is a fluid presence of awareness that moves up and down an endless chain – an endless chain that has an end, me, that is. As I observe all of this I may be noting something like an event horizon in which all those things occur. Buddhist speak of space in this context, the Tao Te Ching calls it emptiness. It is not really something like a defined space, say, inside a room, where you could ask: What is outside of that room. It is more like being aware of awareness and of what happens within awareness, so, within the space of awareness.

When you go there, something wild can happen. Do you know those 3D books, where you stare at a seemingly randomly coloured pattern, and if you manage to look at it in a non-focussed way, all of a sudden a 3D object jumps out at you? This 3D-Image – or, to put it more philosophicaly , the information – was there all the time, but in your normal way of seeing you could not see it. But now, in this non-focussed way, it pops out on you all of a sudden, it’s there, and it is there very clearly and vividly. Just like that, when you become aware of space, that is, of awareness being aware, you might beginn to see something of the simultaneous nature of everything. And „seeing“ is a somewhat misleading term, as seeing may be part of it, but it is more like a knowing and strangely also being it, but in no attached or identified way. 

So, it really all starts with a glance.

Outro:

Thank you for diving into this episode of my podcast. I wonder, have you ever been enflamed by a pearl of yours? Could be a person, could be a thing to do, a place to go, who knows. Isn’t it magical, how encountering such a pearl get’s you all enflamed? Leave a comment, please!

Time to say goodbye for this time around. Glad to have you come back for the next one, which will be – well, let’s see when. 

My name is Laughing Brook, I am a poet, dancer, mystic, nature coach and man whisperer, and I’m honoured that you gave me your time. May you find your pearl!