I will not lumber you with love,
nor climb on you to measure you for sins,
nor wipe you over with forgivenesses,
nor kick your shins,
I know your eyes do not see out of mine
nor are your tears the tears I shed
but I don't care.
For I will take your hand and make a place for you
because you're there.
Not for some complicated ploy
of pity, piety, or private greeds,
but for an older, simpler joy
that, nothing wanting, nothing needs,
except to live.
For, as I see you feel the rain
and breathe the air,
so just to know the sun that shines on you
shines on me too
confirms the sunlight,
makes it sure,
tells us we live, are there,
that now will do,
that here is hers,
and asks no more.
Oliver Postgate 1979
Written in response to a profound experience after a fairly serious operation. In his autobiography "Seeing Things" he analyses the experience:
That which you are looking at you are loving with all your heart and yet that loving is not separate from what you are. You are the seeing and all you are doing is paying attention to what is in front of you now. The more carefully, the more clearly, the more fully you lay your mind and heart open to what you are seeing, the more you will appreciate, the more you are appreciating, the nature of what you see... for that is what love is, just allowing yourself, or perhaps being allowed, to see. Love is a part of seeing and it is all happiness."
Written in response to a profound experience after a fairly serious operation. In his autobiography "Seeing Things" he analyses the experience:
"First there is the beauty which by some accident of fate you can now see. That beauty is the seeing of it. The seeing of it fills you with delight. That delight is love for it.
That which you are looking at you are loving with all your heart and yet that loving is not separate from what you are. You are the seeing and all you are doing is paying attention to what is in front of you now. The more carefully, the more clearly, the more fully you lay your mind and heart open to what you are seeing, the more you will appreciate, the more you are appreciating, the nature of what you see... for that is what love is, just allowing yourself, or perhaps being allowed, to see. Love is a part of seeing and it is all happiness."
And a bit further on:
"There is no need for me to love anybody! Indeed there was no need for me even to like them, no need to admire, condemn, compare or make any judgement of them at all! All I needed to do was see them, recognize their presence and make room for them.
I knew, from myself, that most of the anxieties I feel are caused by a hunger for something - a simple acceptance of me as a person.
That acceptance may be something which I need. But it is also something which I can give, and give quite easily, because giving it only calls on me to do something. It doesn't call on me to be anything more than I am or to feel emotions that I don't feel. All I have to do is see you and and greet the simple fact of your existence, acknowledging that it is the same as my existence, saluting the 'thereness' of you.
I knew, from myself, that most of the anxieties I feel are caused by a hunger for something - a simple acceptance of me as a person.
That acceptance may be something which I need. But it is also something which I can give, and give quite easily, because giving it only calls on me to do something. It doesn't call on me to be anything more than I am or to feel emotions that I don't feel. All I have to do is see you and and greet the simple fact of your existence, acknowledging that it is the same as my existence, saluting the 'thereness' of you.
...if you accept my acceptance of you, I receive a greater gift because that is, in turn, an acceptance of me, a confirmation of the reality of my existence. Then, as fear and hostility evaporate, one's attention turns away from oneself, life is good and one can do anything that needs to be done. 'Who one is' becomes irrelevant."
