There are some people Who just don’t deserve good people, Yet good people will be meet them Because they’re a part of the system; There’s nothing you can do about that. As long as you walk this earth, You deserve every experience you get; You signed up for it before birth And now you have to run the gauntlet - There’s nothing you can do about that. Welcome to the school of maturing, Of pain, temptation, of debt incurring - But you CAN conquer after long enduring. Now I don’t know if you find this reassuring, But there’s nothing you can do about that. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
life
WAY BACK HOME
Don‘t mourn me when I die Wave me goodbye I will be going home If I miss my way home Then I will come Back again to retry. So don’t mourn me when I die I did not come to stay I came here to find my way Back Home. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
A HEART FULL OF MEMORIES
We came we went And the time spent Was like a drop of memory In a few people’s story Who themselves are gone too And, if not yet gone, are going too. If you have a heart Now is when to start Keeping record in there Of what you’re doing here On this planet distant and blue - Your memories are for you. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
REFLECT BEFORE CELEBRATE
Why was I born? Why were you born?
Into this Earth.
My birthday always makes me think. This year more than ever, I don‘t know why. The questioning thought: Everything I‘ve done in the last 48yrs, have they in any way really fulfilled the reason WHY I WAS BORN? Or have I up until now, in a deep subtle way, just been wasting my time? For I was not born in order to celebrate that birth annually. Viewed logically, that‘s a senseless feedback loop – unless augmented, nay, superseded, by a PURPOSE – and the fulfilment of that purpose – of my birth into this earth.
49 years ago, I was not here. I was not a part of this daily hustle and bustle, getting into cars and busses, voting in elections, raising kids, being earthy and doing the earthly. So, where was I? And why did I come here? Where were you before you were born? And why did you come here?
Every year the certainty that I‘m closer to my earthly death, to my departure. I just feel it, so strongly. That reduced distance. It‘s not just a piece of general knowledge that we all have: Everybody dies one day. Yes we all know this. But it is more than this. It‘s also a solid emotional perception, a physical presence that comes closer, that you can feel when you close your eyes and pay attention.
My birthday makes me think, not just of birth, but also of death.
My brother, Kwame, aged 19, died on my 21st birthday. It was a few weeks before his own 20th birthday. The person closest to me. Why did he come? Did he or did he not fulfil the purpose of it? And then he was gone again. It‘s a date we share, in life and death.
Life existed before we were born into it. It was perfect, already. Before we were created, Creation was already formed and perfect. This realisation makes me think and there is no end to this reflection. Just a clear line of perception – an intuitive perception:
You are not without a reason and not without a purpose, unless you fail – consciously or unconsciously – to discover that reason and that purpose; and then to – deliberately or instinctively – fulfil that reason and that purpose.
It‘s a serious and thought-provoking business meeting your birthday again, and still not knowing why. Or knowing if you’re fulfilling why, as best as you can. Year after year.
I don‘t need to celebrate my birthday. I need to reflect upon it.
Reflect before celebrate.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
06. April 2022
LIFE GOES ON
The departed are not dead
They do not rest in peace
If they rest, they have no peace
If they have peace, they‘re not at rest.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
#poemsthatmakeyouthink
MIND THE MOMENT
Your time will always pass
And it will pass at a time
Least convenient to you
Just as it came at a time
Not quite expected by you
And lasted for a length of time
Unappreciated by you.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
THE CHANGING JOURNEY
I know how it feels to die, having done so twice in this earthlife. The third time, I guess, will be the last.
In everything, I’ve learned that life comes and goes, like the leaves of a tree, like the steps of a journey, like the chapters of a book, in phases, steps and stages. And the most important recognition of all was this: Don‘t live in the past.
You can never be again the person you once were, nor do you need to. When you wonder – „What happened to me?“ – you miss the point. You are on a journey, a journey of inner development; a journey of character and personality growth; a journey of spiritual maturing. This is the real journey of life.
On this journey, you will pass through many phases of personality, different characteristics of character, you will be different people at different times.
Have the courage to become the new – and when it has grown old, have the courage again to shed it, leave it behind and move seekingly towards the new New. Do not be enticed by outward gains to stay in the old; nor pressured by difficulties to abandon the present or the New. Go your way with integrity, dignity and trust, because Vanity and Indolence are the true enemies on the journey of life.
You will be born many times, and die many times. And the past will be as a Dream. Just like a new born baby cannot remember it’s former earth-lives, so will you even within one earth-life sometimes die and wonder „What happened to me?“
Life happened to you, my friend. Like a train going from station to station, you are journeying from one state of being to another. It might be an upward journey or a downward journey – the choice is yours.
Just remember, what ever you do: Do not live in the past – no matter how good or bad it was. Like a boxer in a fight, sitting in the corner between rounds, you cannot go back and correct a bad round, but you can get up and fight the next one better.
Like a boxer in a fight, sitting in the corner between rounds, you cannot go back and hold on to the last good round you fought. Then you were fresh, now you‘re tired. Then you were strong, now you‘re injured. But you‘ve grown too, in knowledge and experience. So, get up and go into the next round – and give your best.
One good thing about life: it is not boxing. It is greater. Your best rounds are the rounds in which you give not darkness, but Love.
Che Chi-di Chukwu-meri-je.
OPEN FOR RECEPTION
The central characteristic of wisdom is that you don’t have it when you need it the most – and that’s how and why you acquire it.
Wisdom is a tree. In the drought of ignorance it slowly and painfully begins to grow. By the time it matures, whatever it was that triggered its growth is usually already over. Thus, wisdom is usually in the possession of those who don’t need it any longer; but they can’t transfer it to those who need it but who do not know that they need it. They too will acquire it when their time is up.
Wisdom’s face, indeed, is cast in irony. Wise is the one who takes this recognition along into the next life and into the next set of experiences.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
ELEMENTARY MOTION
Primary motion, elementary rhythmn, pace, pattern and period is determined or established by the faithfully unceasing – i.e. constant – activity of Substantiality, driven by and helping to carry the driving force of the Will of God, expressed in the natural laws.
All WE do is detect and attempt to measure evidences of this primary rhythmn or elementary motion, and divine or devise (i.e. evolve under the pressure of reception) units with which to uniformly record, report and compute the results of these measurements.
That is, all we can do is adjust to nature, to Creation, and identify order within the pattern of our adjustments. And because there is order in nature, all successful attempts to adjust to nature will settle into orderly patterns, and all observations of those patterns will enable the devising of units of measurements and adherence with which to capture and/or fulfill this system of order.
Science reduces its recognition of this orderly system into equations that symbolise axioms, hypotheses and theorems. On the other hand, Religion breaks down its own recognitions into beliefs, creeds and dogmas. In essence, in which ever sense, all we capture, record, tabulate, systemise and express are our recognitions or assumptiosn based on our observations of elementary motion itself, to which we are subject and out of which, or out of the side effects of which, we emerged in Creation.
With the activity of our free will, we can lift ourselves up into regions of faster manifestation of elementary motion. Or we can also cause ourselves to densify and sink further away from the source of the driving force that powers what we experience, or what we detect, and believe to be primary – or a more primary state – of motion, i.e. we can also sink into regions and perceptions of a more sluggish elementary rhythmn. But the basic logic of elementary motion never changes and always yields uniform laws of motion expressed in the character of the plane being observed.
Elementary motion itsef is, or must be, an expression, or reflection, or vehicle, or echo, of primordial impulse or original life, eternal life, i.e. LIFE itself. An evidence of that GOD whose existence we sense but never can reach; the Origin of Eternity without beginning and without end.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
THE DEPARTED DO NOT REST IN PEACE
No, I do not want to rest in peace. And when my body dies and I, the spirit, move on, please do not wish me to rest in peace. If you love me, wish me activity – joyful activity. Because, believe it or not, life goes on. I was me when I was on earth; I want to remain me when I leave the earth – an explorer. An experiencer. An adventurer.
Nobody steps off a plane after a journey just to slump into the ground and rest in peace. Nobody arrives in an interesting new place just to close their eyes and become inactive. And when you cross over onto the other side, you will become seized with wanderlust, an overpowering restlessness. You will want to explore, to follow the pull of that invisible magnet drawing you somewhere.
Only the inwardly indolent, the weak and the lethargic come to rest – but not in peace. Motionlessness is torture.
The departed do not rest in peace. They set off on a journey to a better or a worse place. Or they hang around, dissatisfied ghosts, trapped in inner space or bound to the unsatisfying earth. And sometimes they are so lethargic, they just lie down and wait for the torturous sleep of eternal death. But they shall not rest in peace.
Eternity is for the living, the inwardly mobile, the spiritually active. It is the land of perpetual motion and joyful activity. That is why it is called Eternal LIFE.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 