A “Long-avoided Latency”

I don't know its nature.

I have no term for it.

I cannot see its shape.

 

But, there, inscrutable,

Just underground,

Is the long-avoided latency.

                                       From Seed by William Everson

There are many benefits of getting old. You wouldn’t know it if you just paid attention to what is being said culturally. But, this one, the long-avoided latency, is one of the best, which suffers the most, because it is most easily misperceived.

In truth, this attribute of the powerful integrative force that moves us all towards the finish line, is one that has a paradoxical nature. It can appear in a good news/bad news way. It isn’t one or the other, but both. Frequently, it is seen as either good news, and one misses its dark, illuminating power, or as bad news, where one tries to further avoid the wholing energy it brings. The long-avoided latency is both— a paradoxical call from one’s depths — an indicator of the soul’s longing.

I’m pointing at an attribution that doesn’t come to everyone (wholeness manifests in many forms in different lives), but when it does, it is powerful and cannot be ignored. It can manifest as a dream, a physical symptom, relationship issue, fatigue, depression, or a social difficulty. Ultimately, if one does not appropriately respond, then regret sets in. Organically, one’s life vitale is bubbling to the surface, just in time. The chance to actualize your existence, to become your full miraculous self, is happening while you are alive, and still have time to do something about it. That is part of the good news. Your deepest self, the Great Mystery of who we humans are (which some people call soul), is sending marching orders. That’s the bad news.

Destiny is calling. One doesn’t ever get to know if destiny exalts or eliminates — it marches to a more Universal drumbeat than we are used to. Still, our sense of wholeness rests on the movement of the Cosmos.

Just as a wound, or a great piece of luck, can provoke a way of living, a long-avoided latency alters one’s trajectory. The longed for, even in the deep unconscious, manifests — creating chaos, heartache, and a way home — a home that no one knew was possible before.

I’ve had friends who have been called by something they knew their age couldn’t support. They were drawn into being older, broken by some greater aspiration, and alive in a way that could only be explained by a new level of fulfillment. What has been dormant has suddenly come to life. Aging has brought some new, perhaps old, elixir to the surface.

It might involve suddenly being drawn to a particular musical instrument, like happened to a composer friend of mine. It has awakened a joy that was there, but unexpected. Another man I know had a dream of a favored long dead pet, that re-awakened his longing for emotional closeness. His sense of fulfillment in this life awaits his response to this long-held desire. I write, though I don’t consider myself a writer, because a long-avoided latency grabbed me, from inside, and caused me to sit, reflect, and record. These words come from an unknown dynamism that turned the light on, perhaps planting it with the awakening of life in my mother’s womb.

It could be some seed is awakening within you.