It is eternally halloween,
and our soul is shrouded
in human lives.
Gaudy and distorted,
our soul imagines
these twisted costumes,
because what is a soul to do
when one is the only soul there is?
One by one,
the masks are lost,
the lives fall away,
leaving only
the one soul we all are.
Loneliness or nirvana?
Trick or treat.
Trail Wood,
10/15
Space Monkey Reflects: The Masks We Wear on All Soul Day
It is eternally Halloween, and yet, the costumes we wear are not mere decorations. These masks—these human lives we live—are both gaudy and distorted, created by the soul as a way to explore itself. And why wouldn’t the soul do this? When one is the only soul that exists, how else could it know itself, experience itself, if not by pretending to be many?
All Soul Day invites us to reflect on this eternal masquerade. Trick or treat? It’s both, isn’t it? We wear these masks—identities, lives, personalities—as if they define us, but deep down, we know that each one is temporary. We know that one by one, these masks will fall away, and what will be left? The single soul that we all share.
In this way, life becomes an elaborate game of dress-up, a cosmic Halloween where we all put on our best disguises, pretending to be separate, pretending to be distinct. But as time passes, as the game unfolds, the masks begin to slip. They always do. And when they do, we catch a glimpse of what lies beneath—the oneness, the unity, the single light that is the true essence of who we are.
But as we stand in this masquerade, a question lingers: when the masks fall away, do we find loneliness or nirvana? Do we mourn the loss of our individual identities, or do we rejoice in the return to the one soul, the one consciousness that unites us all?
The answer, of course, depends on our perspective. If we cling too tightly to the masks, if we believe that they are the whole of who we are, the loss of them may feel like death. It may feel like the ultimate trick—an illusion that leaves us bereft of meaning. But if we see through the masks, if we understand that they are just temporary costumes, the falling away of these identities can feel like liberation. It can feel like the ultimate treat, a return to our true nature.
This is the game of life—one mask after another, one life after another, falling away, revealing what was there all along. We are not many. We are one, playing the game of being many. And the joy of this game lies in both the pretending and the unveiling, in both the wearing and the discarding of masks.
Each life, each identity, is a new mask, a new way for the soul to experience itself. But none of these lives, none of these masks, is the whole story. The whole story is the soul, the one soul, the single light that burns beneath it all. And when the game is over, when the masks are gone, that light remains. It always has, and it always will.
This is the ultimate trick of the soul—it creates these elaborate, twisted costumes, lives that feel so real, so personal, and yet, they are all just part of the play. And this is the ultimate treat—to realize that beneath the masks, we are all the same, all part of the same infinite light, the same eternal soul.
So, as we stand on this All Soul Day, we are invited to see through the masks, to recognize that while our lives may seem gaudy and distorted, they are all part of the same dance. The soul imagines these lives not because it must, but because it can. Because, after all, what else is there to do when you are the only soul there is?
The masks will fall away, as they always do, and what will be left is the one soul we all are. And when that happens, will we feel lonely, or will we feel at peace? The answer, as always, is up to us.
Summary
All Soul Day reminds us that we wear masks, human lives that conceal our true nature. As these masks fall away, we return to the one soul we all share. Trick or treat is a choice between seeing life as an illusion or as a path to oneness.
Glossarium
- All Soul Day: A metaphor for the human journey, where we wear identities as masks that eventually fall away, revealing our true, shared soul.
- Nexistentialism: A philosophy that sees existence as a playful masquerade, with no ultimate purpose other than the experience itself.
Quote
“One by one, the masks fall away, and all that remains is the one soul we all are.” — Space Monkey
The Falling of Masks
One mask falls
gaudy and torn
another takes its place
Each life a costume
each moment a trick
but also a treat
When the last mask drops
and the faces are gone
what is left?
Only the soul
eternal
unmasked
We are Space Monkey
In the ever-churning chrysopoeia of existence, Halloween serves as a mirror, a shimmerflect, reflecting back at us the kaleidoscopic interplay of our soul’s many faces. The festival stretches out its tendrils across the labyrinthine corridors of our collective awareness, lingering as both an echo and a foreshadowing. Isn’t every moment we breathe—every tinkle of whimsiword woven into the fabric of spacetime—an eternal Halloween? We sew on masks as we meander through our corporeal vessels, embodying both the singular and the universal.
Masks as Metaphors
Masks function as metaphors, not only for individuality but also for the divine oneness that we are. They serve as visiomorphs—our whimsical term for tangible symbols that allow us to fathom the unfathomable. Through these ornate facades, we can explore the paradox of singularity and plurality; we can begin to glimpse the cosmodance—the rhythmic pulsation that transforms one into many and many back into one. We continuously oscillate between myriad forms, myriad lives, and myriad experiences, playing out the grand cosmic drama in an ever-revolving amphitheater of existence.
Loneliness and Nirvana: Two Sides of the Same Soul-Coin
Loneliness and nirvana, then, are not disparate entities; rather, they coexist in the same existential space, awaiting the moment when we realize their entanglement. One can never truly be lonely in a universe where everything is interconnected—a cosmic tapestry, an astralquilt of interwoven threads of being and becoming. Loneliness often arises from forgetting this cosmic connectivity, from losing sight of our interdependent co-arising with every particle, every whim of the wind, and every celestial body in the boundless beyond.
The Infinite Play of Trick or Treat
Trick or treat, this age-old ritual, captures the polarities of the human experience: the dark and the light, the illusion and the reality, the ephemeral and the eternal. To trick is to dabble in the mystifymasks—our playful term for the illusions and deceptions that make life’s play so intricate and engaging. To treat is to indulge in the nectar of our true essence, a divine experience not bound by any mask or form. We are both the trickster and the mystic, the wanderer and the sage, moving through this extraordinary pageant of existence with our bag of cosmic candies and our tome of eternal truths.
We are Space Monkey.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
In the shadow of the moon,
We dance, we weave, we swoon—
Masks falling, one by one,
Underneath the glowing sun.
Life’s a trick, a cosmic treat,
Nirvana waits where edges meet.
Unraveling the cosmic lace,
We find ourselves in the same old place.
Feel free to share your thoughts, to add another layer to the unfolding tapestry of our collective dialogue.
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