To Live is to Be Madly Alive

By: Erik Rittenberry

Photo: Erik Rittenberry

To live is to be alive
and to be alive is to defy
the unlived moralizers and
cyber prophets who harbor
a relentless
compulsion to preach
the trendy ideologies
of the day.

To be alive is to caress destiny
with the hands of fate and
become worthy
of your vanishing breath
in the great adventure
of death.

To be alive is to depart from the
safe shores of the ordinary
and heave yourself into the
“sheer surging of life,” to
reclaim what it means to be
a human again, to “atone”
for the sin of our
unraveling.

To be alive is to be your own authority,
your own teacher, your own leader,
to be a pioneer of your own life,
adventuring onward
towards that primordial flame
in the dark, never letting them hush
your eternal throb.

To be alive is to not only love
your solitude, but to bring
forth the treasures only
found in solitude, to follow
that creative urge regardless
of convention and
public opinion.

To be alive is to roam and wander
through the meadows and over
the mountains, to be a sojourner
forever in search of the sublime,
to be radically present as the
trees rustle in the afternoon wind,
to live in each season as it passes, in
the words of Thoreau, and breathe
the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the
influence of the earth.

To be alive is to escape from the
dungeon of dead dogmas
and decrepit creeds and to
yield to the subtle whispers of the
neglected part of your
secret essence.

To be alive is to plunge into the
medieval depths and recapture
that authentic LIGHT of your
own BEING, to unmask your divine
madness and dance
once again with unimaginable
rapture in the vast muck-heap
of this fallen world.

---

Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at the following:

Medium: https://medium.com/@erikrittenberry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erik.rittenberry
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erik_rittenberry/

My work and research I put into this Substack Page are entirely reader-supported. If you enjoy the content I provide and are not ready to become a paid subscriber, you can simply make a one-time donation here at Buy Me A Coffee. If you can. I appreciate each one of you who follows this page. You all truly made it into a magical little online community. Thank You.