Illusory masks used to hide our dirty egoic secrets
Poignantly moving and powerfully profound, today’s Monday Music selection, ”Poison and Wine,” at first glance may appear to be just another tortured love song, albeit sung in brilliantly haunting harmony. In reality, this song could be about almost anything; there is a yin and a yang quality to it, a dual and non-dual reality about it.
Taken to a spiritual extreme, one could view it as a song of self-awareness and self-acceptance, the union of masculine and feminine aspects in a surrendering to the “warts and all” nature of existence, and our co-habitation of mind, body, heart, will and ego, in the finite physical space.
“…the egoic hiding of our dirty little secrets with an illusory mask.„
The mixed messages given in society, and the mixed interpretations that individuals make on top of that, create all manner of interesting identities and masks. These are masks we all wear, the egoic hiding of our dirty little secrets with an illusory mask.
As we grow and mature, as we try to remove our masks—via self-awareness and self-discovery—for a split second, the mask, the wearer, the “I-ness” and the “Is-ness” choosing to remove the mask, are all presently “One,” in the same moment.
The song “Poison and Wine” describes this moment with the universal image of tormented lovers and these paradoxical lyrics:
“I don’t have a choice, but I’d still choose you.”
A quiet surrender in the troubling beauty of being human
Having spent any time on the planet interacting with other humans, most everyone will already know the truth or the verity of these song lyrics. The lyrics of “Poison and Wine” speak to the choices we all have to make: the choices between star-crossed lovers; the wife of an alcoholic husband; the father of a drug-addicted child; the family torn by sexual orientation differences; the multi-racial family; and even any individual having to make a choice between two opposing impossibilities.
The lyrics of “Poison and Wine” would also clearly relate to the individual journeying to their inner bliss, with their shadow-self riding shot-gun, and all the drama that can entail.
So name it: “I don’t have a choice, but I still choose you.” When you hear your self-talk, whatever form your ego has taken for negative self-talk (and there are many forms!), say to yourself:
I am who I am, I didn’t have a choice. But I can choose, in this moment, to consciously and compassionately accept myself, and Reality as it is now. Because truly, I have no other time, or place, but the present to actually inhabit.
Choose yourself, again and again, with love and compassion
There is a quiet surrender in the troubling beauty of this song “Poison and Wine,” which makes it fit perfectly as a Grounded Relating Monday Music Challenge. Can you choose yourself again and again, with love and compassion, as you are now, not as you were in the past, or as you hope to be in the future? Can you? Do you really love yourself, now, warts and all?
And if you can’t/won’t/don’t fully love yourself now, can you at least be a good friend to yourself, as you are now, while you evolve to unconditionally love yourself fully? Evolution takes time, and baby steps, even for the human ego.
The full lyrics of “Poison and Wine” by the Civil Wars on the album “Barton Hollow” are listed below as posted to azlyrics.com:
You only know what I want I you to
I know everything you don’t want me to
Your mouth is poison your mouth is wine
You think your dreams are the same as mine
[CHORUS] I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I always will
I wish you’d hold me when I turn my back
(Well) The less I give the more I get back
Your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don’t have a choice, but I’d still choose you
[CHORUS] I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I don’t love you, but I always will
I always will
