Left In Ruins

Impermanence is an enduring lesson on the earthly plane – a reminder that nothing lasts forever. It’s the age-old adage: what we build eventually crumbles and returns to the earth from whence it came. This is the natural order of life.

It extends to all aspects of our existence. We have many facets that have been abandoned. Places within ourselves that are uninhabited and have been superseded by something new. Sometimes, we may reminisce for a while and walk around the grounds. We can see the crumbling masonry, the weathered stone, and the collapsed roofs. This is no longer a home for us but is simply a place to visit now and again.

Even though the buildings may be dilapidated, there still is beauty in them. New shapes have formed where fully-defined architecture used to reside. This is why we’re attracted to these relics of the past in our physical world. They may not be as they once were but we wonder at them anyway.

When something of ours has been left in ruins, we grieve its loss. It could’ve been something dear to us but we’ve had to let it go and move on from it. It can take a vast amount of time to go through this process. We may go back to these emotional constructs and try to reverse the disintegration but we soon find that it’s an impossible task. The unoccupied edifices decompose in time with our grief.

We may attempt to tear down the remaining vestiges of vestibules, hallways, and rooms with our bare hands, as if erasing the ruins from existence. Yet, reminders linger, despite our best efforts to obliterate them.

These bittersweet memories that we hold are an echo of what once was. It can never be as majestic as when that moment was experienced. The soul keeps the record and not the mind, which can play tricks on us. With each trip back to the ruins, we see that more has disappeared until hardly anything is left but a whisper. This is for the best. We must remember to focus on the here and now.