How does one lead to the other?

What lies in-between

 but the long journey of disenchantment, the loss of trust and hope.

Not for want of trying,

but by fault, folly, haste and ignorance;

or chance, fate, consequence.

Staggering around from day to day

moment to moment, life by life

like drunks or fools, high on some trip;

or entrapped by the monkey mind

 - by an idea, person, path or mission

whether personal or collective

immediate or ancestral

     pilgrimming unholily through sloughs

of shame, hubris, fear.

Bound by parameters of ancient vows -

and by Evolutions' remorseless creep:

it’s entanglement of chaos and pattern,

violence and purpose, shadow and light.

 

Innocence is a blank page.

The newborn.

The unaccountable -

only the travails of being and doing,

the achievements and failures

along with accidents, afflictions,

opportunity and happenstance

fill the page and create account.

 

All the knowledge, attitude and expertise acquired add slowly up

 - merged, mellowing into experience:

a value more than its component parts,

in a tempering process

culminating in breadth of perspective - self-aware.

 

Wisdom, the child of letting go

whilst full of love.