Richard Burton: What We Leave Behind

You may have noticed that I turn to Richard Burton more frequently of late when bogged down by what is happening in the world. It's not that there is not as much sustenance from angels, guides, and at those outside our dimensions, but for me right now Richard is the most relatably non-judgmental of the lot. His lifetime was close to ours. He endured, abhorred, and was traumatized by the horrors of WWII and the atomic bomb. He experienced traumas, tragedies humiliation and triumphs in his personal that most of us go through in one way or another, though not on as grand a stage. So it was not surprising to me that he answered when I called.

Thank you, Richard.

Ann: Please would you talk to me?

Richard Burton: With the greatest pressure, love. It is a confusing time, is it not? You on the planet have so many things to think about, so many tasks to accomplish, so many worries to obsess over, and so many injuries to redress that, with your compliance, you can use up your life force without really noticing.

Your mind tracks over and over again what you could have done better or differently, or what someone else did to you and your country. Even on your most pleasant days, you are busy little bees running from one game to the next rarely reflecting on why you’re here and what if anything you are asked to accomplish.

          You, love, are coming into the last stretch of your life, the home stretch as you horse people would say, and it is getting both harder and easier to engage in this game. Your primary fear is that that home stretch will stretch out longer and longer into what is essentially another life.

I can’t tell you if that is so, but I would suggest that you operate as if that may be the case

          Ah yes. I am sensible of the irony provoked by those words as I  did my best to drink myself to death and avoid the bright light at the center of my being that was the torch of the divine.

It is frightening to look at, is it not? For all I desired to understand my own creation, at the last moment I pulled back, not wanting to risk the bird in the hand, the life I already had, even with all its foibles, camouflage, and fatalities for fear of what might be asked of me. In short, under duress I leaned toward the devil I knew.

          I believe you and many of your compatriots may understand me.

          This is why it generally takes something dramatic to get our attention, something that requires us to turn our gaze inward in so concentrated a manner to begin to experience who we are.

In the process, if we are lucky, we may discover that we are so much more than our collection of activities, accomplishments, sins, and pretenses,, that we are in fact, more that "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,”*

The Bard named it, as he so often did, and I clung to his insight and wisdom as well as his understanding of the flawed nature of the human creation.

More than once I cried unto the heavens “Why create something so fallible, so ugly on so many fronts, and then imbue that misery with a divine spark?” For I never doubted in the deep recesses of my being that it was there.

I didn’t have the answer then, and I don’t really have it now even with the fullness of vision granted me. I do see, however, as all who have passed over can, that we are co-creators, master architects in the design and execution of our own lives.

Not, however, in its particulars, as you have noted. Control has not been given to us to direct and design the colours, triumphs, and tragedies that make up the crucible of human life. But what we are given as we burn in that crucible is free will to determine how we meet what we are given. And it is out of that crucible that new life, new spirit, and new creation are born.

          So when you look around you in despair at the way the world is turning and find no solace as you weep for your own seemingly intractable frailties, you may find it hard to believe that we are here for a reason, but, in fact, that is the eternal and replenishing truth. 

We  are not as we would like to be, but we are in that form that best allows us into the artist’s way, into the soul of creation as we, each of us, create our lives in spirit, aura, and legacy.

So don’t worry over much at the particulars. Simply allow your gifts to flourish for yourself and future generations, and all, yourself included, out to the ends of the galaxies, will revel in the energy you leave behind.

July 31, 2025

*Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, lines 17–28

All blog entries are works of the imagination and are for spiritual and entertainment purposes only.