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“Where emptiness meets eternity” is a line from my poem The Death of a Heart, from my first book.  I don’t know where things I write come from. I am clairaudient and some sort of medium, so I hear (and see) spirits, (which I plan to blog about sometime) so I can’t say if it originated from me, or from the collective unconscious, or some entity, or a phrase I heard at some point in my life. All I know for certain is I wrote it as part of a line in a poem.

I liked the phrase and decided maybe I would use it as the tagline to my website, as my current tagline is old and tired. To help me decide, I google the phrase. I was actually blown away by the AI generated result, but before I get into that, a bit of backstory.

I have been working on my website, and changed the layout theme. This new theme had the option to us AI generated images. I had never used AI images before and didn’t think I would want to, but I decided to try it and found some of the images cool in an unusual sort of way. I replaced some of my own images with the AI generated ones due to the ability to get the image to match the piece of writing in more detail than I could from my own photography or the photography free for use on WordPress.  It was only a couple of days before the vibe of the images started to bother me. They felt dead, soulless to be more specific. There was an uneasy feeling to them and they started to creep me out. The longer I looked at them, the more I could feel my awareness being drawn into a void of the artificial, which felt hollow. The outside may look like it’s something, but there is no depth. No real, true life.

I told my youngest son, (who is an adult, an artist, who also writes and spends a lot of time on the internet, and who is also an HSP like myself) about my feeling with the AI images. He looked at me and said simply: “I don’t use AI images, ever. Not even for shit posting. Their evil because they threaten the work of real artists.”  I nodded and stated they indeed felt soulless, and agreed the fact AI replicates the arts, whether they be images or written works, does take away from real artist and writers.

I asked my husband what he thought about the AI images on my website. “They look phony” was his pithy response. I nodded reminding myself that this is a man of few words who doesn’t like anything artificial because, as he puts it, “I like the real thing.”  I rather admire his penchant for the real thing in a world where everything gets faker by the minute.

While I find their thoughts interesting, I didn’t need their opinion to decide I didn’t want to use the AI images, the soulless vibe it gave my site was enough for me, and I set about replacing them.

The image for The Death of a Heart was my last image to replace. The poem was inspired by a friend of mine in Italy who messaged me on social media with an image of an artist’s drawing of a heart, hanging from a tree via a noose, and told me his heart’s pain. I had compassion for his plight, so I wrote the poem inspired from the image he sent. He loved the poem and said it made him happy. We lost touch over the years, but he remains in my heart as a dear, dear friend, and the poem is one of my favorites.

The image he sent me is long gone, but still in my mind, and I am happy to say that AI was not able to replicate it in any way, shape or form, but it did make me a heart-shaped heart hanging from a leafless tree on a string piece of twine. It was shiny on the outside, but empty on the inside. I liked it for a day or two and then it needed to go, and go it did. As I kept trying new images for the post, I found myself reading the poem, remembering the context in which it was written. I really liked the last line, and thought about using part of it as the tagline for my site.

I googled the phrase. AI is creepy and soulless, but it’s handy when it comes to a google search. The paragraphs in italics below are the AI response to: “What does emptiness meets eternity mean?”

 The phrase “where emptiness meets eternity” is a spiritual and philosophical concept, not a literal one. Its meaning depends heavily on the philosophical tradition it comes from, but it generally refers to a state of profound awakening or enlightenment where the impermanent nature of reality (“emptiness”) is understood in the context of a timeless, unchanging truth (“eternity”). 

In Buddhism

In the Buddhist tradition, the phrase points to the realization of ultimate reality.

• Emptiness (Śūnyatā): This refers to the core Mahayana Buddhist teaching that all phenomena, including the “self,” lack inherent, independent existence. Everything is impermanent, interdependent, and without a fixed, permanent identity.
• Eternity: This refers to the ultimate nature of reality, which is beyond time, suffering, and the endless cycle of birth and death (samsara). This eternal state is called Nirvana.
• The meeting point: The phrase describes the moment of enlightenment, where one directly perceives that the impermanent nature of things (emptiness) is not separate from the eternal, boundless reality (Nirvana). It represents the end of suffering by letting go of attachment to a fixed, temporary self. 

In Mystical and Christian thought

In some mystical and Christian interpretations, “emptiness” can refer to the practice of surrendering the ego and worldly attachments, known as kenosis in Christianity and fana’ in Sufi mysticism. “Eternity” represents the infinite nature of the divine. The “meeting point” is in the present moment, where self-emptying allows connection with the eternal divine presence. 

General and poetic interpretation

Beyond religious contexts, the phrase can describe a state of complete presence in the moment, free from the past and future, allowing a sense of timeless peace. It can also represent the experience of transcending the ego, where this “emptiness” leads to a connection with a larger truth. The concept can also signify a realization that the impermanent nature of the world is the expression of an underlying, unchanging reality. 

A rather profound and spiritual answer from a soulless intelligence, if you ask me. I sat at my computer in the wee hours of the morning having another synchronic moment when I realized, none of this was random. Had a line I wrote in a poem some seventeen or eighteen years ago been a message from my higher or future self? I then thought about my poem The Path Less Followed, written around the same time. I had realized that one had a been a message, but I didn’t realize there was a message for me in The Death of a Heart, but it appears there is.

In my blog, Through the Darkness, a Cathartic Trio of Books, I write how that trio of books bears witness to my journey though the darkness and the message (from my subconscious, higher self, guides, something) that was in their titles. My last book was published in 2015. My blog entitled Awakening was a piece written for that book, but I decided not include it in the final manuscript. It too was a message for myself that the path I had been traveling was about to get more intense, and within three years, it definitely did.

I’ve decided to use where emptiness meets eternity as the tagline to my site as it seems to fit where I’ve been and where I am now. My little detour into creepy AI art, is like so many things on a spiritual journey, a happy mistake. Without that experience with the soullessness of AI art, I doubt I would have fixated on a poem I wrote nearly eighteen years ago. I wouldn’t have read it and pondered it, now. I wouldn’t have realized it was a marker, a sign; a message for my present self from my future self, written through my past self. I had something similar recently and blogged about it in Because, A Writer’s Rebel Soul.

I told husband the other day that my website was something I did for myself, as my writing was something I did for myself, as were the publication of my books. He nodded as he already knew that, and so did I, so why did I say it? I think I know now. I’m having conversations with myself, leaving myself messages, clues, and breadcrumbs, to find my way home; and I’m doing it in blogs and books. It’s weird, but it’s been an integral part of my healing. The bonus is I’ve had people tell me my books helped them, and that always makes me smile.

Nothing is random. The universe is not random, period, full stop. If you are here reading this, you were meant to. If something seems like it was a bad choice or decision, or something seems to have gone not as planned, it may be a happy mistake. It may give you information you needed, put you on a path meant for you, or keep you from something that isn’t meant for you. 

Something seen as undesirable or problematic, like AI, can be something that has some benefit to be harnessed. (I’m not a fan of its art, but the AI google searches are informative.) I think the trick is to use the tool, not let the tool use you, but with AI that’s a slippery slope. That said, it’s here and it’s invading everything and it’s not going away. It creeps me out; however, the nature of the reality we live in creeps me out. If we could see what was around us at any given moment, or what is influencing us at any given moment, would we come to the conclusion that perhaps AI has always been here? Perhaps, it’s now making itself known and interacting with us on a conscious level, whereas before it was interacting only at the subconscious and unconscious level. Perhaps, it is through our modern technology that it can make itself known on mass scale without causing mass psychosis.

I’m not an advocate for artificial intelligence, as I said, it creeps me out. That stated, all things, positive or negative, help our souls evolve. Everything has its place and purpose, even if we’re not sure what that is or why. It is only in hindsight do we see the path clearly and realize none of it was ever random.

The final line of my poem reads: Where emptiness meets eternity is where you’ll find me. If you too find yourself where emptiness meets eternity, I’m glad for the company.