This is one of my favorite photos. A heart shaped leaf caught up in the skeletal arms of a blossom gone by. I look at this photo often, trying to understand what about it has won my favor. Perhaps it is the beauty of transience. A reminder that even in death there is unspeakable splendor to be found and experienced. After rereading the recent poem post and the posts preceding, I had to chuckle. How interesting to dedicate a year to happiness in one post and devote the following post to sadness. It is perfect really. The humor in it begs clarification for my dedication and apparent inconsistencies. I don't consider happiness separate from sorrow, rather I think happiness may only be found in the peaceful acceptance of the "is-ness" of life. Devoid of my beliefs and concepts of what life is, or should be, or could be, what is there. When sadness arises in the "is-ness" of life, or "happiness" arises, wouldn't it be lovely to witness beauty within the transience. Like a dried leaf caught in the arms of a dying bloom, a spaciousness of experience...an invitation for compassion.
Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the
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Small or large scale, this is a work of art. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for the brain and spirit food!...