echoes and illusions

Therefore, steal, or still, the echo, so that you don’t allow an event, however unpleasant or momentous, to claim any more time than it took for it to occur...

What your foes do derives its significance or consequence from the way you react.

Therefore, rush through or past them as though they were yellow and not red lights.

Don’t linger on them mentally or verbally; don’t pride yourself on forgiving or forgetting them — worse come to worse, do the forgetting first.

This way you’ll spare your brain cells a lot of useless agitation; this way, perhaps, you may even save those pigheads from themselves, since the prospect of being forgotten is shorter than that of being forgiven.

So flip the channel: you can’t put this network out of circulation, but at least you can reduce its ratings. Now, this solution is not likely to please angels, but, then again, it’s bound to hurt demons, and for the moment that’s all that really matters.

-Joseph Brodsky

I recently encountered a very clear and unflattering reflection of my inner workings. I initially tried to break the damn mirror. Next, I made every effort to discount the reflection and question the value of any friend so brazen and "unkind" as to offer up my underbelly for inspection. But a reflection, once seen, can never be unseen.
I have carried around a hulking history for more minutes, months and years than I care to count. I have developed calluses and coping strategies to accommodate its weight. It's an antecedent. It does not exist now. It's only labored forward by my perpetual Sisyphusian effort to carry it with me. That rock insists that I am, who I am, based solely on an accumulation of who I have been, complete with trauma, pain and a lot of human bullshit. So. How do you stop the cycle? There are no Gods insisting that I keep pushing this damn rock up the hill. As terrifying as it may be the only other option is to face life on it's own terms. And all that is left to do is live.

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grief

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

a story recently shared by a friend

Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you." Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you." "Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself

Inosculation

I learned a new word today! Imagine my joy to discover "inosculation", to taste the word for the first time, rolling it around the soft interior of my mouth before speaking it aloud with a shiver of delight. I am a lover of trees, not metaphorically but literally. I linger beneath their branches. I tear up beside their solid beauty and revel in the rough, steady touch of bark beneath a wide sky. I love learning anything new about my beloveds and today I discovered inosculation , which literally means to unite intimately. Sometimes trees grow so close to each other that they rub up against one another. The friction of bark on bark wears away at the hard outer layers, revealing a tender, vulnerable, embryonic layer of life. If they stay in contact through the friction they will join together, uniting into a third thing.... a tree union. In such cases the trees share their life force with one another. I can think of no more perfect metaphor for beloved companions. Th

angelbirdflies

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