Sometimes I take dead-end roads on purpose.
I am so glad to have lighthouses all around me as I row row row this boat in the dark dark dark.
—Amanda Palmer, “Love from the road.”
From that vantage point, I often meet the lover who lives after The End.
I like the movie with Oldman better for the ending with Ann and Smiley. Him seeing her in the other room and clutching the banister (if I’m remembering right). The feeling of her returning. The love oh the love he has for her that seems limitless.
—Alison Tyler, “Tinker, Tailor: Chapter 39”
I soon realised that I had started shedding my hyper busy and alert human “energy field” or vibe. Animals allowed me to come much closer. They were not (no longer) disturbed by my human presence.
—Imelda Almqvist, “Shedding a Human Layer to Get Closer to Animals”
We pick morsels from the bones of those who picked morsels before, and offer morsels in turn.
When people succumb to violence they are filled with trauma and often a desire for revenge. The skills people need to become responsible are not taught by violence. I believe that if we rely on violence to change the world we will unfortunately just end up with more violence.
—Clementine Morrigan, “Destroying Things”
Someone holds your wrists behind your back, pushes your head down so that you must look at the floor, which is wood, beneath which is dirt, and beneath that, stone: and farther still, beneath every road, every path, there is fire.
—Maryse Meijer, The Seventh Mansion
Having risen, we fall back into dreams.
There’s a hidden secret in the despair paradox. Going down the depths of despair can also bring healing. . . . The more we let death—even the threats of extinction—into our souls, the more we can appreciate the current vibrant vitality of life in its many forms. And we may even be transformed by it.
—Per Espen Stoknes
Having fallen, we can find peace by just floating on the feelings.
The High Priestess is a card of mysteries, of silence, and of stillness, as well as the deep wisdom that comes from the body, rather than the mind. She tells us that it’s okay to sit still, to not know the answer to a problem, and to wait out storms rather than trying to stop them.
Often when troubled, worried, or anxious, or when we are facing difficult decisions and situations, we try to think our way through things. Sometimes, we might also try to take actions that not only do not help, but actually make things worse. The agency and action taught by The Magician can only get us so far; sometimes the answers we need come when sit still, when we rest, and when we sleep.
When I see the High Priestess, I like to think of roots. They’re the part of a plant we almost never see, and they do everything in darkness. Beneath the surface, beyond what we can see, is a whole world of secrets and mysteries giving life to what is visible.
It’s okay to just let the still, silent, unseen forces in life work their magic, and to wait until we know the right course of action, the right decisions, or the right words to say. This is true even in the rare cases where The High Priestess might be pointing to the secrets of others. Again, we don’t need to know everything, nor can we, and silence is sometimes the greatest kindness we can offer each other and also ourselves.
—Rhyd Wildermuth, A People’s Guide to Tarot: A Primer for Everyone
It’s a relief just to dream and be dreamed of.
It’s a joy simply to swim in salty sweetness.
No matter how restricted my world may become I cannot imagine it leaving me void of wonder. In a sense I suppose it might be called my religion. I do not ask how it came about, this creation in which we swim, but only to enjoy and appreciate it. . . .
Perhaps the most comforting thing about growing old gracefully is the increasing ability not to take things too seriously. One of the big differences between a genuine sage and a preacher is gaiety. When the sage laughs it is a belly laugh; when the preacher laughs, which is all too seldom, it is on the wrong side of the face. . . .
I want to take to the ocean of life like a fish takes to the sea. . . . I no longer try to convert people to my view of things, nor to heal them. Neither do I feel superior because they appear to be lacking in intelligence.
—Henry Miller, On Turning Eighty
It can even be comforting to go under.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
—Viktor Frankl, Austrian scientist and Holocaust survivor
It can feel safer to be more enclosed.
To explore slowly.
However deep we might sink, some industrious soul or other will eventually uplift us: a friend, a stranger, an aunt.
From there, we’ll open up and out again into a new mystery.
. . . Wonders such as these are eternal reminders of the terrifying counter-intuitive truth that grief is not the end of things but rather the dark substrate from which great things can emerge.
—Nick Cave, “The Red Hand Files #287”
A cloud of gnats mills before me in lowering sunlight.
Don’t go
too crazy
it could get
even better
—nexus II (@vasto@mas.to on Mastodon)
The lover and I have a long chat.
We say to each other, I love you. I find you fascinating. You are special to me.
One of us says, Thank you for the walnuts.
Warmth quietly floods my heart.
When I feel the expansive pleasure in my heart I want to shut it down. When I feel myself melting into intimacy, that precious feeling of connection I have longed for all my life, there are parts of me that try to shut it down. My anxious and avoidant attachment strategies are two sides of the same coin, two ways to not feel what I am feeling because what I am feeling scares me. . . .
Reading those words now made me pause and reflect on how fucking far I’ve come. My problem today is that my heart keeps exploding. My problem today is that I have access to so much sensation and connection that my system is struggling to process it. In a very real way my problem is that all my dreams are coming true. My problem is that the experiences I’ve always wanted are happening to me now. And it is fucking scary to get what I’ve always wanted. It is fucking scary to be open to so much sensation and connection and transformation.
There are parts of me that want to shut down the sensation or drown it out with numbing panic. There are parts of me screaming that it is absolutely not safe for me to be having such a nice time. The looming risk of really wanting and really investing and really being here is dizzying. But I can feel everything. I can feel it all and it is so deep and textured and right. To feel these things and to arrive in the full expansive pleasure of my heart and my body connected to the moment, connected to others, connected to myself.
. . . There’s something I don’t know how to say but it’s the truth just like this early summer day is the truth. . . .
There is so much to say about becoming alive. I think when you have never been numb you take sensation for granted. I think when you have always been numb you find it hard to imagine what sensation feels like. When you have been numb for so long the sensation moves like heat through the body, cracking the hard exterior, creating melt and overflow. It can be overwhelming and destabilizing: this pleasure like water, opening. The vulnerability is unbelievable: this wanting and turning toward the world. Open hearted and knowing you can be hurt but trusting, working so hard on the practice of appropriate trust.
—Clementine Morrigan, “Love in Abundance Is What My Heart Was Made For”