tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41881609418946486232024-03-13T09:33:24.174-07:00The Red Tea MugA blog about unspecific things, spontaneous doodles, and all those things that do not fit anywhere else. akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-18919828510148033012014-06-07T02:05:00.003-07:002014-06-07T02:05:46.776-07:00Highway - A Wild Woman Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Highway – A Wild Woman Review<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Manasi</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <span class="SpellE">Saxena</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Highway" starts out on a note that for many is pretty disturbing and violent. A young woman, <span class="SpellE">Veera</span>, with a strong yearning for fresh air and freedom comes face to face with the many dangers that inhabit Indian highways when she is kidnapped by a gang of common thieves. The storytellers do not cushion the blow of her captivity, depicting insidious and overt violence which made most people in the audience cringe. In fact, watching the first ten minutes of the movie drives home all the cautionary tales that parents and other, particularly female, older people around us tend to tell us: There are dangers on the streets. Traveling alone is folly. Why tempt fate? Why create situations where one can fall into trouble? And in fact, this is true. Most journeys that mean anything involve getting into trouble and learning to deal with it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the movie progresses though, it unfolds into a story about freedom, self-expression, intense, life-altering love and the glory of living openly and messily. As I was watching the movie for the third time, I found that some notions that had been floating around since the first time I watched it - ideas about archetypes and healing - started to click into place. They had only foggily suggested themselves to me when I'd watched it the first time, especially at the end of the movie, where <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> shown holding a book. To those who know this book to be Clarissa <span class="SpellE">Pinkola</span> Estes' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Women Who Run with the Wolves</i>, this is no coincidence. This is a book about any woman's journey through her subconscious to break away from the chains - whether physical or emotional - that bind her wilder self. The wild woman is self-aware, independent, scarily vulnerable and incredibly courageous. Through Highway, we see an <span class="SpellE">unmothered</span> child transform into such a woman. <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> <span class="SpellE">Tripathi</span> goes through such a journey, sometimes disturbing, always intense and entirely life-altering. In this article, I want to explore the archetypal journey towards awakening and healing of the wild woman in <span class="SpellE">Imtiaz</span> Ali's incredible movie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Highway starts with a beautiful montage of roads all over north India, familiar to many travelers. The suggestion is strong: This is a movie about a Journey. As it unfolds, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary journey. This is the journey of a young woman who has been sheltered and trapped by misguided love and abuse in a world where speaking the truth is entirely unacceptable. At the beginning, she has no anger, no hatred and though she displays passion, her great longing is to get away - even run away - from her home. As she says, a little later, even though the truth of her journey has started to reveal itself:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"I don't want to go where you're taking me. And I don't want to go back. It's just like... I want... a little more - of this. <span class="GramE">A little longer (on the road) with you."</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is no great clarity about what she wants. When she is kidnapped and forcibly removed from her home, she is sad and hugely upset - but mostly worried for herself. Eventually, she tries to make a break for it, but comes trudging back, having lost her shoes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Losing her shoes is significant. In the book, Estes tells a story about the Red Shoes, where a young girl lets go of her handmade red shoes for a pair of sparkly, bright shoes. The handmade shoes were made through her own sweat and blood, with her own hands. The red shoes were just handed to her by a woman in a beautiful carriage, who whisked her away to a castle where she was vastly miserable, though very well dressed. <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> of course has always worn her hush puppies, and so never had the experience of making her own shoes. In her own naive way, she longs for her own space, her own work - for building a life for herself with her own hands. But clearly this life cannot exist in the same universe as her family's, and other than childish attempts to run away from the city and building castles in the air with her <span class="SpellE">fiance</span>, she does not do much to accomplish this. So when she runs away from her kidnappers (and they allow her to run, which is a whole other thing), she is taking her first step towards owning what happens to her. There is no family or <span class="SpellE">fiance</span> to call to - even though they have never listened. There is the open earth, which embraces her, almost swallows her, for which she is unprepared. But this is a hugely significant moment in the movie. She takes charge, even though she has no idea what she is doing. She takes a few halting, hesitating steps that require huge courage, and then runs, wildly, madly. In the process she loses the fancy comfortable shoes from her former life. The journey which began before, not of her own choosing and so violently, suddenly becomes her own. She commits to it, and this is deeply significant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Any healer or therapist will tell you that no healing or movement towards wellness can really happen unless you commit to the journey you need to take. If you opt for alternative or holistic ways of healing, including homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga and psychotherapy, things usually get worse before they get better. This is because, like an iceberg, when issues of the surface start to melt away, new issues emerge from within the ocean. You have to stand in the sun, sweat it out, really wait and clear away issues as they surface to come to the core of the matter. <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> commits to this journey, many times over. She commits when she comes running back from the desert where she'd run away, when the police come to check the truck she's being carried away in and she chooses not to reveal herself, and when later in the movie, <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> leaves her and she dashes for him and tracks him down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is significant that <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> and <span class="SpellE">Veera's</span> names are so similar. It suggests something to us that is not really visible or tangible, but which certainly emerges over a period of time. <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> seems to be everything <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> is not: he is hateful, raging, wild and angry, self-driven, self-aware and at the same time full of deep self-loathing. They have in common, however, that they are both full of deep unexpressed sorrow. <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> of course is polite, very cultured and watches what she says, and <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> is... well, none of the above. On the other hand, while <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> knows exactly what he wants and how to get it, <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> is sometimes so disconnected with herself that she has to climb to the top of a hillock to make contact -- and even then she <span class="SpellE">conitnues</span> to be unsure how she's feeling. <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> is hateful, angry with the world - <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> is compassionate and full of hope, wanting to know everyone's stories, including his, when he reveals himself to be a murderer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the archetypal sense, and because this is <span class="SpellE">Veera's</span> journey, <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> offers her a side of herself she is not in contact with: the enormously angry monster who wants to scream, deep within her soul. This is the real archetypal relationship of the movie -- not the complex relationship between <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> and her family's abuse, but between <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> and <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> -- the not-yet-grown-wild-woman and the monster within. <span class="GramE">Between, in some senses, love and anger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the beginning of the movie, <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> is uninterested in her as a person, hateful and irritated and even abusive. He sees her as a transaction, albeit one who has made his life a complete hell. Although he intends to use her for financial gain, he is also extremely angry with her -- perhaps because she threatens his existence entirely and perhaps because she represents a lifestyle that has abused him for all his life. So when she is running away and he catches her, he drags her out and throws her out, and tells her to get lost. Notably, when she returns he does not shoot her. In so many ways, this is similar to anger that has not been expressed -- which has been suppressed by a lifetime, indeed a lifestyle, of silence. When unexpressed, anger can be unwieldy, <span class="SpellE">montrous</span>, explosive. The more one hides the things one does not like, does not speak up for oneself or suppresses words that may cause disturbance to the status quo, the more anger grows within oneself. There is some deep hurt, some excruciating pain which has not been resolved and so there is Anger. Anger does not reason or think or offer logic; Anger survives and fights for its life. When one may be engaging in flight, there is still a part of oneself that wants to fight back. That is what <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> is, in many ways, in the movie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At a certain point, after having chosen to remain on the truck, <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> confesses her pain to <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span>. It is not a romantic telling or setting, but a crude, harsh baring of the truth, that when she was a child, her uncle would visit them and then later rape her in the washroom, and that when she told her mother, the latter told her not to tell anyone, to act like everything is normal. <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> does not respond openly, but they share an embrace in another moment that is critical. Anger is speechless here. He does not know what to say -- he is moved, because he is suddenly seeing something outside of the tunnel vision offered to him by the momentum of his rage. This is the first time <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> (or Anger) comes in actual contact with <span class="SpellE">Veera</span>. They hold each other briefly, and this is important too, that she holds him as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a very weird and twisted way, they are becoming friends. And when you make friends with anger, it is protective -- just as <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> watches over her carefully so that she does not get into trouble, Anger will watch over the body it inhabits and the moment it sees something troubling, it will step in. At this leg of the journey, she does not even need shoes -- she takes off her sandals and falls over in her excitement to be free, and comes to no harm at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is here, expressed quite clearly, a NEED to get angry -- not to hurt or to damage or destroy (though Anger can be blind to those things), but for self-protection, for being fortified. People who don't get angry are usually either running away for all their lives or withdrawn to the point of not living. Anger on the other hand is full of life, full of a burning desire to survive. It is not, however, equipped to understand how to live, and that's where <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> steps in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day by day, she teaches <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> things. When he gets angry with her for having disappeared to pee, she informs him that just like him, she has needs. When he tells her he will break every bone in her body if she makes stupid requests like sitting in the front of the truck, she shows him clearly that threatening her is not really working anymore. When she hugs him and he does not really know what to do, she takes his hands and pulls them around her. Anger is directive, protective, <span class="GramE">ready</span> to jump in. It is also harmful when not softened by compassion and love, and that is precisely what <span class="SpellE">Mahavir's</span> journey is. Through most of it, he remains untrusting, like any child who has been unloved for too long, or any part of one's Self one is not willing to reach. But time and again, <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> returns to him and shows him she's in, she's here and she's not leaving, even if she doesn't know what's coming next.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It also takes a certain healing for him to be able to accept this love -- the healing of his own inner mother and his deep sadness. <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> is critical in this too, as she noses into the matter, pries the thing out of his hand. It is kind of annoying, but also a painfully vulnerable space, where one has to confront one's sorrows. <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> sings, and in some ways, this is a singing that reaches his soul. In the book, Estes speaks of singing as a sort of return. She tells us a story about the wolf woman, who gathers bones, and then sings flesh and blood and life back into them. In a lot of ways, this is exactly what happens with <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> when <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> sings a song from his childhood. Something starts to surface. Anger starts to melt. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And as the surface level fears and fury leaves, the deeper self-loathing emerges, stemming from his being a murderer: he has killed three people. He tries with this announcement to get rid of <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> for the last time, and yet she follows him, tracking him down to the bus stand from where he was about to run far away from her, leave her to be happier, healthier, without him. But when she emerges, he finally trusts her, finally gives in. Anger cracks a bit more and light floods in as he smiles. It is then that he commits to the journey as well and walks with her through the wilderness. They find a home together, where she insists on creating a space for them both. He breaks down in a moment that is both amusing (mostly because of his total surprise and unwillingness to cry, and his "<span class="SpellE">wtf</span>" expression killed me as much as his tears did, though in two very different ways) and deeply heartbreaking. He screams in his pain for his mother, for all the horrible things he has done and been through. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love is befuddling to Anger: love destroys anger by healing it, integrating it. Indeed, unlike his belief that she would be better off without him, there is no happiness without him for her, because to be whole, she needs to be integrated or for him without her, because she holds him together and offers him love and total acceptance. When you offer acceptance, which is the core of forgiveness, to yourself for your flaws, for your rage, for your self-loathing, then you bring that part of yourself home. This is what <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> does when she brings him home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the next scene of the movie, he dies. This is also heartbreaking and causes a lot of sadness and rage - the scene where she's running next to his dead body telling him everything will be okay is like watching a child scream and scramble to hold onto the last remnants of fairytale-like hope. One is filled with even more anger and loathing when her family turns up, sedates her, takes her home and tells her to "act like everything is normal". </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But then something magical happens, as <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> takes the steps she needs to, to complete her journey. These are not tentative, scared steps. When she finally confronts her uncle about his actions in front of the whole family, she lays it all out clearly. Eventually, she screams - loudly, twice - before announcing that she is never coming back to this cage. The steps she takes here, coming down the stairs with difficulty and doing all that she does, are the steps of a wild woman grown, calmly clear about her intentions, angry in a way that is completely clear and expressive, and standing on her own feet. The journey is complete now; <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> has found her voice. She carries <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> in her, in a sense, carries her rage and handles it, accepts it, treats it with a lot of love and kindness. When she leaves home for the last time, she stops by the side of the road and screams for him, and it is bittersweet. But the truth is that for the child to grow, she has to let go of the hands that keep her steady, the footholds, the crutches... In the archetypal sense, he dies when she no longer has need for him, and in his death, she finds her Self. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A lot of this movie did not register for a long people - I noticed in my (many) viewings of the tale that there were people in the audience who laughed when <span class="SpellE">Veera</span> confronted her family and screamed, or when <span class="SpellE">Mahavir</span> cried. There was either utter confusion or ignorance or <span class="GramE">a certain</span> nervousness in their laughter, and this is often what happens to friends and family members of a woman who is starting to awaken. They have no idea what is happening or what's about to hit them. Women often live in social spaces designed to contain the spirit so as not to rock to boat. It doesn't only come from being in a traditional family; suppression of emotions, memories and problems is common to women across different social and economic strata, across families of all kinds. Every life has the potential of a beautiful, heartbreaking, scary and amazing journey, but journeys are by nature contrary to sedentary lives and domestic spaces. To embark on a journey, you have to LEAVE a home or FIND a home, and <span class="SpellE">tthis</span> is not meant to be an easy, polite, socially-acceptable process. Boats are rocked and people get confused, angry or just have no connection with what's going on, and often do everything they can to stop you from doing what your soul is calling you to do. But to refuse the call of the soul is to be oppressed, to never express anger, to carry an unloved child or angry monster within you for all your life, and to be corroded away from within. This is perhaps bearable, but it is a slow death, a life unexpressed and unlived. Amongst many other things, Highway proves that life is a messy, difficult business that requires you to make your own shoes and take on your journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></div>
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akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-52861454844421063852014-02-01T05:31:00.002-08:002014-02-01T05:31:53.898-08:00imbolc poetry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
welcome to the end of winter<br />
to the first winds of spring<br />
welcome to the beginning of<br />
new, hopeful, lovely things<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-12291001895027150102013-12-31T20:58:00.002-08:002013-12-31T20:58:30.570-08:00This Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I want more than anything<br />
to be accepting of the good things<br />
that come my way<br />
and believe I deserve them,<br />
even as I lovingly and with courage,<br />
say goodbye to the things<br />
that no longer serve me,</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-9129552267095246952013-12-30T00:56:00.000-08:002013-12-30T00:56:01.316-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dear Wisdom Tooth,<br />
<br />
I am sorry for not having attended to you so far,<br />
I did not realise you were needing more space to grow<br />
and that you had things to say.<br />
<br />
I thank you for troubling me now,<br />
when I can understand that you mean well,<br />
for the lesson you are offering me<br />
that sometimes we need to let go of things<br />
we cannot make room for<br />
because they cause pain and anguish and<br />
need to be returned to the universe lovingly.<br />
<br />
Please forgive me for having neglected you so long<br />
and for not being aware of your pain.<br />
<br />
I love you, and now lovingly give you back to the universe.<br />
May you find peace and space and freedom in your<br />
return to the origins.<br />
<br />
So it is, so it is, and it is done.<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
Manasi</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-9760821752466140242013-12-23T23:06:00.003-08:002013-12-23T23:06:52.047-08:00the homecoming<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
we printed no ads and<br />
no search parties went out<br />
for the pieces that had gone missing.<br />
<br />
they came home later.<br />
<br />
it seems they had been buried<br />
under debris from wars, explosions and collapses,<br />
concrete blocks of unfathomable rage<br />
and piles of unclarified drama.<br />
<br />
i had imagined they were,<br />
like dogs who run away from home<br />
in the face of noisy firecrackers and explosions,<br />
lost,<br />
and unable to find their way home.<br />
<br />
i thought they were dead, decayed, rotted,<br />
but they came suddenly, soundlessly,<br />
not the remains of the day,<br />
or a skeletal mass or a thin shadow<br />
but full bodied and whole hearted<br />
and full of love,<br />
these puppies, or pieces, or fragments of love<br />
that had been left in the aisle<br />
and forgotten about<br />
now ready to come home.</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-82247061688034998732013-09-09T06:09:00.002-07:002013-09-09T06:09:51.111-07:00seasonal depression<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
after the monsoon has swept<br />
over the land and ravaged it<br />
into full-breasted luscious bounty,<br />
it recedes<br />
and the whole earth body<br />
dries up and cracks and fissues,<br />
and is parched with deep yearning<br />
for the rains to come again.<br />
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<br /></div>
</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-36025130665059999002013-07-11T06:37:00.002-07:002013-07-11T06:37:50.177-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
wolves do not hibernate, typically,<br />
but sometimes they accept dark meaningless<br />
caves and do not emerge for long periods.<br />
sometimes it's because it's comfortable,<br />
and at other times it's because a<br />
human-disguised-as-a-wolf-being tried<br />
to tame them with things like<br />
promises and psychiatry.<br />
but wolves emerge, even though emerging is<br />
blinding and painful and uncomfortable<br />
and just quite inconvenient,<br />
and involves the use of frozen muscles that<br />
cramp and uncramp excruciatingly.<br />
awakening is nauseating, unsettling, devoid of<br />
a soft landing cushion to protect the wolf<br />
from the shock of the hard surface that<br />
they optimistically call "rock bottom",<br />
where the roots swing low and offer<br />
crude nutrition and something ancient and known,<br />
yet distorted beyond recognition.<br />
but wolves mend; they evolve from the shock,<br />
they nurse their wounds and find other wolf friends<br />
and cuddle with their old cub-mates<br />
and cling to their mothers<br />
and teachers and fathers and other fuzzy things<br />
and eat whatever the earth offers and they mend.<br />
they lie on the hard surface of the earth<br />
and know they have never been closer to their source.<br />
and when one day they have mended themselves,<br />
and dug their way through the soil<br />
and healed the broken roots...<br />
... well, then they rise.<br />
<br />
(like batman)<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-17944262912144210632013-06-29T06:52:00.001-07:002013-06-29T06:52:58.615-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
where there is a root<br />
there must be tree.<br />
the treeless root<br />
is just as unstable<br />
as the rootless tree,<br />
buried far beneath the ground<br />
with no sunshine or air,<br />
no sense of the sky,<br />
or experience of the wind.<br />
so when one puts down<br />
roots also, it helps to be<br />
prepared to grow<br />
a rooted tree.</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-75729192457697781682013-06-23T23:55:00.002-07:002013-06-23T23:56:27.516-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
she sat at the table next to the window, watchign her lemon-soda-with-sugar having a panic attack. she could relate completely with the great agitation, the undigested, insoluble sugar and the soda that bubbled over the brim onto the surface of the table, a large, fizzy, unbounded mess. in an almost sadistic sort of way, she was coompelled to keep adding more soda to the glass every time the panic was over, and watch it overflow again.<br />
<br />
she sat at this table listening to the babble of tourist voices and the shriefs of the children next door, making this free-flowing mess and thinking about unwritten poetry about a thousand buddhist prayer flags, crossroads and indecision, the unbearable thrill of a first touch and the incomparable pain of a last kiss.<br />
<br />
a thousand buddhist prayer flags could be hope abandoned at the side of a hill, surrender, a prayer too precious to name, wishes to secret to whisper to anyone but the hillside, which never falters, never forgets. a thousand buddhist prayer flags speak of pebbles inside shoes, digging into exhausted soles, and of groves where trees whisper and offer reprieve. a thousand buddhist prayer flags are beautiful, and reminders of beauty in extreme pain and great failure and complete brokenness. a thousand buddhist prayer flags are an offering to the fundamental insanity of being human.<br />
<br />
and so there may be messes with no boundaries, lands carved into countries and cities and nightmares. there may be love that is simple not enough and many months and years lost to an impossible wish. and loss that breaks through fragile layers and fortresses on the side of the hill that remain mulishly intact through the flood and rooms affected by thunderstorms and people who only wander along the hillside alone, under the thousand buddhist prayer flags, whispering incomprehensibly of abstract notions like possibility, healing, love, recovery, hope. <br />
<br />
10/06/2013</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-8107473150635456852013-06-19T01:35:00.002-07:002013-06-19T01:35:49.935-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A rut is a rut<br />
even with<br />
prayer flags<br />
flapping in the wind.</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-75824191544019732362013-06-18T09:04:00.000-07:002013-06-18T09:06:50.554-07:00Laburnum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">Some trees are full of thorns and spines,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">and offer flowers at the end of their boughs--</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">the most beautiful aspects of their desires, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">a colourful culmination of their prickles and pains.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">Others like the laburnum seem to burst </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">into colour all over, as though they are so full</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">and heavy that they cannot help</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">but flower into multitudes of tiny happy</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.77777862548828px;">bursts of yellow cheer.</span></span></div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-47199113330598863662013-03-02T12:52:00.003-08:002013-03-02T12:52:59.512-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
oh my love, </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
in this land where</div>
<div>
the rich are brave and the fine are wiser</div>
<div>
than the raw, earthly and honest,</div>
<div>
you seem small.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
yet, you are so big, so huge...</div>
<div>
one wonders how many forces had to</div>
<div>
come together to put you in a box</div>
<div>
and make you smaller.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
you are beautiful and so complete</div>
<div>
so full of beauty you think is extinct.</div>
<div>
and i hope one day you can be</div>
<div>
huge, messy, disastrous and full.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-62040392879760619512013-02-03T13:45:00.001-08:002013-02-03T13:47:30.047-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
liminality<br />
the in-between<br />
the synapse<br />
that space that doesn't belong<br />
that ocean you cannot cross<br />
the water that pulls you in<br />
that depth you cannnot hope to pull out of<br />
the thing that consumes you<br />
that infinite thing<br />
that isn't you<br />
and so close to you that<br />
you may never know where you end<br />
and it begins.<br />
<br />
liminality<br />
is that space where thought fails<br />
rationality succumbs<br />
and you remain unknowing<br />
in the unknown infinite.<br />
<br />
liminality<br />
punctuated by little islands<br />
tiny lonely spits of land<br />
where everything can be known<br />
reasoned with<br />
diagnosed<br />
labelled<br />
packaged<br />
bought and sold<br />
explained and ripped apart<br />
into tiny knowable bits and pieces.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-45668054634521006382013-01-30T11:37:00.002-08:002013-01-31T09:22:59.734-08:00Every Small But Gargantuan Leap Of Faith Really Frickin' Matters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A year ago, towards the
end of January, I was asked by my psychiatrist to either go home or
be institutionalised. I was having what I believed were "panic
attacks", which turned out to be episodes of deep-rooted anger
and sadness, which were very destructive both towards myself and
towards people that I loved. specifically, these episodes affected my
boyfriend, who I was living with at the time. After three months of
episodes which occured almost daily, going back to my hometown (away
from the boyfriend) was a welcome respite.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It made no sense to me.
Though there had been some indication of a deep-rooted problem in the
past, for which I had sought therapy at a time, there really had
never been any kind of conscious awareness of such deep hatred for
myself, such anguish and fear of abandonment and such terrible anger.
It seemed as though my <span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/09/eight-things-i-learned-from-50-naked-people-kate-bartolotta/%20">body</a></u></span></span>
had preserved these experiences and feelings for this time, when they
were triggered and it was sort of "safer" for them to
emerge. I was breaking down, and I see this as an elaborate process -
a process that is still ongoing and through which I lose parts of
myself and recover others, and become a fragmented, sometimes hollow
and sometimes messy, visage of my former self.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I am writing this right
now, with the same man lying next to me and snoring gently, because
two nights back I slid back to that dark space. And yet, despite the
horror of the days before, today there is a shift (so palpable that
even I, instinctively sceptical about my body, believe it) towards
something that feels like togetherness and safety.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I also am writing this
because I want to acknowledge and celebrate the many hours of
practicing Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication, therapy,
Eugene Gendlin's Focusing and just plain old support and acceptance
from my friends and family, and these fine, somtimes infinitesimal,
momemts of connection and hope. I also want to acknowledge and
celebrate the joy and tremendous value of being broken because I
think most often we measure the "success" of our stories in
terms of whether or not we are "better" or "happy"
without recognising that happy, better and wellness are not states of
being so much as they are processes.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For some reason, a lot
of people I know are going through this kind of shift. Perhaps it is
simply that I have finally found some sort of direction I want my
life to move towards that I am reading a lot of articles and books
about just this thing - imperfection, being broken and fragmented,
being many weird parts of oneself at once and nothing specific. I
also want to write because I have a need for contribution. I want to
say that every step, no matter how small it is, matters.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Last year, on the
anniversary of my mother's death, I drank a reasonably decent single
malt and committed to working on myself. At the time, it was a
commitment constructed on an amorphous sense that I could be happy,
better, well, and a palpable reality that my relationship was not
working <i>not</i> because there were differences between us that
could not be resolved but because of the indefinite, borderless
reality of my struggles with myself. It wasn't the absence of love or
connection, but the presence of such huge loneliness in me that it
was difficult to reach beyond it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the last couple of
months I've touched on an image within me: the image of me, alone, at
a huge beach with great vastness and emptiness of land and ocean all
around. I have realised this image on the tangible level - in that
every part of my body seems to feel this image. Focusing teaches us
that the body preserves our expereences and that in accessing and
accepting those parts of yourself that seem stuck, you can heal. As a
child, I feared the ocean. I feared that it would suck me in and take
me far, far away from the known and loved into the unknown and
unreachable, and I would be lost and never found again. It was a
terrible fear, and stretched also to my mother - in that I feared it
would take her away.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In some senses, the
ocean was life itself, and I recognise now that love is, for me, that
unknown quantity, the continent from which I fear I cannot return.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The truth, or so it
seems to me, is that every moment of connection is like this ocean.
Every connection invariably and infinitely transforms us. We cannot
make an honest connection with someone without being changed in one
way or another. Also, we are not in control of this, and that can be
really scary. But at the same time, I think that is the point, pretty
much, of living. That is the living energy they speak of in
Non-Violent Communication, that fundamental life-energy one touches
on in Focusing.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm writing now to say
that this ocean (which may be different for everyone... for some it
may be a desert, for others it could be a sock... that's not really
the point!) isn't crossed in a day. Tt requires a leap of something
along the lines of faith, which is difficult to define and different
for everyone. and really sometimes steps towards this seem really
stinted. You may not really know what you're doing and how it helps -
whether it is yoga or NVC or meditation or whatever the hell. It's
not important what it is; what is important is the intention. The
intention to change. The willingness to accept your own brokenness
and falling-apart-ness and mess.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yesterday, a year or
more after the beginning of my spiritual awakening (i.e. my huge
meltdown), I had a total freak-out and felt pretty much like the
world was coming to an end. My lover - the keeper of my things - told
me that he wasn't leaving. I know now that that's not a blanket
statement that binds him to me for all eternity. The point is I could
hear him. I did sit and cry like a mental patient; but, overwhelming
though my feelings were, I remembered my Focusing practice and found
that I could distinguish between my Self and my feelings. And when
eventually I could go to bed, I looked myself in the eye in the
mirror, and told myself this:<i> "I love and accept you. and no
matter what happens, I will never stop loving and accepting you."</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think we, those who
are in the process of huge changes and also little changes, are never
not broken, like the <span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/">Goddess
Akhilandeshwari</a></u></span></span> (who I honestly know very
little about, but she is awesome), who is the patron of cataclysm and
rebirth and who is beautiful in her vulnerability. We are never not
broken and that is glorious and important... because without being
broken, we would never see anything beyond the uncracked surface. And
within this never-not-broken-ness, when we make shifts, they are
small but they are hugely significant.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Everything is <i>not
</i>not broken for me, but for the moment I have learnt this: every
single small thing you do for your well being - whether it is to read
a "silly self help book" or to take a yoga class or to draw
something or to call a friend or to simply write out your junk for
the internet to read - it matters. Keep it up. Take small steps.
Celebrate little moments of connection. Love and accept yourself...
and no matter what happens, or what you do,<i> never stop</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-83685417825834861462013-01-30T09:43:00.001-08:002013-02-03T13:39:53.443-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
what is it about journeys that is so powerful,<br />
that it makes songs and poetry come alive<br />
with expectation, hope, dreams that resonate<br />
and trigger a chord hidden somewhere deep?<br />
<br />
i wish to travel on a road unbroken,<br />
trampelled upon by memories and histories,<br />
and i wish to read a book dog-eared<br />
to the point of crumbling, underlined annoyingly<br />
and scribbled upon with such urgency,<br />
as though the writer's words created something<br />
so power in the reader that it<br />
simply had to be written down immediately.<br />
<br />
the new and the shiny loses relevance for me<br />
in the face of this history of use and<br />
continuity of meanings and thoughts...<br />
<br />
it's as though we're all travelling along<br />
a messy web of human thoughts, ideas, energies...<br />
crazy lines made with various crayon colours<br />
across a page once new and shiny and blank<br />
and now so gloriously dishevelled and alive.</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-78606262882247918352013-01-25T04:06:00.002-08:002013-01-25T04:06:33.602-08:00thoughts from the rabbit hole....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
At the height of my insane trip down the rabbit's hole, I had an experience and a thought...or maybe I experienced a thought or something. The thought was that we experience everything at the molecular level. So it's like every cell experiences that which we think or that which we are, which is all very fuzzy, the thinking and the being. The point is that whatever it is, the being, pretty much happens at the cell level. Last night I felt lonely, on the cellular level. It was alaaaaaarming because in those fleeting instances, slowed down so I could really feel them, fucking weed, I was lonely on a microcosmic level - where every idea and thought and notion and aspect of my being was amplified into thousands and thousands of cells feeling the same shit. And I wondered if everyone feels this way, of if Leon's experiences were different...like maybe he didn't feel lonely, so much as he felt concerned...and maybe this thing that we feel in those moments when we feel so very much is the primary thing that we are, you know? Like maybe my crazy internal diatribe has been telling me all this time that my story is just this story of infinite loneliness, and though the upper level cells may mock it, the inner level multitudes experience this, every moment of every day. So maybe when stories trickle down from above to this internal infinite space ... that ocean I wrote about not so long back ... they affect the ocean, slowly. And when the change happens, it's a sea change, every particle, every ounce, every being in me changes...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-30360743052610024432013-01-09T13:19:00.003-08:002013-01-09T13:19:51.547-08:00the unknown continent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Inside me is this vast open space<br />
which might be an ocean or a desert,<br />
just something enormous and lonely.<br />
I don't know where to begin.<br />
<br />
I think sometimes you scare me.<br />
I can sense the reservoir of experience,<br />
the happy, the lonely, the sadness.<br />
All that I can never know,<br />
and I don't know where to begin.<br />
<br />
I wish I was everything,<br />
the boat on the ocean and the seaweed within,<br />
the road you take when you come home.<br />
<br />
I wish I could be everything,<br />
the valley through which the river flows<br />
the mango tree, the forgotten dream,<br />
you and me and the spaces between.<br />
<br />
</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-16032698506220064192013-01-08T08:54:00.001-08:002013-01-08T08:54:08.444-08:00my wish for the new year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I want more than anything<br />
to grow and to love,<br />
to be vulnerable and in that strong,<br />
to explore the ancient depths<br />
and be present to<br />
the infinity of the present. </div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-48682753879731605472013-01-02T10:23:00.001-08:002013-01-08T08:59:07.453-08:00awakening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
in the wasteland left behind by<br />
the battle that has raged for<br />
the last week, and month, and year,<br />
and an eternity before,<br />
there is now, along the cracks on<br />
the parched earth, a subtle movement,<br />
even though there is no rain from above,<br />
a resurgence from within,<br />
a stirring deep beneath the cracked<br />
and abused surface, which has seen<br />
so much blood, pain and war.<br />
maybe it was a fleeting notion or only<br />
a passing word.<br />
maybe it was a hope, a dream, a promise<br />
that caressed gently back to awareness<br />
the sleeping demon.<br />
or perhaps it was something violent,<br />
a disaster, a wound too deep to ignore,<br />
and a burning emptiness<br />
that finally touched and woke that<br />
which has slept far too long.<br />
<br />
(this poem is about the very personal and political experience of this new year, and the awakening of many things, both within me and in people i see around me... for me, on a personal level, this has been about womanhood, humanity, compassion and a great need to wake up and contribute.)</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-32745166876704755582012-12-21T03:10:00.002-08:002012-12-21T03:10:18.631-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Today there was a big white wolf<br />
and a camraderie of cold noses.<br />
<br />
He stood tall, fiercely white,<br />
infinitely curious and utterly alert,<br />
in a field of ice rendered blue by the moonlight.<br />
At one point, he pressed his nose to mine<br />
and then sniffed my left cheek<br />
as though testing the substance of me.<br />
Then, once he was sure of me, we ran together.<br />
<br />
He led me through fields of icy blue<br />
across mountains and boulders and<br />
the reckless landscape.<br />
we rolled around on the blue earth<br />
and he rested on my chest with his<br />
nose against my chin.<br />
(And for a moment there was a memory<br />
of a softer, fluffier dog who liked<br />
to lie on my chest and wake me<br />
by pressing his nose to my chin.)<br />
<br />
Through this harsh realm we ran, finally reaching<br />
where many others had gathered.<br />
Maybe we were a kind of tribe, an ancient family<br />
that ran with wolves in blue ice and<br />
sometimes met for a while to<br />
sit around orange flames, sing songs<br />
about sunsets and tell stories about<br />
long forgotten things.<br />
<br />
For a while we were all together, and then,<br />
one by one, they all disappeared,<br />
until all that was left was him and me,<br />
alone, together, in our patch of<br />
the collective unconscious.<br />
</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-52102681360758863422012-12-12T06:04:00.004-08:002012-12-12T06:15:57.573-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Pills, labels, diagnoses... seem to be, to some extent, an effective way of managing something big, difficult, complicated and nuanced. But they also take something that is big, beautiful, complicated, difficult, colourful and full of infinite possibility, stories, art, love and also healing -- something that is full of the self -- and reduce that to monochrome, only comprehensible because the thousands of shades of the thousands of colours are completely missing. Is it possible to be anything other than a "survivor" of mental health care? Why is it so horrendous to accept that sometimes things are so unfriendly and unsafe that the mind reacts with primordial protectiveness to save the self? Why then must we not trust the processes of the body and the mind, and find ways to work with them rather than ways to control them?<br />
<br />
To understand, to dig, to excavate and to really connect with that space from which these needs arise is only difficult because there is a lot to be unlearned before one gets there... and yet, being there is easy, natural. NVC talks about needs as a spiritual energy almost, an energy that is linked with the universal human experience. How is any mental health venture that really takes you away from needs somehow preferable? Why is suppressing things so important? I think this is my fundamental disagreement with pills and diagnoses. It is significantly more disturbing to me than the individual who chooses to ignore their problems because it's easy or socially more acceptable to do so, because diagnosing, you take away the colours, the experiences. In "treatment", as opposed to "healing", you diminish the person to turn them into some odd caricature of themselves. You rob people of their choices, and that is, to me, excessively antithetical to the whole point of existing and living and being.<br />
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akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-68879660334693335312012-12-12T06:04:00.002-08:002012-12-12T06:04:20.976-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I notice in me that when I meet someone new and feel safe, there is a very large part of me that wants to be incredibly friendly and giving of everything that I have and every fragment that I am. I am not very sure where this comes from, this need to share so incredibly, so totally and with infinite trust, and I have too often seen this impulse conclude in something painful, in an over-doing of hings that leads to hurt, to obligation and to a convoluted version of what I hoped for. I think sometimes when I love, I love like this - in this crazy, all-consuming hope that by giving everything I will be transformed into something beautiful, lovable and wonderful - both in my eyes and in the eyes of the other. And of course, it is particularly painful when in a more intimate setting this dissolves into a hideous caricature of itself. But I do not think that trust, sharing and community is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it is a longing for that kind of trust, that kind of transformation, that kind of shared reality and experience. Maybe it is just that in being transformed I am alive in that most fundamental way - aware, hopeful, excited.<br />
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akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-54564839612467537072012-12-09T10:36:00.001-08:002012-12-17T08:24:12.015-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We sat so close to one another that<br />
I could feel your breath on my neck,<br />
your stubble against my ear.<br />
In that moment, I felt safe.<br />
But later, when you sat<br />
with your hand on my heart, and talked about<br />
the next small fraction of the millenium<br />
all that I could see was blackness.<br />
I may really not have heard what you said at all.<br />
And all I feel in this space of non-remembering is<br />
naked, terrified and exposed.<br />
Dreams and hopes have a kind of rawness, and dreaming<br />
can be so singularly unforgiving.<br />
And love --<br />
Well, love is only the golden glue<br />
that holds together the thousand fragmented prayers<br />
and other broken things.</div>
akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-11064785106574987532012-12-08T11:06:00.001-08:002012-12-09T06:26:55.312-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
this is not my story.<br />
<br />
it's not just that<br />
i am bruised and beaten.<br />
<br />
my story does involve<br />
wounds, bruises, losses and terror.<br />
<br />
but in my story there is a large<br />
st. bernard to lie under<br />
when life gets tough<br />
and everything hurts.<br />
<br />
my story involves art and colour,<br />
great love and good sex,<br />
daniel craig's bottom and<br />
harry freaking potter.<br />
<br />
it involves a jeep to drive<br />
my huge dog and me<br />
through craggy mountain passes.<br />
and standing under a thousand<br />
buddhist prayer flags<br />
at the edge of a cliff<br />
where there is nothing but me,<br />
the silence and my dog.<br />
<br />
my story is about<br />
crazy rides in the middle of the night<br />
and songs about existential angst.<br />
and random runaways and lasagna.<br />
and a month of cooking and sharing food.<br />
and yummy chocolate almond desserts<br />
with no thoughts of<br />
carbohydrates, waistlines or cancer.<br />
<br />
my story is about connecting<br />
through my being<br />
and living with those<br />
empty spaces within me,<br />
which because i live with them<br />
will be empty no more.<br />
<br />
my story is about<br />
being happy and without guilt or shame<br />
for wanting and needing.<br />
<br />
this isn't it.<br />
<br />
there is a story i'm writing,<br />
about vulnerability without destruction<br />
and love without shame -<br />
- and this isn't it.<br />
<br />
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akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4188160941894648623.post-62145660755994512042012-12-05T06:42:00.001-08:002012-12-05T06:42:46.710-08:00anticipation <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
inside me is a very very tiny person<br />
running around in very very tiny circles<br />
going "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" like<br />
a baby panda.<br />
<br />
inside me is a tiny scared thing<br />
that wants to lie for a very long time<br />
under a large, soft and cuddly<br />
st. bernard.<br />
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akatsukihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16750654420794732810noreply@blogger.com0