seeing potentialities

"anything seemed possible, likely, feasible, because I wanted everything to be possible… because I had no power to make things happen outside of me in the objective world, I made things happen within. because my environment was bare and bleak, I endowed it with unlimited potentialities, redeemed it for the sake of my own hungry and cloudy yearning." 

richard wright, 'black boy'

[The Feynman Lecture Series on Physics: Mechanisms of Seeing, Page 6 of 12]

don't become who hurt you

"Don't become who hurt you" posted a dear friend just now ...

when i was a teenager i looked around and said 'no matter what, i'm not becoming like them', that decision would prove to be one of the finest i ever made, i'm flawed but at least i'm not like them.

throughout the darkest years of the depression i stripped myself bare of bitterness and focused on the good things that came out of it ('that heart of yours, you know, right?!' ... yes, i do know, i fought very hard for it. courage it means heart.)

this year i made a conscious decision to not let hatred and anger manifest itself, even though those were readily available and i wouldn't be faulted for it. but simply put, i've had enough sadness to last me a lifetime, i don't need any negative emotions in my life. they serve no purpose, and that is not who i want to become.

in general, i try to rise above, the whole tit for tat isn't my scene, and some people mistook/mistake that with being oblivious and assume they can do whatever and i'll stick around forever. but it's not that, i just choose not to speak of certain things because it's too common place. and heaven knows, i'm not common. people blissfully trample others and then act like it was nothing. come in and out and think people are like revolving doors. this girl isn't one. and she's big on closing doors and windows and walking away.

i used to be more forgiving, then i got hardcore trampled over and i became unforgiving. i'm now back into a middle ground, unexpectedly, maybe it was this year, but i surprised myself recently by giving a second chance i rarely have given in my life. but just now, i realized i did it for myself, i did it so that i would be me, because the core me hidden behind the tough bitch in general treats others way better than she is treated (that's why i'm me, and they're them). i did it to rise above myself and the losses and disappointments in the past 6 years which made me so unforgiving. i did it because no matter how others behave, your path is your own.

above all, i did it, because after this year, i've gotten very practical with people (hello insta-block. bye bye!) and because i know i can survive. what i fear is losing more good parts of me at the hands of self-absorbed people. but i'm still here, and some of the better parts of me are still here with me despite everything that happened in my life, so that fear is a bit silly if i'm really honest.

i can either hide them away and be that ice queen some people in my life have become to fear (an ex said that when i was mad, i gave out frost bite that rivaled narnia's white witch), or i can let them outside my fortress and keep in mind i know how to protect myself (and way better than most people) and let myself be the winter goddess somebody saw in me recently ... the difference is in warmth and inner light ... and being true to your core self.

in general, most people don't even realize that they're hurting others. it's an exercise in empathy that eludes most, it's too hard, to put yourself in somebody's shoes. if the other person doesn't say anything, obviously the other person will do the same. and it's not even intentional. there is a cycle that can only be broken by communication and self-awareness. so, don't become who hurt you ... you don't have to say, you don't have to stay, but you do have to be better than those who hurt you ... not for them, but for you!

love & light, ana

on the welcomed sight of friendship

this ... i needed this to stumble into my life today ...i need to buy this book *stat*
this ... because hello *me* and *my* life ...
this ... because hello *this* year ...
this ... because hello *my* friends

"«The welcome book would have taught us that power and signs of status can’t save us, that welcome — both offering and receiving — is our source of safety. Various chapters and verses of this book would remind us that we are wanted and even occasionally delighted in, despite the unfortunate truth that we are greedy-grabby, self-referential, indulgent, overly judgmental, and often hysterical.

Somehow that book “went missing”… We have to write that book ourselves.»

We write that book, Lamott suggests, in large part through our friendships — those delicate yet supremely secure embraces of welcome, woven of what Emerson memorably termed “truth and tenderness.” We nurture these voluntary relationships to heal from the involuntary ones that failed to nurture us when we were coming unto ourselves. Lamott writes:

«The reality is that most of us lived our first decades feeling welcome only when certain conditions applied: we felt safe and embraced only when the parental units were getting along, when we were on our best behavior, doing well in school, not causing problems, and had as few needs as possible. If you needed more from them, best of luck.

[…]

They liked to think their love was unconditional. That’s nice. Sadly, though, the child who showed up at the table for meals was not the child the parents had set out to make. They seemed surprised all over again. They’d already forgotten from breakfast.

The parental units were simply duplicating what they’d learned when they were small. That’s the system.

It wasn’t that you got the occasional feeling that you were an alien or a chore to them. You just knew that attention had to be paid constantly to their moods, their mental health levels, their rising irritation, and the volume of beer consumed. Yes, there were many happy memories marbled in, too, of picnics, pets, beaches. But I will remind you now that inconsistency is how experimenters regularly drive lab rats over the edge.»

And when “the system” does eventually drive us over the edge, we drop — if we’re lucky, if we allow ourselves to fall with grace — into the ungrabby, ungreedy, wholly welcoming arms of those we learn to call friends.

«Trappings and charm wear off… Let people see you. They see your upper arms are beautiful, soft and clean and warm, and then they will see this about their own, some of the time. It’s called having friends, choosing each other, getting found, being fished out of the rubble. It blows you away, how this wonderful event ever happened — me in your life, you in mine.

Two parts fit together. This hadn’t occurred all that often, but now that it does, it’s the wildest experience. It could almost make a believer out of you. Of course, life will randomly go to hell every so often, too. Cold winds arrive and prick you: the rain falls down your neck: darkness comes. But now there are two of you: Holy Moly.»"

please read: Anne Lamott on the Greatest Gift of Friendship and the Uncomfortable Art of Letting Yourself Be Seen

smug resolutions

"And I say to myself: A moon will rise from my darkness." Mahmoud Darwish

[Catherine McNeil for Numéro #137 (October 2012); Photographer:Jean-Baptiste Mondino; Editorial: Girls Meet Boys ... you see that amazing smug look she's sporting?! that's similar to the smug look that's been permanently on my face for awhile now! *game.on!*]

6 years

today it's 6 years since i was discharged from my 6 year long psychotherapy stint.

i was discharged with flying colors.

i was discharged because 'there was nothing i would not be able to face'.

i was discharged because 'it was unlikely i would ever fall in the throes of deep depression as i had effectively mastered all the depression management strategies over the course of therapy'.

i was discharged not because i was 'cured' (there is no cure) but rather because i had learned to survive, then live and ultimately thrive despite the things i would never be able to fix, despite all the wounds that i just protect so that they don't open up and rip me apart again.

i was discharged because my therapist knew that the real test of all the work we had done together over the course of 6 long years i would have to face on my own.

my discharge was planned over the course of 10 months, as my history and diagnosis meant that there were too many variables that could spell a monster relapse or another suicide attempt (more on this later) so it was a slow dance, but only this summer did i fully realize why she cried so hard on our final session (we both did, we became friends and our bond will never be broken).

only this year did i realize how much of my discharge was a hope and a prayer, based on her unflinching belief that i would manage to pull through *no matter what* life threw at me. (she was always big on believing in me, especially when i wasn't!)

only this year did i realize that being discharged was a mere formality, my therapy course effectively continued as the foundations we built together over those 6 years would be and have been stress tested to the very core without her there to help me pick up the pieces (just as it should be).

so it's now been 12 years since i shattered beyond belief. it's been blood, sweat and tears, and here i still am.

in the past 6 years, i've slowly conquered not the ground that was lost (i really don't care for it, to be honest, i walked away from it during therapy) but rather i conquered new ground. and each passing year since i was discharged was a learning curve, and with each year i grew and changed and evolved.

and each year i had the pleasure of telling this amazing soul «i'm still here, i falter sometimes but i'm still here, out of that abyss i stumbled out of.»

and each year things would amp up because that's the flow of life, and that's how you're tested, not with the good but with the bad. and this year i got slammed with the only thing that i had always been afraid i wouldn't be able to deal with.

my first reaction was «i'm going to kill myself» and i found myself on a very dark ledge that sadly i know too well. and then, i stopped, put down the knife and picked up the phone and called a friend ... and i am still here ...

when the dust settled, i gained the courage to tell my therapist what happened. i felt such shame and embarrassment, that i was so letting her down and all the work we did together. and she quietly said «*but* you asked for help!» and that's when i effectively knew that i had passed the ultimate test and i am no longer the same shattered person that appeared before her on a rainy day in early november 12 years ago and apologized for breathing.

so today it's been 6 years since i was discharged from therapy. this year i get the feeling is when my life truly began as i walked away from two very toxic people that left me no choice despite the fact that they are my parental units.

this is a brave new world for me and basically one monster improvisation session and that's fine with me. i don't have to be understood by others, i don't owe anybody any explanations, and this is my life and nobody else's.

but make no mistake, i am grateful for every single second of this journey. i am grateful for it because it allowed me to become who i am today and to be in this moment in time with my amazing friends who are helping incorporate in my life what i started learning with my therapist: trust!

today it's 6 years since i was discharged from therapy ... it's not been easy, nor pretty, sometimes (many) it's been a downright mess, *but* i have not had a relapse of the depression (don't ask me how, i swear the woman really pulled out all the stops with me and i might have really committed all this to heart and soul) ... i've had fractal moments, i've stumbled, i've fell, i've been hit (too often and too hard) and i've remained graceful, hopeful, and, above all, unflinching in my decision to not become bitter, angry and twisted.

yes, i had a moment of absolute darkness this summer (the grand test) and in that darkness i opted for my own light and i know that even though i do it all myself, by showing up every day, i know i wouldn't be here without her because at a time when i had effectively given up on myself and was like 'let's be functional', she said 'no, let's survive, live and thrive' ...

She taught me the meaning of the word trust, she stood by me day and night (i mean, day and night), she had and has still my back to this day and no matter what happens there will be never be enough ways to express how much i adore her!

trust the timing of your life because one day - 12 years later - you will look back and understand that everything played out the way it was supposed to.

today it's 6 years since i was discharged from therapy and i can't believe it ... and i wouldn't be here without my therapist! her name is Lourdes and she remains one of the people i most love in this world!

the furies

things that matter, pass them along. this matters to me like few things do. please check it, back if you can and/or if it's up your alley (the quality, depth and breadth along with the scope of the work is always absolutely mesmerizing!) and please share it. *greatness!*

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/868552088/the-kindly-ones

on discovering all the paths

“But your solitude will be your home and haven even in the midst of very strange conditions, and from there you will discover all your paths.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

[photo by http://www.matthewdonaldson.com/photography]

pre-markers

i'm one month away of 6 years post-discharge of therapy ... maybe it's a cosmic joke, but this year was the freaking hardest of the post-therapy period, but this year i finally made it through ...

what in the back of my head i was always afraid i wouldn't be able to survive happened and somehow i made it through, i stumbled, i fell, i fumble still, but i survived ...

it just hit me that i'm one month away from being discharged from my 6 year long therapy stint and the best part about it is to look back and see how much i keep on growing, changing, evolving ...

i think i would be so embarrassed and saddened if i looked back and saw the exact same person i was that day or a month before that day ... the journey is on ongoing and let's keep on mutating please!

on embracing chaos

"Chaos? Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself. …" Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay

[Coco Rocha by Chris Nicholls | Flare April 2010]

life.progress.

progress ... that is all that matters not the sadness not the grief not the problems ... no anger and no bitterness ... i am so going to nail this!

life.progress.

on the willingness to have the life waiting for us

“We must be willing to get rid of

the life we’ve planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed
before the new one can come.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck.
When we hang onto any form,
we are in danger of putrefaction.

Hell is life drying up.”

Excerpt from A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

[Photo by Donald Miralle although i might be wrong]

the grace of leaving no path untaken

“Face your life

Its pain, its pleasure,

Leave no path untaken.”

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

[photo by Richard Avedon, 1969]

on how absent parents allow for freedom of self ...

I have been thinking a lot lately, about doors that close, and windows and french doors that swing open. about the permanent loss of any and all family roots. what it truly means to be uprooted, family-less, a blood family of more or less one. 

when i think, i am now very matter of fact about the whole thing. the emotions have slowly but surely (in the wake of increasingly crazier behaviors, actions and attitudes that just removed any and all patience and care i once had. the understanding went out the window back in april) have began to dry out. things are what they are. and that has been liberating for me. there is no weight. no sadness. nothing. it is what it is. and i have to do what i have to do. 

so as i grasp a book in my hands, i think what all this means for me, for the future, what i have to do. the roots - mine! - that i have to firmly allow to grow untainted by a parasitic and toxic set of beings that seemingly drained all life in their path. 

... you have to always see the good in the bad ... i am starting to feel very grateful about having had more often than not to be my own set of parents from a very early age. as i find myself utterly rootless when it comes to family ... i am finally at the point where i see what a gift this is. i get to plant roots in better soils, more filed with love and light (!), with the family i have chosen and that indeed chose me. i get to have a life not tainted by somebody else's actions and bitterness. even if i might have to pay the price for some of their actions, they won't be a daily part of it. and that is a massive achievement.

so, here i am, slowly, i finally have initiated the process where i am actively removing the nasty weed like suffocating roots that have nothing to do with my plant dna and that have tried so hard to suffocate it from my.self.

you see, this is where bliss begins because i am now able to just be me ... and i have realized that i have ceased to yearn for answers from them as i really don't care for a word they have to say anymore. i don't feel anything anymore. i don't miss them at all. when it comes to them, i have slowly but surely become a flat line. the only difference is that i wish them no harm, and i know for a fact that if they could destroy me, they would do so in a heartbeat. heaven knows they have tried to do so. sorry. thou shall not have any more dominion. i'm in a different place now and for the first time ever, i feel in constant expansion. and this is where my real and lasting peace of mind truly began ...

"But my father’s gift of absence—I’ve come to realize that that was even more precious. Because I have children of my own, I have theories and beliefs about raising children, and one of them is that a man (...) would have had a role for me to play (maybe handmaiden, maybe something else) and a standard for me to live up to. He would have seen me as a reflection of himself, and as his self became more desperate and disorganized, his demands on me would have intensified—the world is full of men who, once they have lost power over their colleagues or their lives, redouble their power over their families. He would have made sure that I knew that I was female, and that females have limited capacities and defined roles. He would have disdained my failure to grasp, say, algebra, and my devotion to the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew. Unlike my grandparents, he would not have been wise enough to leave me alone, and unlike my mother he would have been idle and looking for a project.

(...)

I enjoyed this story, but even so, I don’t feel that I missed anything. I know from my own experience as a parent that sometimes it takes disappointment and heartbreak, as well as a little distance, to disabuse you of your cherished notions of who you are, who your child is, and how you might “mold” him or her. When my father knew me, he seems to have been both confused and very sure of himself, a fearsome combination.

The Tom Sawyers made chaos and distracted my mother, stepfather, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. This gave me the private space of being a comparatively good girl, where I thought my own thoughts and came up with my own ideas. A girl who is overlooked has a good chance of not learning what it is she is supposed to do. A girl who is free can grow up free of preconceptions. Sometimes, from the outside, my work and my life look daring, but I am not a daring person. I am just a person who was never taught what not to try."

please read: My Absent Father

on happiness, chances and personal decisions

“And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don’t take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.”

Richard Russo, Empire Falls 

this was essentially my realization this summer … so i finally walked away!

(image found on tumblr. sadly no source was listed. http://thoughtviolenty.tumblr.com/post/98539201539/life)

on night and becoming the moon

“sometimes the night wakes in the 

middle of me.

and

i can do nothing. 

but 

become

the 

moon.”

nayyirah waheed

on creation and destruction

unique and beautiful

please watch: Circle of Abstract Ritual by Jeff Frost

stills from the stop motion video

stills from Colossal's feature on this work of art: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/09/circle-of-abstract-jeff-frost/

on floods and worth

"And in the middle of the flood I felt my worth"

[Snow Patrol "The Lightning Strike"]

[Daphne Guinness & Iris Van Herpen: ‘Crystallization’ dress]

revert to type

Daphne Guinness on finding herself 

(taken from the book 'Daphne Guinness' by Valerie Steel, ed: Yale)

on finding meaning

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but “steal” some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”

— Albert Camus, from Notebooks, 1951-1959

this.finding meaning.opt-in.privacy.solitude.not antisocial.not rejecting the world.careful about energy and others standing on different sides of the river.needing to breathe.needing to just be.my.self.choosing that.c'est la vie.

Daphne Guinness for the NARS Bento Box 2010 campaign

(photo found on http://www.beautystat.com/)

on the poetry of change

"The moment of change is the only poem."

Adrienne Rich

[Daphne Guinness for Tatler Hong Kong]

on the finiteness of loss

"Nothing is infinite, not even loss.

You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day

you are going to find yourself again."

F. Butler

[Daphne Guinness for Tatler Hong Kong]

noble melancholy

"A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that." Melville (Moby-Dick)

all copyright Tess (http://tessbytess.tumblr.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/withoutmyface?fref=photo)

on surviving suicide on world suicide prevention day

world suicide prevention day ... depression takes on many forms ... just because our lives seem *perfect* that doesn't mean they are ... sometimes we fall hard and then have to return to a life that is still hostile to us and deal with depression and suicide recovery ... the difficult choice to come back to life takes years to process ... as a suicide survivor, i can only say this is an ongoing process for the rest of my life

please watch Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors

on location

“You had this expression on your face, like you weren’t quite sure you were supposed to be on Earth.” Iain S. Thomas 

yes.yes.yes. ... attempting to figure this out ... were i'm supposed to be ...

[Marilyn Monroe photographed by George Barris, 1962]

the art of being in the moment

"To be in the moment is the best thing you can possibly do.” Daphne Guinness 

working oh so very hard to do this as naturally as breathing ... not an easy task for me. 

to overcome depression you must journey to the past. to survive it you must not get bogged down in its mud. 

the future then becomes something you're not sure how to face. more often than not, it becomes a phantom limb of sorts with a view window where your worst case scenarios are readily played out.

and thus the present is never really lived. it's neverwhere (ha!) in the truest sense. you're never really anywhere. 

awhile ago i decided to start something. the first cycle of that journey is about to reach its completion. hasn't been perfect but it isn't a failure either.

there's always a rhyme and a reason ... when you feel the need to go back to primordial sources that have always helped you figure out selfhood and identity ... just go ... it will all make sense sooner rather than later.

i'm working to learn to be in the moment and it has been the best thing i could possibly do for myself indeed ...

[photo: Daphne Guinness obviously]

the only way

“There was only one way I could avoid a state of despair and a breakdown. To be silent. And to reach behind the silence for clarity or at least try to collect the resources that might still be available to me.”

— Persona (1966) dir. by Ingmar Bergman

[Samantha Gradoville By Txema Yeste For Stylist Magazine France | May 2013]

the art of surviving a mental illness

"Now looking back on the wreckage and despair of those years, it seems to me now as if someone died in that place, and yet, someone else was saved. A broken and haunted person began that journey, but the person who emerged was a survivor and would ultimately grow into the person I was destined to be.

Many people have harmed me in my life, and I remember them all, but the memories grow pale and faint in comparison with the people who've helped me. The fellow survivors, the fellow voice-hearers, the comrades and collaborators; [...] the doctor who only worked with me for a brief time but who reinforced his belief that recovery was not only possible but inevitable, and during a devastating period of relapse told my terrified family, "Don't give up hope. I believe that Eleanor can get through this. Sometimes, you know, it snows as late as May, but summer always comes eventually."

Fourteen minutes is not enough time to fully credit those good and generous people who fought with me and for me and who waited to welcome me back from that agonized, lonely place. But together, they forged a blend of courage, creativity, integrity, and an unshakeable belief that my shattered self could become healed and whole. I used to say that these people saved me, but what I now know is they did something even more important in that they empowered me to save myself..."

what she said ... how i feel about some aspects of my long journey through the abyss of profound depression

please watch The Voices in my Head

Fire

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” Charles Bukowski

[light up
light up
as if you have a choice!]

[Daphne Guinness. Dress by Alexander McQueen.]

source: http://www.ultravie.co.uk/blog/2012/06/26/christies-auction-the-daphne-guinness-collection/daphne_lot-41_copyright-mat_collishaw/

Atlantis

our lady Atlantis

perfect launch grab on Aug 2nd, 1991 - STS-43

mission data here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-43.html

Discovery

our lady Discovery

SS020-E-035426 (30 Aug. 2009 - STS-128)

see source photo with mission data: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/14826290074/

Endeavour

our lady Endeavour

ISS022-E-062674 (9 Feb. 2010 - STS-130)

view source photo with mission data: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/9411186870/

gone baby gone

"Souls"

Messages from where I used to grow

Twenty thousand frames of mind

This is my soul

Relentless where I'm most alone

Twenty thousand faceless names

This is your show

And I feel 

I am a wandering 

A fleeting transient

Soul

All I feel is I am holding on

But only for a moment then it's gone

Covenant we will always grow

Our skin will fade transcend beyond 

All we've been told

I feel I am the wandering

A fleeting transient

Soul

All I feel is I am holding on

But only for a moment then it's gone

And all I feel is I am holding on

But only for a moment then it's gone

Heal me

I'm healed when you see me

You see me when you feel me

Souls

All I feel is I am holding on

But only for a moment then it's gone

And all I feel is I am holding on

But only for a moment then it's gone

It's gone

It's gone

It's gone

It's gone

It's gone

"Hearing the Cries of the World"

 - this is a must read, i've copied the article because it's so worth the read, all copyright Parabola Magazine and Mark Nepo -

"Hearing the Cries of the World"

Perhaps the most important reason for "lamenting" is that it helps us to realize our oneness with all things, to know that all things are our relatives
–Black Elk

A saint (is one) who does not know how it is possible not to love, not to help, not to be sensitive to the anxiety of others.
–Abraham Heschel
THIS STORY IS SO OLD we don’t know who told it or who it’s about, except that it speaks to all of us. We no longer know if it was a “he” or “she” at the center of the story. No doubt the story has grown for every telling. But for this telling, let’s call our central character Kwun and let her be a heroine.

One day Kwun crossed a valley and stumbled on a bloody scene. An entire village was laid to waste, the people torn apart. Walking among the bodies, her heart was breaking open, enlarging for coming upon the suffering. She was drawn, almost compelled to look inside their bodies and at the same time repulsed by the violence that had opened them. There was an eerie silence steaming along the ground. It looked like the fierce work of a warring clan. Suddenly, Kwun heard a terrible cry from the middle of the scene. She had to pull a dead man aside to find a woman barely breathing, clinging to her little boy who was bleeding from the head. Kwun fell to her knees and without thinking embraced them both, their blood coating her.

As the wind can lift the snow off a branch, the cries altogether can somehow lift the sadness off a broken heart.

The cry of the dying mother was as much from her own pain as from her powerlessness to help her son. When she saw Kwun, her cries grew worse. It was clear she was asking Kwun to take her boy. At first, Kwun shook her head, unprepared for any of this. The dying mother clutched Kwun’s hand and fell away. The boy was unconscious, still bleeding from the head. Wherever Kwun was going before stumbling into the valley, that life, that plan, that dream was gone. It was too late to close her heart and walk away.

She lifted the little, bloody boy and, though he was unconscious, Kwun covered his eyes as she walked over the rest of the bodies, leaving the village. Carrying the boy, she began to cry, feeling for the mother who had watched her man die and her son be bloodied, and feeling for the boy who, if he woke at all, would be all alone. She began to moan as she walked, keeping the cry of the mother alive.

By the end of the day, Kwun managed to climb out of the valley and, exhausted from the tasks of surviving, fell asleep at the mouth of a cave. When Kwun woke, the bloodied little boy had died in her arms. She didn't know what to do, though there was nothing to do. She held him for a long time, then opened his little eyes, wanting to see what was left within him. And looking there, she began to feel the cries of the world, long•gone and long•coming. It overwhelmed her as she felt a pain that almost stopped her breathing. But she kept rocking the little one, certain the world would end if she put him down. Without her knowing, she began to hold the broken that would ?ll eternity, long before they would suffer: the stillborn, the betrayed, the sickly, the murdered, the thousands left to mourn. Letting them move through her began to open her heart like a lotus flower. And the cries of the world, though she couldn't name a one, made her stronger. At last, she fell asleep again. While she slept, Kwun became a source of healing. When she woke, she spent her days touching the wounded, holding the dying, and keeping the cries of the world alive. The cries became a song she didn't understand, other than to know that, as the wind can lift the snow off a branch, the cries altogether can somehow lift the sadness off a broken heart.

Wherever We Go

KWUN may be an ancestor of the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, also known as Kuan-yin, whose name means hearing the cries of the world. We’ll never know, but like rivers joining in the sea, stories coalesce and merge over time into the one story that remains, the one we each wake to, surprised it is ours.

Wherever we go, wherever we wake, we are challenged like Kwun to hear the cries of the world very personally. The cries are unending and overwhelming, and our noble charge to hear them—to hold them and keep them alive—is how we keep the life-force we need lit between us. As Black Elk says at the beginning of this chapter, the reason to lament is that it helps us to realize our oneness with all things, and to know that all things are our relatives.

This has never been easy; for grief is so challenging that it often blinds us to its importance. As the Sufi poet Ghalib says, “Held back, unvoiced, grief bruises the heart.” Try as we will, we can’t eliminate or solve these cries, for they are the song of existence. When we try to mute or minimize the voices of suffering, we are removed from the life-force that keeps us connected. If we get lost in the cries, we can drown in them. So what are we do with them? What is a healthy way to relate to them?

I've found that whatever I go through opens me to what others have gone through. This is the gut and sinew of compassion. Our own ounce of suffering is the thread we pull to feel the entire fabric. Having pinched a nerve in my back, I can feel the steps of the elderly woman who takes twenty minutes to shuffle from the bread aisle to get her milk. Having lost dear ones to death, I can feel the weight of grief that won’t let the widower’s head lift his gaze from the center of the Earth where his sadness tells him his wife has gone. Having tumbled roughly through cancer, I can feel fear arcing between the agitated souls who can’t stand the wait The fully engaged heart is the antibody for the infection of violence. in the waiting room. I've begun to meet the cries of the world by unfurling before them like a flag.

I was in college, sitting with my grandmother in her Brooklyn apartment, when she fell into another time and left the room. She’d left an old photo on the table. It was of a young family posing in a studio in 1933. The parents seemed to have the whole world ahead of them. When she returned, I asked. It was her sister and brother-in-law and their small son. They lived in Bucharest. There was a long pause and an even longer sigh, “We saved and sent them steamship tickets to come.” She dropped her huge hands on her lap, “They sent them back, and said Romania was their home.” They died in Buchenwald.

It was pulling that thread that opened my heart to the cries of the Holocaust and from there, to the genocides of our time. Those cries plagued me, wouldn't let me sleep. In time, I realized I was opening myself to the enormous suffering of history for no other reason than to feel the complete truth of who we are as humans. This is impossible to comprehend, but essential to let it move through us, the way the cries of the world moved through Kwun so many centuries ago.

Each of us must make our peace with suffering and especially unnecessary suffering, which doesn't mean our resignation to a violent world. For the fully engaged heart is the antibody for the infection of violence. As our heart breaks with compassion, it strengthens itself and all of humanity. Can I prove this? No. Am I certain of it? Yes. We are still here. Immediately, someone says, “Barely.” But we are still here: more alive than dead, more vulnerable than callous, more kind than cruel— though we each carry the lot of it.

That we go numb along the way is to be expected. Even the bravest among us, who give their lives to care for others, go numb with fatigue, when the heart can take in no more, when we need time to digest all we meet. Overloaded and overwhelmed, we start to pull back from the world, so we can internalize what the world keeps giving us. Perhaps the noblest private act is the unheralded effort to return: to open our hearts once they've closed, to open our souls once they've shied away, to soften our minds once they've been hardened by the storms of our day.

Always, on the inside of our hardness and shyness and numbness is the face of compassion through which we can reclaim our humanity. Our compassion waits there to revive us. When opened, our heart can touch the Oneness of things we are all a part of. Then, we can stand firmly in our being like a windmill of spirit: letting the cries of the world turn us over and over, until our turning generates a power and energy that can be of use in the world.

Running from the Cries

SOMETIMES, BEING ALIVE is so hard that we think it would be better to avoid all the suffering. But we can’t, anymore than mountains can avoid erosion. And there is a danger in running from the cries of the world. In extreme cases, our refusal to stay vulnerable can twist into its opposite in which we strangely get pleasure from the suffering of others. The German word Schadenfreude means just this. Such perverse pleasure derives from the utmost denial of being human; the way running from what we fear only makes us more violently afraid. Severely renounced, the need to feel doesn’t go away, but distorts itself. In the same vein, the term “Roman Holiday” refers to the grisly spectacle of gladiators battling to the death for the pleasure of the Roman crowd.4 This danger is insidious in today’s rush of incessant news coverage twenty•four hours a day. We can be brought into heartbreaking kinship in a second, as with the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City or the horri?c massacre of twenty schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut. And like Kwun in the ancient tale, we can be compelled to look at the raw insides of tragedy to glimpse how tenuous our time is on Earth, while being repulsed by the violence that opens such a stark revelation. But if not careful, the endless replaying of tragedy from countless angles can push us over the line till we fall prey to that perverse pleasure of the Roman crowd.

To view tragedy beyond our feeling of it adds to the tragedy and turns us into dark voyeurs. Yet just as Kwun’s rocking of the lifeless, little boy enabled her to hear and feel the suffering of those yet to come, keeping our heart

Hearing the cries of the world causes us to grow,

the way every power opens for receiving the rain. open to one torn life can enable us to hear and feel the cries of all who suffer.

Which side of reality we dwell in determines whether we are offspring of Kwun and Kuanyin, descendants of those who keep the cries of the world alive, or offspring of the warring clan, descendants of those who gut whatever is in the way, who cheer the bloody spectacle. These twin•aspects of life are closer to each other than we think. The seeds of both live in each of us. It is our devotion to staying vulnerable that keeps us caring and human.

True connection requires that a part of us dissolves in order to join with what we meet. This is always both painful and a revelation, as who we are is rearranged slightly, so that aliveness beyond us can enter and complete us. Each time we suffer, each of us is broken just a little, and each time we love and are loved, each of us is beautifully dissolved, a piece at a time. We break so we can take in aliveness and we dissolve so we can be taken in. This breaking and dissolving in order to be joined is the biology of compassion. The way that muscles tear and mend each time we exercise to build our strength, the heart suffers and loves. Inevitably, the tears of heartbreak water the heart they come from, and we grow.

Our fear of such breaking and dissolving keeps us from reaching out, from stopping to help those we see in pain along the way, telling ourselves it’s none of our business. But no one can sidestep being touched by life and, sooner or later, the fingers of the Universe poke us and handle us and rearrange us. Running from the cries of the world makes the Universal touch harsh. Leaning into the sea of human lament makes the Universal touch a teacher. Hearing the cries of the world causes us to grow, the way every power opens for receiving the rain.

What Are We to Do?

THE LIFE OF Kwun and Kuanyin calls, their simple caring in our DNA, though it’s never easy to cross into a life of compassion. Since the beginning, we have all complained, when weary or afraid of the power of feeling, that we have a right to happiness. Can’t we ever look away? Must we always feel guilty for those who've suffered beyond our control? But guilt is the near enemy of true kindness. It won’t let us look away or let us give our heart to those who suffer because our lives will change if we do.

No matter how we fight it, life always has other plans and we are faced, when we least expect it, with the quandary of living softly in a beautiful and harsh world. Under all our goals and schemes is the sudden need to help each other swim in the mixed sea of joy and sorrow that is our human fate.

The truth is: my suffering doesn’t have to be out of view for you to be happy, and you don’t have to quiet your grief for me to be peaceful. Allowing our suffering and happiness to touch each other opens a depth of compassion that helps us complete each other.

There are always things to be done in the face of suffering. We can share bread and water and shelter in the storm. But when we arrive at what suffering does to us, there is only compassion—the genuine, tender ways we can be with those who suffer.

Some days, I can barely stand the storms of feeling and fear civilization will end, if we can’t honor each other’s pain. But in spite of my own complaints and resistance, I know in my bones that openness of heart makes the mystery visible. Openness to the suffering we come across makes our common heart visible. If we are to access the resources of life, we must listen with our common heart to the cries of the world. We must forego our obsession with avoiding pain and start sensing the one cry of life that allows us to flow to each other.

ENDNOTES

1. Joseph Epes Brown, recorder and editor, THE SACRED PIPE, BLACK ELK’S ACCOUNT OF THE SEVEN RITES OF THE OGLALA SIOUX, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953), 46. Black Elk was a Native American sage of the Oglala Sioux.

2. Abraham Joshua Heschel, THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S: THE INNER WORLD OF THE JEW IN EASTERN EUROPE (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001), 20.

3. Mirza Ghalib, translated by Jane Hirsh?eld in THE ENLIGHTENED HEART Stephen Mitchell, ed. (New York: Harper, 1989), 105.

4. The barbaric gladiator combats were extensively showcased in the Roman Coliseum, peaking in popularity between the ?rst century BC and the second century AD. The Coliseum was built just east of the Roman Forum. Construction started in 72 AD under emperor Vespasian and completed in 80 AD under emperor Titus. Seating ?fty thousand spectators, the amphitheater was also used for public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, and executions.

Excerpted from Mark Nepo’s book in progress, from our summer 2013 issue (which happened to be our 150th issue of Parabola Magazine).

Photography Credit: Fernando Lemos

source: http://www.parabola.org/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry&id=47&Itemid=268

collapse.crumble.be.xibalba.and.bring.forth.your.own.[re]birth!

“For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a nebula must collapse. 

So collapse. 

Crumble.

This is not your destruction. 

This is your birth.”

[i always find my way back to Xibalba ... one way or another ... it.is.home!]

(photo source: https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/indpndt/10552855095/)

redemption

in all this pain ... i.am.reedemed!

on daring

“One must dare to be happy.” Gertrude Stein

[Lindsey Wixson during the fittings for the Chanel 2012 fall/winter collection]