Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.
And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.
I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like you feel you're trapped in some kind of darkness and are trying to find your way into some kind of light. Care to talk about it? We're here to help, buddy...
Cory
If you can't change the way you look at things, the things you look at will never change.
it’s NICE in the quiet house with the cats. Things could be worse. I miss my wife terribly. She knows where I’m at. Sort of. Look. We think we get someplace, learn over time. Is total solitude the only road that, all suffering aside, can allow us to live with ourselves? Huh? I never know what I’m saying any more. What did you just SAY, I ask..whatever it is, I don’t believe it. Whatever it is, it smacks of falsehood. What would the truth look like? A true sentence? It would be the last sentence you would ever read. That sentence would strike you dead. If a sentence so much as suggests the truth, it will cause lasting harm. So there are no true books, no true declarations. We try to make the lies ever so slightly less egregious. That is what we call art. My cat had a bad dream this evening..he started crying and moaning in his sleep. I’d never seen an animal behave in that way. What is a bad dream for a cat? What did he dream?
>>Is total solitude the only road that, all suffering aside, can allow us to live with ourselves?<<
In my case, the answer was "yes, for a time."
Marriage and choices led me to twist myself into someone I didn't recognize. Time alone to heal and to rediscover my own true nature was necessary for me. I had to put aside all the "why" and "how could you DO that" questions in order to move on. In my case it was impossible to do that without separating.
In all of life, not just in marriage, it's true for me that what others do is in the end often inexplicable and incomprehensible to me. All I can do is accept people's choices and figure out what I'm going to do.
I have chosen not to allow others' bad choices to make my life bad too. Long ago a poster on another site advised us to become "compassionate onlookers". I took his words to mean that I should watch others' lives unfold, listen when they need a friend, help without interfering, and not make their struggles my own. I want the same from others for me.
Now, my alone time is over. It was something I had to go through by myself, and perhaps you are the same.
Good luck. I came out of my journey healthy, happy, and able to love again. Perhaps you will find a way to do the same, but I will tell you it can be a long road. Many people here can help guide you if you ask.
Hmmmmmmmmm....a profoundly depressing set of words. I think the alone time is the critical component of healing. Those who choose to "jump in" without the alone time don't get the opportunity to know themselves. The time is long and the struggle intensely painful....but necessary. Getting to the other side...I think of a screen that I need to work through....getting through to the other side...that is the challenge....that is the work. Who knows what is on the other side. I certainly don't. I question why I have to do this? What had I not learned about myself that I need to learn now? This experience has got to make me a more insightful, compassionate person. I thought I was already there...as a 56 year old woman, but obviously not.
I don't necessarly believe in the notion that things happen for a reason...but I have got to believe that I will be a better person having experienced this.....I have to be. All of the time and energy I have put into trying to figure out where I need to be and what I need to be doing has got to be beneficial for me. I am simply waiting for the day that I finally "get it"....that I can look back and KNOW that I am a better person for having experienced this. I don't care if it comes as a result of my saving a dying baby bird..... I just want it to make sense and the only way it will make sense if for me to go through it....alone.
