CHAPTER FIVE  - inspiration taken from  'women who run with the wolves' by Clarrisa Estes.

WEEK FIVE. conversation by clair and Marcelo


(this chapters words will be written in english and spanish)

"..don't be a fool.  go back and stand under that one red flower and walk straight ahead for that last hard mile.   go up and knock on the old weathered door.  climb up to the cave.  crawl through the window of a dream.  sift the dessert and see what you find.  it is the only work we have to do." Clarissa pinkola estes



"... no seas tonto. regresar y permanecer bajo esa flor roja y caminar en línea recta a la última milla duro. subir y llamar a la vieja puerta degradado. subir hasta la cueva. arrastrarse a través de la ventana de un sueño. tamizar el postre y ver qué encuentras. que es el único trabajo que tenemos que hacer."
Clarissa pinkola estes

~ ~ ~

mmm.... yes there is a lot of sand to sift.  everyone is one particle of sand.  there are as many particles of sand as there are people in the world.  and as many other animals as there are particles of sea. 

clair

mmm .... sí, hay un montón de arena para tamizar. todo el mundo es una partícula de arena. hay tantas partículas de arena, ya que hay personas en el mundo. y como muchos otros animales, ya que hay partículas de mar. 

clair

CHAPTER FIVE  - inspiration taken from  'women who run with the wolves' by clarrisa estes.

WEEK FOUR. conversation by clair and Patricio

"..What can be seen  in the dark can not necessarily be seen in daylight. " Clarissa pinkola estes

~ ~ ~

where is my mind now?  it has been months, nearly a year since i have written on these pages.  lots has changed, different trees blow in different climates. 

i found some kind of love. he was a very special flower.  but in times of turbulant winds.  inside him. inside his life.  he blew half my petals off. while, like a magician, stoking the other half.  but with only half my petals, and no sign of them being able to grow back soon, i had had had to leave my love.  and so now i grow back my petals in yet another land. 

how attracted to dark and how attracted i am to light would be hard to say.  i have these little demons in me who love some dark lushous deep to swim about in.  its my imagination.  my imagination loves creativity.  but what it likes to get its little mits on brings me very close to someone elses locura - madness. and then i am in danger, again, of having my petals stripped down and falling down they will!

clair

There is no creation without darkness, Clair, and love born of the encounter of light and shadow. Our petals are falling because they have to be renewed cyclically. Light and shadow, life and death, the beginning and end without end ...
From the darkness, from the madness, yes, Clair, you're the night, but you glow, naked, stripped of your petals.
Patricio

mmm....reminds me of a story ive just read within the book that this poetry line is taken.  the story is called 'skeleton women'.  its about the 'death-life-death' paradigm...

...that we are stilted from allowing the natrual death of something for the fear and distrust  (and conditioning) that life can and surely will not grow out of deaths space. we are conditioned to believe in' life-death'.  and not 'life-death-life'.

the paradyme the author is suggesting is this more nurturing is life-death-life one.  when i think about it i am thinking about all the little deaths (rather than the absolute) - a job coming to an end. a film finishing... or a relationship.  

anyway, in the story, the old skeleton of a women pushed into the sea years before, is hicked up by a lonely nighttime fisherman.  when the fisherman felt the wieght on the end of his rod he knew his luck was in.  but when he hauld in his catch, what was on the end, was her skeleton remains.  and he got so scared that he rowed as fast as he could all the way back to the shore, but she remained attached the whole time bobbing along after him and when he got to the shore she was still attached to his rod and she followed him though the night and so scared he was that he ran staight on home and settled himself by the comfort of the fire.  and as he opened his eyes he saw skeleton women in a differnt light gracefully stretched on his floor, and he gently covered her up with an animal skin and dressed her cold fishy hands in mittens. and cared for her like this until she came alive.  an there it was.  our example of life-death-life.  i liked that story and will read it to my parents when they come to visit me.  mum will find it hard but then she will get used to it. ;)
clair

Beautiful story, Clair, your parents will love.
But this story is also mine: as you know, my wife died only 16 months ago, after suffering for years from a painful illness. Days before the fatal outcome, when I knew that his end was near, I noticed that part of me was running out with her, no return ... However, when I threw the ashes into the sea, the feeling was very different: suddenly felt like I had released an animal that had long been caged. I saw her spread in the blue sea, above the foam, imperishable, like our love ...
Patricio

yes patricio, amasing..how our emotions accommodate our life, give it shelter, run along with us,  making  life colourful, keeping it alive, bringing in its little rucksack - that lovely stuff called meaning, and if healthy and unstunted and free, our emotions will adapt....change....evolve....and provide a  new structure to live our life again....................and again.............................................and again..................................................and if necessary..........................................................................................................................................again.

i love, with an open and welcoming heart, that deep renched grieving....perging....streaming, it is most most most welcome in my red hearts' house.   it is the only vehicle that can move us, with any efficiancy - when we have suffered a deep loss,  over time, to a new space and one capable of growing new fruit, on newly planted trees and those trees, being sustaining for the winter, spring, summer and autumns of life.

they are almost very cool.
clair

I agree with you, Clair. After the death of my wife, I put my bike in the car and backpack and made a long journey of atonement. One day I climbed to the top of a mountain, on my bike, loaded with my backpack. I lived for three days in a cabin, which had been a refuge for goats. I never saw such beautiful sunrises and sunsets, as purifiers ... When I went down to continue my journey, my backpack was lighter.

In this beautiful way of life is learning, also learned the pain, of course .... because life is pain ... and a disease ... And if there is no pain, how will we know where the disease occurs we be alive? ... If you do not locate the disease, we can not overcome ... there will be no greening.

Patricio

 mmm..there are some interesting sentiments here - possibly helped my english not being your first language...
"there will be no greening".  i think it sais it all.  where is your coat of fresh new leaves for it is spring?  where is your offer to the land, as it is autumn, of all that has tickled your fancy during the summer?  where is your changing of colour? where is your nakedness when winter draws near.

these are the questions by feeling body is asking (and beginning to feel like shouting : to the people, to my lover, to the suitor, to my brother, when,  forthcoming never seems to comes forth ......
clair

c

CHAPTER FIVE  - inspiration taken from  'women who run with the wolves' by clarrisa estes.

WEEK THREE. conversation by clair and J.C

"..this story represents the indestructable aspect of the wild self, the instinctual nature...dedicated to freedom and the unspoiled, that which will never accept the rigors and the requirments of a dead ot overly civilizing culture. " Clarissa pinkola estes

~ ~ ~

my life lives closely in line with the rights and freedoms of other animals.  my diet is vegan and thus is animal- free(dom).

i am aware that i am also an animal.  and, if you are reading this,  you are too.  we are not penned up like animals in the bleak factory farms, but in some way, society is penning me up and pinning me down.

where is my land?  i remember once doing a calculation with a friend of mine to work out how much land each one of us would have (discounting  desserts) if it was divided up equally and it came to about 3 and a half acres.

thats what i need.  i need it to build my home.  i want to spend my time building it.  the rents and the mortgages are too high for freedom.  and life is too short - and capable of such beauty - to stiffle it and cut it off at the edges which are supposed to grow wild roses and geraniums ....

clair

I only need a square meter. A square meter of intimacy; a square meter of respect;  a square meter of dignity. It’s not much, and yet, we hardly ever have it, and we almost always deny it to those we capture, to those we breed, and to those we keep.

If you see a lion in a safari park, in a big enclosure with hundreds of trees and plants, you will find him, sooner or later, pacing by the fence that separates his golden cage from the real world. If you see a chimp in a “habitat” with thousands of bars, swings, ropes and huts, you will find him, sooner or later, sitting by the locked door pulling his hair out of desperation. If you see a tropical fish in an relaxing aquarium with millions of rocks, shells and caves, you will find her, sooner or later, by the glass, hoping for help from her own reflection.

We are all animals and we all need freedom, but a house will not give it to us. A cave will not give it to us. A pool will not give it to us. A field will not give it to us. But a key will. A key to our own dignity, forged from the respect and intimacy we all ask for but never give to others.

J.C.

im guessing if you add up all you square meters of needs -  respect and intimacy and all,  they would come  to a decent sized home....;)  hee hee.  .but what youre saying....and i agree, is that you dont only need a suitable home, you need the other stuff... the invisable stuff, which places us in love and lessenes us to fear.  

and thats what im talking about....

i want to live the dream! (my dream of course).  i dreamt last night of snap shots of love.  It was Nice like Mice. .)

clair

 The invisible stuff should not be invisible. The fact that we all need intimacy, and its cusin privacy, should be written in our foreheads, in our bills, in our horns. The fact we all need respect, and its cusin tolerance, should be written in our faces, in our snouts, in our feathers. The fact we all need dignity, and its cusin  integrity, should be written in our chests, in our flippers, in our shells.

It is not written there, because these invisible imperatives are intrinsic in all wildlife, and have evolved in all directions untill they become the common sense of Nature. Untill we came along and decided to forget them, to ignore them, to block them from our minds. But the common sense of Nature is a melody that is still being played...if  only we listened more.

J.C.

How closely do your own needs get met in the life you wear?
Clair

I wear several lives, according to my mood, but specially according to
whom I am relating to. Hence, I meet all the needs I have if I choose
the right life. It is up to me, really, and up to my skill in life
wearing, which is something that, as in any craft, you get better at it
with age.

We often assume we have control of things we do not -such as our
behaviour, often directed by instincts rather than conscience - and
that we do not have it for things we actually do -such as the kind of
life we want to wear. Some lives may be reluctant to be worn by you,
and you may need to persuade them or, if no progress is made, to tame
them. Others may be too heavy for you, or may not feel they are there.
In the end, though, it is up to us to change them, if we feel they do
not suit us.

J.C.

you do not feel that we have control over our own behaviour? but you do belive that we can change other peoples behaviour.... if i understand you correctly? ....i feel it is easier to change myself than to change another.....obviously there are limits in self change too....

i believe my behaviour does or can effect and change anothers behaviour, a certain degree, but not as significantly as is always needed, for the relationship to live in enough harmony....i find....

clair

We do have control of our behaviour, but less than we think. I believe the we are more instinctive that we are credited for, and non- human animals are less instinctive -and therefore more "cultural" - that we give them credit for.  Nobody is only nurture or only nature. We are all a mix of both, but over the years we have overplayed our nurture and underestimated our nature. Bizarrely, we tend to judge others, especially those others we do not even feel they deserve rights, the other way around.

We can indeed change other people's behaviour -and I would say in many cases we must- but we may be more successfull appealing to their instincts rather than to their learned routines.

I believe in natural morals, those that are modelled from the natural melodies of Nature's Common Sense, which operate in us more from our instincts than from anything our elders have taught us. For instance, empathy. We are all born with empathy, from which compassion can be woven, from which political rights can be built. We can of course erase such good instincts with misguided doctrines and destructive desensibilization. We do that all the time, such as when we take a living pig and transform it into a pack of pork rolls. But if we awake the masked instinct of empathy to those that are not us, the forgotten instinct of respect to those that look different, and the hidden instinct of compassion for those that need help, we awake the best of us, which was imbedded millions of years ago in our genes, and not molded by a few teachers or priests who naively thought they had figured out what this world is all about.
J.C   

our compassion and empathy abilities are weakened when we cannot see someone/something elses fear and something elses pain.  

the distance between me and the children and adults across the world dying because they have no safe water to drink allows me to forget about that and get on and enjoy my chocolate cake, even if it is vegan.  the distance between the isolation/pain and fear in the eyes of the animals at the factory farms or the slaughter houses allows pepole to pick up their dead bodies of super market shelves and enjoy frying them up and ingesting them later that day or week.

society is a greedy bastard. and very good persuasive one at that.

where do you find your source of nature?
clair

Nature is everywhere. Sometimes buried under a thick pile of artifice. Sometimes covered by a thin layer of human produce. Sometimes mixed up with a kaleidoscopic cocktail of architecture...but it is there, somewhere.

yes, i remember when i first realised that everything is nature - in that, everything must have been made by raw materials which have simply become more and more out of tune with their original source...

You do not need to go to the great outdoors to experience it face to face. I am fascinated by the way fungus take over old bread, by the way spiders decorate our home's ceilings, by the way leaves decide to abandon their tree behind in autumn. And I am equally fascinated by the way my woulds heal up remembering what fingerprints use to be behind them, or my eyes open up in the dark after a while and give me images when I could not see any at first.

yes, every cell in the body is behaving like magic.  it surprises me to realise that my body does things that i do not know how to do...that  it is independent of 'me'.  i can study biology and eventually understand it a little.  but our bodies need no study and performs immaculately.

Nature is so prolific inside our own minds, that we sometimes do not seem to find it...as when you are trying to find the woods from the treas. I trust much more my hunches and intuitions than my conclusions and assessments. The former do come from a sub-conscience deep fried in pure Nature, while the latter tend to be rushed and poorly built from a conscience that has not fully grown yet, and it is more interested in explanations than in truth.  

indeed, i like it when i feel to do something before i have thought it through...like i put lots of little cushions next to my french door, and i didnt know why i was doing it, and then i realised that i put them there to made an inside place to gaze at the outside world... so i felt that action was born in intuition.   my boyfirend at the time said that was a load of bollocks.  (not an excellent move on his part because it is a special talent and easy to lose if you belive people who say that sort of thing).

And, of course, I love to let myself loose looking deep into the eyes of the animals I encounter, because in them I see my true reflexion.  There is nothing more powerful and transcendent than looking at Nature while Nature is looking back at you.

how do you feel when you look in human animal eyes?
clair

When I look into an adult human animal's eyes I often see confusion, anxiety, blindness and fear. When I look into an adult non-human animal's eyes I see answers. When I look into human animal's eyes I see questions. They know without asking, we ask without knowing. So this, most of the time, make me feel disappointed, to say the least.

However, in a very few occasions, I have seen something different, that has made me feel something different. I have seen myself, looking in. My own reflexion, in all its dimensions. And when the other person also seems to see herself in me, then is when it feels as if something new has just germinated; some ancient seed that had been kept dormant begins to sprout. What that actually is, it's quite a mystery, but many people would say that this is the elusive, but yet unmistakable, feeling of love.

Therefore, it seems to me that what people call "love" is ultimately a selfish feeling. It's when the distance between two people gets reduced, but the distance between that couple and the rest of the world gets increased. The distinction between the two lovers becomes blurred, their intimacy loses its borders, and their privacy merge. The rest of the creatures move away from them, and all that remains around them is a bubble inside which everything seems sufficient and independent.

Pleasing that may feel for a while, I rather experience the opposite feeling. When everyone else seems to get closer to you, to approach you in friendliness. When the bubble that keeps you apart from them bursts. When  you cannot tell who is "I", who is "you", and who is "them". When everybody is "we", in union, in unison, in harmony.The feeling that nobody matters more than anybody else. Nobody means more than everybody else. That you belong to Nature, and that Nature has taken you back, without resentment or judgement, without expectations or conditions. That is what poets should be writing about.

J.C.

actually i have noticed in myself that when i experience love with reference to another, i feel more loving to everyone and other animals around me.  i do things more carefully and i hug everyone a bit more fully.  when my self is filled with lovestuff i can give a bit more out...so i think its all good, love reproduces into more love (and so does fear, if that is the emotion being nurtured, reproduce.....)

it has been a pleasure to write with you J.C
clair

This is why love is such a mystery. It seems simple and straight forward to you when you are feeling in, but it seems complicated and very difficult to explain when you try to describe it to others, because they all seem to feel it differently, and it does different things to every one. It's universal and yet utterly individual and unique. It follows the laws of Nature and yet often comes out of the blue. It's unpredictable and yet we all feel it at some point. It gives plain and pleasure at the same time; it makes you remember and forget; it opens your eyes and yet it mkles you blind; It confuses you, and it makes you wiser. It takes you back to your infancy, but also makes you grow up.

I think that, in a way, love it's like a sneeze.

It was nice to talk to you Clair

J.C.

     

CHAPTER FIVE  - inspiration taken from  'women who run with the wolves' by clarrisa estes.

WEEK TWO. conversation by clair and Paul

"...she will come, and if valued, she will stay..." Clarissa pinkola estes

~ ~ ~

hello paul,  this this taken from the middle of a paragraph...at first i felt to put it in context, but then, i felt to leave it just like this....  simple.      how does it make you feel?  

clair

if she goes she will only go off to discover the value that was within her all along. And sometimes although the journey seems to take us nowhere (but back to where we started) that journey to discover that which in a sense we always knew, is the most powerful journey of all. As athletes compete to display their best in the current Olympic games sometimes what is the difference between a medal and losing is simply that knowledge, that condifence within, that you can indeed acheive anything !!!! And the most important person to value us is ourself !!!

Paul x

she will come and sit - physically invisable but emotionally deeply colourful and available.  if you can see her its a bit like seeing a ghost.  some people can and some people cant.  she is intuition. 

intuition gone back a long way.  before this western society, before water came running out of taps back to when we went walking to find it.

its badly sign posted now - that base style intuition.  and, as you say, searching will never find it.  only feeling will.
clair

In the losing of our intuition we seem to have overshot the mark. We have indulged in everything to refind what we cannot put into words but it had to be that way. Like an exploration, we got lost without so finally having given up we can come within and find that inner place that we can really trust and that will never let us down !
paul

are you saying that we have given up enough yet....enough to re-find our path?  ...or that we are still lost in the 'everything else'

 The time has to be now ! Now to discover who we really are ! Now to discover out true love ! Now to live our dreams and live fully !! There simply is no other moment !! It has to be now ! Come to the edge. Jump, Live, Fly !

 what kind of things are you jumping to/ in./over?... what is the most base thing are trying to do/feel/move?
i am so extremely tired that i am asleep, and by dreams have written this.
clair

Into the abyss, the unknown, the womb of life ! Into our dreams, our hopes, into our fears ! INTO LIFE ! Its like we have been cocooned in a shell, protecting ourself from life through our conditioning and our comforts !! Now lets let go !! LETS LIVE BEFORE WE DIE !!!!

Thank you...are you not feeling to answer my question more specifically?  .... about you. ...?....your living before your diing?

  Well for me to live my life having lived it full out without anything left all my dreams either fullfilled or myself to be completely used up in moving towards them would be my aim. As someone once said theres plenty of time to sleep when you die but while alive live !! Live fully !! To live my dreams and live with passion !! And a bit like an Olympian be able to look back with fond memories knowing you have given it all and done your all !! Lived my life fully with passion !!

Thank you !!

nice work paul, i would like to be a fly on your wall .... ;) 
clair.)

CHAPTER FIVE  - inspiration taken from  'women who run with the wolves' by clarrisa estes.

WEEK ONE. conversation by clair and asami

"they know instictively when things must die and when things must live; they know how to walk away, they know how to stay..." Clarissa pinkola estes

~ ~ ~

if there is 'knowing' then it is covered up by a thousand grains of dust, and a million pennies, a heavy and large scoop of conditioning and iced with anit-freedom ways of thinking.

now i belive that my 'education'  was counter- intuitive.   there is a lot of what i consider to be madness, around.  and its clothed up as sanitiy....  and as normality.  

i just want to take this opportunity to say, that although i might seem very small.  and a bit of a poor speller or what ever.  i see it all.  all the 'systems' that have tried to oppress me, (and have done a good job).   some of them have even come from a very loving source.  but this loving source was itself a little mis-guided and thus guided the wrong direction - a counter-intuitive direction.  

i love you all.  its not your fault.  the misguidance has come from graves of other graves and of the living which came before them and goes back as far as the sea.


and to follow my intuition now, seems to sometimes displease other people and/or the society around me, because to go with my own intuition and learning, is to go my own way.  and leave that other stuff alone.


but horrrrrraaaaaahhhhhhh! there needs to be some independent thought and some small tides of revolution..........!

clair

And the sea….where we all came from.   When we let ourselves go with the lull of the tides, the ebbs and flows of the life, we discover what we are really meant to be.  

It is not about knowing but about unknowing, feeling the unknown guides us to the source, the mother of all that are with us now and have ever been with us all this time…

I squat on the beach, looking at the space between my legs.  

The water in me merges with the water of the earth.  

The pleasure melts into the rhythm of the tide.  

When did we learn to forget about such a simple joy? 

Learn to confine ourselves in the cubicles of civilisation? 

I, here now, sitting at the table in my living room, fantasising the rendezvous with the sea 

When it is only 10 min bicycle ride…

The joy became often what we imagine…

So I say, standing up, leaving my books behind, to see the grey sky merges into the rippling dark blue.  

 i am very thirsty now, your writing makes me pour the water into my glass more carefully, its going in me but if i poured it, instead into the sea, it would start waving.

water takes on what it becomes part of...it becomes asami, it becomes me, it becomes a wave in the sea.

have you read Emoto's 'hidden messages in water'.... that living water, (though our chorinated water is not alive) but real living flowing water, which you collect from a spring, when frozen, makes ice crystal shapes to match the emotional temperature surrounding it....exposed to love.....it looks like this*.....expossed to dislike....it forms different shapes and crystals....more dark, more oppressed, less aesthetically beautiful.....

i am sad now, that the water in my glass, though capable of giving life, is so dead.  our cleaning process, kills it... a paradox .....

clair

and the rain…i suppose.  

i never had a summer that rained so much as this year.  

i like it because this summer does not resemble any other.   

That gives me assurance.   

For what ? To be able to start it anew.   

  

why is that we like to compare and we are drawn to similarities and resemblances? 

no two waves are the same and nor the crystal shapes in the water….

still I can hear the faint echoes in the background

the foot steps of travelling ghosts running after me… 

I don't live with any this year, which makes me happy, and hope to live like this forever… 

how are you today?  hope you are not so sad about the water in your glass…. 

yes, things feel special when they are different, and in this way you feel, free of 'ghosts'....mmm, thinking in this way, i am not free of ghosts....they seem not driven away by differnce or washed away by rain, but i take your reasoning... in some way my ghosts are okay and welcome, if they need to be here, and they'll leave, i guess, when they are free....

i am sad by many things of our world, our water supply being one - that our waste is not put back into the ground where it could nourish but into the seas where it can only pollute, and, as i say, gets so harshly treated - all our water - whether it has just run down the sink after a bath or washing up, is treated in the same way.... but this sadness is not new, and i try to live beside and not under any bad decisions or treatment made for this earth....so no, just a passing feeling and a     l o  n   g    i     n      g     for fresh, clean alive water brought down to a spring....and capable of feeling and ice crystals! *

the pollution of the air clouds the air and 

the tears of the earth wet her hair 

they nourish her skin and cleanse her mind 

with your tears, the water in the glass must form crystals 

after a week of rather lethargy and frustration 

i rediscovered appreciation and gratitude today 

i came back from a day in lewes and found them on the kitchen counter.  

a bunch of Eustoma i bought on sat turned their pale green heads into purple. 

the magic of nature sparkled in my head and taught me what i sometimes forget to do 

to appreciate the beauty and richness of life and how lucky i am to meet amazing people

like you and like my other friends 

its always the little things... <3

thank you asami,

clair

CHAPTER FOUR  - OSHO

WEEK TEN. conversation by clair and outi

"We have all seen coal many times.  Scientists say that over a perieod of thousands of years coal is transformed into diamonds.  A diamond is the transformed manifestation of a piece of coal..."

Osho from his book 'sex matters'.

~ ~ ~

coal plus thousands of years history, wisdom, and evolution.  if only everything, given the test of time, would become so clear and from every direction,  shinning...

clair

Hi Clair,

Here I am talking to you...

This reminded me of the making of pearls which is likely to have involved pain in their creation. ("Almost any shelled mollusk can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within the mollusk's mantle folds” as stated in Wikipedia). When it comes to living beings the only meaningful explanation for the existence of pain I can find - am desperate to find - is that something else is being created via it; it has, perhaps, an evolutionary or spiritual goal. So – if that was the case, the horrendous suffering and pain experienced by so many living creatures when "alive" would mean that all that might not be in vain... 

Outi

hi outi, 

oooo gosh, those little shelled mollusks...some tiny irritation which comes in and makes them into a pearl,,,kind of sinister...or a devil in disguise!

 ...certainly i feel that people who have had it 'too' easy can lack in some way,,,,that the 'suffering' brings in its' hands  depth or understanding/compassion or empathy 

 ...there is light around a dark cloud because of its darkness... but maybe its when we find depth and meaningfulness in peace and wellness that we can really start our living ... ?

clair .)

Clair - It was interesting to have your response "maybe its when we find depth and meaningfulness in peace and wellness that we can really start our living ...". Yes - peace and wellness...how to achieve them. I have now myself reached the evening of my life and the speediness and fleeing of  your - in this case of mine (English language is quite weird at times requiring its passive expressions) - personal life time on this earth is now very present in my mind. When I was in my 20's - a long time ago - I fell in love with Japanese haikus. I am translating from Finnish into English (very freely with no Haiku rhythm) the one which has vividly stayed in my memory throughout all these decades since I read it first:

"Life here

 is like the reflection of the moon.

You take it onto your palm,

you blow into it;

it does not exist."
Outi

mmmm.......have you read the tiny book called 'snow' ...its about a young man who spends his time writing haikus and, for me is very beautiful.  i can find out the author.  i lent my copy to my new friend recently.

yes life is a series of moments, each moment bringing  a little bit more knowing (or a little bit more unknowing)...a little bit more repair (or a little bit more damage), a little bit more love (or a little bit more loss)

....i am nearly 38.  i wouldnt like to go backwards.  it has been a little bit of a struggle.  i am getting somewhere.  where i want to be.  to the snuggle ;).  

and in someways i am here.  more than ever.  with quite a beautiful little nest and some love to put in it.... 

and holding it here....when its arms have to be so frail, building up so it can stand and sing on its own, i will endevour to do, being open enough to sense the moon and being closed enough to ride the storm...or maybe you have to be open to the storm?....so it can blow right through you and not blow into you....mmmm!  

chimmneys probably know,  they are mostly closed but a little bit open and with a passage all the way through... and have a fire at the bottom to keep them warm...

c

I felt the warmth of your writing. I am so much longing for warmth. It has been so grey. So much grey in my life at the moment. I'm not quite sure what colour grey really represents...because it is so grey (!). The only positive "grey" seems to be the "grey matter" and I just have believe it exists as it is invisible to me. I NEED some warm red stuff NOW but it seems to fade me or I am not looking for it with sufficient determination. I can, however, feel it running in my veins. God - please let me have a non-grey day.

Outi 

im glad you felt the warmth :)  it is a great element to long for indeed - warmth - in all its many shades of reds and oranges and goldens and light browns...it sounds like you are in a very honoured place outi, when the warmth or red is running in your veins, you are there, in the right place...but indeed the world doesnt always support the warmth and love lines of the people...but as long as its there, like a kite, it has the chance to fly, when the correct wind comes, gentle and lifting, and the more we lift, the more we can lift.....

on the colour theme,  have you heard about the 'red tent' events, im going to forward you the details, they look very sacred and safe and warm...

love

clair 

Hi Clair,

I really have loved your writing talking. It is beautifully spontaneous and seems to come straight from your heart...thank you.

 

outi,

i have enjoyed very much writing with you ... your honesty and your sharing in words, thank you, clair <3

CHAPTER FOUR  - OSHO

WEEK NINE. conversation by clair and anni

"I went to khajuraho in India with a group of friends to see the temples there.  The outer walls, the periphery of the temple there, is sculpted and decorated with the scenes of the sexual act, different postures of intercourse.  My friends asked why these sculptures were there, decoratiing a temple!

...I led them in.  Inside there were no such statues.  My friends were surprised because there was no sex depicted anywhere....on the outer periphery, outer wall of life, sex and passion exsist; its inside is the temple of god..."

Osho from his book 'sex matters'.

~ ~ ~

when something is truely abundant one can free themselves of it.  whenever there are limits....boundaries, our minds are always dreaming, obsessing, thinking of them, it, her, him

this evening my mind is obsessed with chocolate.  i have none in the cupboard.  none in the freezer.  no sweetness.  not even any fruit.  my mind is lost in this lack of abundance and returns again and again to the same feeling....the same sensation....

clair

For me, your reflections on desire and boundaries -especially in relation to both food and sex- call to mind the concept of Eros and lack. Erotic desire is dependent upon boundaries; its electricity is fed by the lack that those boundaries inflict. Sexual desire seems to be fed by absence rather than abundance. Those lovers who have given the whole of themselves to me and seemed to lack any mystery or strangeness have ceased to be objects of sexual desire. Excitement is fed by a feeling that there is a part of the lover that cannot be obtained, by an inability to traverse the boundaries of skin and of self. At times I have had to tell myself stories to keep eroticism alive, and I think that’s something that most of us need. I love sexual encounters with people who give enough to tempt but who also hold something back, because it is the pursuit that feeds my desire…

This mysterious, strange, absence-driven eroticism seems completely antithetical to notions of sexuality in popular culture. The homogenous images of women and men with artificially perfect bodies and vacant facial expressions that you see in the media are what I consider to be sexualised but not sexual. There’s a huge divide between these marketed images and what sex actually involves. Osho’s comment about images of sex on the outer periphery made me think of this. Unlike Osho, I’m not talking about sex as a decoration adorning a life that has God at its centre, but about the empty images that hide a more complex erotic world.

Food doesn’t quite involve the same complex stories and complications as sex does, but a discussion of it does involve some of the same concepts of desire, indulgence and lack. In telling ourselves that we can’t have something, we want it all the more, especially if it is bad for us. And absence, lack and austerity make one long, with increasing desperation, to indulge in the apple of one’s eye (which never actually seems to be an apple, but may be an apple pie with cream!)  J

thank you for your enjoyable writing anni....

what is, or makes something erotic ..... 

...i am thinking....there is soooooooooo much talk of physical body!  so much propagandar, so much media attention, so m u c h  general  and world wide A  T  T  E  N  T  I  O  N!!! ( ive just noticed 'at tention')  and it makes me wanna shout and spue and fight and yet it still    s u  c   k   s    m e   in!

...now i am thinking....are emotions sexy'?.......what about our emotional body?  ....yes, how it is,  so sexy, so erotic, so pleasing, so growing, so connectable, delictable, so deep, so nuturing, so engaging, so entracing, so peaceful,  and, in turm so capable of being the opposite of everything here.

clair

That's a pleasure; thanks for the opportunity. 

It's hard not to be sucked in by the persistent focus on the physical body. It's easier and more immediate than worrying about the more complicated elements of sex and self. Aesthetically pleasing images of sexy women and men make sexiness look easy, and seem to provide something bright, fun and breezy in a complex, exhausting and often grey world. When I look at people who aim to achieve this look via working out, dieting, shopping, makeup etc, it sometimes appears as if they are trying to assert some form of control in a world that is far beyond our control in all its mess, injustice and confusion. But it is never possible to achieve physical perfection because we are only human, and our bodies fail us eventually. It's like chasing a ghost.

So I think we have to hope that emotions can be sexy! There is certainly something about sex that goes far beyond the physical body to the emotional. I'm not always sure that the emotional and the erotic go hand in hand in the way that we think they should, as it is possible (and I think common) to feel a negative emotion that can be charged with erotic electricity.  But as you say, there is something sexy about the changeability and unpredictability of our emotions. We can connect in sorrow, in artistic rapture, in anger, in happiness, in pain, in mourning, in hopeful anticipation, in madness and in loss. All of these things can be sexual but we can't always explain why. This emotional landscape is probably more difficult to describe or explain than that of the body, and it again makes me think of how sex is so bound up with the unknowable,  the inaccessible and the strange. 

mmm..'like chasing a ghost'...i like that :)  .....thinking about it, ghosts are all clothes and no body!....you never see a naked ghost..

there is a ghost in this room.  it is cold and it has spread its self everywhere and  into each centimeter and  corner. it died in the old english winter. when winters were long and real and not centrally heated.  died frozen by snow and under a  bitter sweet full moon.  

clair

Ah that's a sad image, but beautiful. 

Sexual partners are a little like ghosts, as something of each of them still seems to resonate in my body. I have been changed by every person I have encountered sexually, even if the change is small. It's tiring sometimes to imagine carrying these people with me and what they meant to me at a certain time and how my experiences with them changed my life. I remember a part in the book 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' by Milan Kundera, where he writes about a character called Thomas, who pursues women sexually, not out of physical desire, but out of the desire to possess as many parts of the world as possible. It reminded me of the way that sometimes a sexual experience with someone new makes me feel that I have acquired another piece of the world, a new understanding, a new perspective. Some of my ghosts are ones I would rather not carry but I have to find a way of putting them somewhere as they will never entirely go away. Others I adored but must also take their place somewhere that is slightly removed from the present moment, so that I don't feel utterly pregnant with the past...

i really enjoyed reading the passage you wrote. 

 i dont know where to begin, so maybe i wont.  time does amasing healing to the emotional body... dilutes all the experiences and can make them manageable again.  but a real stain - not even washing and re-washing will help as it remains..  maybe it will fade.  but in the right light it will always be there.  

it gives me a lump in my throat.  it makes me want to disappear.  it makes me want to run away.  it makes me want to stay alone.  

it makes me want to move near, it makes me want to find and love, it makes me want to find and love and truely love.  it makes me want to scream.  it makes me want to be happy.

Ah yes! Your words are so relevant to the way I feel this morning. I am so sad today because I am thinking of one of my ghosts who made me happy. Sometimes something will trigger a return to our love and although I don't want to go back there because it is time to move on, all the warmth and closeness and sweetness of it all floods back into me and I am overwhelmed by the absence of love. 

And it also makes me want to stay alone, safe in my own body, shutting out the world, shutting out love because it makes me so vulnerable. And like you, I also want to FIND love and enjoy that mad and intimate sweetness, that happiness that makes me sad because I'm so frightened of losing it...and because of this fear I love all the more intensely. I miss everything about being loved for everything I am -including my flaws- and the way that the person you love stays with you and you can still smell them even when they're away. There's a short Maya Angelou poem I know off by heart because it stayed with me:

'The day hangs heavy

loose and grey

when you're away.

A crown of thorns

a shirt of hair

is what I wear.

No one knows

my lonely heart

when we're apart.'

Such a simple poem, but it expresses this grey, sad, longing feeling so well. I am so sad this morning, but so glad I can connect with another writer about the way I feel. It's such a good idea Clair; I think we writers need to connect this way more often.

Sending you warmth on a cold day. 

thank you for your words and indeed we should :)  connection is where its at...!

love is all around.  i know its not the same.  but it is surrounding you in all its ways. and it will come again in the form of a lover.

do you sometimes find sadness quite beautiful?... i find its more comfortable for me than other feelings - like  physical pain or emotional jealously or even that feeling of not knowing and being torn apart by indecision...

....sadness doesnt seem to pull me around or apart. sadness is when all the other things (the anger, the fear, the not knowing, the anxiety born of difficult relations) are gone.  sadness comes then to process.  to filter your emotional body.   and to show you how it feels to just be alone.  and to encourage you to find love again. i find it is sort of a friend...though of course, not the sort of friend you want to be around ALL the time!!  ;)

and so are tears though i just havent had any for such a while and now i feel like my emotional body is letting me down! ;) ....where are all my emotional and healing tears i am due!!  have i been short changed!? ;)  ................. im sure actually it just has other plans.  (its problably waiting for a shoulder to cry on)!  hee hee ! lucky he !!  it makes me laugh to think of it !!!  hee hee again!  spiral symbol!!  this keyboard is so basic!   exclamation mark ! ! !

Sadness is one of the most beautiful emotions, yes. Most of my best poetry was written when I was sad. It's amazing sometimes that when I feel unbearably sad and lonely I still find myself being able to step back and write about it. Sometimes writing is the only place I can put myself when I feel like that. That's the problem with sadness I suppose; it makes it very difficult to concentrate on every-day things.

I cried last night whilst playing a song on the guitar that evoked a certain time for me. I think I needed it though. I agree that tears are healing. I can't understand people who never cry; I find it to be such a necessary and comforting release. I have always preferred lovers who are able to cry with me. Not lovers who cry too easily, but ones who can when they need to. Sometimes it's one of the most powerful ways of expressing love.

I suppose this is my last entry. It's really been enjoyable for me and it's been lovely to connect. Thank you Clair. I hope you find all the love and lovers and tears and happiness that you desire.

:-)

Anni. x

you are a sweet heart.  where is the heart key on this key board?! and the star key!?  im going to japan ! - im sure they have them there ;)  but for now you'll have to imagine them stamped on in special colourful inks

go well anni,
love
clair X x

 :-)   <3 xxx

<3 <3 <3  oh now thats nice :)) X

 

CHAPTER FOUR  - OSHO

WEEK EIGHT. conversation by clair and rebecca

"Life seems to want to rise to some height, these ocenanic waves, these life waves seem to be wanting to rise somewhere higher, but they only crash into the shore and sre destroyed.  New waves arise, crash, end.  This ocean of life has been pounding for so many billions of years.  Battling, rising and falling everyday.  What must be the purpose behind it?"

Osho from his book 'sex matters'.

~ ~ ~

there seem to be processes in this life of life and death.  but i am not convinced, am not feeling, that there necessarily is any  major  (or minor) plan.  

life is like lots of spirials and the direction and the speed and the degree of turn depends on the event, the  behaviour, the feeling, the sensation, just before it and that thing depended on the event or feeling just before that one.

life is making its own way through the universe.  my feeling is that it doesnt care about a meaning.  it just is.  it just is. and it just is.  even if that is just fades away.

thats not to say that lives arent meaningful / cant be meaninglful, but that that is something we ourselves pour into it/onto it.

Hello Clair!

When I first read the Osho quote I thought about humanity itself as a persistent surge of creation, against a seemingly indifferent planet. The Mayan Hypothesis preposes that our desire to preserve the planet and is misguided as human, plant, animal life are of no real consequence in the grand scheme of things as the earth might wipe us out at any moment and will regain its own equilibrium, which is not dependent on us. The continual crashing waves of life which dominate this indifferent planet are in a sense futile, but still they exist and flow in a cycle which seems to imply some order, if not purpose, due to the persistent nature of humanity's desire to create meaning and to flourish despite death, evil, natural disasters and disorder. 

My friend recently lost a close friend of hers and she wrote a poem about the impact of the grief. This quote and your discussion immediately brought this to mind, as she uses water as an analogy for the continual cycle of life. She begins by describing the waves of grief as waves crashing against a river bed and then describes the flow of her friend's life force or influence, which she feels continues even in death. I feel the end passage is particularly relevant:

'I fell asleep and it spat me out,

And now it’s Monday morning.

The blue blue sky and white cloud,

Water going somewhere I cannot tell

Where.

Back to the earth, Into rivers, into the sea.

And the cycle continues.

I watch it.

What more can I do?

And yet...'

Where is the water going? Where does all our energy and striving for survival and success lead us to? Where does it leave us if life can dissipate so quickly, evaporate without trace - other than in the mark we leave upon those still living? The futility of life always presents itself as a cruel, striking reality when we have to face the untimely death of those close to us. In the face of these sudden devastating travesties our small influence on others seems of the utmost importance and that is perhaps why my friend ended her poem with a challenging, lingering 'And yet...'  I interpret her ending uncertain question as one of remorse, as she is haunted by the idea that she could have perhaps done more to prevent her friend from taking her own life. But her 'and yet...' can also be taken to show that we must continue, we must not give in to these blows, as the cyclical spiral is the reality of life, and of nature. 

We have to be thankful for the time we do have, the lives we do touch, for everything we experience however chaotic or indifferent it may seem. In the cyclical liquid nature of life and death there is also a sense of wonder and beauty. Our insignificance is frightening and astounding, and our vulnerability is always apparent to me. But without death we would not strive for anything, we would not appreciate this life and our courageous continual mass of aspirations, desires and deeds are the embodiment of our hope to 'rise to some height' before we crash, trickle away and disappear. For who knows how long any of us have?

Rebecca. 

thank you for your words...for me feelings can span two polar opposites - one, that every little thing, even, as has been said, a butterfly flapping its wings in japan, is so meaningful that it will have its effect here in england on the other side of the world.

and this is true.  the smile or frown you give to the man, women or child in the street will ripple its way along forever

in the same breath, there is no great plan...

and we are not even searching around for relics of our own family trees, do i know even the name of  my great great grandmother?  will they remember my name?  generally no.  but does it even matter?...as i said, that smile or frown will ripple its way through the universe  f  o   r    e     v      e        r . . . 

clair 

Hmmm... Clair,

Meaning... 

When and how do we decide what is meaningful? It is important to remember that we do not know when a facial expression will stay with someone forever, or go completely unnoticed. The full significance of our gestures and actions can never be known. I struggle on a daily basis with the idea that I have been misunderstood or have conveyed something wrongly through my words, my body language, or (accidentally!) scathing looks. But as someone reassured me recently, most people are not thinking about or remembering you at the end of the day, they are probably just wondering how much philadelphia to have on their toast... 

Rebecca 

hee hee ;)...im guessing its only the lovely gestures that people remember - like a smile which didnt necessarily have their name on it...and was unexpected and thus able to make an especially good impact :)  

we can imagine the lady who recieved the smile, sitting in her kitchen in the evening, (with just the right amount of philadelphia on her toast), thinking, 'what a lovely, warm unexpected smile that lady gave me today' and with this she gave their cat an extra long stroke and a kiss on his whiskers and consequenly the cat goes out into the garden and makes an extra special purrrrr!  for the elderly women living next door and the elderly women goes back inside and calls her friend who she hasnt seen for a long time, and asks her round for scones with cream and jam and then the friend, walking round to the old ladies house, picks up a fallen apple  and hands it back to the mother of 3 struggerly along with her groceries

....and thats is how the smile started and! who knows where it will end (or!.... how kong it will take to get to Japan ;)

clair X 

Clair...

This is a very pretty scene that you paint... However, I am inclined in turn to imagine the negative gesture which travels along, making it's destructive way through the world... 

A bald man awakes from his dream on a beach and he's got a burned skull, in his anger he lashes out at a small dog, kicking it in the face... The dog in it's confusion and fear at the inexplicable rage of the man, runs away and bites a small boy who had tried to stroke it's fur, and then the small boy bursts into tears and smashes his sisters sand castle over in anguish. The sandcastle topples over and fills in a small hole in the sand which was the home of a family of burrowing sea turtles, who are now forced to burrow the other way into the earth. The turtles shift a rock, dislodging a precariously placed tectonic plate causing a catastrophic shift in the earth's crust. A rush of water fills the hole left by the crust, causing a wave which slowly builds up in amplitude as it traverses the surface of the North Pacific Ocean. Eventually it becomes a tidal wave which breaks shore off the eastern coast of Japan, flooding the generator rooms of three nuclear reactors resulting in total meltdown and much death.

This was just my initial response to your picture of positivity. Does this make me sound like a bit of a negative fatalist? haha

well.....! its good to have both sides of the coin up for pre-view ;) yes, chains of events can go either way, (and anywhere in between...) but its worth remembering, for me, how far the good can go, by default, it has as much travelling power as 'negative' stuff, and possibly more, because my friend told me that in other dimensions bad energy is dark and always sinks to the bottom and to avoid it you simply have to travel above it....that why birds get it so good...imagine...!

and it makes me think of the concept of 'good' and 'bad'....and how so many 'bad', 'negative' things have happened recently, but so far, they have all had little shimmering silver linings so! are they indeed bad or were they in fact good?

clair