My Own Little Magic Circle, or, Becoming Real

The Magic Circle, 1886 - John William Waterhouse

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" 

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

~The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams


The Awakening
by Anne Hill

If I touch you I will know you
Though my veil be drawn, you're glowing
In my mind and soul and body


I feel compelled to hide details and information about myself that I feel others wouldn't like, wouldn't care to know, couldn't accept or wouldn't understand. I generally err on the side of squishing myself in a little box of Acceptable Things You Can Know About Me...generally choose to make myself smaller, silent, bland and uncomfortable rather than risk making others upset, or unhappy, or uncomfortable.

Rooted

Some rights reserved by BlueRidgeKitties

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”
~Anonymous~

ROOT

noun, often attributive: an underlying support

the essential core : heart

RADICAL

adjective: of, relating to, or proceeding from a root

noun: a root part

a basic principle: foundation

Learning to be in right relationship with myself has been (and continues to be) a very interesting process. Holding my relationship to self in the center of my life can be downright uncomfortable.

It takes more work than I expected to not abandon myself to whim and desire.

Basketweaving

Some rights reserved by Colleen Curnutte

It's time to be more conscious of my energy, to put less of myself into some baskets in order to fill other baskets.

This is really important, as I want to add some new baskets, too. I have a list, in my head, of the things I want to manifest in the next ten years.

Back...Again

No Escape by Sylvie Pickering

The Uses of Sorrow
by Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

I am never more tired of speaking than when I first get back from a trip home to see my family. Actually, it would be more accurate to switch it, to say "when I first get home from a trip back to my family" but that makes little sense to the average person that is not acquainted with my past, with my personal way-back machine.

Beautiful

Some rights reserved by _twig

crooked: 

1. : not straight 

Synonyms:  bending, crazy, curled, curling, curved, curving, curvy, devious, serpentine, sinuous, tortuous, twisted, twisting, winding, windy


And I've got
No illusions about you
And guess what?
I never did
And when I said
When I said I'll take it
I meant,
I meant as is
~Ani DiFranco, As Is

I am crooked. Scoliosis is a daily reminder that I am not exactly according to plan.

Let me explain.

I'm Just a Worm

"Allo!" ~ Worm, Labyrinth

"Notice to those making up religions: the most powerful secrets aren’t secrets. They are things we may have known for a while but then suddenly feel the full force of when the time is right." ~Anne Hill, comment on her blog post

Sarah: You dont by any chance know the way through this Labyrinth do you?
Worm: Who me? Naahh I'm just a worm, heh.
Sarah: Oh.
Worm: Come inside and meet the missus.
Sarah: No thank you but I have to solve this Labyrinth but there aren't any turns or any openings or anything, it just goes on and on!
Worm: Well... you ain't lookin' right! It's FULL of opening its just you ain't seen em !
Sarah: Well where are they?
Worm: There's one just across there its right in-front of ya.
Sarah: No there isn't.
Worm: Come inside and have a nice cuppa tea.
Sarah: But... there isn't an opening!
Worm: (laughs) Course there is! You try walking through it, you'll see what I mean!
Sarah: What?
Worm: Go on, go on then!
Sarah: That's just wall! There's no way through.
Worm: Things are not always what they seem in this place. So, you can't take anything for granted.
Sarah: (walks through the 'wall') Hey!
Worm: Hey 'ang on!
Sarah: Thank you! That was incredibly helpful! (starts to turn left)
Worm: Don't go that way!
Sarah: What was that?
Worm: I said...Don't go that way! Never go that way!
Sarah: Oh... thanks! (Sarah goes in opposite direction)
Worm: If she had kept going down that way, she would've gone straight to that castle!
 ~Labyrinth


For the context of this post, it is good for you, dear Reader, to know that I believe the following two things:

1. Information is not dangerous.


2. Things of value have layers.

Chop Wood, Carry Water, Shut Your Trap

Some rights reserved by Arno Arno

"…All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." ~Julian of Norwich

Litany Against Fear from the Bene Gesserit Rite

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total   obliteration.

I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
~Frank Herbert, Dune

What can I say about silence?

As a person dealing with codependency issues, silence is a currency I cannot make change in, withdrawal a tactic I am ill equipped to employ. I tumble words out of my mouth just to be reaching toward something...toward you, toward us, toward understanding, toward reconciliation, toward a continuation of connection, even if that connection is painful. Painful connection is, after all, still connection...right?

An Invocation

Holy is your name, holy is your work, holy are the days that return to you. Holy are the years that you uncover. Holy are the hands that are raised to you, and the weeping that is wept to you. Holy is the fire between your will and ours, in which we are refined. Holy is that which is unredeemed, covered with your patience. Holy are the souls lost in your unnaming. Holy, and shining with a great light, is every living thing, established in this world and covered with time, until your name is praised forever.

Leonard Cohen, Book of Mercy

Chomp.

Porkrind the Great

I wrote a new poem this morning, just now.  I think it's quite good.

I got the idea for it as I was walking Porky around the back of my apartment complex.  I wouldn't have been home, walking the dog and getting the idea, if I didn't have some sort of crud/flu/unpleasantness right now.  So there you go.  You never know when your muse is going to bite you on the ass.

I am now going back to my couch and my blankets.

An Ode to my Dwindling Armor

Who is this flower above me?
And what is the work of this god?
I would know myself in all my parts.
~Feri Flower Prayer, traditional, Victor Anderson


God is self and self is God and God is a person like myself.
~Victor Anderson

I'm actively working on being more open to letting people see the person I actually am, instead of just the edited, monitored mock-up I'm used to displaying.

It sucks is kicking my ass.

For Brigid

This Time

She did pass in the trees, tinkling a tickle-whisper,

And was in the flame, yes, when I've

pleaded and wished and prayed and

burned anyways.

But this time, no moaning:

just the urge, to deep and dark and drowning.

This time, my eye is to the well.

This Time by Lora Dziemiela is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Flying

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” ~Neil Gaiman

Blue Valentine

To send me blue valentines
Like half forgotten dreams
Like a pebble in my shoe
As I walk these streets
And the ghost of your memory
Is the thistle in the kiss
~Tom Waits, Blue Valentines

I went to see Blue Valentine with J and a bunch of friends last night.

I really expected to be more emotionally upset by the movie, I suppose because I've gone through a divorce and have a sense of what to expect of a realistic portrayal of an important ending.  I really expected to walk out of that movie feeling like life shits on love, no matter how great the love, that all good things, over time, are destined to become shitty things.  

Thankfully, the movie wasn't as cliche as my imagination.  I really recommend seeing the movie, as it is incredibly well-made and impeccably acted.  The characters were real and flawed and brilliant in their vulnerability, need and apathy.  Both Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling deserve Oscar nods.

I can't get this song out of my head.

Unobserved and Free

She said in Romance, women's two natures can be reconciled. I asked, which two natures, and she said, men saw women as double beings, enchantresses and demons or innocent angels.


"Are all women double?" I asked her.


"I did not say that," she said. "I said all men see women as double. Who knows what Melusina was in her freedom with no eyes on her?"

~A.S. Byatt, Possession