Spaces in-between, as I was saying in Comments on the last entry, are fascinating - the silence between notes…the ghost of reflection on glass, shadows standing alone, subtracted from the objects that cast them.
All the afters and befores and in-the-middles strung together like graffiti sprayed over a sign. What is meant covering the official message.
Shadow, not object. The world is utterly different when you look at it that way.
I do not mean to be mysterious.
Here I am - before and after and in-the-middle of events in my current life, the details of which I have published and left up on the blog “flapping wildly on the virtual clothesline like a pair of too-big granny pants” (to steal a quote from Teri of Blueberry Pie). There are ketchup smears and coffee stains obliterating sections of my roadmap. I have the suspicion that I’m somewhere in a very old minefield. The grass waves placidly for miles. The sky is clear blue. And soon I will have to take a step in some direction.
Like the Tarot card, The Fool. Looking up happily at the sky as he steps off a cliff, trusting that the universe will support him.
It’s not a matter of hope, but dumb faith. Which is why The Fool is not both the first and the last card in the deck. Because, it seems, he doesn’t actually fall.
Sometimes, after you spend a while looking at the middles and the shadows for a while, you have to do it like that.
Just step.
Right, Lucas?
6 comments:
In my classical training for opera singing, one of my teachers said the silences are where the music happens. Our mind's ear fills in what our souls need. Somehow I feel this may be transposed to every medium, every situation.
Somehow, talk of the fool in the deck always brings my mind back to Voltaire's Candide. Everytime he thinks he has "it" nailed down, the rug is pulled out from under him, only to end at the graciously simple wisdom of the admonition to just tend his garden.
I know this is painful, and not granny panties but gracious, demure ladylike drawers have been aired, and I respect uou sharing such a profound experience. I lack the self-possession to suffer so graciously - I am trying to learn from you how to let my own bitterness at the bewilderments of life just fall away.
I love when Mimi is singing to Rodolfo in La Boheme "Addio, senza rancor." Goodbye, without bitterness. Just accepting what comes and simply existing without an expectation of the next moment has got to be a relief from the white-knuckle choke-hold with which
a spaz like me grapples with their existence.
Mercury retrograde. A good time for reflection (particularly as it will be in Cancer) and for posts like this.
And soon you will take the step. You will know. And you will do it.
Mmm, "a step in some direction"--I know you're right about that, LJ--when the time comes, just step--and then be where you've arrived. The earth is moving the whole time you're stepping, so where you land is probably not where you think you're going to land anyway. It never quite is.
PF...I keep forgetting about the opera in your heart that's there behind all the dry wit. And I'm glad you thought me gracious, although (as you likely realize)I've had moments of feeling supremely ungracious. I've watched "Thelma & Louise" a number of times lately...so you can figure that my gracious levels moved accordingly in the privacy of my own head.
Jaime..thanks. I'm tempted to post a self-critique of all the mixed metaphors on this entry. A kind of writing lesson to myself. Maybe I just will! But I'm glad you found phrases that resonated.
Mary. Reflecting, reflecting. As I said in my email, I'd prefer to be a nice content lump of a woman who enjoys watching paint dry. What writer and Jungian therapist, Marianne Woodman calls, "a happy carrot."
Hi Jess. Yeah. Good point. How the earth keeps turning and you never land where you think you will... Now, why is it that we cling so desperately to the idea that we actually know what territory will be underfoot? And are perpetually surprised to find...why goodness, Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore!
lj--whenever I sit down to play (or even sometimes just listen to) music, I follow the wise words of a famous musician (whose name escapes me at the moment): slow it down so that you can eat a sandwich between every note.
I don't know much about tarot cards and The Fool, but perhaps the universe does support us. We must after all step, we must move, however slowly--and we can ultimately move only one direction: Forward, (at least until we can figure out a different way to deal with time, that old bald cheater!)into what awaits us, forward toward that at which we are aiming, forward in spite of ourselves, forward past the shadows and through the silences, all the while carried along upon a moving current, the ride of a lifetime. I find it useful to keep my eyes open and the wax out of my ears.
Thanks, as always, for sharing.
That was utterly...lovely...Lucas.
Thank you. Eyes open and wax out of ears. Got you.
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