Come This Way

                                   
                                                               

                       
                                 "I know you are tired, but come, come this way."  - Rumi

Isn't this what it is like for many of us?  We must keep going, even when the going seems hard and we are tired.  I often think I know what I want, but do I?  Years ago a friend told me that I was always reaching out and grabbing things.  He was right.  50 years later I realize that I never listened to the wisdom that in numerous ways presented itself to me over the course of my life.

I had a serious and life threatening accident four months ago in Florence, Italy. I fell backwards down stone steps in the apartment where I was staying.  I sustained several large hematomas in my brain and two fractures of my skull.  I am still recovering and I am supposed to move about slowly and think about what is happening in the moment.  I haven't been doing that.  I still find myself walking fast while daydreaming.

I came across a new (for me) philosopher and poet today.  Perhaps his words express the only haste I need concern myself with at this point in my journey.

"Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind."   ~ Henri-Frederic Amiel

    

Complex Truths Pursue Me

I recently came across a problem analog from 1995 that depicted me fleeing complex truths. Problem analogs are line drawings that make visual an inner conflict or concern and allow the person doing the drawing to see the problem in a new manner.  Last week, still feeling pursued, I did the above painting of my analog (antithetical as it was to do that) and listed what I thought were the truths.  I realize now that what I listed were actually fears and realities that all human beings must cope with.   Listing them as complex truths pursuing only me is but a manifestation of the conflict inherent in fleeing them.

There is something about fleeing that is always in my unconscious and ofttimes makes itself visible in dreams.  For many years, I dreamed repeatedly of fleeing from bulls that were chasing me. I often escaped them by getting on top of white refrigerators. Wishing to be immune from dealing with reality, I imagine that I can escape it, and thereby control it, even if the escape requires distance and a lack of genuineness and warmth (as the ascent to the top of the white refrigerator indicates).   The hardest thing for me to learn is that the only control I can have is control over my own reactions.  I am working on it.

A friend asked me if the figure in the painting is holding a python while running.  Interesting comment.  I thought it was a scarf, but indeed, it looks much more like a python.  I wonder if it relates to the fact that pythons can squeeze the life out of you, or if it points to the transformational symbolism of snakes?  It could be both.  Pythons aren't really purple, but purple is a spiritual color.

Now, if I can just stay focused long enough to face my reality maybe I can step out of the bubble and slow down.  When a person has escaped fears throughout a lifetime, is there a hidden pleasure in the escape?  Consider Emily Dickinson's poem below:

1277

While we were fearing it, it came -
But came with less of fear
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it fair -

There is a Fitting - a Dismay -
A Fitting - a Despair -
'Tis harder knowing it is Due
Than knowing it is Here.

The Trying on the Utmost
The Morning it is new
Is Terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.


This I know:  I would like to give up fear and have some years of peace.