"Do you know that the heart has a dungeon?
Bring light! Bring light!" -Mary Oliver
I'm up and down at the same time. I don't know then, where I am. It's an odd place. I don't feel like I'm here, that's all I know. So I'm trying to connect back into the world and get out of my head a little.
But I loved this entry from a book I've not picked up in so long (reading is what "helps" me the most in grief but I don't get time to sit and read)- but this little book sustains me in this, I pick it up when I can, so if nothing else I get at least few moments of something to reflect on and "help" me cope with my unraveling mind.) I read this yesterday this quote, in a book about grief and the authors' reflection on it;
"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this! "
The autorhor who chose this quote then reflected:
"This is a state of depression with which we all are probably familiar. We would like to be removed from all awareness. We may think about suicide"
My husband and I aren't "at risk" - we have Lil. But I do understand that feeling of really, why are we all killing ourselves day in and day out, a collective "we" because most people, to me now, seem ridiculous... and why do we have children anyway - they are going to suffer in ways we can't imagine and all of them may die before we do... "is this a curse or a blessing that we give" - is it the most selfish act, to have a child?
Yes, my husband and I sometimes are at that brink and I live so differently now, not bad, but as one who really knows - we are just a breath away from all this... and all this is awful sometimes - so we really gotta try to squeeze any good we can find out - use it all up 'till we may appear insane - I know what "live life to the fullest" means -I understand that sentiment like few can, which so often urged in "inspirational" mantras. I know what Lil deserves and what a blessings family is, what good times are and every hour we have together, their value... and yet sometimes because I know how it is NOT a "Just World", because I know we are only Hoping on the Great Beyond, and because I know we (human kind) tend toward drama, toward judgment of our circumstances or others, because I know this place is rotten on so many levels, it is a fallen world regardless of your religion, sometimes, it does feel like we are all fooling ourselves to bother with it all...
But I also know that 2 months or 100 years is a blip and since I have Lil and can't/don't want to leave, I gotta, truly gotta, make the best of "even this" - this garden of weeds my own little life has become. They are so deeply rooted that some of them will always grow back - but I'll keep weeding - I'll keep trying to get back to a place where I can live and breath again...were they aren't choking out the sun, real though that they are... they are not metaphors but what grows in such grief.
But, W, poor sweet W, my brother-in-law - it became a real option to him in one of these moments where you are so far down, that you believe it, that everything "told" to you there, in the empty firmament of your own mind, by your own mind, warped beyond it's ability to bring light - you believe it without being able to step back from it for a moment and realize it is a state you cannot trust - that will not offer anything but blackness, therefore as real and honest as it feels and seems, it is a place to exists in but not act upon - to move through and not trust, to hear but not take to heart all that it is showing your soul...because if you let your soul "believe it" then your soul will want "out" your soul, it will believe that it is the most humane thing to do for you and the only real Hope. You can step off a steep cliff and be free.
And your soul may be right, that I can't say for sure - but when it is all you can see, then you are not working on full information, you are not allowing your soul to consider any light... you are really not being fair to your own soul, in a sense. But, darkness can be so convincing... darkness can make you see just about anything it wants and can trick your eyes and mind in a flash - light can never lie.
The darkness doesn't respond -it isn't about "darkness winning over light" even - it your humanness "filling in" the empty places that is the darkness, the places devoid of all Hope -humaness itself dark, it is hopless - and you end up having a conversation that begins and ends all inside your own head - when you are in those fully dark, but very real, moments. The antidote is connection to the world, to those you love here, to God if you can muster up belief - anything outside your own head. There is no light there and your soul doesn't know it's all you talking, your soul believes what feed it in the dark - so you can destroy your soul by your circular conversations in the dark places full of emptiness.
One of my favorite quotes has always been "When the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it." We must expect for it to get dark and cold in life - even in the best of times, I'm talking about normal life - outside of the hell of Grief.
If we truly understand our humanity (I think Care of the Soul is about this, that book, if you've heard of it) then we know it is our responsibility to know that when it is cold - we must try to get warmth outside of ourselves, we must kindle whatever fires we can - we must care for ourselves and usually that will involve getting out of our own head, or at the very, very least, noting it, the cold, the dark - but not trusting it too much - it is just, exactly like the little kid in the room at night who swears what they see is a monster, the devil himself, standing right there in their own little bedroom they thought was safe just hours earlier when the sun shone in.
Our heads, our minds, are exactly that, a little kids bedroom - and if the light won't switch on, then we gotta wait for the sun, moon, star - whatever tiny bit of light can show us that it's just our clothes strewn over the chair that we didn't put away like we should have, it is only the most normal and mundane part of life - it is only life and love - that in the dark can nearly destroy you.
Anyway....
The author continued:When this mood decends like a dark cloud, it is helful to remember that we have felt like this before, that otehrs have felt like this before - and that mood will pass.
We can help move it away - thouhght it may be hard to muster energy for that - by doing something physically demanding, like going for a strenuous walk, or for a sweim. Or by tending some plansts. Or talking with a friend. Or cooking. Anything to get us into a different frame of mind.
One friend suggested that at such times it was helpful to her to repat the phrase, "The worst is over" It might be worth a try."
I tend towards the cynical - because after three such losses - I don't know that "the worst" is over - I know there can be more than one "worse" in ones life - I fear what's ahead with all my heart and soul - but I think I do live better because of that -it is not a paralyzing fear - not at all - it is a respectful fear - if that makes sense. I acknowledge that Power of God or Forces FAR beyond my control - I hope for Love and benevolence to win out somewhere along the line - but I understand that as a need to try to bring sense to this - so I live every day with the thought "what if this is as good as it gets?" -and really, it's not a depressing thought - it's a call to get out of Time and expectation - all the good and the bad - and be here.
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And, just to "translate" even as I don't think Shakespeare needs it - I kinda thought this was fun anyway and I'm all about clarity - so as to not have anything "muddled" up by Shakespeare skillful art of words;
"Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me. Damn it! It’s like a garden that no one’s taking care of, and that’s growing wild. Only nasty weeds grow in it now. I can’t believe it’s come to this. " (and to give credit to where it is due - here is the source; http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_26.html)
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