The Process of Wisdom

“God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our own will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” – Aeschylus

The beauty of this quote is not a result of word pairing, but instead, of the earth shattering truth it speaks.  So much of who we are, who we have become, is because of the situations that we have endured, the people we have encountered, the genes we have inherited.  Suffering and pain bring about the appreciation of peace and mercy.  There has been this shift within our culture to shy away from things that do not feel comforting, that bring about displeasure.  I say, no, don’t do that.  Lean into the misery, lean into the grit, feel the dirt in your soul and learn from the season of suffering so that when your flowers of glory and victory blooms you can appreciate all of its beauty.  It feels burdensome and terrifying to endure such calamity, but a life lived only half experienced is even more tragic. It is in your heart break that you feel everything so deeply and it is in the recovery where you witness the shadows of your strength manifest into will and power.  The meaning of life can be debated upon, as it has been since the inception of humanity perhaps.  Nonetheless, it does not negate the fact that in life we learn or we do not learn enough, and even within those two choices emerges experiences. Within the gracious moments of experience comes as Aeschylus disdainfully explains a process of procuring wisdom.  It is this wisdom that is worth the restless nights, the awful flashbacks of what we did, the moments of recognizing the emptiness within ourselves where we wish more compassion lied or where we wished away caring too much. There is so much complexity to the spectrum of humanity that it would be disappointing to not wallow in all that it has to offer.  Crawl into your darkness and find the light that is hidden in the deepest corner of you. Against our own will comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God but a much needed experience for us to truly live alive.  We cannot have love without disdain, we cannot have peace without warring, and we cannot have light without darkness.  How would we be able to distinguish what we want without experiencing or witnessing what we do not?  There is growth to be had in all that we live through, all of it. 

-Trinity

Love in this life ...

Love in this life is not meant to be undermined or used to comfort the fearful … there’s no room for fools. Within the broken shards of fallen hearts one can find the mistakes of many … you will find the dishonest, the blinded, the rushers, the lonely, the pretenders, the selfish, the needy … all of those who did not have the courage to wait to feel their knees buckle at the feeling of another soul stealing their space within the very same room or their hearts stop for a second too long reminding them it is time to breathe, the ones that did not have the courage to allow love to change them instantly … love is for the patient, it’s for the ones that understand that love itself is not conversational as I have once said before … it is a language of expression, coupled with passion and genuine in depth meaning from the soul, heart, and spirit combined of two people who had the courage … to wait for it. Love deserves our undivided attention … especially as it is directly correlated to matters of our hearts' future. Have the courage ... to not cling to false imitations and less than deserving relationships ... but instead be open to the moment your soul becomes shy and you find the courage ... to say, "I loved you all of my life before I knew who you were. I love exactly who you are. You were worth my wait." - Me

It's My Love Song

"I miss your heart. No one knows the rhythm of every beat the way that I do. I miss the creases in your smile and that sleepy look you give me when you want more of my love that I carry between my arms. I stood at the end, finding my demons’ eyes in the shadows of my darkest hell … but you saved me. I’ve felt you cry deep in my soul, we mourned together of a life... that could never be … still it remains that I miss your heart. No one knows the rhythm of every beat the way that I do. Every blink in the stares that you sent my way, your lashes waving hello there sweetheart, and in your eyes I could read I love you perfectly and simple. There was no complexity when it came to knowing your love … our love was an old age type … matured over centuries of a time, finding a settle within the midst of one another. I know what having a thirsty soul feels like … beaten down on a path defeated by the sun’s hottest performance … I was deprived … that was until you saved me. I will forever chase after your love and carry you with me and thank you always for loving me past a dull aching pain that I just moved along life within. You Sir surprised me and woke me from a lethargic state, bringing me into this so called living I have heard others speak of … you saved me. I miss your heart. No one knows the rhythm of every beat the way that I do … it’s my love song."

Heartbeat

 

I have been in a state of transition within myself for a while, hoping to capture the essence of who I really am in this life.  I try my hardest to pay attention, often stumbling upon my way.  I have yet to feel true regret in these moments of fumbling, only because I can find the growth within each hiccup.  I have found myself relying on yoga and its practice to help me in this trek of a journey called my life.  I am going share something with you, personal and private.  Yesterday, while I was in my Sunday hot yoga practice, I felt this overwhelming feeling that cannot be defined with giving an emotional description of happiness or calmness … it just can’t really be explained to its full capacity.  I was feeling a lot of things at once, to the point that it crumbled me and I began to cry to myself.  I’m in a good place emotionally in this time; I am not battling an influx of hormones or anything like that so when this hit me, I knew instantly that this was a pivotal moment for me.  It just felt so surreal and above me, bigger than me.  If that makes any sense at all.   

 

As my body was in child’s pose, I felt my life, all that I had been living and will be living, in that moment.   My ribs expanded as I took a deep breath on purpose and they graced the inside of my thighs as I laid there resting.  I had never felt them in that manner before, it was unique.  My heartbeat, I could feel it strong pounding in my chest and I knew I was alive.  In that moment, I was alive, really truly understanding the power that is in living.  I took each breath in that 90 minute class on purpose.  I was living on purpose.  Living on purpose and not just striving escapes the debilitating feeling for pressure and struggle; I felt free.  Maybe that is the best way to explain that feeling that brought me to tear, freedom.   I was letting go of being in a recovery state from all that I have gone through in my life.  I was letting go of insecurities that I have acknowledged I carry and the ones that have stayed within the shadows of my own little inner hell.  I felt as though I was being reborn as I thanked God for allowing me the awareness of the gift that he gave me, which was to live and to live healthy.  I couldn’t help but become overwhelmed.  In that moment, everything mattered but nothing mattered at all.   When my time comes, I want people to say that she knew what it meant to live, she knew what it felt like.  That is really important to me. 

 

Through my yoga practice, I have come to understand my physical strengths and mental weaknesses.  I have watched myself, with my bare hands and pure will, destroy these mental weaknesses through my physical strength and endurance.  I often talk about seeing myself in five years from now or ten years from now, and will that older me be proud of the work the younger me put in to becoming who I will then be.  At that moment, even in this moment now, I can answer a silent but strong, yes. 

 

Through all of the dirt that I have accumulated over the years, I have managed and will manage to find my source of water to clean and rehydrate myself.  Through the dark days that have seemed and may seem in the future to never yield to light, I will find a way to dance under the moon.  Through the moments of heartache that drag out each heartbeat, I will embrace the time allowing the pain to remind me that I am alive and I am able …. I will always be able as long as I have a breath in me.

Matters of the heart .....

I have not been in a place like this in a long time it seems. Wondering when my mind’s thoughts will subside so that I could accurately gauge the beats of my heart. The rhythm wavers with each passing touch, an intensity that is too far dissociated to define concretely. Where do we go from here when our hearts have long spoke the truth of this moment, foretelling the inevitable fortunes our future beholds? We make decisions in life and love that are not always ideal, often leading us to contemplate our other options, while reminiscence on the “what if” factor, as it dangles over our mistakes with a daunting laughter that shames the soul. That old adage that is written in our holy text, “patience is a virtue” speaks volumes, with very little of us having been able to master it, let alone utilize it on a consistent basis. I am just one, who longs to be loved righteously in an unjust world. I am just one, who anticipates the taste of freedom while her lover’s hand eclipses her own. I am just one, who is open to the possibility of happiness found in the cracks and missteps of our broken pathways. I am …. I am just one, who yearns and desperately craves to be understood within her emotions, outside expressions, and internal conflictions. I am in need of so much of what I give out that, it becomes overwhelmingly depressive when the daunting reality comes to full surface, staring you right in the face, with the answer you have refused for the longest time to accept, repeats itself for the millionth time that what you want … what you need … will always be at a finger tip distance, taunting your sanity with its truth and its greed.

Fear and Freedom

When does fear become a distant factor in the way that our lives are operated and maintained? When do we relinquish its hold that strangles our dreams, hopes, and aspirations? When does fear stop being a constant manipulator within our thoughts to the point that our steps become diluted illusions? Many of us have lost our footing, because of the catastrophes that fear engenders around us. Our purposes become confused, our vision becomes skewed, our dreams begin to only be meant for bed time, and our fascination with life becomes enumerated iota(s) that are meaningless.

Fear captures the essence of a man, or woman rather, from the beginning of their conception. Follow me on this point before becoming confused and dubious while hesitantly reading the rest this opine or well my opinion rather. Fear studies us in the way that it knows how to permeate our walls that we build sufficiently (or at the very least believe we have built sufficiently) to help us prevent such disastrous that fear leads us to and through. Fear provokes us to question our own gut instincts (superego and or conscience), it acidly strips away at the spark of confidence we hold onto within the grit of our fingernails, and it taints the fine line of trust, trust that we hold even within ourselves.

Emotions keep us implacable sometimes, distracting us from what is right and just, which fear is categorized as one of these emotions that does so.
Fear, which promotes worry, which in turns induces stress, which also solicits heart disease, cancer, and from diet pill commercial’s claims, belly fat as well, can none the less vigorously trigger the death of us all, in different fashions of course, but still familiar in taste. Fear is a silent killer, for in fact it gives us comfort at times, reminding us that our skin is there as goose bumps trickle up and down the outer layers of our crusted bodies. Fear escartz it way into our lives pretending to be a warning label to the unknown and perhaps the forbidden; it keeps us honest and alert it reassures us. In retrospect, it keeps us paralyzed in our stilted transformation, preventing progression and success. It lies to us about our end result if we put our worries aside and worked toward something bigger than ourselves; it tells us that we aren’t big enough or strong enough to play. It lies to our face, pretending to be a natural instinct, when in fact, it’s a habitual vexation that has found a welcoming home within our souls; clever imposture fear is. My heart says it’s not right, and I’m sure that I am not the only one that has felt the vibration from within, trying to convince ourselves of the unnaturalness of it all.

Each day, most of us, and though I am generalizing and speculating purely, do not take time to listen to and hear the morning whispers, or truly appreciate the day for rising again so un-expectantly. No, fear of whatever kept us tossing and turning towards each side of the darken night previously keeps us stubborn, ungrateful, distracted, and clustered with confusion. I heard a phrase this weekend that has a simplistic tone to it, and yet, a beauty that sings between each word; it goes: The morning breeze has something to tell you, do not go back to sleep. Interpret this however you see fit, for words are a mirror of our perception, perceive them in whatever way that gives you comfort, inspiration, and clarity. We all have selective understanding and we all choose to live at some point in time, the way that we live. You see, to me these words speak of letting go of any preconceived notions of a new today that replaced my yesterday, which merely means, letting go of my hindering fears of the past, so to not re-infect myself anymore. Just as we do with forgiving someone or something for whatever the situation may be, rather it be small, medium or large, we have to make the conscience ever to forgive every single time, not just once. So, as we do when we are faced with fears that hamper our process towards succession over an obstacle or an entity within our lives.

Choose to acknowledge self doubt, confusion, and diffidence for what they are, distractions from a bigger picture of happiness. Recognize, reconcile, and then release the fear that hinders us from a better future, because though days have become so disregarded and irrelevantly suspected, they may be endangered within a matter of time (time is truly of the essence for it is a virtue in its own right). Notably, we are nearly a peccadillo rather than a virtue, a spec in comparison to the bigger picture of this so called life.

Letting go of fear is experiencing a new taste to freedom.

Holding on ...

Confession: I tend to be dramatic sometimes, but that is just my outake on life. Everything is important, everything is big, and everything with me matters. Life matters so much, and I am still trying to find all the ways that it is important and that it can be lived. Here is just a free write of my thoughts on the matter of how we live and how we choose throughout it.

Do you ever feel your hands loosen around your life, and the fall from the wind is whizzing in your ear, whispering so fast that it makes every other sound around you numb or tender to the ear; you shut your eyes because the force from the wind is so strong, you can’t see anything, everything is so blurry and together.

During a response to a discussion earlier, I conferred with the notion that the one the biggest misconceptions is that we know ourselves completely or better than we actually think we do. We walk around guarded or loose sometimes, well most of the time actually; we walk around ignoring our reflection, even when it is in our own eyes in the mirror to take heed of our actions. Even our shadows move a little more hesitantly behind our bodies, telling us to be cautious, but we ignore them. Yet, we move ambiguously through this life, paying little attention to the subtleties that could produce a better us, give us a clearer understanding of where we need to be, where we really WANT to be.

What exactly is our catalyst for being stagnant in life? Is it fear? Is it insecurities? Is it blindness? Perhaps, it may be all. I don’t know exactly. What is it that keeps us stationary within the house of mediocrity and glibness? It is as some don’t know how to clean the house and toss out the trash. You know, it’s like every time you move from one place to another, when you are packing, sometimes you tend to throw away loads of garbage that you think would clutter your new place, right? Right. You are thinking to yourself, it wouldn’t do any good there so why bring along, right? Right. Why is it that some of us cannot do that within our lives and circumstances? I am not speaking purely of relationships and moving to one guy to the next, making sure he does not carry the load that was created from the previous partner; that would be nice and it would save him and you a lot of drama for the mama, but that is not all that I am speaking about, not really even the main point. What I am speaking of is in every aspect of our lives, we create stuff that just not need to be there, need being the key element in the statement. There is so much clutter that gets in the way, like we are hoarders of emotions and dysfunctional destruction. I am not saying just let it go, I am saying analyze it, learn it, and THEN let it go; so that you never have to be re-infected again, at least by whatever that was. Let it be a WAS, let it be a true WAS moment, not a now and again, then some more moment, you know what I am mean?

Holding on to what, you should ask yourself, and as to why should be the proceeding question. Doubting something when in the middle of anything major or minuet is something to take heed to, something to pay attention to and not to ignore, because it is the minor nuances that steam roll into the sticking daring situations. Broken hearts as a beautiful song once suggested is that the heart is still beating, you’re alive, and you’re not dead. Tighten your grip around life and live, live by taking it breath by breath, not day by day.

Hold on … you're not completely broken.