I am still here

Life is pain.

Well thank you for the enlightenment dear Buddha but as I wrote some time ago in my fb I don't think the reason for life's pain is desire, I think the reason for life's pain is consciousness.

And as much as this was argued in my facebook status here it cannot be argued since ...well....it is my blog really :)

Anyway.....pain.....can be perceived in so many different ways spiritual or emotional or physical but still pain nonetheless.

The last 3 months have been a cocktail of sorts for me in this area.

Emotional due to the life changing events that took place in my life, changes I did not desire nor expected nor cared for. The very foundations I built my life upon were shuttered and I was left to gather the pieces frightened -truly frightened for what was left for me to be now- and alone.

Spiritual due to the fact that all the decisions I made in the past few years were put under the microscope and many were found wanting. Spiritual because the very meaning of my life was in question here, not just because of what happened but also because of the sudden (although not unexpected) disappearance of everyone I counted on as friend or even more. And not just disappearance but also attempts of manipulating the situation to some other ends...it is one thing to try and manipulate someone when he is strong but it is a completely another thing to do it when he is down. Now that...is cruel and immoral. Very immoral. Many of my memories from the past related to many people were shuttered and for that I am truly in pain. I was....in a very very dark and lonely place , quite resembling my images of Dante's inferno where I could see no light, only darkness.

Physical because I also got ill and was hospitalized which added to this whole situation the sudden break of my body...not unexpected under the circumstances.

But....we humans have an extreme tolerance as it seems and we also have amazing healing abilities. We have a built in mechanism to forget and survive I guess.

Well I have not forgotten, it is after all too soon , but I am beginning to see glimpses of light.

The road to enlightenment is a very lonely road , yes it is indeed, but does it really have to be so damn hard???? Yes...I guess it does.....

I was looking out my hospital window and was utterly miserable and lonely, it was evening and a very dark evening with no afterglow. Suddenly the first drops of rain started to fall, hesitant at first and then all the more bold and even violent. I got up and touched the cool windowglass with my forehead and that touch was sort of liberating, as if the anger of the storm calmed the storm within me, released me even if it was for a brief period of time.

I am used to my solitude, seek it even. Loneliness is marked by a sense of isolation. Solitude, on the other hand, is a state of being alone without being lonely and can lead to self-awareness.

In that dark place I could only enjoy my solitude in those hours of the night just before dawn when everyone is asleep, and nature is waiting for the first ray of light.

I had lost myself.

Now I am slowly beginning to find myself again but I am far too tired....oh so tired......so very tired......I do not have the luxury of being tired I have to perform, I have to be there for others and I have to work but oh I'm so very tired.

Sometimes I look at those fairy tale drawings and I see fairies sleeping this enchanted sleep of the fairy queen and I so long for that sleep, I so long to slip into this world as Marion did , to find my long saught after Avalon.

I read lately again Hamlet's monologue from the play Act III Scene I, 'To be or not to be'

Maybe it is that I have grown or maybe it is that I can finally relate to what this monologue is really about :

“	To be or not to be, that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.[2]	”

When we have shed of this mortal coil, and in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

But then again there is this unfulfilled promise to myself, that I will travel all around the world, see some new things just like Mac said and enjoy as much of this pale blue dot as possible.

But conscience ......it does make cowards of us all......you were right Hamlet.....I had to grow to really understand.

I am still here.

(on the left my spirit on the right my psyche)







(all pictures by Arthur Hughes, John Collier and John William Waterhouse, my imaginery companions)