On love

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=348914941857380&set=pb.100002166317517.-2207520000.1480292734.&type=3&theater

The following dialogue is taken from the movie "Interstellar". Highly recommended.

COOPER

"You’re a scientist, Brand -"

BRAND

"I am. So listen to me when I tell you that love isn’t something we invented - it’s observable, powerful. Why shouldn’t it mean something?"

COOPER

"It means social utility - child rearing, social bonding -"

BRAND

"We love people who’ve died ... where’s the social utility in that? Maybe it means more - something we can’t understand, yet. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of higher dimensions that we can’t consciously perceive. I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen for a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t yet understand it."

Yes, but love takes effort. And it takes effort because like light, love is made of myriads of tiny particles; kindness, generosity, understanding, selflessness, care... This is the secret that allows it to transcend space and time. Every one of these characteristics is about overcoming, transcending, breaking through the barriers of everyday life, normality, expectation. Beyond gaining, beyond life itself in some cases. 

"Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

The sky is roaring tonight. So am I.

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Burning down the Heavens II

I had a very long conversation with my best friend today. He's psychic, a holistic therapist and a specialist on behavioural disorders. He's also a quiet person with the patience of a saint. We are lucky to have known each other for more than 23 years, and he's one of the reasons I am still alive and relatively sane. 

Now, my friend and I share a lot, although we're also different. But one of the nicest things we can do together is divination. Why? Because our minds work in a similar way, we use similar methods and more than anything, we share the same core of information. When we close our eyes and connect with something, we connect with the same source. We share the same myths of creation, the same understanding. One could say, we're cut from the same cloth. Countless times his dreams and divinations and poems have verified my dreams and divinations and writings. Maybe the reason we love each other so much is sharing the same madness, each verifying the other's delusions, each embracing the other's illogical point of view. Maybe we're both sad fools than need each other's comfort to feel life is worth living. But it goes a lot deeper than that, and it's so accurate that it would have been scary if it wasn't exhilarating.

In my dreams I find answers that solve knots in your waking life. With your constant questions I discover the joy of giving you the right answer. And when I miss a piece of the puzzle or need help, you reach deep and provide me with it, because you can. You can do so many things, and through your constant feedback I discovered I too can. I can do countless things because you've showed me how, and in some cases because you've reminded me that I can. I can understand and heal and forgive and give advice and grow a thick skin, and know when to keep my silence. I can give you pieces of myths before any myth was created, because you too can take sneak peeks at the time Creation was still timeless. I can connect with the Heart without batting an eyelid, in the same way you can download answers without any instrument of divination. I can evolve and become a different person and ignore all odds, because the only real superpower we possess is the power of change. I choose to become what I want and not what my past dictated; you chose to overcome the past and ignore all odds and be who you are. And look at us now.

As the path becomes clearer by the day, and the stress is replaced by quiet inside, I look at the night sky and smile. The stars are always above, watching us both, and you and I know so many things no-one else does. We know what exists in no book, internet site or newsflash. We're the lunatic chroniclers of a world drowning in pain, blood and greed, and we can still discover pieces of ancient magic in the smallest thing. We rekindle that magic with our breaths and our fingers, our poems and writings, our dumb jokes, our friendships, our four hour long phone-calls, our odd conversations. We fight the good battle, the best fucking battle; the lost battle of idealists in a world brimming with mental cancer, violence and injustice. People can die but ideas are hard motherfuckers, the stuff from which not legends, but myths of Creation were made. We carry the banners of ideals in the battlefield of everyday life, through rivers of sorrow and disappointment. We don't carry them only when it is convenient. We keep on carrying them even when our knees tremble and our backs bleed from being constantly stabbed and each breath is torture, when reality spits us in the face, when friends and lovers betray us for those very ideals, when death takes from us what little life has left us with. We carry them through madness and loneliness and we carry them through deserts and mountains. I only have one wish; that when my time comes, I'll be buried wrapped in those glorious banners. May the Heart make it so.

We know so much, you and I. And we'll burn down the Heavens. We'll bring down immortals and open holes in the fabric of this sad, rigged reality to let the Light shine through. There is nothing we can't do, nothing we can't face. We've proved it a thousand times and we'll do it a thousand more if we have to. There is nothing else to do, no other way. We'll pull through, move on, get it done.

I love you. Sleep tight. Tomorrow is another day, another struggle, but for now, sleep tight.
May the three Ladies watch over you. I'll make sure they will.
Goodnight.

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Random acts of vileness

This is not directly related to the post, but it's very nice. It's my random act of kindness for today. You are welcome. XD Source: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelStokesPhoto/

I have an observation to make, as well as a request. Don't be nasty. When you do something bad, the misery you create spreads in waves and finally finds its way back to you. How does this work? Let me give you my thoughts.

As you have guessed, a friend of mine passed away a little more than two years ago. She was very dear to me. A few months before she was gone, she posted me a birthday present. I have no idea what that present was. You see, she posted it from Japan and although she sent it by registered mail, her gift never arrived. It turns out that the tracking system for the packet worked only inside Japan and someone stole it. Since this was the last present she ever sent to me, I wish I had received it. Not for any other reason but for its sentimental value. In any case, someone interfered and I never got it. That someone obviously didn't know that this gift was important to me, and didn't care about the consequences of stealing it. He or she didn't think it was something, but to me it was.

Now you are going to tell me, how does this affect other people? Whether we like it or not, we are interconnected. We exist within a very complex web of social interactions. Every time someone behaves like an arse, this affects a lot more than just the person who becomes the receiver of that behaviour. What, seems exaggerated? It's not.

Let's say you have a fight with someone. You go home enraged and take it out on your significant other. They get out of the house with their panties in a bunch and without meaning to, they run over a cat. The cat owner isn't going to be a happy chap, and I don't even want to refer to the poor cat. So misery spreads like sticky smog and affects a lot of lives, because whether we like it or not, we are connected. Even small and seemingly unimportant acts of anger, greed or malice can have major consequences for you or someone else. I don't believe in heaven or hell, but sometimes a single act of ill will or irresponsibility can turn a person's world upside down. For this reason alone, humans need to be careful. And though it may be hard to believe, happiness spreads in a similar way, through the same social web. 

I am giving by nature so I don't need anyone to tell me how that works. However, let me elaborate for you. Do you remember when you went for coffee and the waitress was extra polite and nice? Or when a random stranger stopped and helped you with your car trouble? Or when a co-worker complimented you on your new dress? Do remember how good it felt to be at the receiving end of such behaviour and how it improved your mood for hours afterwards, making you smile and making you nicer, too? That's the way happiness spreads, and unlike misery, it is unlikely to cause damage to someone or cost a person's life. 

Do something nice and don't do it because you expect something in return. It affects a lot of lives, more than you can imagine. This is a small world, and what goes around comes around. It may come in a different form, but it does. You don't have to save the world from hunger. All you need to do is buy a sandwich for the homeless guy in your neighbourhood, or throw your remaining crumbs to the pigeons. Don't think big. Small is more than enough. Small and immediate is fine. And if you don't want to do that, at least don't step on other people's toes. That, too, is plenty. 
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Consequences

"We need to talk about Kevin" (2011)

The moon is yellow and not full yet, and the sky is dull and murky, like thick pearly dust stirred in inky water. The clouds are sickly white tufts and the stars are nowhere in sight.

The heavens seem to press down on me tonight.

I count stories of my life that never happened, or were interrupted before they run their course.

One, two, three, four, five, six... Maybe even more.

A night of counting wasted chances.

I embrace a book and smile at my inability to change the course of the river.

I pray to Lilith.

Second born, beloved, consort of the first born, three-natured, bridge and divider, mother and destroyer, take me by the hand. Come.

I pray to Hecate.

Goddess supreme, heavenly, earthly and chthonic, mother of horrors and magic, protectress, enchantress, she of the golden tongue, merciful one, terrible one, your horrors are no strangers to me. Come.

I pray to Kali.

Goddess of death and destruction, she of the terrible wrath, invincible, unstoppable, destroyer of the ego, blood-drinker, demon-slayer, mother supreme, fight by my side, lick my wounds and don't let me hold back from what has to be done. Come.

I pray to the Heart.

Home of my heart, heart of my home, heart of the innermost within and without, don't let me stray from your path. I serve you with everything I have; let everything I do be in your service.

I am what I am.

Everything serves the Heart.

I watched 'We need to talk about Kevin', and it was similar to the dark, oppressive, stifling night sky; a voyage through terror and delirium. The boy was a sociopath, he was insane through and through, but I know how he felt. I know why he wanted to kill. In another place, another era, such a young man would have been an invaluable warrior, but now? The only place we have for such people nowadays is prison, or an asylum built like a prison. And I smile. I don't know if I understand this character because my empathy is so high or because I see his blood thirst mirrored in me. I do know I am too much of a control freak to let that side of me roam free, and there is always the safe channel of writing about it. But I also know I understand. I fully understand, and I am not ashamed of that side. If anything, I love and embrace it.

Some nights I wish I was someone else, or even better, no-one at all.

Goodnight.

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Small things make me happy

 

"There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing—for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean. There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA, that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmon knows its creek. Intellectually, we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins—their home in the salty depths. But if the seas are our immediate source, the penultimate source is certainly the heavens… The spectacular truth is—and this is something that your DNA has known all along—the very atoms of your body—the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on—were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when you stand outside under a moonless, country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards. We are star stuff. Keep looking up."

Jerry Waxman

 

Small things  make me happy because I can't have the big ones I dream about.

I can't leave this planet behind and travel to the stars, except maybe as stardust.

I can't understand everything, not without leaving this personality behind like a discarded piece of clothing. And this body, this personality has not had enough experiences to leave it behind. It's good to be human before giving ascended master status a go. It's good to scrape your knees before you learn to fly out of your body; to have mundane love break your heart before you draw conclusions about the Heart of Everything.

It's good to see the worst this world and you have to offer before you don yourself the title of messiah, avatar, empath, lightworker, earthly angel or whatever else.

Never before have I seen dust of our kind. We're dust, nothing but dust, yet the night sky speaks to my heart in the voice of the perfect lover I never had. When the moon is at its last quarter, it rises late, bathing everything in a weak yellow, almost negative light. The wind blows and shakes the branches, making me shiver with longings I can't put in words. It's four in the a.m., I am standing at the rooftop and can sense I'm not alone, but no human is awake at this hour. Four a.m. is not an hour for humans, except maybe for the sick, the mad, the broken and those too young to have responsibilities. 

It is a humbling experience to find yourself alone and outdoors in the small hours of the night. It makes you realise how insignificant you are. I can feel it during those late nights with waning moon. Other beings and entities roam the night and sneer at me, and the same rooftop I've been to hundreds of times is an alien, scary place. The stars are hesitant to lend their light and the failing moon spells sickness and death. Crawling night serpents with scraping, poisonous scales, and other, blacker things the names of which I don't know fill the skies and the shadows. My heart is a bird frantically trying to escape from my chest, and my only ally is my resolve. I know that same moon shines its leprous brilliance over swamps, and ruins, and nightmarish, desolate places forsaken by the so-called champions of light. So I kneel, and call upon the darkest aspects of being. I call upon Hecate, Hel and Kali, and the Angel of death, and ask for their blessing. Those strange, horrible landscapes are as much a part of this reality as everything else. I can't understand this world or myself without them. I can't reach comprehension unless I embrace them too. Because as above so below, as within, so without. Everything is part of myself, not just sweetness and light. And the night obliges. The heart slows down and opens. The soul drinks and is sated.

Oh, what would I give to go back to whatever dead, dark star the atoms of my being originated from. To go back home. But I can't. And so I strive to find a job, and find someone who understands, and love my cats and my friends. And make this world a better place, not because I love the light, but also the dark. I love the dark with all my heart, because the Heart encompasses everything and everyone. 

I serve the needs of the Heart, and through the Heart, all my needs are served.

PS: The soundtrack of one of my most favourite movies is as good as the movie itself. Enjoy. 

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