To the broken and brokenhearted

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For various, mostly mistaken reasons, I shut a lot of people I love out of my life. I thought that while I was away, they wouldn't think about me. Out of sight, out of mind—you know how that goes.

Thing is, they never left my mind.

It wasn't until after I got back in touch with them that I realized I never left theirs. They were worried, watching from afar, trying to help, but not knowing how.

Sarah, Keni, Pao, Royer, Liliana, Zaydunga, Nora, Manolo: gracias por ayudarme a recobrar partes de mi corazon que hasta poco pensé estaban perdidas.

Perspective

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”

— Miyamoto Musashi

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Self-respect

Photo by Alex Wigan on Unsplash

This particular lesson took too long to finally sink in.

“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.”

– Robert Tew

Painfully beautiful

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

​I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis, even though I've read very little of his work. Truly I'm a fan of anyone who can take a crude amalgam of thoughts, feelings and experience, and, with a few simple words, crystalize them into something painfully beautiful.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Always

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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Time to choose

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I have a soft spot for duality, for opposites, contrast. Invariably, regardless of the art or mode of expression, I'm drawn in.

There's a part in Neale Donald Walsch's book, Conversations with God, that talks about every choice coming down to love or fear—nothing in between. It's not the first time I've heard this, but the manner in which it was delivered stirred up experiences past.

Language can be boiled down to its most essential building blocks. Take the most basic computer language: nothing but zeros and ones. If there were a language behind the universe—creating, morphing, dissolving it—it would be this. At least as humans are concerned, may be that's all there is: love or fear. 

We choose all the time. It's time to choose differently.

Joy, truth, love

I just started reading a book I got as a gift from my mom, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. I'm literally just a few pages in, but I wanted to post this quote. 

I love finding these little treasures in things—thoughts so tightly strung together you can touch them. Well, they touch you. 

The Highest Thought is always that thought which contains joy. The Clearest Words are those words which contain truth. The Grandest Feeling is that feeling which you call love.

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Love differently

When one paints, one loves in a different way.

– Séraphine,
from the 2008 film
by the same name

Food lovers

Photo by Julian Hanslmaier on Unsplash

Food is the food of the body; love is the food of the soul.

– Vasant Lad

As long as we accept we can choose

For as long as I remember, I've been afraid to love—to love in the purest sense.

There are these lines from Lord Tennyson's poem, In Memoriam A.H.H.: 

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

I’ve been an ardent advocate of the opposition, especially as I’ve grown older. Yet throughout my life, through the good choices and the terrible ones, this is true: it is the very thing I’m drawn to—a moth circling an ever-burning flame.

We cannot know love without loss. The profound pain of loss and the nature of love itself—immense, vast beyond comprehension, infinite—is deceptively terrifying. I say “deceptively” because I’ve glimpsed it and survived.

This video, When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone, was deeply moving to me. If you’re also on a quest to overcome the fear to love, I hope this inspires you too.

1,000 frames per second

Speaking of setting the heart aflame, I've been away: I was preparing for a performance that took place this weekend—it went beautifully. I enjoyed myself tremendously and so did my students. I met a lot of great people, and received the highest compliment on my choreography from one of the professional dancers I most admire.

Something very deep within me ignited again. It's the kind of thing that keeps you up at night, and in those short instances where you do fall asleep, it seeps into your dreams. There's no remedy but to succumb to the music playing quietly inside, like a soft, unrelenting echo, and, in the middle of the night, externalize its voice with a song that fits just right, then move to it until it the body can do no more.

This video is lovely—movement at 1,000 frames per second. I thought I'd share it here while I finish the piece I've been working on.

Lover of leaving

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Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
It doesn't matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times it doesn’t matter
Come, yet again, come

                                                – Rumi

Do the maths

I saw this on a bumpersticker a couple of days ago, except it had the line "You do the math" right underneath it. It's such a simple statement, yet so easy to forget. I liked this artist's rendition of it, JustGage.

Although, if I had my way with it, I'd change it to this: Love > Fear

Set the heart aflame

Two years ago a friend of mine gave me her copy of Irina Tweedie’s The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience with the Teachings of a Sufi Master. The title is self-explanatory, and it’s a great read—it’s actually a portion of her larger work, Daughter of Fire, which I haven’t read. There are a couple lines in the first chapter that moved me; they were the first of many. 

It is the task of the Teacher to set the heart aflame with an unquenchable fire of longing; it is his duty to keep it burning until it is reduced to ashes. For only a heart which has burned itself empty is capable of love.

Photo by JERRY on Unsplash