Vive l'amour!
Jan. 18th, 2005 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI was reading a LJ entry this morning that got me thinking about the sometimes enormous challenges of engaging with life-force/love and how unsafe it can be to be open to the wild, to the infinity of possibilities, to be a Fool for love/life. And that reminded me of something I wrote a number of years ago. It was in the context of an online conversation about the Cathars, AMOR vs ROMA and the Albigensian Crusade, the conflict between what the entrenched structures of society will tell you is love (for their own self-interested reasons), and what is really, truly love. I was also at the same time dealing with some really petty, vicious, small-minded people in my life, whose lives seemed so very, very small and constrained. There is always a choice, and that's what I was trying to get at here. The last paragraph, especially, is something of a manifesto for me, and when I think of it I trot it out every so often to remind myself of the choices I face. This is holy, sacred work, and it can be so very hard. But diving fully into that work is the best path to fully inhabiting, experiencing, and reveling in life, love and joy, beauty balance and delight.
--Chelidon
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There's a stance of bitterness and inward-shrinking, of exclusion, clinging isolation, binding, loneliness, turning away, closing down, cutting off, disconnecting, and turning off. There's a path of ecstasy, expansion, inclusion, joy, freedom, camaraderie, turning to face, opening up, adding on, connecting, and turning on.
Being snide, smarmy, bitter, vicious, cold, indifferent, sarcastic, caustic, cynical, pompous, self-righteous or petty, has a way of shriveling the soul when turned into a regular habit. As does spending a lot of your time around other people who choose to live that way. And a wrinkled, shriveled soul rattling around in an otherwise healthy body is not a pretty sight. When you lose your sense of humor, you've lost the world, because there's plenty enough nasty crap existing to suck dry the joy from anyone without it. And, indeed, those whose own wellspring of joy has run dry will frequently attempt to suck it from others around them...this explains much of society--joyless people grasping at anything or anybody external which seems like it might be a substitute. Beware the difference between healthy self-skepticism and the contagious disease of poisonous, cynical bitterness. Pettiness is a sure sign of the latter. But it is easily banished with laughter.
I seek immersion in the ecstasy, the ocean of amor--the wild, uncontrollable, unstoppable love that burns away all weaselly smarminess, all self-righteous pompousity, all half-hearted platitudes, sticky sentimentality, persistent self-imposed limitations, insidious illusions of isolation and self-perpetuating auto-apocalyptic memes. I seek the preciously impractical tickling spark that lets you giggle with abandon at other's silly pettiness, shrug without bitterness at tightly-held delusions, and laugh at oneself without limit. Everyone's gotta choose their own truths. But some clearly lead to heaven on earth, and others wind their sure way to personal hells of disillusionment and bitterness. Choose ye well.
--Chelidon
-------
There's a stance of bitterness and inward-shrinking, of exclusion, clinging isolation, binding, loneliness, turning away, closing down, cutting off, disconnecting, and turning off. There's a path of ecstasy, expansion, inclusion, joy, freedom, camaraderie, turning to face, opening up, adding on, connecting, and turning on.
Being snide, smarmy, bitter, vicious, cold, indifferent, sarcastic, caustic, cynical, pompous, self-righteous or petty, has a way of shriveling the soul when turned into a regular habit. As does spending a lot of your time around other people who choose to live that way. And a wrinkled, shriveled soul rattling around in an otherwise healthy body is not a pretty sight. When you lose your sense of humor, you've lost the world, because there's plenty enough nasty crap existing to suck dry the joy from anyone without it. And, indeed, those whose own wellspring of joy has run dry will frequently attempt to suck it from others around them...this explains much of society--joyless people grasping at anything or anybody external which seems like it might be a substitute. Beware the difference between healthy self-skepticism and the contagious disease of poisonous, cynical bitterness. Pettiness is a sure sign of the latter. But it is easily banished with laughter.
I seek immersion in the ecstasy, the ocean of amor--the wild, uncontrollable, unstoppable love that burns away all weaselly smarminess, all self-righteous pompousity, all half-hearted platitudes, sticky sentimentality, persistent self-imposed limitations, insidious illusions of isolation and self-perpetuating auto-apocalyptic memes. I seek the preciously impractical tickling spark that lets you giggle with abandon at other's silly pettiness, shrug without bitterness at tightly-held delusions, and laugh at oneself without limit. Everyone's gotta choose their own truths. But some clearly lead to heaven on earth, and others wind their sure way to personal hells of disillusionment and bitterness. Choose ye well.
