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I punish myself more than anybody else does if I am stupid about my actions, and I suffer, really suffer.
~Eartha Kitt |
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‘Bright Star’ by John Keats
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art– Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors– No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever–or else swoon to death. |
‘Love Sonnet 130’ by William Shakespeare
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. |
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We Are Petrified of Genuine Love By Rachael Boley
There are many levels of love and each contains different layers
I have come to believe that if we are operating the way we were built to operate, there is a level of love we should feel for almost everyone we meet. I’m not saying we should fall head over heels in hopeless love, surrendering our whole selves to every soul on the street. But I am saying that if we are living in a state of openness and acceptance of both ourselves and others, functioning from a lens of compassion and connection, then we will likely experience a type of love birthed from compassion, empathy, and kindness, for almost everyone we meet. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing. The thing is we are scared of love. Petrified. In fact, not only are we afraid of love as a feeling, we are also afraid of love as a word. We are scared of everything that word represents. We are afraid of vulnerability, of openness, of allowing others into ourselves and of diving into others. Why? Because it costs us something to love that way. To live that way. The cost of genuine love Investing in other people in a genuine way costs us small pieces of ourselves. It requires something of us on a deeper level and most of the time, that is not a place people are comfortable living. Relationships – genuine relationships – beg us to crack our hearts open, even if it’s just a little bit. We are so desperate to connect with one another and to crawl out from behind the walls of isolation we’ve built; yet when faced with the opportunity, we hide from it. We keep each other at arms length most of the time. And, even in those relationships where we’ve reached a level beyond the surface, there’s a blockage we often hit because we only allow each other so deep. Tuning into our own hearts If we’re being honest, most of us aren’t even that good at tuning into our own hearts, much less anyone else’s. We tell ourselves a myriad of excuses for why we live this way, and while many of them are valid, they aren’t that convincing to me. "I’m busy. I’m tired. I don’t have time. I’ve got too much of my own stuff going on. We don’t know each other well enough. They don’t care anyway." We use these excuses — among others — to keep a safe distance between ourselves and everyone else. It works. Emotionally, it does seem safer to just worry about your own circle and not get too involved in anyone else’s. But is that really the safe route? Sure, it stops us from being hurt by others. But does it really? Do we not often feel hurt by someone else’s lack of investment in us, yet forget that we never actually invested in them either? Do we not feel lonely and alone, yet neglect to reach out from behind the walls of protection we’ve built? Craving Intimacy It seems to me that we are desperate for each other. Craving intimacy with other souls existing near us, yet we are so afraid of feeling anything that we don’t even give ourselves the chance. In my opinion, the only way to truly connect with anyone is to open yourself up to the possibility. We have to first open our minds and allow ourselves to be vulnerable and exposed long enough to invite someone else to come along and enter into that space with us. If not, we will just continue playing emotional bumper cars with each other and never actually get anywhere. We’ve become so accustomed to operating in our own bubbles, keeping everyone else on the periphery, that when we do encounter someone who has the capacity to slip inside our borders just a bit, we often shut it down. We question their authenticity. We are skeptical of their motives. And we allow our own insecurities, fears, and past hurts to overpower the potential for a genuine connection of any kind. That’s such a cheerless way to live. We’ve lost it. Trying to develop bona-fide relationships and even truly trying to get to know someone now comes across as something too intense. We label those people crazy. Needy. Desperate. Weird. And we distance ourselves from them. Particularly in the dating scene this theme exists. People mistake kindness for desire. I was recently told, “I think you’re in marriage mode and you just need to be in date mode.” While it’s true that my brain is more wired for long term commitment, I was simply trying to get to know the person. But people are so uncomfortable with below the surface communication that it apparently makes them feel like you want to marry them rather than get to know them. I’ve also had genuine friendships with people in which it’s clear there’s a level of mutual love for each other; yet, when even the thought of the “L” word presents itself, it’s shut down in a New York minute. There is no loss We think that saying we love someone means something it isn’t allowed to mean. That if we give a genuine piece of ourselves, maybe we won’t ever get it back. But isn’t that the point of relationships? To give and receive levels of affection we simply cannot create alone? Operating from that principle, we don’t lose anything by giving of ourselves. In fact, we have everything to gain. Yet living in this protective bubble of fear and resistance, we are creating the exact thing we dread: We are creating a world of solitude and disconnection where we watch each other from behind our glass walls but never really reach each other. The fact is that loving others brings to the surface our own mortality. It reminds us that we could lose things. That we aren’t invincible and that our hearts really do beat and bleed. That’s painful. Regardless of what level your heart operates in connection to certain people, we have to stop being afraid of love. In order to not fear love, we have to first not fear our own hearts. We have to first learn to trust ourselves and crack the window to our own souls before it will ever feel safe to let someone else in. Until we figure out that piece, I don’t think we will ever get the kind of love and fulfillment in relationships (of any kind) we truly desire... |
If every woman who's had an abortion took tomorrow off in protest, America would grind to a halt. And that would be symbolic: because women grind to a halt if they are not in control of their fertility.
Caitlin Moran |
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You are not for everyone by Bianca Sparacino
You are not for everyone. There are poems within you that people will not be able to handle, storms surging through your bones that young men and women will never be able to weather.
See, you have a love inside of you that will ooze from your very veins like honey on a hot day and you will never be able to stop it. You’re going to fall deeply in love with the wrong world – the kind of world young girls dream of, the kind of world where people say how they feel and love whom they love. You will forever be attached to the deep parts of those you tangle yourself within, though they will never get their hands dirty long enough to uncover the treasure that hums within your dancing pulse. You are going to be misunderstood in the way you care, for you will love people not for what is obvious within them, but for what is hidden beneath their masks. You are not going to revel in their freckles, you will not compliment the hues within their eyes. You are going to live for the way they breathe in the cold December air, watching as their chest rises and falls like your very heartbeat. You are going to live for the way their pupils dilate when they talk about something they are truly passionate about, when their cheeks flush from a compliment or the unexpected brush of your foot against their leg. No, you are not for everyone. You are never going to be able to stop yourself from screaming your love from rooftops, you will never be able to play it cool. You are the kind of person who will worry about the strangers you see in grocery stores, the kind of person who will stay up at night wondering about your fifth grade crush, hoping that the sun is setting beautifully wherever they rest their head. For that, I hope you protect yourself. I hope that you do not let the world condemn you for being too loud, too expressive, too soft; that you do not let it convince you to be perfect instead of real. I truly hope that you celebrate the fact that you are not for everyone, that you are not impressing the kinds of people who were built on the foundations of a sad world. If there is anything you do, please, let yourself rejoice in the fact that you do not fit in, that you think differently, because there is a chaos that laughs inside of you and it is going to change lives. It is going to make even the cynics believe again. It is going to grow love from thorn and glass. |
Happy Birthday Ms. Key
Education can give you a skill, but a liberal education can give you dignity.
-Ellen Key (12/11/1849 - 4/25/1926) |
"You feel the need to see clearly. But your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Without, everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes."
Carl Jung, Letters, I, page 33, 22 October 1916 |
I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you in my heart. I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky. ~ Rumi |
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