Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A friend told me a couple of days ago the story of Virginia Woolf's suicide: she was losing her mind; one day she put in her pockets a ballast and walked into the sea, and died drowned. She did it, I was told, because she loved her husband immensely (that was the word my friend used), and wanted to spare him the pain of watching her become insane.

And I thought, arrested by a sudden weariness: good Lord, there is no end to this... Here is, again, someone taking a decision that does not belong to her, here is someone deciding for someone else what is good for him, assuming that she knows, assuming she can control life and death, as if she had the whole picture; here is a perfect self-sufficient pride born of self-loathing enacted...

Later, trying to find sleep, I thought that what Virginia Woolf was dealing with by her suicide was her own inability to bear the thought of another person loving her so unconditionally as to accept her insanity; so fully as to value her life and presence, however disrupted, however incomplete and diminished, more than his own happiness... You cannot bear this if deep down you feel you wouldn't be able to love in the same way -- so you conclude that others cannot either. And this is a logical conclusion if you live with the idea and feeling of alienation, of our existence being only and desperately individual, fragmented, disconnected from the whole and thus ultimately insignificant. But not all of us live with this idea and feeling; or not all the time.

But of course, my understanding is as partial and one-sided as anyone's, and I am as good at projecting my feelings as anyone... so perhaps, Mr Woolf was, after all, relieved to be rid of his crazy wife, and we may be totally mistaken about her real motives, and I may have no clue to what it means, losing your mind. I can see a grandeur in her decision too -- the irresistible impulse to "lay down your life for your friends", to put the well-being of another person, however misunderstood this well-being may be, before your own. I do not know, and she is not there to explain. All I know is that for a short while that night rage and grief of a loving heart left onshore became mine. Nay -- they are mine each time a person assumes he or she knows what is good for me or how I feel about this or that, each time a unilateral decision is taken to spare me something I do not want to be spared. And to the joking question "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?", I find myself answering with Martha, in Edward Albee's play, shivering on a cold morning just as the curtain is about to go down:

- I am, George. I am. 

Hilarious! Enjoy (in French)

A new year, apart, shared

A new year, apart, shared

Hot rain searing part-closed eyelids

Shadows hiding in dark long grass

 

Snakes coil on pathways in moonlight

Unravelling to meet the bells’ joyous swing

The fantastic and the real worlds enmesh

And time loses touch with itself and sleeps,

Elastic, enfolded, in reverie

 

The revellers, unexpectedly released,

Touch cells across the gap

Laugh amazement

And fix the memory

Knowing that all the debris drops away,

Leaving the essence

Entire, entwined, in the eyes of the heart

 

(New Year’s Day, 2013)

(So THAT is what happened, along with the journalling, reading, and feeding of other people's possums. I never did get to the gardening.)

New Year's Message from Richard, via Rohr

Here is something to help me, and you too I hope, grow in mutual esteem in 2013 (actually, it HAS to include you, as I cannot grow in esteem mutually on my own). I read it a while back and it keeps coming back to me, demanding attention. I think this must mean that it is significant:

BRIDGE BUILDING
Somewhere on our journey we stop trying to explain reality and instead to deeply experience it. This puts us in touch with feelings that we would change our lives for, such as desire, compassion, anger, friendship, loyalty, and love. Such feelings come out of the great unconscious, but they are still largely hidden and confused, and often scary.
We can't risk invading this unconscious land until we've developed a clear sense of identity, an appropriate sense of our own and others' boundaries, and some sense of order and control. This is the task of the first half of life.
Like a bridge across the river between the unconscious and the conscious, our soul mediates and carries the images from one realm to the other. The soul also mediates between the body and the spirit, and builds a bridge to the other side so the conscious and the unconscious can walk back and forth. This is soul work. Opening up this bridge is the task of the second half of life. (On the Threshold of Transformation, Day 130, p. 136)

On mercy and flickering light. Merry Christmas!

"For you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways,

to give knowledge of His salvation to His people 

by the forgiveness of their sins" 

Luke, 1:77-78

A friend told me yesterday that he had written a sonnet in which he expressed his sadness over the world that rejects Christ. I nodded in silent recognition - yes I know: a sore sadness over some stupid wrongdoing, some stubborn blindness, some pointless conflict... A truly universal feeling, I am sure everyone knows it.

And I thought: let this sadness be not only for the world, but on behalf of the world; and let it always be lifted up to the Lord by a plea for mercy, for "they know not what they do". All this kicking and shrieking, all this rejection and unwillingness to receive God are symptoms of the disease the world is suffering from...

Only mercy, only patient, gentle understanding of the deep distress of those very people who kick, shriek, bite a giving hand and otherwise "trespass against" can bring about a fully authentic, healing forgiveness, and therefore, knowledge of God's salvation; only patient, firm and consistent refusal to cease channeling God's love to the world, however lost in tantrums of denial, can bring peace to the confusion and tumult of our lives.

This plea for mercy was Christ's response to violence and rejection, as He was hanging on the cross. I want it to be mine, as I look at the center of my being today, discovering, amazed, that beyond weakness and confusion of my own heart, beyond inconsistency, violence and cruelty of the world Christ is born there again - a voice crying for mercy, a desire to bring God's love to the world, a refusal to hate, judge and deliver a blow for a blow.

This is the common ground we are standing on. This is the source to which we are and will always be free to return, grateful to perceive the light that shines in the darkness, and confident that the darkness will not overcome it. Not a cold mechanical neon light, nor a fierce bonfire - a flickering flame dancing within, always in danger of extinction. But here it is, suddenly bright and clear; and whereas so many things remain obscure, subject to doubts and hesitations, one thing I know today : here I am, to welcome, protect and share with others the life of Christ who is born today to share and restore mine.

All Souls

...Memory lives, sweet, undisturbed, plain

like the sound of falling rain,

in a fragrant  garden; tears of grief and then

silence and sleep, and rain, rain again.

Memory, live, sweet whisper, run through my veins

less than a hint, keep me within your embrace. 

Painful foreboding, watchful, exhausted, strained

drinks of your waters, o memory, looks for your face

blindly, with feverish lips saying prayers to leaden gods,

asking whatever may please their joyless unyielding mirth

Hold me, o memory, sweetheart, and be my abode

under the snow, under the ice, under earth. 

Paris, 25/09 - 02/11 2012

Thich Nhat Hanh on being fully conscious of reality:

"If we're really engaged in mindfulnesss while walking along the path to the village, then we will consider each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower. enabling us to enter the world of reality.

"I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognise: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child--our own two eyes. All is a miracle."

Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness p. 12