And as for us soothsayers… we see things the way they are, without any illusions.
Ibrahim al-Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone
I keep dreaming of betrayals and waking up relieved. In my dream last night, it snowed heavily and I said so? that doesn’t mean it isn’t spring In real life it’s flooding rain, which lets the most beautiful diffused light in through the window: the light envelopes and casts evenly, without dramatic shadow, without smothering I feel like my heart has sunk to parts of myself I didn’t know I could feel heavy in. It’s a persistent heaviness Or a persistence in heaviness: a commitment to feeling The problem a lot of people seem to have with confronting truth is if you aren’t able to turn away, (think of the coward Perseus navigating the murder of Medusa with a reflective shield — too fearful to face her and be turned to stone), then you have to rip out parts of yourself that you built on false foundation. To have to peel back layers of lies and then re-structure yourself accordingly: This is perceived to be more terrifying than to live in cowering shadow, pathetically gathering fractured pieces of information to reinforce lies you choose to believe. Is there really a fate worse than living in half? Telling the truth, really telling the truth, has never been fashionable — it’s been a duty allocated to mythological and historical and cultural outcasts, the alienated from Medusa to those who would prophesy, to witches, to artists and writers, sibyls, sphinxes, poets, martyrs whoever has lived and died unwaveringly in their point of belief: Revolutionaries My friend Phil shared this part of one of Gramsci’s journals that he said reminded him of me and that I believe is pertinent: … I do not know how to hate by halves or love by halves. I do not know how to give only half of my heart. I can give all my heart or I give nothing. I have drunk from the cup of life not only all the bitterness, but all the sweetness as well, and if anyone says to me: …take a look and recognize life has broken you, then I would reply: Life has not broken me but I have broken life, it has not taken everything from me, but I have taken everything from it with my whole being and spirit. Yes, indeed! …people worship the golden calf which has turned human souls into the souls of beasts and driven love out of people’s hearts. remember that there is a sacred spark in the soul of people like me… a spark that gives a glow of happiness even at the stake. measured approaches, stagnant diplomacy, non-positions, commitment to comfort. In betweens, nothings. Driving a stake into air Decidedly non — That’s being broken by life I try to find the truth through others, like some kind of inverse of dogma— I end up finding beauty, kaleidoscopic, flawed, complex, and even this is love love is beauty is truth is justice and it’s always been so.
this is incredible