He kisses her wet eyes attempting to erase the sadness with his kisses, lips pressed on her eyelids that quiver at his touch and open up revealing the inky pools that stare into his soul. He feels her go to that special place where they had been before, their first encounter when he sat on that rock watching her as she cried and he attempted to console her while the sheep grazed oblivious to their interaction. He kisses her on the tip of her nose and says softly “Memories, we all collect, carry them with us. Maybe we are just a mirror, perhaps to reflect on, passing to someone else…”
His voice trails off as the tears well in her eyes again. “Hush, he says, hush” as he holds her closer still “rain coming in, can’t you smell it?” He takes her hand “Come, let’s go up to the porch, watch the storm pass and light a candle, or two”.
She shrugs, incapable of speaking and he watches puzzled as she does not react to his touch anymore “Was I off somewhere, or just too high?” He feels her reticence, knows where her thoughts go now as he watches them be drawn to the cliff.
“Why do you have to go and leave me every time? I hate you every time you do that and am not able to bring myself back to that initial bliss when I knew not of this curse. Why does that dark brooding thing call you so?” she ends, voice down to a hoarse plea.
“You are my lighthouse” he says with a half-smile, hoping he will pacify her as he had done before referring to that day on the beach when they had come back from sailing and she said she wanted to spend the night in the lighthouse and he had said he wanted to spend the night in her for she was his lighthouse.
“And the sea calls you so” she says bitterly, refusing to be moved by his reference to their intimacy that night.
“It always calls me” he says softly and as she continues to press her lips stubbornly, refusing to yield he insists “you know this, yes?”
“How would we watch the storm pass” she spits out in anger and bitterness. “The storm, she calls you too that you may meet her at sea. She blows out the candles and beckons you out of the porch, out of that insipid haven.” Her voice chokes on the words that barely make it to her lips as breath fails her. She draws it in hungrily in a hiss and then calms herself down before adding sadly “You were made for the roughness of the sea, a son of warriors, their blood courses through your veins and pulses within your thoughts. The lighthouse must remain at earth leading the way for lost souls in search of a new found land while you throw your net to pick up those gone astray. Meet me at sea she calls out while the sea echoes her enthralling seductive invocation of hearts….”
Her voice trails off again between bitterness and sorrow as the tears force their way through her eyelids that she presses tightly in vain.
He lifts her head and kisses her tenderly trying to pry open her stubbornly set lips as she fights the urge to give in to his tenderness. He speaks to her without words “with a tender kiss upon your lips, I look into your eyes, have I ever misled you, taken you astray, as to what I live for and perhaps, someday, will die for?”
She finally gives in and returns his kiss passionately and they stay rocking together before he moves slowly away from her his eyes roaming over her “Undress slowly. Let me see you, in all you have. This time may be my last time.”
It is absurd that he must go back again and again to the sea despite how much she tells him of her fear for him from it but there seems to be no remedy to that ailment of theirs
It seems Viking sailors always thought it was their last time on land before they set to the sea, following the sun she says undressing, almost in slow-motion.
We have much strayed from this cabin with the grass growing tall all around it inviting and foreboding all at once she thinks. Why is it that on firm land he always chose to be drawn to the cliff and its roaring sea?
Does she call you so that you cannot take your eyes away from her, not even for me?, she says turning towards him her face that she had kept averted towards the outline of the cliff.
Why do you ask? You always knew where my love lived. Is it not enough that I come back to you? The sea, she always calls for me. Can you not feel her power? Woman, you are enough, what I come back on shore for, but never ask me to compare. There is where I shall die, drowning but fear not, it has already taken me enough.
She looks at him with a mixture of sadness and defiance
Yes I do feel her power, roaring, demanding, thunder in her voice as she cries, mine!, her thousand voices coursing through your blood even as you hold me and I hold you back, fingers groping reaching out but holding on to nothing. I feel your heart, like the tides, that ebbs and flows as it is drawn to sea and washed ashore to me while I lay waiting in every dark of the night casting my rays on to the inky black, eyes intent on her as she roars and you are somewhere there with her but unseen to me.
She pauses and looks back at the tip of the rock on the cliff, so similar to another cliff where she had indeed stood waiting for him to come back from his many journeys on the sea. It seemed that they were both cursed that everywhere they went, land and sea mingled so tightly that they were never able to keep away from either.
She turns back towards him
Do you remember when we first sailed together? She was calm and silent then for you had chosen to forget her for a while as we laughed, foolishly in love, playing on the deck, basking in the sun. I never really understood then how much of her coursed through your veins
She walks towards him, the setting sun casting playful shadows on her nakedness, veiling and unveiling as he watches her torn between his two loves and angry at her for attempting to make him choose.
“Remember though” she says as she puts her arms around him and draws him closer to her, laying his head on her bosom “that she is ice-clad and will never give you my warmth”.
Her arms hold him tightly and as her heat engulfs him, she feels his body relax against her but she knows she is probably fighting a battle that was already lost. He lifts his head towards her and she too is engulfed in the roaring sea that courses through his eyes.
We want to be protected. It seems to be the modern day curse that most human beings seek protection before seeking emotions, experience with their procession of joys and wonders but also heartaches and injuries. The modern man/woman wants to know where he/she is going, whether the journey will be arduous and whether the rewards will be plentiful or painfully desolate. Each decision to enter an unknown field of emotions and experiences is examined carefully before even reaching the field of probabilities and the expected consequences are weighed minutely before the decision is taken.
The protection we seek encompasses a range of fields in our life going from the mere education system to our profession, to our interaction with friends and family and finally to our intimate relationships with our partners. When speaking of partners, I use the plural because it has now become an accepted fact that we seldom can live all our lives with one partner, to the exception of those who have been able to find their perfect soul mate right from the beginning. As we evolve in life and depending on the congruence between our evolution and that of our partner, it may or may not be possible to continue a common life with that partner without a feeling of frustration or other forms of constraint leading ultimately to a separation and therefore to a new partner.
For every matter in our life, we don’t want to be wrong, we don’t want to be hurt, we don’t want to suffer. It has therefore become almost a second nature – except for some rare persons whom society sees as misfits because they simply follow recklessly their hearts – for most of us to weigh all consequences in the most dispassionate way possible before making a decision. Society channels us into this behaviour by reproaching us our mistakes when we have not weighed consequences enough before taking a decision. The young child who chooses the wrong orientation at school because he/she likes some subjects more than others is scolded by his/her parents and teachers if he/she lacks the full natural skills to continue doing what his/her inclination pushed him/her to choose. The young or adult person who chooses friends who cause him/her hurt in whatever way is reproached for the lack of judgement and weighing of consequences in choosing such people within his/her circle of friends. The young adult who chose a partner who caused him/her suffering is to an extent pitied, comforted but mostly silently, implicitly or sometimes even overtly rebuked for making such an uninformed choice and not weighing all consequences. The professional who chooses a path that he/she feels more rewarding but that leads at some point into financial trouble is reproached his/her unwise and non-weighted choice. It is thus no wonder that at each point in one’s life, one would have developed a tendency to weigh absolutely all the consequences of taking a certain decision to the extent that for some it becomes an obsession and they are not even able to take the simplest of decisions without weighing the pros and cons.
While such a process may be right in its generic approach to most matters to avoid the drunken aftermath of a wayward decision taken with no regard for its consequences on oneself and on the larger sphere of one’s dependents, it can somewhat cause one to have a stilted life if it were adopted for each and every matter in life. Imagine a world where you would have a few seconds to hold on to a longer talk with a person you find interesting and you would need a few minutes to process the consequences of talking longer to an acquaintance, you simply would have “missed the train”.
It would seem rather obvious that professional matters should be the ones where a person would need to be more diligent in weighing consequences but somehow more and more people have shifted their focus from the professional sphere which has become more of an alimentary choice to the personal sphere where they have developed a new tendency of a heightened examination of the consequences of their choice.
Social media has to an extent rendered possible a quicker weighing of consequences as far as relationships are concerned but in a more artificial and superficial way than what would be required. Like in a real-life scenario, played out usually at high speed compared to the original, people are able to measure the consequences of their interaction and the effect it has socially. The unfortunate part of this is that because of its superficiality and the ability of people to hide behind the mask that is presented on the chosen social media, the relationship is actually a fake acting out of what it would have been like in real life. At the same time, when both parties are honest and truthful about themselves, there is a possibility of actually interacting on a deeper level of understanding and therefore weighing appropriately the consequences of a life together before it actually takes place.
It increasingly happens that when both have been truthful and not hidden anything about themselves those who have met through social media are then able to have a real-life relationship that is rather quickly more intimate than one which would have started off as a face-to-face relationship. Conversely, some relationships which are face-to-face relationships often take a long time to establish this level of deeper understanding.
My belief is that this difference in the pace between relationships that initiate over social media and those that initiate in real-life is the matter of weighing consequences. Social media with its virtual feel allows one not to feel weighed down by consequences and therefore, where a sincere intent exists, allows a deeper interaction. Real life, on the other hand, is burdened by the grave weighing of consequences that is inherent in an individual because of the self-preservation instinct and therefore each individual takes more time to reveal truths about themselves including their feelings. Suffice to look at how easily people get “in a relationship”, “engaged” or “in a domestic partnership” on facebook; something that they would consider for months or even years before doing so in real life.
So, having said this, should one rush headlong into decisions or should one take proper time to weigh the consequences of such decisions before taking them? Without being a fervent adept of making rash decisions, I believe it is important to leave one’s heart in a permanent state of acceptance that would allow one to experience emotions and events first hand while at the same time being able, for more important and life-changing decisions, especially insofar as they involve other human beings, to be able to weigh the consequences of such decisions before taking them.
Personally, I think that it should not be an issue for a child to make a mistake and take a wrong education orientation (compared to his natural skills) if that is what the child felt would suit him/her best at a given point in time like it should not be an issue for a young adult to choose the wrong partner or the wrong friends. For both of them, making a mistake is part of their learning curve and even if there is some hurt involved in the realisation that the choice was not the best adapted for the future, there is definitely a larger benefit from that choice in defining better what is the better adapted choice for a long-term view of the future.
As far as a professional life is considered, I personally think it is good to try as many professions as one is able to actually withstand sensibly as long as the livelihood of other people does not depend on making the “right” choice. If one has already made the decision to have dependents that one has to fend for, then the appropriate weighing of consequences for the choice of a profession has to be made.
As regards relationships, the only time I think one should really weigh the consequences is again when one has dependents who might suffer from an incorrect choice. To want to weigh consequences when only one’s own suffering is involved is illusory as one can never avoid fully pain in one’s life. Besides, it is becoming more and more apparent in social interactions that the more people tend to want to weigh consequences before making decisions in their personal relationships, the less in touch they are with their inner feelings.
Halting the natural process of reaching out, putting a stop to one’s heart’s momentum eventually leads to a weighing down of the heart and therefore to the disappearance of the sense of wellbeing that goes with a heart that is open, light, enlightened and full of love. So before heeding the reproachful comments or advice of a “well-wishing” friend asking you to “open your eyes”, rather listen to that inner voice that asks you to “open your heart” for it does not matter that you will get hurt along the road in the process of opening your heart. What matters is that you will grow and evolve tremendously every time you are able to open your heart and keep it open regardless of the number of times that you might have got hurt.
Eventually, there comes a time when each experience will stand out as a unique array of emotions and step of personal growth without any sense of hurt associated with that experience. Ultimately, there comes a time when your heart is truly and fully open when nothing hurts you any longer and you only feel a deep sensation of all-encompassing love and satisfaction with your life, whatever the choices you make. As Rumi said “Brother, stand the pain. Escape the poison of your judges. The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do.” and I will leave you with a beautiful poem by Rumi (in ‘We Are Three‘, Mathnawi VI, 831-845)
“These spiritual window-shoppers, who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’ Oh, I’m just looking. They handle a hundred items and put them down, shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping. But these walk into a shop, and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment, in that shop.
Where did you go? “Nowhere.” What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want, buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.”
We live every day running to the next, often oblivious to who and what are around us as we rush breathlessly from one more or less harrowing task to the other, from one solicitation to the other, from one obligation to the other. Seldom do we pause, take a step back and observe what we do, thrown as we are into the intense madness of the desire to do every day a little bit more, to top what we have done the day before and inspire what we will do the day after.
Sometimes there is a myriad of meanings and positive outcomes for others in what we do so we are encouraged in those endeavours and feel rewarded by them but sometimes we feel washed out after the work is done, like it meant nothing, like it was not meant to be carried out.
When you take the time while doing your daily tasks to observe those tasks, query your motives behind the carrying out of those tasks and challenge the outcome these tasks have in your life and the lives of others, you start to get the sense of a deeper understanding of whether those tasks are really necessary or not simply by being able to qualify whether they are useful or not and how that usefulness weighs against the effort it may cost you to carry out those tasks.
The more you engage in tasks that have very little use as compared to the effort they have required from you the more you feel washed out and somehow sad because intrinsically your mind has already captured, even without your examining it specifically, the imbalance between both. This is where the popular saying that you will excel and feel best replenished in carrying out tasks that are deriving from your passion takes all its meaning. Indeed, when carrying out a task which is connected to your passion, your mind is automatically analyzing and gratifying you with a huge positive balance because you love what you are doing and even if it is not useful to anyone else, it is useful to you because this is what you love doing and therefore the balance continues to remain positive.
Conversely, if you keep carrying out tasks which are connected with something you really don’t like doing, every time your mind tries to equate the balance, the result keeps coming up totally unfavourable. As an immediate result of this comes the desire to balance out the result by adding into this items that you might feel at some point will adjust the balance. Items like added free time, the liberty to carry out those tasks the way you want to do them, the greater impact the tasks may have upon others, the additional financial compensation that you require to adjust the balance, etc. Have you ever had that feeling of absolutely not liking your job and every now and then you had the feeling that you should receive an increase? That is simply your mind telling you that what you are doing is not fulfilling and that you must seek an alternate employment or the one you are in simply has to be more rewarding financially or in other ways. Why do finances come often into the picture when one is not happy carrying out the tasks related to the job one has chosen? Simply because additional money would allow you to do something else that you care about and that is satisfactory for you thereby restoring the balance.
Our minds and bodies naturally tend to desire equilibrium, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of peace. Often, when we tend to reach a level of anxiety due to the imbalance that is created by the inadequate meeting between the tasks we carry out and the rewards they have (whatever form those rewards may be shaped in), we resort to silence and stillness in order to achieve that peace our bodies and minds crave. When we start delving into that inner world of silence and stillness, the outer world slowly fades away in its actual form and we start seeing only the connecting factors. To my mind, this part of what silence and stillness opens up for us is the most important part. If we are honest enough and open enough to our inner world, we are able to reach within ourselves and truly understand everything within as well as how it connects to that without.
Silence, the true version of it – and not the one populated with the deafening thoughts we may have about our daily chores or tasks which actually equates to those tasks and chores themselves – is what allows us to fully reach an understanding of ourselves, our motives, our fears, our hopes, our desires, our darkest recesses and inner light. Stillness, is a prerequisite for that full-fledged silence as it entails an absence of movement as well as an absence of thought.
Paradoxically, stillness can also be attained by the full movement when like in a state of trance a dancer is totally immersed into the music and the mind dissociates from the present moment to observe itself and the world around it with detachment and wisdom. Such stillness can be obtained for example when accomplishing Sufi whirling after some time goes by in the whirling. Believe it or not, such stillness within can also be reached when dancing on trance music but disconnecting from the music at the point of attaining exhaustion level (if you are a running athlete, you will understand this fully because it is the point where you think you cannot go on but suddenly with your will, you find an additional resource to carry on running and then the energy flows with your mind actually going blank) leaving your mind in the vibration of absence of thought and therefore in stillness.
Once you are used to reaching the points of silence and stillness using a concentrated effort and you practise this often, you are then able to call upon those patterns to reach punctually moments of silence and stillness within your daily life in order to reassess what you are doing, to examine how this will affect your life and that of others and evaluate whether it is really a necessary task. As you get better at achieving this, you start developing foresight and are able to quickly define that a given task is simply not going to be rewarding enough and are then able to rule it out altogether and save yourself and possibly others an unnecessary element. This will also allow you to dedicate more time to the tasks that matter and ultimately this will lead you to carrying out a profession that matters to you and that brings to your life a sense of joy, peace and fulfillment.
In a world where people can be pushed to the edge because of the surrounding stress caused by delving into unnecessary tasks, silence and stillness take on an added layer of importance. They are actually vital for survival. This does not mean, however, that we are meant to live like hermits, isolated from the world and immersed into silence for we are in this world to feel, experience, make mistakes, correct them and heal in every possible way. It only means that we have to love and respect ourselves enough to grasp the importance of understanding ourselves and respecting our inner choices and desires and therefore we have to be able to find the time for silence and stillness.
A few thoughts above that I hope will be meaningful for those who are reading. To conclude I’d like to share my motto when thinking about a task which is inspired from the Rotary motto: “Is it useful? Does its usefulness outweigh its efforts? Will it help me and others once only or can it be expanded? How will it help create a better world?”
I will leave you now with a beautiful melody by Vargo which speaks of silence and stillness and that I had looked for on youtube. There were many youtube posts and one that I liked particularly unfortunately had one negative post within the video so I chose another you will be able to watch below.
Loïc a heureusement retrouvé cet amour de son frère que la colère et la frustration étaient en train de lui faire passer. C’est un bon garçon et quand on lui parle avec coeur et avec raison au lieu de lui parler avec tyrannie et contrition, il sait écouter et réapprendre les belles choses de la vie. Il l’a toujours été, bon et juste, et l’amour reviendra dans cette famille tel que la plupart de ses membres le souhaitent. A quatre contre un, le choix est vite fait si on utilise le principe utilitariste de Bentham. Mais même dans les concepts absolus, cette liberté et “besoin” paternel ne peut s’exercer à l’exclusion de quatre autres libertés identiques et tout aussi méritantes.
Welcome to our blog, where we delve into art-related topics with a special emphasis on Asian art. Our focus is primarily on ancient Chinese painting and the profound philosophical concepts that underpin this rich tradition. You'll find a diverse range of content, including the author's own works—from calligraphy and sketches to detailed studies and finished pieces. Discover the beauty and depth of Asian art, and join us on a journey through history, philosophy, and creative expression.
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