Fire and water.

Fire.




And water.

*******************************

It's been a very interesting and intense last week for me, for John, for us. We've each learned things about ourselves, things at a very fundamental and personal level. Neither of us is who we were a week ago, in a very positive way.

It's strange to think that maybe we're really going through what story-tellers are wont to call a "turning point" or some such. A sea change. A transformation. A revelation. Whatever name it takes, it is a very intense, emotional, confusing, and fantastic thing to go through. The amount of joy and love, fear, and awe that I have felt in the last week is almost unfathomable to me.



Fire.




And water.

*******************************

Hope balances fear. Chase and retreat. Longing for something makes it the best gift. Some changes are only wrought through waiting, and something that feels too right to be called chance.



Fire.




And water.

*******************************

To John, thank you for being the best friend a woman could want, my confidant, the one who I can take down all the masks for, and for coming with me on this ride. I love you.

To the two other people who have been the catalysts, and supported this change.... thank you. I love you guys, too.

Laugh at yourself and love people. It makes everything else worth it.

The Pale Blue Dot - everyone you know, everything you've experienced

So life has been crazy and busy and excellent, and I apologize for the (usual) lack of posting... there has been lots of music playing, and music listening. There has been good food, fire, and excellent company. There has been climbing! There has been laughing until 4 in the morning, and perching by a stream to watch Anja enjoy the carefree time of throwing stuff in the water, just like any kid does. And next weekend? The beach. :D Dare I say how good this all is, for risk of jinxing it? Yes, I think I do!

Anyway, John and I watched a really fascinating video together based on Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.

The Pale Blue Dot
On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "supreme leader", every "superstar," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

What a reminder of how small and insignificant we truly are. That each of us worries and struggles and stresses, loves and hates and fears, and yet we are all so tiny when we look at ourselves in the mirror of the universe. For me, it's a strong reminder to let more things, and more worry, go by. To live in the moment, to do more of the things I want to do, to not overestimate the importance of myself, of politics, heck, even of saving the planet. The planet will survive, it's our own species and our own creature comforts that we truly fear losing. We fear our own suffering, and rightly so, but in the grand scheme of the universe? We are so, so small.

Peace to you.