Finding her Stardust

 Psalm 137: By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion

12thBC

The lady saw her face on the rippled water by the river and she wept, her heart is bleeding. She doesn’t recognize the person in front of her anymore; the reflection is filled with so much pain that it becomes blurry. Her armor lies on the ground.

She is a warrior of light, good at fighting for something she believes in. With her is her knight – a man who promised her strength, courage and wisdom that so he may fight a good fight alongside her. She have been wounded a number of times already from different combats but nevertheless with all her might she promised to join her knight on their next crusades.

Until such one battle near the northern sky changed everything. Together with her knight and her gladiators they started to conquer the land, her squad is not winning, she knows something is different, something is wrong. She looked for her knight in the midst of the war and she saw him sitting on the ground, not moving and tears falling down on his face. She looked at his eyes with so much love, wanting to tell him to stand up and finish the fight. Then she realized he is deeply wounded, sword blunt with age fell short in timing, shield unpolished, and banner adorned with slits and dust.  He does not want to fight anymore. He no longer believes in their cause. He just stopped. Not too long ago he decided to love and fight with the lady, in an instant he surrendered and decided to let go. He don’t want to conquer lands anymore with her, perhaps he wants a different battle.

The lady does not understand or rather don’t want to understand, her heart becomes so heavy that blood ran down from her eyes. She pleads but the knight already gave up.  The lady together with her squad lost the battle and was captured by the enemies. She was crying as her hands are cuffed, no words can express her misery. She lost her kingdom but more dreadful was that she lost her knight.

Is this her downfall?

Then she remembered what an old wise man told her once” One doesn’t love in order to do what is good or to help or to protect someone.. To love is to be in communion with the other and to discover in that other the spark of God”. The lady realized that she cannot fully understand the miracle of life if she does not allow unexpected things to happen. She was given her kingdom, she was given the rain, the sun and the wind and she was given the ability to change EVERYTHING that makes her unhappy. She just needs to pay attention and discover her magical moment.  It has always been the journey and not the destination as they say, and no, nothing leaves a permanent mark. The old man completes his sentence “Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.”

She is now loosening her hand cuffs and planning to escape to bring back her kingdom. She fought for love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end. She was worth it. But she will have to find the right knight to fight for her and in search she will be armored by this wisdom :

“ But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointments and sadness” – Paolo Coelho By the River Piedra, I sat down and wept  

this is the fate you've carved on me...

Clutter

I thought my mind won't work today, but here I go again, this haven of mine has and will always be my therapy, and so I write... 

Yesterday, someone let me realize something.

I have a separation anxiety to some things, it saddens me if I have to give it away or I have to put it to trash. I still believe I can put it to good use, hold on to the memory it brings back. Just as a familiar smell brings back a pile of recollection, it gives me simple joy to reminisce the good times I had when I see a certain thing.  

But having a hard time to let go of things caused me much, it accumulates and I found myself surrounded with a lot a clutter, suffocating and sometimes preventing me from moving around with ease. Funny thing though, I know this stuff just gives me that sudden jerk of a not so distant past or maybe put an effortless smile on my face but these are all lifeless materials. There is only one thing I like about them, they can't say goodbye, even if they were torn down or served its purpose already. They remain as long as I want them around but part from that a pillow, for example,  can’t hug me back even if I hug it tighter, a  string of lights can just give much shine but can’t brighten a whole town, flowers wilt, written poems can’t hold my hand when I’m sad, books can’t cuddle me when I’m tired and even a collection of DVDs can’t wipe my tears the moment it falls down. .

Human beings can. Friends and people who matter can.

Thus I am not surprised that amidst the chaos I am into right now, the pain, the tears and even the constant jabs of egoistic thinking, I find peace in my heart. I know family and friends are sent by God to do the things lifeless materials can’t –they can love or hurt me. I treasure each and every one of them, it does not matter if I just met them once, spent a couple of months together, or someone I’ve been with for years now. They all encompass the Sweet I am today.

We wait for a Monday or the 1^st day of the month or even another year for resolutions before we act. I myself am guilty of that. But then again, friends come and go to, sometimes at the most unexpected occasion, just to let us realize that nothing is permanent and we don’t need a good date or a good day to start something new. I am writing this in between cleaning the mess that surrounds me, I have to stop and inscribe because I may forget about it after an hour.  I have this short term memory issues.

I am half way through, the junk shop would be happy to see the rubbish stuff I will be letting go. I will definitely retain just those with very significant meaning; the rest will have to go. What about the memories it brings? I‘ll just draw it from my heart.

I won’t expect my things to come back walking, knocking on my door or even pleading to take them back. Of course they won’t! But if they can hear me, I will just have to say that life moves on, people work hard, time will pass, night and day will reveal itself, and memories will just be cherished even there aren’t things around to remind me.

".. let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us... fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith... No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:1-2, 11)