Dear Pneuma,

I hear people say this thing, "Another's love rescued me."  It is said in a tone of assumption, as though it is an undisputed truth.  This bothers me, because I do not believe it to be true.  The redemptive power of Love is not found when "that one" person sees the real you and loves that you into existence.  Love redeems when you find the real you, know her fully, and choose to live her into existence.  

Fairy tales are not stories that teach little girls that they are princesses incapable of self determination, awaiting princes to awaken them to their own sexuality.  Fairy tales are stories that show us our divided selves.  Only when our inner prince rescues our inner princess, only when our inner princess bestows her grace upon our inner prince,  only when our inner, unloved and truly extraordinary sister proves herself to be stronger than the opinions of the respectable yet mean-spirited older sisters, can we be integrated people.  

Our "other, better half" is not somewhere on the loose outside of ourselves.  It lives inside us, and is waiting to be rescued, redeemed, saved.  Love, romantic, filial, or spiritual, is not bestowed by others.  Knowing and loving self comes first.  For some, that is simply a given. They love themselves.  They always have.  They tumble from genie to enchanted castle and always avoid the traps.  They cut through the bramble hedge that would prick and pick apart their bones.

For some,  becoming their own best friend is one of the hardest relationship goals to reach. Each time they embark on a new journey, they have to struggle to remind themselves that they have a prince's sword, a princess' kindness, a witch's mystery at their disposal.  They have to work to disbelieve the mirror someone else holds before them.  They have to struggle against the voices of step-siblings listing the litany of their failures. 

I disagree with the notion that it is God's love that rescues.  I disagree with the notion that it is a partner's love that rescues.  I disagree with the notion that it is parents' love that rescues.  I believe it is my love that rescues.  When I love myself, I can hear the love from God.  When I love myself, I can see the love from my partner.  When I love myself, I can reconcile the love from my parents.  When I love myself, I can give my love to others and never lose it, even when that love is rejected, vilified or defiled.  

Do you love yourself, Pneuma?

I do,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Here are my cards: I have an incurable disease that I manage to live with 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days on a Gregorian calendar year. I wish I could say that I can sometimes forget about it. I wish I could say that, generally, the disease has little to say to my daily life. I wish I could say that I have declared peace with my disease, but Pneuma, I am not going to lie with you: I still wake up hating this thing in my life and wishing I could wish it away.

So then I am left with hate in my heart, and I don't know if that can be good. What does it do to me to hate this? I'll tell you what it does. It makes me tired. It makes me heavy. It makes me enclosed. It makes me build walls to keep out fear and physical pain, and those things make me sick.

So I think some about hate, and I think some about God. In me, the meeting place with God is the moment when I know "what is, is." So, if my disease is, and my disease is bad for me, then must God be bad for me? I hate my disease, and my disease is, so must I then hate God? I mean to say, how dare God, being what is, be this!

Yet, I did not know God before this disease. I hid from life altogether before this disease. I was coldly rational, harshly skeptical, and arrogantly judgemental from my sterile environment of intelligent choices, shallow relationships and highly controlled lifestyle. I was safe, undiseased, agnostic and I couldn't imagine that life meant anything. I woke most days tired, heavy, and enclosed-sick.

I stood beside a road, one morning, and I hated. I focussed and felt and screamed that hate at God's blue sky for being blue, at God's green earth for being earth, at God's living people everywhere for living free of my wounds. I screamed my hate at Life, for taking my life from me, and for the very first time, in my memory, I realized the nonsensical premise at the bottom of all my arguments: life itself.

I am living. I am. At all.

I suppose that means my disease took nothing from me. Instead, by breaking me, disease asked to make me whole. In many ways, I am less rational, less skeptical, less, intelligent, and less controlled. I feel more. I hurt more. I risk poor decisions more often. And some days, I am simply more aware of how very tired I am. But I know today, that my living has meaning, that my commitments matter, that fear keeps nothing at bay.

I suppose then, that hating my disease, is not good for me. In fact, it is an ever present reminder that right here and right now, I am living at all. I suppose the thing to do then, is love Life and turn my compassion on despair, and make it flee away.

Thankful,
Cobalt Dreams