In this week’s Independent, I read a review of Durham native Heather Havrilesky's memoir Disaster Preparedness and this morning I read a chapter in Kathy’s The Journey Home about Understanding the Language of our Soul. Both the review and The Journey Home chapter relate to our “true personality.” What is our “true personality”?
I love reports that address the strangeness of life and “fiction.” Life and Art. I have always loved writing and reading (arithmetic, less), and as I read through genres and pages and critics over the years of growing up and going to school, I questioned more and more how we came up with these genres and definitions. “Magical realism,” via Garcia Marquez, was in vogue when I was in college, and his 100 Years of Solitude gave me a lilting ride through a lush world that was both familiar and foreign. I was thrilled to discover it, on paper. Later, “creative nonfiction” and other types of “realism” were added to the study of literature and the images our cultures and minds reflect(ed). Truth is stranger than fiction? What does this mean? Internal images I lived confused me at times, and much of the fiction I read did not seem strange, yet there was truth in both and lies in both. I just couldn’t often tell the difference. THAT was the story to me.
In another interview Havrilesky said, “Basically, I always felt that my childhood was a great mix of really funny and really sad. I always wanted to write it down and capture it in some way but the times that I tried to capture it in fiction, it just wanted to be the exact story that it was. There are things about my parents that are weird and specific to them and so colorful and unique and heartbreaking that if I didn’t just write about them it wouldn’t be as satisfying or provocative.”
I don’t mind the fluid nature of shifting narrative voices. I never have. I have not liked the style of some writers whose voices “shifted,” but the shifting itself was something that I liked – it seemed true to self in so many ways. Now that I have grown up much more, that I have become reacquainted with the Ethical Values of our human design as a sensory energy being, I still find the fluidity fascinating and much more revealing. Dramas on television are so often based on “true-life dramas”; we can see this in the daily news. Some stories are easier to understand, to accept, to feel as “real,” when told as a narrative, the stories of another’s life or lives. What we feel shows how we relate the experience to ourself, or not.
I thought of this while listening to part of the Congressional session on television this morning. After the ritual opening and some debate over words, the reading of the Constitution began. Life is a theater alright, and all the world’s a stage. When I awoke this morning, warm in the bed, I felt my awareness of the world “outside” grow as I sensed the cold beyond the windows. I felt rested yet I was yawning. I was eager to get up and DO, yet so tempted to curl up and sleep a little while longer. I smiled at this as I made coffee and smelled that wonderful smell of beans brewing.
“Because of our soul evolution the most important aspect of our life that consciously affects our language is knowledge.” (The Journey Home, 244)
My sense of language has changed, has grown, because I have exposed myself to more knowledge about the reality of energy and how we create and use our eternal energy. I am conscious of the quick wits I’m drawn to, have always been drawn to, and also conscious of the energy lifts that come from wits which are honed through the experiences of love, and a nurturing of wisdom. Rapier wits can be hilariously entertaining. Yet the meal shared after "fencing," among friends who appreciate the art and discipline that comes with practice, passion, the resulting and refining skills, says as much. History books, plays, and movies record the stories of measured friends throughout time – friends whose families’ fortunes and status may be built on guarded relationships and secrets that must never be told. All is well as long as everyone knows his place. A warrior can respect a worthy opponent. Images of history run through my mind. Blood has been shed over the smallest of jealousies (sheets of music, notes from a playwright, now, today, athletic shoes!). “Love” has been worshiped as an idol, a trophy, a desperate need. Love, as the energy of healing, remains steadfast all the while, awaiting our quiet moments of thinking, of “knowing thyself,” of discovering the beauty within us as we choose the life we want to live, continue to refine “who we want to be.” This week a ten-year-old Canadian girl, whose middle name is Aurora, discovered a Supernova. In the news, she explained how she discovered it – from studying images. She wants to, she says, look for more! Simple truth. Once we discover something new, in an infinite field which we’re passionate about exploring, we want more! Love is revealing itself to me this way, now, as the highest image of us as Spiritual beings. I can see that field of stars and know we are drawing on ancient images as “real” to us now. What are those “voices” telling us?
I’m creating new images as I choose, every day. Richard Holbrooke knew that different consciousness levels define words differently; that there is an art to negotiation as communication. There is an art to communication at every level, once we know we are energy beings. Now I know that freedom of choice, will, and intention are part of our power as a soul, as we grow into consciously choosing love as our guide, always. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to honor (better) the energy of language as an image of love, truth, and equality. Be alert, listen more and better, share the love I feel each day.
