out of the tunnel

the world has been very kind to me this week, I have alternately been sick, lost my mind, made myself sick in new and different ways (as if the bout with that cold/flu wasn't satisfying enough) had my life descended upon by several people, some of who I know and it was fine and some of whom...literally...came from curiousity...


and came out of it all holding two books in my hand


you know the kind that surface right when you read them and as soon as you open the pages you realize "this is important to me" and you read them cover to cover.


So I had no sleep last night, but finished one and am well into the other.


The first (and I am keeping the title private as it is a bit self-revealing, when I have gotten further I will talk about it more directly) - explained my adult life to me. I mean, like someone took pictures from my photo album and used them to illustrate the pages.


I had a bout of panic as I started to recognize myself in the pages and immediately jumped to the back and thank god, there it was, the last chapter on how to resolve the dilemna. It is actual easy, just going to take a hell of a lot of practice.


The second book is called "A Language Older than Words" and it is a harrowing read. It is technically a memoir of a man's survival and recovery from an extremely abusive childhood. But in the telling he reveals and postulates a cure for the culture of denial we have developed. And let me tell you, more harrowing then reading of his life is seeing the recognition of myself in some denial patterns. And not "denial" in the way we are used to bandying it around, but an absolute erasure of awareness of self. One that he brutally points out that we achieve through consciousness-raising, political and religious beliefs and education.


All this has left me tired...but content in the oddest way. I have struggled with certain patterns and cycles in my adult life that have literally left me baffled as to why no change seems to stick or occur when it comes to trying to resolve them. And suddenly, I have a very calm and centered explanation that fits. But best of all, leaves me with a direct path to take.


Its like...somehow, in all the struggle and mess of the past few months, I managed for once to stick it out long enough to see the small pearl in the shell rather than just keep opening more in hopes there would be one, large and unavoidably seen one.


Maybe that will become a companion piece of "Ugly Diamonds." I could call it "The Beautiful Pearl."


c.2010 Cassandra Tribe. All Rights Reserved.