A respite for the soul

I feel much better after yesterday's torture. I don't expect anyone else to understand save for those that know of what I speak. How do we define ourselves as noble or vile based on thought and deed and how do we transcend these categories. I feel more of a pull to the '25 Acts' that I had before. I could feel how hungry I was for it as I questioned my own nature... the hunger to reach out and do something heroic. How very easy it is to die in a fight we believe in, to let loose those energies for good, to feel the strength in our arms as it weilds a holy sword.

I bring up lots of images here, for our feeling, our understanding, of what war is and how we fight it is made of such complicated and contradictory elements. There are so many things that are not truly thought out in our daily lives but of which have emotional energy to them. When we build the fire under a complex in our lives, those complexes are fueled by archetypes underneath them, and when energies collide... look out.

The trick is to not turn from the hurtful, to not hide from the pain and confusion, but to let it come and go of its own accord. You weather the storm. You can, if you insist, stand on the deck of the small boat and scream your curses out at the wind, or you can just huddle up with some ropes and wait it out. Don't try to steer through the storm... let it take you.

A danger is that storms can crash us on the rocks and we drown. Or they can bring you into a new harbor that you've never seen before, new lands, new sights... a deepening of the soul.

How does one ensure that the ship does not break upon the rocks? I do not know. But I think that the answer is somewhere in the notion that the person 'is' the ship and that the crashing is akin to the resistance to the storm... cease resistance and move with the current.

I do not know. But today the weather is fair. I feel calm, more centered. I can still feel the animal lurking behind the trees, ready to pounce. Is the danger in trying to leash the wild? I admit that I felt, at many times during yesterday, the pull of pacifism in that I did not want to feel the effect of violence upon me again. Yet this feels as wrong as violence itself. It isn't a middle way, to balance the two, as it is a third way that is both.

I think again of Aikido... a way of harmony and I ask for the eternal gods to continue their influence... I am not finished growing... I am open. My soul dilates.