Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so you must know pain.
And could you but keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
--from The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran
There's an old woman who lives next door to me. When the weather is nice, like it was today, she sits on her front porch and listens to music on headphones. And she sings along. I have no idea what she might be listening to, because what she sings bears no resemblance to any music I have ever heard. Sometimes is very soft, so quiet you think you're imagining it. Other times, like today, her voice is almost operatic in it's power. Truthfully, she sounds more like she's chanting, some Native American curing ritual, something of power. I call her the Shaman or the Medicine Woman.
Everything in my life has just broken open. I'm not sure how else to describe it. Last week, everything changed. I could explain it, could write down the details, the things that happened that split open my chest. But it wouldn't explain anything. Just details. The meaning lies elsewhere.
This sums it up:
There are two tragedies in life.
One is to lose your heart's desire.
The other is to gain it.
--George Bernard Shaw
