Laudy

P.S. I don’t sleep naked either, just incase there is a fire!!*

Paulo i would have to agree with you. . .but am also contemplating, perhaps we do not save the fire, but rather the fire saves us?. . .Jai Ma. . .

Makes me think of the legend of the Phoenix. Isn’t this what the Phoenix bird does – save the fire and let the rest burn?

Again, how poignant! And another connection I hadn’t made until this very moment, not until reading your answer to this question, dear Paulo. I am about to get another tattoo. Already took the artwork to the artist for work-up, and he’s already called to tell me it’s ready. Just waiting now for my income tax return, as it is a rather big investment for me. I know I’ve talked about tattoos on this blog before. My tattoos – this will be my third – are not merely artwork or body “adornment” to me. Each marks a monumental turning point in my life, like a sign-post planted at a road-fork in my spiritual journey. They are a little like talismans, a little like ceremonies or private initiations. They are a lot like turning the soul – my soul – in-side out at a certain point in time, to reveal visually, its manifestation at that stage in its evolution. This tattoo, the one I am about to get, is of a Phoenix, catching fire and ascending from its own ashes. As the legend says, this is a rare event, an occasion that comes along once in only so many hundreds or thousands of years. I drew the bird up myself – a composite of numerous illustrations I’d seen of the Phoenician Phoenix, the Russian Firebird, the Chinese FengHuang, the Egyptian Bennu, the Persian Simurgh. The image is deeply meaningful to me, and at this particular moment in my life, seems to encapsulate and convey the very essence of who I am, or perhaps more accurately, what I am becoming.

So, your concept of “saving the fire” and letting the rest go strikes a chord with me right now like no other. That is precisely what I am doing, though I could not explain it to you in words if I were given the space of an entire book. The visual form is the closest simulation I can reach to the actual experience. Perhaps I’ll post a pic to share when it is done, though it won’t be soon. I was told by the artist that it will take weeks, perhaps months to complete. I thought, assumed, that it would be like the others – that I’d just run down to the studio with my art in hand and it would be done in a couple of hours. Not so this time!

My first inclination was to struggle against this declaration, to say, “No, I want it done now, and all at once – today!” But I have learned enough to know that there there is indeed a link between the physical and spiritual realm – the one mirrors the other, and vice versa. So, I just smiled and thought to myself, “It is as it should be.” the artist didn’t say that he couldn’t do it, or that it couldn’t be done. He just said that it was very complex and, to be done right, would take some time. The message I understood from this was that the process I am presently going through on a spiritual level – the process I seek to mirror in this image – is also “very complex” and will “take some time” before it is complete. If I rush it – if it could be rushed at all – the result would be less than what I’d hoped for, less than the full potential inherently promised within the experience itself.

As I sit here now in my reading chair, which is strategically positioned to give me view of this one lovely tree where hangs a bird-feeder, I see that this tree, too, is bursting into flames. Here, in the sub-tropics, Spring is already on its way. I’m not sure what kind of tree it is, but every year it is the same: the first signs of life to burst through are these flaming red leaves, delicate as fairies’ wings and deep red as the crimson that flows through our veins. Eventually they will unfold and turn green. But for now they are a tower of flame, right outside my reading-room window. To this room, only a few days ago, I added a daybed, which sits across from my reading chair – just in case I feel more like lounging than sitting bolt upright. The cover I chose for that daybed – again without thinking consciously anything at all – is a flaming orange satin quilt, all spider-webbed with equally vivid threads. When stare at it, it is like gazing into a fire. On it are white pillows, embroidered with flaming bright flowers which seem to simulate some Persian design. And yet one other, smaller pillow – also orange, silk, imprinted with the swirling feathers of some unseen bird.

Life is ever so interesting! So exquisite, as we just sit back and watch it unfold.

Many of them after many years have managed to get some old photos from their homes, their past! Their memories on paper…
For each one of us there are articles carrying with them our history and memories. I think we need them, so that we will feel in touch ..
LOVE,
Thelma