The True Chapters of Life
You Are Here

Day: October 14, 2018

ddangler

An Open Window

Pain & Joy

Hurt is what taught me to pay attention to this moment.
Before the hurt, I was lost in a dull ache inside myself.

My senses dulled to what was real
I never felt what I touched, or smelt what I passed or tasted what was in my mouth
I missed life’s sensual temptations right before me

Then hurt came along
And the past was to painful to remember
The future to terrifying to contemplate
And I found a new world right in front of me

It was then I had an orgasm of my soul and wept with delight

I

ddangler

A Dark Stranger

Letting Go & Holding On

He stood at the door all these years knocking.  I refused to let him in.
He was frightening, foreboding and at times even ugly.

It seemed he wanted all the attention and I had no time or tolerance for such a stranger.
I was busy building the life I thought I should be building of success, recognition, and reward.

But now, his knock had become relentless; louder, unending and distinct.  How can I refuse him any longer!  He has entered.

Though an orphan and at times very sad, he’s not who I thought he was.  All he ever wanted was to be heard amidst his tears, to be held during his fears, and to be comforted and accepted during his agony.

I have not only discovered a new friend but he has introduced me to other friends I didn’t know he had; wisdom, creativity, courage, even love.

Loneliness is a scary, dark stranger that many of us would prefer death rather then feel lonely.   Yet I discovered, once allowed in he (or she), shows us a beauty that only he can reveal.

-dd       January 2010

ddangler

Fully Human

Living & Dying

We need others, not to stay alive, but to be fully human: to be affectionate, funny, playful, to be generous.
How genuine is my capacity to love if there is no one for me to love, to laugh with, to treat tenderly, to be trusted by, even be hurt by.

I can love an idea, but i can’t throw my arms around it. Unless there is someone to whom I can give myself, in whose hands I can entrust my dreams, who will forgive me my deformities, my aberrations, to whom i can speak the unspeakable, then I am not human.

This is what it means to be fully human.

-dd           March 2017

ddangler

Loneliness

Pain & Joy

This is the wintertime of my soul. Sadness surrounds me with its bitter frost. Never expecting the sun will ever return with her warmth. The snow glistens in its hard, crystallized barrenness- no birth shall arrive in such a moment of loneliness- cold, fearful, desperate emptiness.

– dd          January 2010

ddangler

Joy Recovered

Letting Go & Holding On

You want to recover your joy?    Look closely and appreciatively at your inner struggles or challenges.

Behind each struggle, lays a deeper, more natural desire, wish or a hope for happiness. Yet we’re not able to understand it by viewing it with normal eyes.

Don’t rush to a moral solution for your struggle.
Try to understand and sit with its uncomfortable complexity and pain.  And grasp the courage to walk into what feels like darkness inside yourself.

There, in that dark place, you will begin to see glimmers of joy peaking out from behind the pain.

-dd             July 2018

1 2