Recent content by Blackbird

I hardly think anyone is preventing you from getting a word in, Sea and Sky.

Interesting topic, John. When I was a very small girl, 3 or 4 yrs old, I remember thinking that I'd rather be a boy, that it would feel right, and that if I dressed like one, maybe nobody would ever notice. Growing up was in part an act of observation, trying to understand what I was 'supposed'...

Ah, so very sorry Frerotte. But I can surely relate, at least to some degree. And it sounds like we old children would've played well and strangely together, or perhaps in parallel... My best childhood friend and I put on wee plays for our mothers, like "Vampire Grannies," wherein one...

Just a word of agreement & encouragement with Ceridwen... I'm in my late 50's and I find I need to guard myself against general assumptions about the pattern of achievement and purpose over a lifetime. I'm in the arts, and having traveled a round-about often difficult path, it's mighty easy to...

On the other hand, I have seen, all too closely, a marriage in which an already broken, twisted and perverse man claimed exactly what you have describe -- that his wife, much younger was causing him such pain and deprivation -- when in fact he had been attempting to force her into acts inspired...

Yet, Paramahansa Yogananda, whose autobiography you mentioned, AOSpar, commented that 'saints have the hardest lives of all." I think it is perilous to imagine that troubles indicate the beginner, or even the preponderance of error. I must cast my (needless to say totally guessed at) vote with...

Many I admire most seem to have (or have had) a particularly tough time in the world. I've often thought it seems as though they've enrolled in 'graduate courses,' as it were! This statement by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross rings true to me: “The most beautiful people we have known are those who...

Oddly, I had my plastic horses' world arranged on an essentially Eastern plan when I was quite small: if one horse got broken or lost, its 'soul' would enter the next horse that I obtained. Yet more surprisingly, in retrospect, there was one horse -- a wood-grain colored Clydesdale mare if...

To me it seems a matter of evolution. I'm a professional artist, and my sense has always been that I brought that purpose with me -- it feels like a calling I began in another time and place, long & long ago. But even if I'm right about that and past 'practice' has given me a leg up on my art...

Intriguing thread... I'm reminded of the statement, "God sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal, and awakens in man." attributed to Ibn al 'Arabi. I recall hearing it phrased "... awakens in animals, and in man knows he is awake."

Best thoughts to you, Arrant. A fine poem for his flight. Most of my family has opted for cremation, and I prefer that for myself. When my mother was cremated, I asked to roll her body into the retort, and stayed with her the hours it took to burn. It was a powerful experience, feeling more...

This quote is of help to me when things are particularly rough, for myself and those I love and admire: “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an...

Meghna, so terribly hard, I am so sorry. Just a few thoughts from my own times wrestling with these things... I find pain, emotional or physical, can remind me what I actually believe: that this existence is but a snippet of the continuum, that if we could view it from the arc of eternity, the...

Hello and thanks, Helz Belz and TMarie! Ah, I'd not actually thought of the Beatles song, but it's a happy association! :) I just really love birds... all birds, but crows and ravens, pigeons and doves especially personally, for some reason... Many of the ID names make one want a story!

Thank you, Shadowsofmypast! I'll hope to see some of your art! Do you post some of your work here? Yes, seeing things differently... how we see things... a most interesting subtle subject! ;) In the forests of the night, yes?