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deoridheThis morning was absolutely lovely. The clouds had come down to dwell among the people, and mist dogged the heels of every passing car. The seagulls were inland, having run from some oceanic disturbance to the relative safety of the Giant Parking lot. Watching them swirling in and out of the mist was like watching fish bob in and out of view under the water, only inverted. I was struck by the impermanence of the world on misty days; everything is indistinct and the distant is nonexistent. I once spent three days in a camp for developing self-esteem and positive relations between people that almost destroyed my trust in other people completely, in a moment of supreme irony. My fondest memory of it, beside the one person who was kind to me during the whole ordeal, was going out in the morning to see that all we had below us was clouds. Here and there, trees braved their way upward through the fog seeking an unseen sun, but for most of that day I was struck with the thought that perhaps we had come completely loosened from the earth and were in fact soaring upward through the clouds, like some mythological or fantastical island in the sky. At the time, I longed to go wandering down the mountainside to where the earth met the sky, seeking a place of solitude and peace where the world ended.
I was once mocked when I claimed that everyone has assumptions about some things, even if it is simply that the ground will be there when we put our foot down (the person in question proceeded to stumble as if the ground had disappeared; at the time I was insulted, but in retrospect I'm amused). There are times when I honestly wish that the ground would not be there when I put my foot down; there are times I wish all of my assumptions would be turned on their ears, especially when so many of my assumptions aren't all that wonderful. There are days that I long for freefall; there are days I contemplate destroying everything I own and disappearing into nothingness, and it is misty days that always remind me of that impulse toward destruction. It is less a death in a physical sense and more a death in a spiritual sense. Part of the ritual for becoming a shaman, we are sometimes told, is to be destroyed and to be remade in a purer form of ourselves. Mist highlights only that which is darkest and most distinct, but the question left is: are those the parts to keep, or are those the parts to destroy so that once the mist has lifted the darkness will be lessened.
I was once mocked when I claimed that everyone has assumptions about some things, even if it is simply that the ground will be there when we put our foot down (the person in question proceeded to stumble as if the ground had disappeared; at the time I was insulted, but in retrospect I'm amused). There are times when I honestly wish that the ground would not be there when I put my foot down; there are times I wish all of my assumptions would be turned on their ears, especially when so many of my assumptions aren't all that wonderful. There are days that I long for freefall; there are days I contemplate destroying everything I own and disappearing into nothingness, and it is misty days that always remind me of that impulse toward destruction. It is less a death in a physical sense and more a death in a spiritual sense. Part of the ritual for becoming a shaman, we are sometimes told, is to be destroyed and to be remade in a purer form of ourselves. Mist highlights only that which is darkest and most distinct, but the question left is: are those the parts to keep, or are those the parts to destroy so that once the mist has lifted the darkness will be lessened.
