Surrender
The last lunar cycle has come and gone and here are we all,
still standing, still struggling to survive, still trying to fulfill our
dreams, our missions, our passions.
I would really love to use some better word than survive, maybe
a step further from basic word, like bloom, flourish or grow, but I would be
fooling myself if I use those words now because I firmly believe that we are all
in the baseline. The zero, zero, zero, zero point. The starting point. The beginning.
But of course, the next question would be, if we are at the culmination point of
the last lunar cycle, then shouldn’t we be somewhere near the peak, not at all
baseline? The peak was somewhere years ago, these last few months were just the
mastery of the lessons from the last cycles, so it is the right time to
approach the baseline, just the right point to start the new cycle.
Actually the point I am driving at is that the last cycle was
really the clearing out, the point where there are no clips left to splice or
cut (in editing terms), the only thing to do was to smoothen the transitions of
clips, clear editing the fonts in title cards, and of course lastly to write
the closing card where the audience usually see the end credits, the names of
the actors, producers, the staff behind the scene, the music, the
cinematography team, the production team, the 2nd unit, the 3rd
unit, the editors, the songs played. If speaking of checklist, those are the
last duties of the editor, the last ones to be checked, then rendering for the
video to be encoded and voila, the finished video/film/production. See, when
you consider the three phases of film/video production, the third one is always
the post-production, the editor is the almighty being overlooking these processes.
The editor should be heartless. The editor must be guided by the vision of the
director. The editor must be the one to dictate the heartbeat of the film/video.
The editor has the last say after he/she wears out the director (hahaha!) The
director acts as the one with the big heart, checking and assessing all the
inputs of production team, but the editor listens to no one. The editor has the
darkest heart. The editor looks at the flattened image of clips, the product of
the whole pre- and production, the editor doesn’t care if the take took 100 shots,
the editor only looks at the result of the shoot. My point is, at this point of
the lunar cycle, the editor was done with us. The editor checked the outputs we
managed to put out and it heartlessly edited out what was going to be in the
film and what will be removed from the film.
How was it for you guys? Are you happy about those that get
included from those cut out from the film/video returned to you by the editor? In
my own experience, to answer this question would be to quote my Spiritual
Master, “Be kind to yourself and to others, let go of what you have lost,
welcome and accept what you have gained.” This teaching keeps me in my toes when
I feel like screaming because life right now is so messy, chaotic and
unrecognizable from what I was familiar with.
This lunar cycle’s word for me was Surrender. I have written
words/themes for every lunar cycle, hoping to make sense of what life is right
now, hoping to clear my mind, writing helps a lot because I know I cannot write
when I lie. Writing is like a confession, it is fueled by honesty. I cannot
write if I am hiding something from myself. Surrender is the word for the last
cycle, I felt it was appropriate. Surrender to Higher Power. Surrender to where
life will take me. Surrender to the energy that wants to live through me. Surrender,
like a big wave swallowing the ship. Lately, I have a morbid fascination of
watching ships being swallowed by the big waves of ocean in the middle of nowhere.
I might have felt some kind of affinity. I feel so helpless in the middle of
the ocean. I don’t think I will be able to run away from waves towering like
mountains, crashing into me. My dreams are like that lately. My house is an island
in the middle of the ocean. I only read about these dream descriptions in books
or short stories or dreams blog or astrology blogs, but now it is in my dreams.
And it keeps on repeating. And it even feels like it is a story, an anthology, or
episodic? It is not done. It keeps on unraveling. It keeps telling stories. It
keeps making me scared. It keeps on swallowing the dry earth where my house is.
The ocean will eventually cover the earth, I am not sure if my feet will be touching
the ground at all in my dream next time. Maybe it will be just an ocean.
Surrender, because tomorrow belongs to God
I am feeling my isolation much more clearly and much sharper
lately. In my busy days, I find myself, mostly my mind playing church songs,
Catholic church songs! It is surprising because I love Tzu Chi songs, I cannot
use or speak the original Mandarin/Taiwanese lyrics so I settle for the English
translated lyrics but I love the Tzu Chi melodies. Tzu Chi songs usually
dominate my mind, but lately I find myself humming Catholic mass songs, isn’t
that weird? I know I am attending mass regularly now, but the songs are really
sticking up in my head, I am even humming it when I am busy, it surprised me a
lot.
Most of the entries in my journal are about faith and
exploration of faith. Faith is not religion. Religion is not spirituality. These
are different concepts from each one. I want to learn more about different
faiths, different religions, the deeper meaning of spirituality. The opposition
of sexuality and spirituality, or their complementary relationship. Is
sexuality purely dark and evil? And is spirituality necessarily good all the
time? These questions actually invaded my mind for a while one weekend.
Also, I wanted to explore rituals. Rituals are the step by
step physical aspect of spirituality, it is very transparent. The people are even
invited to witness rituals. According to Joseph Campbell, ”Rituals connect
people to a power that is greater than themselves. Rituals can help people
let go of critical self-judgments and sense of powerlessness,” so when I feel so
insecure and full of doubt, I just remind myself that rituals could help me
call the power of calmness and restore the power of faith in me. I delve into
the rituals of journalling, writing and creating art. I hope it is enough to
tide me over into a secure place within me. The internal struggle I am having
lately are so huge that I feel my heart is skipping a beat/many beats many
times a week. I have never felt any serious palpitations, but in the past cycle
I have experienced one and I almost felt like going to the hospital, good thing
I managed to calm myself before anything bad happened.
Surrender is the word because I have mentioned earlier, I am
so powerless. Internally and externally. I pray for faith to always be with me,
but sometimes it is so easy to get overwhelmed. The emotions are very great lately,
I couldn’t get a handle of how to angle it to get a better perspective. I had
to pray harder and call my faith again and again. Then again, I realize it is
not really something I need to figure out, it is something I have to feel, I
have to go through, I have to experience, if there is something like a
take-away in the sense of realization – then I have no idea at all. It is not an
exercise on deriving concept or reason or practical discernment from what’s happening,
it is about emotions, openness and witnessing the grand design although in
snippets and small quick glances, it stopped being something that words can
explain. It stopped being rational. It stopped being graspable.
The Bleeding Heart continues to bleed
In surrender, there is a miracle. My room becomes an asylum
every weekend. Sometimes, I feel confined to my bed and when I have more energy,
I am just confined in my room doing journals. My asylum is named Sesame Noodle
House, it might get easier to get cozy in my asylum if it has that hot flavorful
aroma of sesame noodles. I have a journal I keep to log my stay in Sesame Noodle
House, I have many dark entries, I have many creepy ideas, I have many confessions
that are unrecognizable in the light of day, those words are only written
during the darkest moments or creepiest nights. My dreams are also full of
taboo situations lately. Perhaps, I am starting to love myself in the darkness.
I am learning to love the dark parts of me, that I should not shut out. I
should learn to embrace the shadow.
I am still walking the universe of grief, still grieving.
This time of the year is the grieving time. I guess my heart will always bleed.
Between absolute faith and absolute disillusionment there is
only a hairline. But that hairline is strong enough to hold apart heaven and hell. -Henry Miller-
Listening to: (1) This is hell, Elvis Costelo (2) Pagan
Poetry, Bjork
