Friday, October 29, 2010

Losing a dream...

"It is not easy to to lose what you never had."

- Paolo Coelho

Lilith si litera Şin

În cea de-a opta zi Dumnezeu a creat literele ebraice pentru a se putea păstra istoria, profeţiile, poezia şi mai ales poveştile noastre.
Fiecare literă era făcută din sticlă. Precum o prismă, fiecare reflecta toate culorile universului. Dumnezeu nu se putea decide cine ar trebui să ţină aceste comori care vor păstra pentru eternitate învăţăturile evreilor. Şi Dumnezeu se tot gândi; apoi, în cea de-a optsprezecea zi, se hotărî.
„Lilit,” spuse Cel Sfânt, adresându-se primei femei, „pentru că tu înţelegi importanţa învăţatului, nu doar pentru tine, ci pentru toţi oamenii, te pun pe tine să ai grijă de primul set de litere ebraice.”
„Sunt onorată,” spuse aceasta. „Ştiu un loc tocmai bun în care să le ţin.” Atunci Lilit îl conduse pe Dumnezeu într-o parte foarte împădurită a Grădinii Edenului. „Aici,” spuse arătând către o imensă stâncă nivelată care se ridica de la pământ, fiind protejată de o terasă suspendată. Acolo se găseau nenumărate plante de viţă de vie, păsări şi fluturaşi. O cascadă îşi aduna apa într-un bazin unde se găseau peşti de toate culorile.
„Da,” spuse Dumnezeu, „acesta este un loc bun.” Cel Sfânt i-a înmânat litera Alef lui Lilit. Aceasta s-a dus la lumina soarelui şi a ţinut litera deasupra capului, pentru a se lumina şi a admira sticla fină şi rezistentă. Duse litera alef la obraz, o mirosi, o sărută chiar.
„Litera Bet,” spuse Dumnezeu şi Lilit puse cu grijă litera Alef pe stâncă pentru a o putea primi pe Bet. Una câte una, Dumnezeu denumea literele; la fel, Lilit le accepta şi le admira. Când mai avea doar câteva de întins, Cel Sfânt se opri. „Aceasta,” spuse Dumnezeu, „se cheamă şin. Vezi ce rotunjime perfectă are? Cred că este perfectă, cea mai frumoasă dintre toate literele.”
Se întâmplă că exact în momentul în care Lilit acceptă litera şin, se auzi plânsetul unui copil în apropiere. Nu era un plânset sfâşietor, nici de durere, nici de teamă. Spunea doar „Sunt singur, vino şi ţine-mă în braţe.”
Lilit se gândi la copil doar o fracţiune de secundă, suficient însă pentru a scăpa litera pe care Dumnezeu o decretase ca fiind perfectă.
Nici Dumnezeu, nici Lilit nu vorbi în timp ce Şin căzu de pe stâncă, spărgându-se cu un sunet mai puternic decât cântecul păsărilor, decât cascada, decât zumzetul insectelor şi decât vuietul plăcut al vântului printre viţa de vie.
„Iartă-mă,” spuse Lilit. Dumnezeu se pregătea să o ierte pentru că spărsese cea mai frumoasă literă, când Lilit continuă, „trebuie să am grijă de copil.”
Dumnezeu nu spuse nimic în timp ce Lilit se îndepărta. „Când mă voi întoarce,” adăugă Lilit, „voi repara litera Şin.”
Această remarcă i se păru foarte stranie lui Dumnezeu. Deşi lumea nu avea decât optsprezece zile, Cel Sfânt nu se aştepta ca cineva să repare lucrurile. Dumnezeu a făcut lucrurile şi oamenii aveau grijă de ele – sau nu, însă nimeni nu avea să le repare, nici om, nici Dumnezeu.
Dumnezeu se mai gândea încă la această ciudăţenie când s-a întors Lilit. Ridică bucăţile de sticlă şi le aranjă în forma pe care o numim Şin. „Lucrarea ta se reflectă în această nouă formă,” spuse Lilit, „dar reflectă de asemenea umanitatea,” aşa cum fiecare persoană este o reflectare a Divinului.”
„Cum să folosim litera Şin?” întrebă Dumnezeu, încântat de ceea ce tocmai spusese prima femeie.
„Ca prima literă a unui salut,” sugeră aceasta. Ne va aduce aminte de faptul că putem să îţi comunicăm ceea ce avem de spus.” Dumnezeu dădu din cap afirmativ. „De asemenea,” fie ca acelaşi cuvânt să semnifice pace, pentru că fiecare dintre noi poate aduce pacea – indiferent dacă pacea este întreruptă de un copil care plânge, o neînţelegere între prieteni sau chiar între popoare. Cuvântul acesta ne va aduce aminte de faptul că lucrurile făcute bucăţi pot fi reparate.”
Din nou, Dumnezeu fu de acord cu Lilit, dar adăugă, „Fie ca Şin să fie şi prima literă a cuvântului ascultă.”
„Da,” spuse Lilit, trebuie să te ascultăm.”
„Iar eu îi voi asculta pe toţi cei care mă caută,” spuse Dumnezeu.

Şi aşa a fost. Şi aşa va fi mereu.

- sursa: http://edikup.wordpress.com/iudaism-101/lilit/

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The hero's journey (3) - Return

RETURN

1. Refusal of the Return
So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its cares and woes?

2. The Magic Flight
Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.

3. Rescue from Without
Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often times he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience. Or perhaps the person doesn't realize that it is time to return, that they can return, or that others need their boon.

4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult.

5. Master of the Two Worlds
In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.

6. Freedom to Live
Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.

- Joseph Campbell

The hero's journey (2) - Initiation

INITIATION

1. The Road of Trials
The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.

2. The Meeting with the Goddess
The meeting with the goddess represents the point in the adventure when the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the all-powerful, all encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant may experience with his or her mother. It is also known as the "hieros gamos", or sacred marriage, the union of opposites, and may take place entirely within the person. In other words, the person begins to see him or herself in a non-dualistic way. This is a very important step in the process and is often represented by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely. Although Campbell symbolizes this step as a meeting with a goddess, unconditional love and /or self unification does not have to be represented by a woman.

3. Woman as the Temptress
At one level, this step is about those temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest, which as with the Meeting with the Goddess does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. For Campbell, however, this step is about the revulsion that the usually male hero may feel about his own fleshy/earthy nature, and the subsequent attachment or projection of that revulsion to women. Woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.

4. Atonement with the Father
In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power. For the transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been must be "killed" so that the new self can come into being. Sometime this killing is literal, and the earthly journey for that character is either over or moves into a different realm.

5. Apotheosis
To apotheosize is to deify. When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife. A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest, peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return.

6. The Ultimate Boon
The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is what the person went on the journey to get. All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step, since in many myths the boon is something transcendent like the elixir of life itself, or a plant that supplies immortality, or the holy grail.

- Joseph Campbell

The hero's journey (1) - Departure

DEPARTURE

1. The Call to Adventure
The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.

2. Refusal of the Call
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.

3. Supernatural Aid
Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known.

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.

5. The Belly of the Whale
The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person’s lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. The experiences that will shape the new world and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening. By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself. "


Joseph Campbell

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Courage

"Is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

Ambrose Redmoon

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Physics of the Quest

"...I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" - a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself....then truth will not be witheld from you."

- Eat, pray, love (Elizabeth Gilbert)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

You can never go back

"You can never be less than what you've become and be happy."

- Abraham/Hicks

You will blossom

"A flower starts deep under the dirt and has to fight against gravity in the darkness before finally breaking free and opening its bloom to the sun. You may feel like you're in darkness and everything around you is muddy, but keep pushing toward the Light and when the time is right, you will burst into blossom."

Friday, October 1, 2010

I miss you

And I am missing you not because there is an emptiness i expect you to fulfill, but because i miss sharing the fullfillment with you...