I'm going to start with what might surprise some of you: a quote from the newest X-men movie. It's called X-men: Days of Future Past, and the screenplay is written by Simon Kinberg.
"Young Charles Xavier: I’m not the man I was. I open my mind and it almost overwhelms me.
Old Charles Xavier: You’re afraid, and Cerebro knows it.
Young Charles: In all those voices…so much pain.
Old Charles: It’s not their pain you’re afraid of — it’s yours. And frightening as it can be their pain will make you stronger if you allow yourself to feel it. Embrace it. It will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It’s the greatest gift we have that can bear pain without breaking, and it’s born from the most human power: Hope. Please Charles, we need you to hope again."
Xavier is a telepath and developed Cerebro as a way to amplify his abilities to connect to every human and mutant alike on the planet. This way he is able to search for and locate anyone he wishes, to help them; primarily the lost and confused "mutants" who cannot control their own abilities and can be potentially dangerous. Anyone catching the subtext?
In this story, Xavier has gone through quite an ordeal, and has found a way to suppress his abilities, so that he "can no longer hear the voices." This scene is after he stops suppressing his ability to "listen" and enters Cerebro for the first time in years, and he is overwhelmed by the amount of pain and suffering he sees, which really just mirrors his own pain.
My friend Fabio just posted this quote on Facebook as part of a larger discussion. I offer this now because I feel that everyone has the ability to "listen," but that some of us are more empathic than others. So often do I forget that I am able to connect deeply to the collective pain, and for this reason I am most grateful to Joanna Macy for honoring this ability and speaking directly to its pitfalls.
Today I am in an interesting space where I feel the various forces within me combating, vying for my attention, demanding action. Some of the forces within me is the Ignorance I think, the place where most of us want to hide.
It is hard not to judge myself for hiding. I try to do as Xavier did and suppress my abilities with various addictions, try to keep myself from feeling the full range of my capacity. I am choosing to suppress the ability because it feels too painful to open myself up to the world's suffering. The thing is though that there isn't just suffering on this planet. It isn't JUST suffering, there is also so much beauty.
I will borrow yet another movie quote:
"I guess i could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment in my stupid little life."
This is the last line to American Beauty, written by Alan Ball. The quote gets me every time, because it is almost the same experience as with the collective pain: to let in all the beauty is also really scary, and can be just as overwhelming. The beauty follows the pain. When we feel our pain, we empty. It is allowing space within us, clearing out all that we've gathered in our daily lives. So much is gathered there, and we have to clear it in order to make room for something else. We clear the pain to make space for the beauty. For gratitude, for love, for compassion, for understanding. We suffer for a reason. The suffering creates the space, it makes the room for the beauty.
Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the reassure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
This is from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. I feel it conveys my point better than I could.
I believe that many people are so busy running from their pain that they then cannot fully experience joy. The pain resides just under the surface, and as Melissa Michaels says, we try to drink/smoke/eat/fuck the pain away, but it just splinters further downward, until we face it fully. Until we dance with it.
This is just what is surfacing for me in this moment. I know all that I've shared so intimately, but I must still be continually reminded of these concepts. As I shed tears this afternoon writing this, I am baffled by how I forget. I forget about the beauty, I forget how to deal with my pain. As I drink/smoke/eat/fuck the pain away, I forget how to resource myself. I forget how to emerge from isolation and come into love, acceptance, worthiness and community. I am a human struggling, and I am humbled.
"Young Charles Xavier: I’m not the man I was. I open my mind and it almost overwhelms me.
Old Charles Xavier: You’re afraid, and Cerebro knows it.
Young Charles: In all those voices…so much pain.
Old Charles: It’s not their pain you’re afraid of — it’s yours. And frightening as it can be their pain will make you stronger if you allow yourself to feel it. Embrace it. It will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It’s the greatest gift we have that can bear pain without breaking, and it’s born from the most human power: Hope. Please Charles, we need you to hope again."
Xavier is a telepath and developed Cerebro as a way to amplify his abilities to connect to every human and mutant alike on the planet. This way he is able to search for and locate anyone he wishes, to help them; primarily the lost and confused "mutants" who cannot control their own abilities and can be potentially dangerous. Anyone catching the subtext?
In this story, Xavier has gone through quite an ordeal, and has found a way to suppress his abilities, so that he "can no longer hear the voices." This scene is after he stops suppressing his ability to "listen" and enters Cerebro for the first time in years, and he is overwhelmed by the amount of pain and suffering he sees, which really just mirrors his own pain.
My friend Fabio just posted this quote on Facebook as part of a larger discussion. I offer this now because I feel that everyone has the ability to "listen," but that some of us are more empathic than others. So often do I forget that I am able to connect deeply to the collective pain, and for this reason I am most grateful to Joanna Macy for honoring this ability and speaking directly to its pitfalls.
Today I am in an interesting space where I feel the various forces within me combating, vying for my attention, demanding action. Some of the forces within me is the Ignorance I think, the place where most of us want to hide.
It is hard not to judge myself for hiding. I try to do as Xavier did and suppress my abilities with various addictions, try to keep myself from feeling the full range of my capacity. I am choosing to suppress the ability because it feels too painful to open myself up to the world's suffering. The thing is though that there isn't just suffering on this planet. It isn't JUST suffering, there is also so much beauty.
I will borrow yet another movie quote:
"I guess i could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it. And then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment in my stupid little life."
This is the last line to American Beauty, written by Alan Ball. The quote gets me every time, because it is almost the same experience as with the collective pain: to let in all the beauty is also really scary, and can be just as overwhelming. The beauty follows the pain. When we feel our pain, we empty. It is allowing space within us, clearing out all that we've gathered in our daily lives. So much is gathered there, and we have to clear it in order to make room for something else. We clear the pain to make space for the beauty. For gratitude, for love, for compassion, for understanding. We suffer for a reason. The suffering creates the space, it makes the room for the beauty.
Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the reassure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
This is from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. I feel it conveys my point better than I could.
I believe that many people are so busy running from their pain that they then cannot fully experience joy. The pain resides just under the surface, and as Melissa Michaels says, we try to drink/smoke/eat/fuck the pain away, but it just splinters further downward, until we face it fully. Until we dance with it.
This is just what is surfacing for me in this moment. I know all that I've shared so intimately, but I must still be continually reminded of these concepts. As I shed tears this afternoon writing this, I am baffled by how I forget. I forget about the beauty, I forget how to deal with my pain. As I drink/smoke/eat/fuck the pain away, I forget how to resource myself. I forget how to emerge from isolation and come into love, acceptance, worthiness and community. I am a human struggling, and I am humbled.
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