Snow White and the Huntsman

The following massive commentary contains spoilers for the movie (although is it really possible to spoil a fairy tale?) and is long.

Short version: This movie subverts the useless princess trope AND subverts the trope that being feminine/caring/beautiful is something inherently superficial or weak. THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME.
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Late Night Conversations™: Letting Go

[edited slightly to be more readable]

Not Me:
Coincidentally, this is one of the reasons I've always been shy about the idea of pushing boundaries, pushing limits. I should think the best environment for letting go is one that is at all levels completely safe and comfortable, where you can know without question, or hesitation, where you can really feel that you won't ever be put in a place where you don't want to be, so you can surrender that need to protect yourself more comfortably. Do you have thoughts about that?

Me:
I think that the idea you describe is partly (partly, mind you) an illusion. No matter how well-meaning others are, and no matter how much they love you, they will sometimes push you too far, or in the wrong direction, or say something wrong. In that sense, there is no such thing as a completely safe environment. I have said things which unintentionally set you off before, but you feel no less safe with me.

The point being that safety is not really about being safe. Surrendering that need to protect yourself comes when you feel comfortable enough with your ability to communicate your needs. Because the whole point of lowering those barriers isn't that there is some guarantee you won't be hurt. It's the slow (as slow as it needs to be) process of realizing that hurt happens and what's important is that we are with people who listen to us when we say "hey, that hurt," people who will respond to our needs, try to help us and help themselves.

So I guess what I'm saying is that yes, in part one should of course do one's best to safeguard the environment in which one does this sort of work. But there is a cliff of uncertainty no matter what, and I posit that instead of only coming up to the edge and stopping and remaining completely safe, one should, when one is ready, bungee jump. Because that is how we grow.

Two poems & thoughts jotted down

I was going through a bunch of poems I've collected, and re-reading this one it seems to me that one of the concepts Yeats is evoking is that of the meaning-generality from the Tibetan Buddhist ontology. In particular the lines: "I would have touched it like a child /But knew my finger could but have touched /Cold stone and water." This goes along with the last verse, which could possibly be a description of the meaning-generality of the same waterfall from the perspective of the woman with him.

Also the implications of the "law of heaven" he invokes seem to question reality in a way that is not dissimilar to the things I have been studying in my Tibetan Buddhist Reason & Debate class. There's a lot to more unpack there, but I'll leave it for now. Oh, and another poem I found below this one...

Towards Break of Day by William Butler Yeats

Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?

I thought 'there is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulban side,
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.

I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water. I grew wild
Even accusing heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.

I dreamed towards break of day,
The cold blown spray in my nostril.
But she that beside me lay
Had watched in bitterer sleep
The marvellous stag of Arthur,
That lofty white stag, leap
From mountain steep to steep.

~*~

I think I need to read the following poem about 100 more times, but my initial reaction was to think about emptiness, or selflessness. It has a Taoist feel to it in some respects, but I think especially in light of the end that it might almost be a visualization of a conception of selflessness in the Buddhist sense.

What Any Lover Learns by Archibald MacLeish

Water is heavy silver over stone.
Water is heavy silver over stone's
Refusal. It does not fall. It fills. It flows
Every crevice, every fault of the stone,
Every hollow. River does not run.
River presses its heavy silver self
Down into stone and stone refuses.

What runs,
Swirling and leaping into sun, is stone's
Refusal of the river, not the river.

A reflection.

Another Kallah, another two year cycle of spirituality comes full circle.

I have drifted significantly in the last two years, spiritually in particular. I have learned many things, some of them lessons I needed to learn, and some of them lessons I probably should have avoided with some applied common sense. Some were hard, and some were even harder. I have started to really See people, to See the events and dynamics around me in a way I hadn't before because I allowed myself to be too affected by rose-colored glasses. Some optimism is, I truly believe, an absolute necessity. But for optimism to be effective, you have to apply it to the real world. Not the world of potential, or the possible world, or the world you want things to be but they aren't quite there yet. I'm not sure of a way that this lesson can be taught verbally...I learned it in a very Zen way, actually. I was shocked into a state of higher awareness when I found out that someone I trusted and liked was not the person I thought he was. That the darkness I saw beneath the surface had far more hold than I believed, even unto beating up his girlfriend. They have reconciled since then, for better or for worse, but the lessons I learned were unforgettable, not just from this one event, but from observing and interacting with my environment after reaching this new awareness.

Three Lessons

First, that people give hints about the conditions of their insides. Just because you only see a tiny bit of insecurity, or cruelty, or immaturity, does not mean what you see is the totality. People are icebergs, and if you see a little, you cannot assume there isn't a lot. You can't assume there IS a lot either. But it is that uncertainty that should guide my consciousness. Often, you just don't know about people. And that should require more caution and observation before trust is earned, not less.

Second, that certain behaviors and perspectives are toxic, and there is nothing wrong with eliminating people from your social dance card who perpetuate toxicity in any form. Life is too short to be spending time and energy on people who reward loyalty with divisiveness, or friendly intentions with betrayals. And what's sad is that this lesson probably speaks to every single person who will ever read this. We have all experienced this. Sometimes it is a parent, a sibling, a friend, a lover...anyone in your life can betray you. Your responsibility to yourself is to make every possible effort to choose your friends and lovers carefully. I am learning to minimize my risks through social triage.

Third, and possibly most important, is compassion. All of the above lessons are as dust and sand unless you simultaneously apply compassion and understanding. If I stop spending time with someone and then think in my head (or say to other people), "That person is such a jerk; they don't deserve nice things" then I am also being a jerk. Obviously when we are hurt by someone, there is a certain amount of venting and release of pain that has to happen, in safe and trustworthy contexts. But if several months down the line I'm still harping on the same people for being horrible, worthless people, then I need to take a step back and look hard at myself and my motivations for saying such a thing. Every person has their own story, their own perspective. Reasons for doing what they're doing. And even if their reasons don't make sense to me, I am not the one who is utilizing them. Figuring out where someone is coming from, why they act the way they do, is an absolutely essential part of coming into communication and healing with someone. Sometimes, this is not possible. Sometimes, the person does not themselves know why they do what they do; they act without deeper consideration. Sometimes instead of healing communication between two people, all you get are scars. But without that initial drive to understand, to understand without judgment or imprecation, all you get is bitterness. As Yeats said, "Gaze no more in the bitter glass...for all things turn to bareness...thy tender eyes grow all unkind /gaze no more in the bitter glass."

Aside from improving my vision and perception of the world and people around me, and adjusting my priorities in accordance with my refined principles, I am coming to really feel like I'm carving out my place spiritually. My future is now, almost. By the end of this year I will be done with undergrad, and hopefully starting next year I will begin my Cantorial training. Spiritual leadership. Music. Lighting the way for others and myself as best I can. Becoming a vehicle for the ideals and philosophies that I feel are the connecting lines between all us dots. I was awaiting this Kallah conference with some anticipation... I have felt for months that I am on the verge of some sort of breakthrough. I have been getting bombarded with the signs of it too, déjà vu all the time, and dreaming vividly every time I fall asleep. My brain is in overdrive, processing things subconsciously, figuring things out, creating new spaces and places for me to explore consciously. I hope.

We are just what we are. It is who we become that we can influence by our choices and our practices and our convictions. We each live in our own Now, and that Now cannot be changed. It's our Now. But, by acknowledging humbly the things about our Now that we would like to adjust, we can work each moment to create new practices and new habits. We can form ourselves into the person that we want to become. And that person is still us, taken in the context of the whole picture. Just because right now I have a problem with, say, a short temper doesn't mean that THAT is who I will always be, and I should just hate myself for being so terrible and uncontrolled. It means that I am dissatisfied with my Now. That I need to begin practicing patience perhaps by counting to ten before speaking when annoyed, or whatever works. There is no reason to hate myself because I am also the person who successfully moves beyond such problems.

We are not discrete particles divided up into seconds, minutes, hours, years. The me of two years ago is just as much ME as the me right now. What reason, then, would I have to hate myself knowing how much potential I have?! I have come so far, and fought so hard, and worked so much at making myself into the best person I can be. I will not ever be perfect. And I don't want to be perfect! I want to be in full communication with my potential, to be constantly working toward whatever new goals I set for myself, to be aware of how my perspective shifts with lessons and experiences gained throughout my life.

In this moment, I have friends I adore. I have family, both old and new. In this moment, even though there is much uncertainty and even fear, there is also the surety of knowing that I write my own story. In this moment, this deep breath before the next plunge, life looks good.