Author: Celeste Higgs

“The truly strong are always gentle.”

― Yuuki Obata

“Be gentle. Pay attention. Offer purposeful healing. Seek Equilibrium. Unfreeze, slowly. Stretch yourself out into the world. Let your eyes calibrate to this new light and notice how it caresses the lines and curves and soft and hard of you. Allow your mouth to twist and stumble around new shapes. Be so very sensory. Notice everything. From every angle. The way your bones feel. The way you orient to space and time. Invite your whole being into this new way of living, into the totality and wholeness of it. Let it be strange and uncomfortable and painful and stiff. Let it be magical and novel and unfamiliar and entirely wonderful. Follow the whispers where they lead.”

― Jeanette LeBlanc

The Saturday clouds were shy this morning. The bright, new sun originally shone happily on my new disposition. But then the afternoon wind started blowing. When I lifted my head from my work, the clouds had filled the sky. The grey mass of calm grey arrived gracefully and quietly in-between chats and artworks and coffee and rubrics and marks. It gently enveloped me with peaceful calmness. The transformation was almost unnoticed. I realized that this is what God’s clouds have been trying to tell me: to surrender control of my sky to the story of my life…..to gently let go of all my prerequisites, unrealistic expectations and silly judgements.

To let go gently.

On my way back to my car I noticed the remnants of yesterday’s cheerful silliness. A deflated shiny, golden 2020 balloon signage hung sadly and solitarily from the railing on the first floor. A sign of another year gone. The students come and go, and my life happens in-between these walls and my life outside of these walls. And without me noticing, God and the universe had coerced me gently to a place of calm, putting what I need there for me; making my life happen the way it is supposed to.

For the past two years of my life I purposefully chose to numb it all. It was the only way out of a desperate situation. My eyes became dull, my waistline wider and my life fuller. And suddenly, on this day, the waistline had disappeared with the narcotic crutch I thought I needed. My head is clear, my eyes tearless and my life is (gently) happening.

There is no drama, no tears, no fear of rejection or unrealistic expectations.

The overcast, cloudy sky envelops me with calm acceptance, and I am looking forward to it all.

I will follow the whispers where they lead, and embrace the gentle souls sent to embrace me.

new – not of long duration; having just (or relatively recently) come into being or been made or acquired or discovered, already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/new

“There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.”

― Marie Antoinette

“It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

― Krishnamurti

“Everyone has that moment I think, the moment when something so momentous happens that it rips your very being into small pieces. And then you have to stop. For a long time, you gather your pieces. And it takes such a very long time, not to fit them back together, but to assemble them in a new way, not necessarily a better way. More, a way you can live with until you know for certain that this piece should go there, and that one there.”

― Kathleen Glasgow, Girl in Pieces

He who broke me into pieces once said that this blog needs to find joy. How ironic that it is the cause of all the pain that uttered such a profound truth. But here I am. Finding joy.

I am within the liminal space of finding the new me, and the sorrow that developed into the inspirational, albeit sad, liminal journey of my healing. I am trying to fit the pieces back together – in a new way, with a new approach: finding joy. What an amazing thing to be able to look up at the sky and find something new! After days of no sun, no real joy, and the struggle to understand my journey, the pieces suddenly fell in place. There is joy to be found in the new arrangement of the broken pieces of my life……. and I am not in charge. The best way to find joy is to surrender. I surrender.

As I look up at the sky the sun suddenly appeared after days of wet, rainy, overcast gloom. The rays of light fall warm on my face. I take a picture. I send it to someone who needs the sun as well. The sun then quickly disappears. Irony? No. A message to me, and maybe to him as well. I wouldn’t know: I don’t really know him. But the epiphany is there: the sun shone on my face and I feel joy. For me, my life, my blessings, my future. And just like that the past is gone. And I am happy.

The catharsis of the words in this blog is healing.

The clouds are still spectacular.

The sun that fell momentarily with a warm glow on my face speaks about finding joy in the little things.

The future is always brighter and better than the past.

I have hope for love and happiness. At last.

I found it. In myself. In-between the clouds.

To slight is to ignore or treat as unimportant. 

To disregard is to ignore or treat without due respect. 

To neglect is to fail in one’s duty toward a person or thing:  

To overlook is to fail to notice or consider someone or something, possibly because of carelessness.

Oxford Dictionary

“Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force.”

― Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

“Your mind can be your enemy or friend. If you always follow your heart, your mind will feel neglected. If you follow only your mind, your heart will never forgive you. Never ignore your conscience, yet always be conscious of reason. Make your heart and mind friends and you will have peace of mind throughout life’s seasons.”

― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Stones make no splash on a frozen lake.”

― Steven Erikson, Midnight Tides

Loretta G. Breuning Ph.D.: “When you feel socially slighted, you can easily find evidence to “prove” it. You can point to evidence that you’ve been wronged, neglected, disrespected, undervalued, misjudged or abused, so you think you’re being objective. But our brain is designed to find what it looks for. You have ten times more neurons going into your eyes than you have coming out of them. That means you are ten times more equipped to tell your eyes what to look for than to just take things in “objectively.” You are not conscioulsy trying to prove you’ve been slighted, but neurochemical ups and downs prompt the brain to find evidence to explain them.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-neurochemical-self/201309/getting-past-the-stress-feeling-slighted

This Friday’s clouds were not exceptionally magnificent. The rays caused by the rising sun – slightly visible behind them – caught my attention, though. Those are the rays of sunlight I have neglected, and had pushed aside in order to make my clouds the most important objects of my permissible, miserable life. The hot summer sun now returns with a vengeance, and its rays remind me of my weaknesses, casting light on the shortcomings that scared him away. What a fool I am; trying to find an answer to an impossible question. Slightly…..

Slightly? Singularly! My life is now an overwhelming realistic objectivity – clearly visible in the bright sunny sky.

I thankfully look up at my safety net of clouds hiding the bright rays from my current status of divorcee. Slighted!

The beauty of what is around me has always influenced my life in a magnificent way. This is the reason for my clouds, and perhaps the explanation for my foolishness. Searching for answers in my sky of clouds was exceptionally difficult the past week. My mind reminded me of the cruel reality of the sunny day. I foraged for my heart in the jungle of a cloudy sky, but was confronted with my mind instead. As the neurons searched for evidence and explanations at the back of my brain, it sent messages to my aching heart. The magnificence of the clouds in the sky are connected to the neurons in my eyes, and these that are connected to my brain. This impossible concoction is why I am forever trying to objectively find the fault within myself.

My situation is positively and objectively a cruel, socially slighted reality.

I have to face the fact that I cannot force the stone in my mind to make a splash on the frozen lake of this reality. I will have to wait patiently for the warm sun to appear from behind my utopian clouds and melt the ice of my cold heart.

To grasp refers to the understanding of the nature or meaning or quality or magnitude of something.’

https://www.thefreedictionary.com

“When it comes to love and loss, acceptance is never easy. We can’t make someone see all we have to give, make them love us, or make them change. All we can do is move on and stop wasting time.”

― April Mae Monterrosa

“When you want to share something with another person more than anything, it is one of the most difficult things to realize that you can never have it. Accepting this realization is even more difficult. Loving someone does mean saying goodbye to them in some cases, though we will fight that until the oftentimes bitter end before doing the right thing.”

― Ashly Lorenzana

“The Truth that sets you free is not a word, a sentence, a concept, idea nor person….the Truth that sets you free is the realization of who you truly are.”

― Vivian Amis

This week’s days offered seven sunrises and sunsets over my once perfect sky. Each morning started with a sudden, clear realization of the reality that I now HAVE to grasp. The clouds were there, but could not give any answer to my one remaining question: what is the reason for love that dies?

The truth did not set us free. Perhaps the truth is to be found in finding ourselves – away from each other. Forever. This is my only solution in this horrible week of the last days of our acquaintance.

The magnitude of my situation is overwhelming. As I enter the building I experience the familiar nauseous anxiety I have come to know before. I hurriedly turn around to exit and find some fresh air and hide from the people around me. The mask helps, and I can hide behind the foggy glasses in front of my eyes. I have to remove the mask in order to breathe. Impossible. An impossible situation. I try to find solace in looking up at the bright, red flowers of my favourite tree. It does not help: I get flashes of her in my house, with everything I have bought and carefully selected. Memories of us, which are only meaningless, beautiful objects to her, with no relevance in their new reality. I imagine my house now filled with happy laughter and love and companionship and hugs and soft words and depth of feelings that were withheld from me. Tears well up in my eyes when I think of the feelings that I have to kill once more. I am hurt, but I am not angry. I am sad.

Loss is not easy, and love lost is worse.

The realization of the finality of us is a thought of magnitude.

I need to get through this again. Make peace, and move on.

It is hard to forget, I said, when there is such an empty space when you are gone.”

― Brian Andreas, Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

“There’s just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise. ”

― Sarah Dessen, Lock and Key

“…and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, ‘That was fine’. And your life is a long line of fine.”

― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled. 

― Lloyd Alexander, The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen

“Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps, that makes the journey complete.”

Chanda Kochhar

The days are fine. A long line of fine. Monday’s was blue. Tuesday and Wednesday’s skies were empty. Thursday was overcast. Friday’s sky was still empty. The blue abyss made me ponder on what I am searching for in the emptiness of the blue. The sky inspires me in many ways. The sky suggests optimism, dreaming, peace. I suppose I look up to the sky in search of a better place. Maybe this will make me feel inspired to march towards my goals and dreams of success while wide awake?

In the blue emptiness of the virgin sky all things are possible. It’s a promise for new undertakings and represents the current blank slate given to my life to craft my future life story. Even during the bleak times, the sky provides reason for hope.

I needed a touch of inspiration to learn something from my Friday past. And then it appeared silently between break duty and screening and streaming and coffee breaks and e-mails and marking: a lonely cloud formed from the burning of something down on the ground…. my artificial Friday cloud.

Every day’s ashes can form beautiful clouds.

As I look into the beautiful young face of my young, lively student I have an epiphany: the journey to that beautiful cloud in my blue empty sky is here: on this Friday and every day before and hereafter. The long line of fine IS the beauty! The smiles and jokes and words and silences of those I share my life with is what fill my empty sky with joyful clouds that rise from the ashes of everyday life. The journey is the dream, and I should let go of the dream and rather enjoy every small step of every day’s blue abyss, for the fires that burn around and in us are what cause those beautiful clouds.

The skies are part of me and you and us.

We are the clouds.

Just take one step at a time and start looking up.

“How can you rise, if you have not burned”

― Hiba Fatima Ahmad

“There is a reason why morning follows night. After times of great darkness, we must take time to mourn all we have lost and all who were lost, even as hope rises with the sun.”

― Emory R. Frie, Realm of the Snow Queen

“This is where my lesson was learned: pain is to be expected, courage is to be welcomed. There is no choice but to endure. There is no other way than to renounce self-doubt. It is the time of the Dawning in more ways than one. The sun can rise, and so can I”

― Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth

“Love is not something that becomes your weakness, love is something that becomes your strength. Let’s not just fall in love, let’s rise in love”

― Mohsin Ali Shaukat

A frame of reference is a set of criteria or stated values in relation to which measurements or judgements can be made. Mine starts with sunrise every day. This morning’s sunrise was hidden behind an intricate crocheted set of clouds, letting through the promise of a bright sun that desperately tried to break its way into the inevitable future of the new day.

My fellow travelers on this quiet road must surely by now recognise the habitual car stopping in the same spot on most cloudy mornings. It’s me: I stop the car at the exact spot that establishes a clear view of the landscape. I open the window to point the lens and Aim and Click. I need my picture-perfect frame of promises without any man-made structural interference. A frame of reference: “Is this not the most peculiar concept?“, I thought as I pull back into the morning traffic. How can we ‘frame’ references? Surely it should stretch wider than a frame? I soak up the moment before it disappears, wondering about the future of a new day that lies ahead of me. The clouds must be my frame of reference? I reluctantly admit to myself that lately my lens on the world has become a camera obscura: not the exact image, but everything reversed or upside down.

My clouds have started casting shadows that obscures the sun.

My thoughts have become scrambled and uneven, resembling the crocheted clouds. He has walked back into my life to offer me a taste of the sun, but the needle of the past crocheted a painful blanket that did not provide enough warmth to suffice his troubled heart. There are too many holes in this blanket of what is us, and not enough courage in his heart. I am saddened by his choice to not rise to the occasion at that exact moment the sun broke through his cloud. He has made the choice.

I search for the words of my soul: words that are struggling to break through the unevenness of the morning cloud offered to me on this new day. I reminisce of our past, and the stranglehold the present has on my life. All that I have ever known is suddenly casting a shadow over all I do. I pray for that something which is supposed to happen within me. I pray to God for life to remember and not forget me, for the universe to hold me in its hand and to not let me fall. I want to exclude from my life all of this uneasiness, this pain, this daily struggle. I wish I knew what work this is accomplishing within me? It all seems upside-down, scattered: with large gaping crocheted holes through which the sun is trying to find its way…….

Carl Jung said we never see others. Instead we see only aspects of ourselves that fall over them. Shadows. Projections. Our associations. We each have our own frame of reference. Perhaps the only thing each of us can see through the lens of our life is our own shadow trying to chase the sun? Do we only see ourselves and our shadows?

My shadow is a scrambled image of crocheted sun spots from my past to which I am desperately trying to hold on. I have to let it go and change my frame of reference with cognizance. This is the only way to allow the sun to shine its way into my present disposition.

I have to say good bye to my beautiful past.

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”

― C. JoyBell C.

“Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all come.”

Michelangelo

I went out with the camera to find inspiration for this cathartic experience I call my liminality, and discovered a singular cloud in my blue sky. It seemed lost while it tentatively hovered in its solitary state……..Today’s lonely cloud asked too many questions for my confused soul. It did not answer with the clear answers I am desperately searching for.

Surely solitary existence is not what any of us want?

Aren’t we made to be together?

Do we all need to be alone at some point in our life?

Is loneliness what we need in order to appreciate togetherness?

When is the best time for this solitary state?

Is this not what we are all doing: waiting for that spectacularly mind-blowing cloud experience, for that cloud containing that heavenly feeling ?

Is it possible that we may never find our idealistic, orgasmic, breathtakingly beautiful dreamy cloud?

Do we all hold our breath for the fantastical cloud on which angels and perfect celestial beings enter the blue sky of our expectations?

Where are we all going?

What are we doing?

What are we missing?

How are we going to fly if there are no Versailles cloud at the end of our journey in the sky?

The questions are overwhelming, and the answers not the ones I want to hear. Closure is not what I thought it to be: it opened raw wounds that I had struggled to close up with thick bandages. The relentless honesty gave me new hope, only to be taken away with the same cruelty that I know so well by now.

My solitary cloud reminds me that I have once flown high with the angels in the sky. It has left me with a broken wing and a hopeful smile. I desperately have to fly one more time. For now, though, I need to embrace the solitary state of being alone. Whilst impatiently awaiting my Versailles experience, the broken wing necessitates my eyes to be turned skyward, until that moment I would be able to spread it again and float amongst the clouds.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

― Plato

“Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.”

― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“There is no perfection only life”

― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

― Brene Brown

Today started with a soft brush of light, and thereafter turned into a bright light that appeared in clear rays through the clouds. They were evidence of the sun that has risen on my life and his. I had to stop the car to aim and click.

Capturing the moment made all future moments seem crystal clear.

The beautiful morning clouds disappeared and I was offered a bright, sunny, cloudless day. There are no clouds, but I am happy; for I know we have shared the message of the first morning cloud. I think of my unbearable lightness becoming bearable, and me now wanting to be light. The light offers me an epiphany when I suddenly realise that he is right. Even exquisite words are lies if you do not know where they originate. Lightness can be splendidly beautiful. Only the truth matters. I am reminded of the quote from my ‘Unbearable Lightness of Being’; the book I carried under my arm for years:

“But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously the image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

-Milan Kundera

I chose weight, but discovered lightness is equally important. We can’t have the one without the other.

How great is the light within us. It becomes even greater at that moment when it breaks through the clouds, and exposes our bleeding hearts. I have learnt to own my past, live in the present and dream of my future. The love lies within us. Everything makes sense once we are brave enough to explore each others’ darkness. This is necessary in order to let the light in and share it with the other. I need to embrace my vulnerability and find him again: my vulnerable equal partner in the place of light where we speak the same truths.

The unbearable lightness of being is becoming bearable, and the heaviness is leaving my heart at last.

I am light.

“Stand up for your conscience. Use light to reveal what is concealed in the darkness. Use truth to fight the lies, and the heart to fight the mind.”

― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Everyone has scars. Cowards conceal them. The brave reveal them.”

― A.D. Posey

“The definition of tragedy is when people do not communicate yet struggle to conceal the pain.”

― Ken Poirot

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

Charles Dickens

Overcast days conceal the true sky, like we conceal our inner selves to the world. On these sunless days the clouds are usually thick and dark, and for those of us who are used to open our hearts to the sky this is hard. The thick clouds are overbearingly beautiful, but also hides the sun from us.

I opened my heart, and felt free for the first time in a very long time.

As I sit quietly waiting for the sun to appear I realise that there is a very cold, overcast world outside of my window. The small deer cautiously enters the garden in search of its morning snack. There is nothing, and I make a silent wish for it to please come back for it once I have some.

As I watch it search for something, I realise the sun’s rays will not break through the clouds today.

My sky is completely filled with the spectacular grey of thick clouds: so why am I not looking forward to this beautiful new day?

I need to share my vulnerable heart with somebody who wants it. It has bled, healed and was then broken wide open again. I do not know how to deal with the red, bloody feeling of being all alone in this world anymore. I need to share the love that is bleeding away from my open, wounded heart, for it is wasted as it falls onto the barren earth beneath my feet.

I am not alone, but completely lonely, trying to catch the blood dripping from my exposed heart. I need somebody to stitch it up and stop the bleeding. I wish for someone who is not afraid to put his hand on my heart and feel the blood pumping through my veins. I do not know for how long I will be able to catch the blood dripping from my heart anymore, for it is wasted as it is slipping through my fingers to fall and dry on the ground.

As I raise the camera to take a picture of the overcast sky, I discreetly hide my bleeding heart from the people I love. The thick clouds are exceptionally beautiful today – but are now beginning to stifle me.

I secretly make a wish for tomorrow’s bright sunrise to acknowledge my liminal journey, and stop my bleeding heart by sending me the answer.

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”

Emily Dickenson

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”

Tom Bodett

“Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.”

 José N. Harris, MI VIDA: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love

“We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss.”

Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

I feed on the clouds, and cannot face the feeling of discomfort or weakness that comes with the cloudless sky. The blue lasted for a whole week. I waited in anticipation for the clouds to re-appear…..

My clouds arrived today.

The clouds rose up from the mist of our past and returned to cut through my clear, blue winter sky. With them they brought hope for the future, but also unexpected tears for the past. During my sunrise I looked into the clear, bright blue eyes that were much too real – not a dream – not a stranger’s – the eyes that were once (or maybe never), mine.

My heart aches as I look into the red, painfully real, bright blue eyes. This is not a dream. No fantasy. The very familiar blue is filled with tears of pain. I look into the blue and silently wish I could take away the pain and erase the past – I could make it disappear into my freshly formed clouds? But I don’t have the power to make the tears disappear, as I know from my tears that he is the only one who could do that. He has to find his own clouds. As I desperately search for the right words, and a way to take away the pain I selfishly hang on to the clouds that took too long to appear again. I cannot share my clouds anymore, for I’ve learnt that I desperately need them for my own survival.

My clouds have taught me to be strong. They have given me a taste of beautiful sunrises and orgasmic sunsets, all with promises of a new future on the horison.

I am absolutely calm, and struggle to comprehend my detachment.

It is unsettling.

I suppose the pain that I experienced has formed a thick scar that cannot hurt anymore.

Reality is cruel to us all.

Hope for the future is all we have.