butterfly

My dear, you moved me very close to tears with that heart-rending message, so beautifully and courageously expressed. This kind of terror and despair seems to be common among poets - maybe it's a necessary condition, or maybe great art can come out of deep suffering, but doesn't necessarily have to (think of the joy in Mozart). A priest might tell you to offer up your pain to god, but I don't think that's helpful. But I do think you can use this gift to make art. For good or ill, you are a writer, so write. Use your pain and your struggle to find your way through to the wellsprings of love and joy that are at the centre of our nature as humans.

Don't die: however black the tunnel, there will be light at the end of it, one day. I think one thing I have learned is that our future doesn't have to be the same as our past. Through our struggles we do change and grow, so that we meet the horror on different terms each time.

We all have what Jung called the shadow - the part of us where we keep the voices of self-doubt and rage and anger and all the negative emotions. Our job as humans is to learn that these voices, though real enough, are not the only voices we have. Acknowledge them, know they're there, but don't listen to them. Try to use your energy - and you have a lot of it - to turn this experience into something transformative.

The butterfly is struggling out of the chrysalis, the bird is breaking free of the shell at last.

yours aye
b