Image of the Phoenix rising by Kagaya
On surmounting grief initially I told myself I would not resort to tepid poetry but due to a outstandingly bad week I thought I would put this up as it made sense. Initially I was singing this, but no, I am not going that far to say it is a good or even passable song. It is a state of thought and emotion like the other posts here. Nothing is bad forever, in illness and life things do not last forever. Pity humans often cannot live to forever so our perspective is somewhat shortened to what our brains can accommodate in memory, most notably the present. After the poem I have included where some lines pull from emotion subconsciously and sometimes consciously from other dialogues & memories for certain points. There is also a swapped out verse as one version made me think of hubby, and another what I have to face. They are not the same, nor would anyone else's experience be the same, but like a reflection in a pond the colours mirror those above somewhat murkily.
We all fall down
we all feel defeat
you've lost your crown
and your dreams are at your feet
You scream in rage
trapped and hurt in this cage
locked away from your friends
who all left you in the end
You've been fighting this war
weapons broken, path strewn with gore
overpowered you slip down to the floor
And you can't bear no more
what are you fighting for
who you are fighting for
In the darkness your light, your life, your power
For alone you transform
your cocoon safe from the swarm
calm will follow this storm
Leave your past where it belongs
your hopes are not all gone
they have been living all along
You carry them on your soul
embers warm in the charcoal
stoke the fire in your heart
make it burn and banish the dark
Let your wings unfurl
let your mind explode in singing
is it the end of this world
or only the beginning
Below I explain a few chosen parts that I feel comfortable that I can quickly describe a little of makes up this phoenix without travelling into depression and leaving out the deeper layers of my psyche for simplicity.
"We all fall down
we all feel defeat
you've lost your crown
and your dreams are at your feet"
This is succumbing to events and emotions. It can be a death, disease or something else which dashes hopes against the rocks. But this loss is something not completely unique as human experience is full of trauma, even though the exact occurrence and person differs in every case. Even disability through disease and events is a common experience among us. The first line a link to a children's rhyme "Ring-a-ring o' roses", typically associated with the Great Plague in England in 1665 with a rosy rash, herbal posies carried as a ward, coughing the final fatal symptom and then death. However that origin is contested as the rhyme could have existed prior.
"Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down"
In addition to children's rhymes belying the common occurrence of suffering and grief I think of the song Toy Soldiers, by Martika, The loss of a love, or a part of your life, expressed in grief is never fully gone but is a part of our battle. Never a perfect cure, like forgetting, the experience remains a part of us. The grief to break again, and again. Like a tide you can never win a fight against it continues unceasing.
"Step by step, heart to heart, left right left
We all fall down like toy soldiers
Bit by bit, torn apart
We never win but the battle wages on for toy soldiers"
The variance in recovery & required energy profiles means each disease has a different path to recover sense of self or to reforge a new one. All must be done by the person themselves as no one can give it to them. For hubby I was thinking of his experiences first, his mantra and drives so I wrote about his experience on the first draft. After he falls his energy has been sapped, He loses the ability to even sit up. He needs to drive anger and adrenalin to charge his energy to get through sections of pain and manoeuvring. He refers to the Marvel comic book character The Hulk raging out when angered by villains. To be dragged, lifted, and pulled in stages, with each stage as painful as the fall itself. Yet without his drive and pushing he cannot get back up, even assisted. So it is by his hand, he sets his mind in motion (mentat mantra in the book Dune, by Frank Herbert).
"For alone you must stand
take you life back by demand
the future is by your hand"
But ME is completely different in that it cannot often be powered through as the power use breaks more down causing a flare and making it worse physically (as I have experienced often). Recovery requires pacing the energy use, drawing back, simplifying the environment, and following treatment to allow the eventual recovery. Someone has to batten down the hatches and wait out the storm. The cage of illness is necessary somewhat to protect and to also become the cocoon to recovery. I reference a caterpillar building the protective cocoon in a similar fashion. For the transformation to happen the cocoon is a vital part and the transformation to a butterfly is as significant as recovery. It is also comparatively long when considering the caterpillar's lifespan so far. So the reminder of the calm after the storm is to reassure me that even though I cannot see it and it can feel like it will go on far too long, there is a calm to come. I think also of the movie Cocoon where alien life essence is drained from their cocoons for elderly retirees to become revitalised again before their final journey. Hence
"For alone you transform
your cocoon safe from the swarm
calm will follow this storm"
But I also had a third for a friend driven to create art after disability & depression. The fuse can be to blow a path to access new areas of a mountain and find new ore. Equally significant, the fuse set could also be a firework to explode in myriads of colour and flame, to wonder at their creative expression.
"Shed the body broken and bruised
search for your golden muse
build yourself and set the fuse"
"Let your wings unfurl
let your mind explode in singing"
In essence a reference with the break from cocoon and drying of a new butterfly's wings before the first flight along with Kahlil Gibran's poetry, On Love:
"...When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you,"... "All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart."
That on the journey you cannot experience the fullness of love & life without knowing the pain of it. Breaking out of the cocoon and unfolding new wings pumping blood & strength into them is equally as much a part of rebirth as the first flight. That flight is akin to an ecstasy in effort, in a new environment after being trapped in the earlier phase by gravity to the surface. In addition the phoenix is reborn from the flames and rises to a new life. When I read Kahlil Gibran's On Love love's pinions to me were those of the phoenix.
"is it the end of this world
or only the beginning"
Often used in the sense of moving to a new era or the next stage of life. The theme of death and rebirth is clear, and yet it is also hanging in question in this version. As if the participant could go either way. They can choose one or the other and it is still their will to continue to the next stage, to see what it has in store for them. But in this journey I have a feeling of being an imposter; still new to it, still learning & searching for an answer. Not yet ready to say disabled fully, but in the end I am. I do face severe physical difficulties even though my mind finds the state hard to accept fully still. Even a blog about my experience still feels like clothes that do not fit well. Hence that imposter feeling reminded me of the phrase of Zero Punctuation's review of Destiny (always on grind).
" 'This was the end'. But it was also a beginning. Was that what you were going to say destiny intro cinematic? It was, wasn't it, you f'in hack"
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