But with time comes perspective, and I can see the hand of destiny in all this. Not Divine Destiny, but the soul’s evolution and fulfillment. I wasn’t meant to be comfortable. I was meant to live. Really live. I was meant to love, even though love is putting a knife in someone else’s hands and hoping they don’t use it on your throat.
This wasn't for "love" in any conventional sense, but certainly for love of adventure....
Once upon a time I was working part-time managing aid shipments and logistics for an NGO in Portland. One fine day, my boss walked into my office and blithely asked, "So, d'ya wanna go to Kosovo?" I couldn't think of a decent reason to say no. Ten days later, I was on a plane with a suitcase and a laptop to my name. This was during the wars in various parts of the former Yugoslavia, so I got a masters class in how war can turn otherwise decent people into abject monsters. I've heard stories from people that no one should ever have to hear, much less be told, and that I will never repeat. To anyone. For any reason.
Still and all, the good outweighed the bad, and I regret nothing. The only truly bad and awful part was that my boss in Pristina was a born-again Christian zealot and a total control freak. I am none of those things. Things between deteriorated so badly that I eventually had to return stateside because he'd bad-mouthed me so thoroughly (and without my knowledge), thus poisoning my working relationship within the NGO.
I'd do it all again...though I wouldn't mind avoiding the minefields, the war stories, and the mile upon mile of desolate, bombed-out villages.
YOU KNOW how badly I want you to write a book about this. With your mad writing skills? Shheeeet, it'd probably rocket straight to the NYT Bestseller List. It's the perfect fodder.
At 28 I left everything in a beautiful Austrian village (with a hidden rot, most men had one main past time: drinking) and followed my love (I met in London) to Aotearoa (land of the long white cloud).
There was, unfortunately, no 'happily forever after' but I do have six kind, loving and beautiful grandchildren, great friends and a land I'm excited waking up to every single day.
So, in summary, best thing I've ever done in my life !
I have a real passion to visit New Zealand! And SIX GRANDKIDS? I'd say that story is a happy one. Sometimes people come into our lives for a time but are not intended to stay there. They still serve a purpose, as we serve ours for them. I love that you love your life right now. What could possibly be better than that?
"In hindsight, I was the very definition of a fool." I'm not able to post images, but I can post text and links:
"Most Fool cards copy the bucolic mountainside scene, the butterfly, and the potential misplaced step that will send The Fool tumbling into the unknown. Don't forget, though, that the earlier versions of this card represented already-fallen humanity, over-identified with the material plane of existence, and beginning a pilgrimage toward self-knowledge and, eventually, wisdom. The Fool reminds us to recognize the path of personal development within ourselves -- and the stage upon that path where we find ourselves -- in order to energize our movement toward deeper self-realization." from https://www.tarot.com/tarot/cards/the-fool
By the bye, George Miller's "Mad Max" franchise, especially "Beyond Thunderdome" and (overwhelmingly) "Fury Road," are rife with Tarot imagery. (And yes, I own several decks and a few books on the Tarot.)
That is fascinating. Remind me again, Gares, how many multi-dimensional layers do you have? A million?
I would love to learn more about the Tarot. As you say, its influence is everywhere, and no one loves a literary (or in this case, Tarot) allusion more than this girl.
Max is "The Fool." Furiosa is "The Hanged Man" -- representative of Odyn, the old God of poetry and war, who sacrifices an eye that he might see the future; in Furiosa's case, it is an arm. Of the wives, Angharad is "The Empress," two others are "Sun" and "Star'; the fourth is in the minor arcana, and I forget what I once knew. Nux is "The Moon", his two tumors ("Barry" and "Larry") are the wolf and coyote howling; Sun and Moon become "The Lovers." Imortan Joe is "The Hierophant" ("I AM YOUR REDEEMER!")
The mythic gesture of the sword and the chalice at the moment of death: The men extend their left hand, index finger extended, and demand "Witness me!" The women extend their right hand palm up, which then closes and comes in to their breast (silent, but obvious, "I capture your soul and carry it to my heart.")
Not that I saw. George R.R. Martin (and the show producers) went for a more original mythology. One piece of trivia: In season 1 when Dani's brother is naming the great dragons of ages past, one of them is "Vermithrax." Well, Vermithrax Pejorative was the dragon in the Disney film "Dragonslayer." But more than just that homage, the dragons of GoT are clearly based upon the mechanical model of that earlier film. ("Dragonslayer" is pretty entertaining for a film that has one of the worst musical soundtracks of any film I've ever seen. It managed to pull off *several* surprises that I did not see coming; it is a pretty good trick to surprise me just once.) (Not sure why this initially attached to the wrong comment.)
Well, get yourself a Waite-Ryder deck, and an intro book; that's how I started. (Of course, I also had my friend Toni, but some of us are just lucky.) I come at it less as a "predictive" source of insight, and more of a Jung/Cambpell/Cassirer expressive symbolic form at a primal, mythological level. (This is also how George Miller approaches it, most obviously in "Fury Road." (Mad) Max is explicitly named "fool"; meanwhile, in his own words, he describes his former self as, "a road warrior in search of a righteous cause." But every major character (and some of the geographical features) in the film is a recognizable card in the deck. Some of those characters, in their interactions, become yet another card.
This wasn't for "love" in any conventional sense, but certainly for love of adventure....
Once upon a time I was working part-time managing aid shipments and logistics for an NGO in Portland. One fine day, my boss walked into my office and blithely asked, "So, d'ya wanna go to Kosovo?" I couldn't think of a decent reason to say no. Ten days later, I was on a plane with a suitcase and a laptop to my name. This was during the wars in various parts of the former Yugoslavia, so I got a masters class in how war can turn otherwise decent people into abject monsters. I've heard stories from people that no one should ever have to hear, much less be told, and that I will never repeat. To anyone. For any reason.
Still and all, the good outweighed the bad, and I regret nothing. The only truly bad and awful part was that my boss in Pristina was a born-again Christian zealot and a total control freak. I am none of those things. Things between deteriorated so badly that I eventually had to return stateside because he'd bad-mouthed me so thoroughly (and without my knowledge), thus poisoning my working relationship within the NGO.
I'd do it all again...though I wouldn't mind avoiding the minefields, the war stories, and the mile upon mile of desolate, bombed-out villages.
YOU KNOW how badly I want you to write a book about this. With your mad writing skills? Shheeeet, it'd probably rocket straight to the NYT Bestseller List. It's the perfect fodder.
Perhaps someday. I've honestly never really though about that. Perhaps because it seems kinda otherworldly. And rather odd. :-)
Think about it. Trust me on this. THINK ABOUT IT.
Hmm...thinking....
Pretty much same as you.
At 28 I left everything in a beautiful Austrian village (with a hidden rot, most men had one main past time: drinking) and followed my love (I met in London) to Aotearoa (land of the long white cloud).
There was, unfortunately, no 'happily forever after' but I do have six kind, loving and beautiful grandchildren, great friends and a land I'm excited waking up to every single day.
So, in summary, best thing I've ever done in my life !
I have a real passion to visit New Zealand! And SIX GRANDKIDS? I'd say that story is a happy one. Sometimes people come into our lives for a time but are not intended to stay there. They still serve a purpose, as we serve ours for them. I love that you love your life right now. What could possibly be better than that?
"In hindsight, I was the very definition of a fool." I'm not able to post images, but I can post text and links:
"Most Fool cards copy the bucolic mountainside scene, the butterfly, and the potential misplaced step that will send The Fool tumbling into the unknown. Don't forget, though, that the earlier versions of this card represented already-fallen humanity, over-identified with the material plane of existence, and beginning a pilgrimage toward self-knowledge and, eventually, wisdom. The Fool reminds us to recognize the path of personal development within ourselves -- and the stage upon that path where we find ourselves -- in order to energize our movement toward deeper self-realization." from https://www.tarot.com/tarot/cards/the-fool
By the bye, George Miller's "Mad Max" franchise, especially "Beyond Thunderdome" and (overwhelmingly) "Fury Road," are rife with Tarot imagery. (And yes, I own several decks and a few books on the Tarot.)
That is fascinating. Remind me again, Gares, how many multi-dimensional layers do you have? A million?
I would love to learn more about the Tarot. As you say, its influence is everywhere, and no one loves a literary (or in this case, Tarot) allusion more than this girl.
Oh, and now I'm going to be up late because I have to watch "Fury Road" again.
I got a hold of the Bourdain documentary! Excellent.
Max is "The Fool." Furiosa is "The Hanged Man" -- representative of Odyn, the old God of poetry and war, who sacrifices an eye that he might see the future; in Furiosa's case, it is an arm. Of the wives, Angharad is "The Empress," two others are "Sun" and "Star'; the fourth is in the minor arcana, and I forget what I once knew. Nux is "The Moon", his two tumors ("Barry" and "Larry") are the wolf and coyote howling; Sun and Moon become "The Lovers." Imortan Joe is "The Hierophant" ("I AM YOUR REDEEMER!")
The mythic gesture of the sword and the chalice at the moment of death: The men extend their left hand, index finger extended, and demand "Witness me!" The women extend their right hand palm up, which then closes and comes in to their breast (silent, but obvious, "I capture your soul and carry it to my heart.")
WOW!!! That is one epic interpretation! Was there any of that in Game of Thrones?
Not that I saw. George R.R. Martin (and the show producers) went for a more original mythology. One piece of trivia: In season 1 when Dani's brother is naming the great dragons of ages past, one of them is "Vermithrax." Well, Vermithrax Pejorative was the dragon in the Disney film "Dragonslayer." But more than just that homage, the dragons of GoT are clearly based upon the mechanical model of that earlier film. ("Dragonslayer" is pretty entertaining for a film that has one of the worst musical soundtracks of any film I've ever seen. It managed to pull off *several* surprises that I did not see coming; it is a pretty good trick to surprise me just once.) (Not sure why this initially attached to the wrong comment.)
Well, get yourself a Waite-Ryder deck, and an intro book; that's how I started. (Of course, I also had my friend Toni, but some of us are just lucky.) I come at it less as a "predictive" source of insight, and more of a Jung/Cambpell/Cassirer expressive symbolic form at a primal, mythological level. (This is also how George Miller approaches it, most obviously in "Fury Road." (Mad) Max is explicitly named "fool"; meanwhile, in his own words, he describes his former self as, "a road warrior in search of a righteous cause." But every major character (and some of the geographical features) in the film is a recognizable card in the deck. Some of those characters, in their interactions, become yet another card.
I wasn’t able to get through Fury Road. I’m more of a Merchant-Ivory type.
This Merchant-Ivory? (I confess I had to look it up.) https://www.imdb.com/list/ls009874139/