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Friday, December 25, 2015

The Seeing Tree

Creator of All,
I am a seeing leaf on your tree,
Your wisdom grows in me
I contemplate your existence,
and the world inside of me
I render your name holy, 
and give praise to Thee


You shelter me-
under your tent in my hour of need
You light my path-
when I am to blind to see
You heal my open wounds,
and clothe me in purity

I sacrifice my heart-
on Your alter joyfully to Thee
I plant in this world-
Your Kingdom's seed
May it's trunk grow-
into the heavens,
and bare Your fruit and leaves
Then my seeing eyes- behold!
Your beautiful face inside of me

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

My First Memory- Activation of the Pain Body, Part 1

My very first memory is when I was two years old.  I was at the park with my mom, brother, and grandparents.  We are having a picnic.  I go to sit down at the picnic table and I sit on a bee. I scream and cry.  My grandma begins yelling.  The adults all are arguing.  We leave.

It's not the bee sting that is of importance here, it is what happens next.  My grandma's negative reaction to the situation.  It would be the beginning of my deep emotional wounds.  
My grandmother had a great impact on my pain body.  She was cold, unloving, and manipulated everyone around her. She controlled everything and everyone in my life, so it seemed. 
Reflection on my grandmother, now I realize, that her rigidness and maliciousness aided my soul. It was a lack of love and acceptance that led me to seeking love within. From an early age I wanted a way out of suffering.

Eckhart Tolle explains it best.  The pain-body is the accumulation of old emotional pain that people carry in their energy field.  It consists of negative emotions, that are stored up in the cells of the body when not dealt with.  It feeds on negative thinking and negative experiences such as drama in relationships.
To eliminate the pain-body you have to cut the link between the pain-body and your thought processes, so we no longer feed the pain-body with our thinking.  The disidentification from the emotion and just being in the now moment is the way to stop the cycle of recreating negative experiences.  By bringing awareness to the emotion transmutes the old emotion into consciousness in the same way a fire transmutes everything into itself. 

Reference~Echarttolle.com

Thursday, December 10, 2015

The Hidden Artist



My words are out of control.
I sow them,
Weave them,
But I have no control over them.
They emerge from within me,
Take me hostage,
Command my hand,
And with purpose write.
The parts are all connected,
But the artist I cannot see with the naked eye.
Who is this that takes command over my body?
Over my speech?
Whomever she is is bound to this body,
And her hidden mystery she desperately wants to unveil.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Our Own Anger

Anger isolates.  The only thing anger can do is destroy.  Anger cannot create anything.  It cannot create peace.  It cannot create understanding.  It cannot create harmony; it can only create conflict, war, discord, separation.  Even if we intellectually know these things, we all have enormous anger, why?  Do we all want peace?  Do we all want to feel connectedness?  We all want to feel love and we all want to love.  Anger is the obstacle, not the anger of others, but our own.

Reference~ www.gnosticteachings.org

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Elegant Silence

During the time you are practicing mindfulness, you stop talking- not only the talking outside, but the talking inside.  The talking inside is the thinking, the mental discourse that goes on and on and on inside.  Real silence is the cessation of talking- of both the mouth and of the mind.  This is not the kind of silence that oppresses us.  It is a very elegant kind of silence, a very powerful kind of silence.  It is the silence that heals and nourishes us.

Reference~ Your True Home, Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Fruit of Forty Thousand Years

This ballet of our souls finds expression in these bodies.  What is the fruit of Love's labor?  Is it not the expansion of our very being?

Time has kidnapped our souls.  But a slave to love I choose, and willingly!  I will shed this body when all seasons end, and I will seek your face no more.  The fruit of forty thousand years- your love from the other side- calling me home.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

The Beloved's Presence

A question was asked out of a lack of faith, "How do you know the Beloved's presence?"

The Lover responded, "The soul of the wind did visit me. The Beloved disguised himself so He would be invisible to all, but me."

Only the eye of spirit can catch the spirit of the wind.

"And the soul of the wind did enter me.  And with His divine properties, He changed His form and set fire to my heart."

When the Lover pleases her Beloved with supplications, her bondage becomes freedom- her pain turned into joy.

"And the soul of the fire did melt my heart, and with His command fire became water. His water became my relief. And in all His forms, He revealed Himself inside of me.  My soul informed of His nature."

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

My Story- The Bull

I was born in April, the year 1975.  My mother carried two babies in her womb.  I came out first.  My father says that when he held me in his arms for the first time, I was limp and didn't cry.  My brother, on the other hand, came out wailing. My father's trade was a carpenter and a photographer,  my mother a homemaker. Both were of the Christian faith.

I was born under the sign of Taurus. The bull's positive qualities are strength of purpose, patience, steadfastness, practical, stable, and conviction. The bull's negative qualities are stubbornness, possessive, and uncompromising.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

The Holy Relationship

The holy relationship undoes the unholy relationship. It undoes all past karmas that tie the twin souls together.  When God's mercy is poured out into the twin souls, He reveals Eternity to the lovers- giving clear perception to them.  The lovers embrace the goal of holiness and the old way falls away.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Suffering in Samsara



“Nobody can deny the fact that there are different social levels. There are churchgoing people, people in brothels, farmers, businessmen, etc.
“In a like manner, there are different Levels of Being. Whatever we are internally, munificent or mean, generous or miserly, violent or peaceful, chaste or lustful, attracts the various circumstances of life.
“The lustful person will always attract scenes, dramas and even lascivious tragedies in which he will become involved.
“A drunkard will always attract drunkards and will always be seen in bars or taverns; this is obvious...
“What will the usurer attract? The selfish one? How many problems? Jail? Misfortunes?
“Nonetheless, frustrated people, tired of suffering, want to change, to turn the page of their history...
“Wretched people! They want to change and they do not know how; they do not know the methods; they are stuck in a blind alley.
“What happened to them yesterday happens to them today, and will happen to them again tomorrow; they always repeat the same errors and not even cannon shots will make them learn the lessons of life.
“All things repeat themselves in their life; they say the same things, do the same things and complain about the same things.
“This boring repetition of dramas, comedies, and tragedies will continue as long as we carry in our interior all the undesirable elements of anger, covetousness, lust, envy, pride, laziness, gluttony, etc.
“What is our moral level? Or better said, what is our Level of Being?
“The repetition of all our miseries, scenes, misfortunes, and mishaps will last as long as the Level of our Being does not radically change.
“All things, all circumstances that occur outside ourselves, on the stage of this world, are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within.
“With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the “exterior is the reflection of the interior.”
“When someone changes internally and if that change is radical, then circumstances, life and the external also change.” - Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

In My Sleep

In my sleep-
I am keeper of time,
I am a crow searching for food,
I am a slave to One master,
I am particles of light
And sunlight itself,
I am a woman conversing with God,
I am a child running through
An open field,
I am a man getting married 
to my soulmate, 
I am a sleeping tree.

I am busy with my work, discovering new places as I criss-cross through time and space.  My memory of myself is scattered everywhere.  This world too small to contain me.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Remembering, Reliving, Releasing

Upon taking a dear friend's advice, I am going to share with you, my reader, my life, from the very beginning to now.  As I am sharing my life, it will also be a time of reflection for me.  This will be painful at times, I believe that I am in a place now in my spiritual journey to explore deeper parts of my being that have remained buried. I'm calling this process- Remembering, Reliving, and Releasing.

With every memory I will ask myself, Who is thinking? Who is feeling? Who is acting? I hope a new perspective will emerge out of my observation of self.  As this happens, I then hope to view all of my past experiences in a new light and release them.

I want to go beyond the barriers that my adolescent mind has built, and tear them down completely. I hope through my vulnerability and courage, that you to will gain the courage to reflect on your own self and heal your wounds. 

"...birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering.  Union with uunpleasant things is suffering, separation from pleasant things is suffering, not obtaining what we wish is suffering, in short the fivefold clinging to existence is suffering..."  Buddha

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Sapphire's Letter To Arion: Writing As A Means

Beloved,

I write to cope with my emotional pain. My tales help relieve some of my suffering. The scars on my heart are deep. My dedication is a reflection of my greater love for you. You have left me in a state of grieving your absence and hoping for your return.
Does not a petal on the rose stretch to meet the sun in hopes of some meeting?  Don't her thorns fashion her troubles of his absence eloquently? What does a lover do, but use art to dress up the heart and reveal Eternity at the same time.
My grief is the landscape of my soul and is expanding me as a writer.  Tell me Darling, do I write it natural?

Your Darling,
Sapphire

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Little Red Wagon Hitched To A Star

A little girl born to dream
dreamed lovely, dreamy dreams
She galloped the Milky Way
on her black stallion
On the backs of eagles
she went flying

Dressing up the stars in glitter and gold
the little girl was courageous and bold
She battled dragons that guarded heaven
snakes and monsters and beasts-
with heads of seven

Her adventures didn't stop there
she  was seen in Leo's lair
Nothing scared her so it seemed
Aphrodite took notice with pride and gleemed

She trained the girl-
perfected her skills
Gave her a little red wagon
with her weapons to fill

In it she carried her sword of truth-
sharpened by warriors old and new
It also held her shield of purity-
it was the whitest white sculpted out of ivory
Her armor was made of gold-
it was more than any enemy could behold 

The little girl grew up into a woman-
ready to meet her King Solomon
With her little red wagon hitched to a star-
she vowed to find him and follow her heart

Prepared now to take on the unknown,
and all of life's mysteries-
She rode on the Milky Way
towards her dream, her destiny


Monday, October 5, 2015

The Observer and The Observed

From journal entry 6/10/15

During meditation my consciousness separated from myself.  I observed myself from above.  My consciousness sees me crying on the floor, it sees me suffering. There was no thought of I or any identification with emotion.  My consciousness withdrew itself from my personality.  
Reflecting on the experience, I got a glimpse of how I unnecessarily suffer, and recognized a greater awareness that allowed me to conclude, time is an illusion and suffering causes us to feel trapped in it.

Samael Weor states that we do need to divide attention between observer and observed and yet there really is no observer.  When you look into that observer you simply see the act of observation, the pure energy of consciousness, which has no self.  It has no center, no beginning, no ending.  This is something you have to experience.  The intellect will fail to grasp it.

Reference~ gnosticteachings.org
 

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Lilly's Poem

There is a
True, above,
between,
beyond the
One or Two.
Both One and
Two, They
are the Three
within Whose
Love They sing
you into being
and becoming.
It is there I
rest from death's
demands,
from works
that turn my
face away,
and in this
ease I breathe
in life and,
re-turning,
hear the Voice
I trust, and
I am known,
am freed,
to now and
evermore
participating 
in seeing.

Reference~ Eve by WM. Paul Young

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

The Story of Sapphire and Arion: An Open Lute

Many years went by before Arion dissolved his stubbornness and fears and returned home.
Empty now he was like a lute, finely and delicately crafted, open and receptive.  The music his soul would play at the touch of Sapphire's hands would stir the music inside of Arion.  He longed to be played, whimmed, full of sound.  This longing to feel vibrant and alive saturated his heart.
Arion knew the symphony and had memorized all the notes.  He realized now it was his masterpiece that he needed to finish.
All of Arion's desires desired an opening.  It was Sapphire that had opened him, exposing all his wounds.  It was her greatest gift to him.  Inflicting Arion with the wounds of love healed him of all his other wounds. Now Arion understood that the same cause was also the cure.
Arion longed to return home to Sapphire as an open lute- empty with the only desire to be played.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

My Guesswork

Why must I constantly guess what's on your mind?  Why do you not speak?  Even the lightning speaks to the sky her fury, the rain her pain, the clouds their confusion, the sun his peaceful mind.
You are hidden from view, far away from my sight.  Veiled are your words- no form, no sound.  Is this your mystery? Is this the place where I leave my knowingness to find you?

The heart knows the way to the Beloved and flies there without feet.  His beauty is my guesswork.

Monday, September 14, 2015

I, The Private Poet

I, the private poet, my audience small but my honor great, I do not seek popularity, fame.  Recognition of my craft would be great, but even that will not satisfy my unsatisfied desire.  
Life and death dance in my rhymes.  I articulate this play I have with both. Which is superior: life or death?  In which do I live? Darkness swallows the light of my days and greets me as a lamp- revealing both are fused together.
When I part ways with this world into death's grave, will my little lamp surpass the sun?  Will my poetic words have their meaning unraveled?  Will the world then embrace this private poet?

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

The Teacher Is The Means

I now understand that as wide as you are, there was no getting around you. And as thick as you are, there was no way through you.
Because I trusted you, you penetrated me and I was transformed.  How marvelous! - this field of energy, love, so vast and spacious that I don't know where I begin and you end.
You, my teacher, are the means of expansion and my gateway to Eternity.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

The Return To The Body

Quote from an NDE survivor, who struggled to cope with feelings of loss and disappointment that came along with the return to the body:

"I have just returned from a pleasant, slow, mile and-a-half jog.  I am sitting in our garden.  Overhead a tree moves gently in a mild, southerly breeze.  Two small children, holding hands, walk down the street absorbed in their own world.  I am glad I am here.  But I know that this marvelous place of evil, pain, and ugliness, is only one of the many realities through which I must travel to distant and unknown destinations."

Reference~ The Modern Book of the Dead, Jakob Bohme

"We are all prisoners of the outer man." ~Jakob Bohme

Friday, August 28, 2015

Harness Life and Death

Death is nothing to be feared but should be instead embraced, harnessed, utilized as a gateway to a better life.  This is the ultimate point of spirituality: how to harness life and death in order to elevate life and death, in order to project our mind stream to a higher level of living and a higher level of dying, in order to ascend into greater knowledge.

Reference~ www.gnosticteachings.org

Monday, August 24, 2015

My Encounter with Space Cowboy

From Journal Entry: August 10, 1998


I feel myself ascending upward through the stars. I feel a presence and am scared.  I have no control of what is happening to me. In space, is the presence of a man, dressed like a cowboy. He shows me his hand and touches mine. He says he needs my heart. He removed my heart from my chest, and I could perceive a holographic image of my heart, beating.

I asked him questions about the afterlife and my relationship I was in.  He said, the afterlife isn't all it's cracked up to be, because when your incarnated again, you end up anywhere on the time line.
He said, the guy I was with will go out of my life, that I deserve better. He also said that he would be back to visit me and give me more Class 3 information. I had the feeling he did not want to leave me.  I could feel myself descending downwards, back into my body.

Following this experience, my roommate at the time, now my husband, came home. I had such a rush from the encounter, that I had to share with him what had just happened. He did not know me that well and probably thought I was crazy.  Years later, he told me that when I left to go to work the next day, he searched my trash can for needles.  He thought I was a drug user. 

Years of trying to make sense of my experience I have found, The Kardashev Scale.  This scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize.
 
Type 1 civilizations use all available resources on its home planet.

Type 2 civilizations harness all the energy of it's star.

Type 3 civilizations harness all the energy of it's galaxy. They are likely to no longer have physical bodies, having converted themselves to energy or other noncorporeal forms, allowing themselves to somehow influence entire galaxies.
To get type 3 we will tap into the energy of black holes and find the other side, the white holes, that propel matter outwards. Life forms by this time may have evolved beyond physical bodies and into astral/spiritual bodies, allowing them to transcend space and time, transverse great interstellar distances previously prohibited by the physics and physical constraints of physical matter.

References~Michio Kaku, www.scifi.wikia.com, www.21stcentech.com, www.antarctia777.tripod.com

"An animate organism takes abstract ingredients and projects them into space-time, like a living hologram.  These projections can be seen; they communicate, they enter the dance of life." ~Deepak Chopra



Thursday, August 20, 2015

Inside His Dream

He carried me away
To unknown places - deep

He led the way
Inside of me 

He knew me not
Yet, knew me well

His heart - I knew not
Yet, I could not tell

To the Sun - is where
He carried me

And left me there
Inside His dream

Saturday, August 15, 2015

God Is Good

God is good, I pray that in his good time we once more meet each other, but if this life holds not another meeting for us, remember also, that it has no parting more, wherever the hour finds us, for which we have hoped so long, we shall not be separated, neither death, nor the grave can part us, so that we only love!

Reference~ Emily Dickinson

Sunday, August 9, 2015

So Far, So Dear

Heavy is my load-
I carry
I bare
Grievances for my Beloved-
He carries
He shares

I showed Him my heart
I put it on display
He showed up not
And went on His way

Lighten my load
I beg, I plea!
Still He distances
Himself from hopeless me

Tender is my heart-
And faith the rope
It ties me to Him-
And I can't let go

My secrets long
For His longing ear-
To give providence
To my Love-
So far, so dear

Monday, August 3, 2015

I, The Sender

As I write these words on paper, think of them as a letter, I the sender, am sending to you, the receiver.  May my words be addressed to the One whom knows my intimate thoughts, and may he pluck them from my imagination and imprint them on his heart.
Hold these words in your hands to close the gap between you and I.  Time for a brief moment collapses and distance doesn't separate us.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Our Day of Passing Now Available! My Essay: The Lovers' Death

Follow link to a free Ebook download of Our Day of Passing!!  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/563817
        

When a person encounters their twin soul, it is as if eternity has opened up and on a deeper level there is the recognition of belonging to the other.  The Lovers are in love with the other’s true self.  This mirroring back to each other is essential for cultivating the seed necessary for union; through the death of the ego.

A connection is first established in the instant of the eyes meeting the other’s eyes.  Through this intense magnetism a tunnel is created from the heart of one to the heart of the other.  They can live thousands of miles apart and still maintain the nourishment of the energy between them. 

One knows the tunnel is activated by words that are felt.  For example, a song can play on the radio and all of a sudden your hair stands up on end and the lover comes to mind.  It’s as if the Universe is speaking to you the language of love.  Also, the dream world is a place where the lovers often meet to convey feelings and thoughts to each other.  Confucius describes the inner connection as, “my heart in sympathy with yours.”

This inner connection feels like they share a destiny together.  There is much adjustment in the beginning brought on by fear, doubt, and hesitation.  One feels madness that one has gone completely insane. For both to succeed, the ego must die and the ‘true self’ must emerge and take over the direction of their lives. 

When the Lovers have moved past humanly desires and the ego is no longer present, union is possible.  Only by observing chastity are the Lovers able to guide the sexual energy between them inward, which then makes a way upward, thereby transcending reality and merging with the other (the Beloved) in pure ecstasy.  During this blissful state, they are swallowed up into a larger awareness. The Lovers emerge with new eyes to see the world.

The I Ching says, “Their approach towards each other has come from a high place.”  If the Lovers trust this love and bind themselves to God, Creator, Christ, etc., then they can enrich the lives of the people around them.  They know sincerity, patience, and faith adds growth to the others true self and this free flowing energy extends to others.

Hafiz says, “Loving is the greatest freedom and fulfillment, so the wise, being wise, cash in on that.”  Loving wisely is allowing your feelings for the other to mature gradually by observing chastity.  Alchemy takes place when there is a longing for the eternal Beloved.  The virtues of chastity unveils God’s secret, revealing the Beloved in all His splendor.

The Lovers learn about the power of their love through their interactions with each other on the invisible level.  Their trust becomes so strong that they know what the other is feeling at all times.  When they recognize their mutual destiny together, the love between them will grow and bloom. 

Love is the energy that holds the Cosmos together.  It comes through the Lovers and is their source.  It is a gift that frees them from their ego and awakens the divine within.  Learning to love in this new way takes humility, patience, and tenderness.  Developing this type of love, one must become entirely dependent on God.  The Lovers path is knowing God through his beautiful creation. A pure heart sees the death of the ego as a bridge he or she must cross to reach the eternal Beloved. 

Acknowledgment:
My sincere gratitude to Ingrid Hall for extending my vision, enlarging my audience, and seeing the value in my writing.
 

Sunday, July 26, 2015

My Darling One

Oh my darling one, how long you wander from me, how weary I grow of waiting and looking, and calling for you...I try hard to forget you because you grieve me so, but you'll never go away.

Reference~ Emily Dickinson

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Our Day of Passing: Ebook Release Date 7/31/15



Do you have a macabre fascination with death and the afterlife?



If so, then this anthology is definitely for you and best of all it is FREE.  Whilst some see the subject of death as too morbid to contemplate, others such as the skilled writers that have contributed to this anthology, view it as the perfect subject to stimulate creative thinking.  Much like ‘love’ and ‘war’, the topic of death has the ability to draw out some of the most thought-provoking pieces ever to fill a blank sheet of paper.
Our Day of Passing is formed from an eclectic and diverse mix of short stories, poems, fictions and essays. Contributions have been assembled from over 30 talented writers across the globe, each with their own fascinating interpretation of an event that comes to us all…eventually.
Written by Ingrid Hall, Franco Esposito, Dennis Higgins, Virginia Wright, Candida Spillard, Valeri Beers, Dada Vedaprajinananda, Strider Marcus Jones, Adam E. Morrison, Allyson Lima, D. B. Mauldin, David A. Slater, David King, Dee Thompson, Donald Illich, Edward Meiman, Eileen Hugo, Emily Olson, Joan McNerney, J.S. Little, Kin Asdi, Madison Meadows, Malobi Sinha, Marianne Szlyk, Mark Aspa, Mark David McClure, Megan Caito, Michael Brookes, Michael Burke, Pijush Kanti Deb, Prince Adewale Oreshade, Rafeeq O. McGiveron, Robin Reiss, Sasha Kasoff, Stephanie Buosi, Talia Haven.
Whether they resonate with your own circumstances or provide new wisdom or something to ponder over, each of these carefully selected pieces will undoubtedly unlock a series of emotions within you.  The anthology has been written in such a way that it can either be devoured or dipped in and out of as your emotions dictate.  Either way, you can expect to feel a greater sense of self and enlightenment from reading it.


Download it for free beginning July 31, 2015!
http://www.luv2write.net/our-day-of-passing.html



Saturday, July 18, 2015

Susan's Letter To Emily Dickinson

Private
I have intended to
write you Emily today but the
quiet has not been mine
I send you this, lest I should
seem to have turned away
from a kiss-
if you have suffered this past
summer I am sorry I
Emily bear a sorrow that I
never uncover- if a nightingale 
sings with her breast against
a thorn, why not we!
When I can, I shall write-

Sue

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Emily Dickinson and Her Beloved Susan



Emily’s first letter to Susan is dated 1850.  It is not certain how Emily and Susan met.  Emily’s brother, Austin marries Susan, and the two women become sister-in-laws.

The letters from Emily to Susan indicate that Susan is the object of passionate attachment.  Susan saved the letters from Emily which shows how much she valued them.

Susan is independent, outspoken, deeply engaged with spiritual concerns, and like Emily, she is committed to pursuing intellectual growth.

The intellectual intimacy between Susan and Emily begins in the early years of their relationship.  In her letters to Susan, Emily frequently refers to the novels she is reading and uses various characters as metaphors or codes to relate feelings about herself and Susan.

In the letters that follow, Emily and Susan are in their early twenties.  Though Emily’s feelings of love, desire, and longing for Susan have often been dismissed as a “school-girl crush,” the letters resonate with intelligence, humor, and intimacy that cannot be reduced to adolescent flurry.

In July of 1856, Susan and Austin marry and move to the Evergreens, next door to Emily, the Dickinson Homestead.

Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother was no doubt bittersweet for Emily.  It ensured that her dear friend would be close to the family.  But it is obvious that this transition in their lives never put an end to their correspondence.

Between mid-1850s and mid-1860s, Emily’s correspondence to Susan acknowledges that their emotional, spiritual, physical communion is vital to her creative insight.

While Emily’s expressions of love for Susan mature over the decades, they do not become less intense, and the transformation from early exuberance to the direct, reflects the magnitude of Emily’s passion and respect for her beloved friend.

In May of 1886, Emily dies.  Susan takes on the task of putting together Emily’s writings, but could not accomplish the task do to the demands of Emily’s sister, Vinnie and Higginson’s market, she could not conform to their vision.  The project would be handed over to Mabel Loomis Todd knowingly by Vinnie.

Mabel Todd had become Austin’s mistress.  The affair continued until Austin’s death in 1895 and was quite public.  This distraction and Emily’s death prevented her from moving quickly on the project, and Vinnie only grew impatient.

When Emily’s writings were turned over to Mabel Todd, Mabel went to great lengths to suppress any trace of Susan as Emily’s primary audience.

While is true that Emily went to extraordinary measures to preserve her privacy, the facts of her solitude have been taken out of context.  Like many artists, she needed a great deal of time alone for reading, contemplation, and writing.

Infused with eroticism, the poetry letters exchanged between Emily and Susan was part of the texture of their daily life.  They simultaneously lived and screened their passion.  The letters and poems are standing proof of a devoted correspondence that has had a profound impact on the history of American literature. Nearly all of Susan’s letters to Emily were destroyed at the time of Emily’s death.

Reference~ Open Me Carefully, Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

Friday, July 10, 2015

Sapphire's Letter To Layla: Survelliance

Dearest Layla,

A woman who suspects her husband of any foul play will quietly, secretly keep him under watch.  She will keenly lay traps for her husband and his lover in hopes of catching them in the act.

But what fault have I committed against you or God? None. You will not find any because I only possess noble virtues.

All your traps you set, I have bystepped them all.  I will not fall into a jealousy love trap of yours! I assure you that I hold myself in high esteem and desire more than anything to be in the high esteem of all others.

So lay as many traps as you wish.  I will not succumb to any weakness brought on by fear, doubt, anger, or even desire! My eyes are set on Eternity and I will not risk losing Eternity for a fleeing moment of humanly desire.

Surely by now I have won your sympathy.  Do you not see how I suffer?  Yet, you deny me any compassion or repose.  I have been treated unjustly, while the close keeping of your husband has only spoiled your character.

Like seeds blown in the wind, we must adapt to our new surroundings.  I strive to adapt and grow.  And I thrive only on love, as all true lovers do.  Love always, and ever, and true!

With love and affection,

Sapphire