after 23 years

you’d think that 23 years of living with the same first name would have already divulged every possible meaning or reference. this is simply not the case. last week i discovered two – not one – but TWO newbies!

A.)GREEK MYTHOLOGY….

Calais and Zetes (the Boreadae), in Greek mythology, the winged twin sons of Boreas and Oreithyia. On their arrival with the Argonauts at Salmydessus in Thrace, they liberated their sister Cleopatra, who had been thrown into prison with her two sons by her husband Phineus, the king of the country. According to another story, they delivered Phineus from the Harpies, in pursuit of whom they perished. Others say that they were slain by Heracles near the island of Tenos, in consequence of a quarrel with Tiphys, the pilot of the Argonauts, or because they refused to wait during the search for Hylas, the favourite of Heracles. They were changed by the gods into winds, and the pillars over their tombs in Tenos were said to wave whenever the wind blew from the north. Like the Harpies, Calais and Zetes are obvious personifications of winds. Legend attributed the foundation of Cales in Campania to Calais.

B.) ASTRONOMY…

Calais is one of the large craters on Saturn’s outermost moon, Phoebe.

i finally have stories when people ask about my name! it’s about time.

delusions

We are satisfied with our decent little life.
We are pleased with our good habits; we take them for virtues.
We are pleased with our little efforts; we take them for progress.
We are proud of our activities; they make us think we are giving ourselves.
We are impressed by our influence; we imagine that it will transform lives.
We are proud of what we give, though it hides what we withhold.
We maybe even be mistaking a set of coinciding egoisms for real friendships.

Michel Quoist

so maybe we do have soulmates

in high school i’d have said i’m waiting for “the one”, but if you’d have tried to convince me anytime in the last 5 years that we have ONE TRUE SOULMATE i’d have laughed in your face. (yes, the one that sounds a machine gun), but tonight (and not fully of my own accord) i decided that perhaps i was simply thinking of it from too conventional a perspective.

there have been at least four times in my life that i tell myself, “we’re PERFECT for one another!” followed by either, “i’m so glad we can both agree it’s true” or “damn it, why can’t he see it??” i’ve both held on too long and given up too quickly.

but before i spill my romantic history, i’ll move on to what i read this evening about soulmates. vaguely: “when it’s difficult to let go of someone, our problem is that we don’t understand what that word means. people think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. but a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. a true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. but to live with a soul mate forever? too painful. soul mates, they come in to your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. and thank god for it. our probelm i, we just don’t let them go. their purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you HAVE to transform your life.”

so. i have a soul mate. completely unromantically, i have a soul mate. my gratitude towards him has no measure. and even though i’ve long-since let him go, it was begrudgingly. now i understand and i can wish him peace and joy free of any tiny molecule of regret.

perfect timing, too.

exhale a smile

A breathing excersise a friend taught me not long ago. I thought it was just beautiful.

INHALE: calm my body
EXHALE: a smile
INHALE: acknowledge the present moment
EHALE: this is a wonderful moment

“life is not made of desires, but of the acts of each person.”
- paulo coelho the fifth mountain

“all life’s battles teach us something, even those we lose. [eventually], you’ll discover that you’ve defended lies, decieved yourself, and suffered for foolishness. if you’rea good warrior, you will not blame yourself for this, but niether will you allow our mistakes to repeat themselves.”
- paulo coelho the fifth mountain

the teacher

“But, please, consider whether these great sadnesses have no rather gone right through to the center of yourself? …I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing. For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more, -is already in our blood. …And this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because the apparently uneventful and stark moment at which our future sets foot in us is so much closer to life than that other noisy and fortuitous point of time at which it happens to us as if from outside. The more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the new go into us, so much the better do we make it ours, so much the more will it be our destiny…” Rainier Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way -James 1