February 16th 2019
There is always a sense of a need for preservation, of the mines of the self being an unrenewable resource that will be exhausted with little effort if we make them too accessible. We construct wrong turnings, passages that lead nowhere or back on themselves, even the risk of rockslides and collapses and exclusion forever from the deeper galleries of the soul if the delver fails to shore up fresh excavations with reassurance and affection as she goes.
Sparrow does not share this sense. She sees only abundance: no age that can wither her, no custom that can stale her infinite variety. She fills her house and her garden and her heart with the slow regard that makes articulate the silent things that she is utterly convinced will be discovered and will renew and will be replenished forever, an artesian inventory of the self. I think this is who she is, what her experience has made her, in her essence. Her essence is to gather and share. Conversely, mine is to curate and hide, fearful of exhaustion. That's my experience: of running out, of cupboards bare.
I told her once I was fearful of giving myself away and she replied that there was no danger of that as she had no need to take from me, all that she needed she could find for herself and still have a surplus. Like everything Sparrow says, this is born out by her behaviour: ideas and feelings and objects all in one direction, from her to me, and so rarely the other way, and that's what I fear: that she'll find the limits of me and there will be nothing left but pity.
She knows this and she does not agree. She gives without thought of reward, confident in abundance, whereas I seem enthralled to debit and credit. I do need to give myself away for her, give away that sense of the exhaustible, because the model is wrong. It's not a mine to be delved, it's a garden to be grown. If I get this right, if I give away the miserly illusion that the self is mineral not vegetable and we'll trip through the gardens together, but if I don't I'll be alone again in hidden seams.
Even saying this feels dangerous because it is said without irony, and irony is the sentry on the treasure of the authentic self, but that's the point. That is the wrong thought and it must be let go. She saw the barrens and she planted a garden, I saw them and dug a mine. I can pluck from the garden and it will grow again, and if I can just enjoy the taking without thinking there will be a cost that will exhaust my resources I'll be able to take from her forever, and she from me.
It's a garden, not a mine, and I know that. Her paradigm is correct, or at least the most useful, which is the same thing. What's lacking is the behaviour that demonstrates I know that, and Sparrow models that for me, too. Why would she possibly stay when she can supply herself and I have nothing to give? Simple: stop thinking giving makes an absence. Giving makes a space for regeneration. I do need to give myself away, give away the fear of giving myself away.
The garden is full of crocuses, pushing up through the snow.
There is always a sense of a need for preservation, of the mines of the self being an unrenewable resource that will be exhausted with little effort if we make them too accessible. We construct wrong turnings, passages that lead nowhere or back on themselves, even the risk of rockslides and collapses and exclusion forever from the deeper galleries of the soul if the delver fails to shore up fresh excavations with reassurance and affection as she goes.
Sparrow does not share this sense. She sees only abundance: no age that can wither her, no custom that can stale her infinite variety. She fills her house and her garden and her heart with the slow regard that makes articulate the silent things that she is utterly convinced will be discovered and will renew and will be replenished forever, an artesian inventory of the self. I think this is who she is, what her experience has made her, in her essence. Her essence is to gather and share. Conversely, mine is to curate and hide, fearful of exhaustion. That's my experience: of running out, of cupboards bare.
I told her once I was fearful of giving myself away and she replied that there was no danger of that as she had no need to take from me, all that she needed she could find for herself and still have a surplus. Like everything Sparrow says, this is born out by her behaviour: ideas and feelings and objects all in one direction, from her to me, and so rarely the other way, and that's what I fear: that she'll find the limits of me and there will be nothing left but pity.
She knows this and she does not agree. She gives without thought of reward, confident in abundance, whereas I seem enthralled to debit and credit. I do need to give myself away for her, give away that sense of the exhaustible, because the model is wrong. It's not a mine to be delved, it's a garden to be grown. If I get this right, if I give away the miserly illusion that the self is mineral not vegetable and we'll trip through the gardens together, but if I don't I'll be alone again in hidden seams.
Even saying this feels dangerous because it is said without irony, and irony is the sentry on the treasure of the authentic self, but that's the point. That is the wrong thought and it must be let go. She saw the barrens and she planted a garden, I saw them and dug a mine. I can pluck from the garden and it will grow again, and if I can just enjoy the taking without thinking there will be a cost that will exhaust my resources I'll be able to take from her forever, and she from me.
It's a garden, not a mine, and I know that. Her paradigm is correct, or at least the most useful, which is the same thing. What's lacking is the behaviour that demonstrates I know that, and Sparrow models that for me, too. Why would she possibly stay when she can supply herself and I have nothing to give? Simple: stop thinking giving makes an absence. Giving makes a space for regeneration. I do need to give myself away, give away the fear of giving myself away.
The garden is full of crocuses, pushing up through the snow.
Grow your garden. Literally, and perhaps the metaphoric will take care of itself. Xx
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