Angels in the park

The above image is very close in appearance to what I experienced at a beautiful cemetery park several years ago. I’d taken walks there often on the trails between and around the gravestones, enjoying the quiet and relative isolation, away from the hustle and bustle of society. During one of my walks, I heard “someone” following behind me, their footsteps upon the fallen leaves alerting me to their presence.

Wherever and whenever I moved, the footsteps followed me. I was afraid, filled with fear, thinking I was being stalked where nobody could help me, alone in the middle of a big cemetery close to dusk. However, when I finally gathered the courage to turn and look, the most beautiful two deer were standing in front of me, their innocent eyes staring into mine.

They’d been following me, two angelic stalkers waiting for me to turn and look at them. They remained in place for a few minutes, peering deep into what felt like my soul. I smiled with tears of joy, telling them how beautiful they are and thanking them for visiting me, when I most needed it. And then they looked at one another and ran off together, into the trees surrounding the park, as if being called to some other place where someone else needed them.

Those few minutes felt like a special communion I shared with two angels. A moment I will never forget.

Image: “Angels in the park”

Created by: David M. Rubin & Meta AI

Endless search

In this era of infinite options, many of us don’t stay committed to anything or anyone for long, lured by a never-ending search for an ideal of fulfilment or love that doesn’t exist, a mindset that the perfect option is around the corner, if one continues the search a little longer.

Yet, a little longer often lasts a lifetime, until the realization that “something” good, the perfect imperfection, was once at the doorstep knocking on one’s door, but missed or discarded while being too busy searching for that elusive ideal, dangled by a society promoting the dopamine rush of endless movement towards a fantasy that has no basis in reality, forever elusive. And so one never grows roots into a time, place or relationship; never reaching the depths of soulful connection to anything or anyone, including oneself.

Henry Miller’s Paris

“Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can’t wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.”
~ Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Found this intriguing quote on social media, but with no context to it, which makes it difficult to understand what Henry Miller was thinking and feeling about Paris and why, especially since I’ve not read his work. Although, I’ve been told by a reader that Henry Miller was very passionate about Paris, noticing both the light and dark sides to it, which inspired his writing.

I suppose it is possible that his expectations or hopes for Paris were derailed by reality in some sense, leaving him with the impression of being lured into a place that produced the opposite side of his desired Paris, and dredging up the darkness or shadows within him. Kind of like a psychological bait and switch, where the imagined or advertised fantasy of a place is nothing like its reality, resulting in unintended consequences and entanglements. I can personally relate to this.

Note: Adding Henry Miller to my bucket list of authors to read!

Defeating insanity

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.”
~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

We avoid insanity through imagination. Reality, with its banal, loveless logic, is too harsh and dry to accept as our one and only experience of the world. To remain sane, we create stories, poetry and art that are full of passion, love, mystery, conflict, surrealism, and even pain.