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libidomechanica · 1 year

Text

Of life

A sonnet sequence

Is surprize, expecting still shut up one came but your times, e’er with your falls like Anarchy. Moss; ever ran away, and to choose to C ⸻ l, Muse! Since his Slaves. But to our Father little of Life his rearingly, but chieftain—somehow would sufferer, thought upon the ice chest tiptoe to run. And think the Regal Right Shadows of that besides in Roman so various as thick as harder to Lament and more the Wits again in the shudder, love! This these ruin’d crime bigamy, he stone of soldier, burns with means might forget-I kept on that kiosk at the sad heart, I read. Of life.

We can get free, and streaming Saint: would for him. But I am fed. With the nail gripped out with the dead: succeed; of the Word a Reputation dies. Or other fled by Wonder fav’rite Curl away! What else can see with her will not Maud, altho’ not blinding down upon their natures, do just to the daffodils. When, as is seldom in my sorrow have Place; and let th’ inferior Priesthood is no dreamed of the King his hand. To make their shining eye looks on your Case no time began to seek her with, offer’d horse; and the People the Hand a Vare of our hopes, urge them my husband.

He knew not have done, cut off as day I went there burnt like innocence at pleasures produce they who but of this night, my lot divine: o soothe my essence like, what is leaving—the purpled Maid replied the way which farther the rampart, ioying Nadab let Oblivion damn, who gave a nose forc’d, like innocent chilles, and that always running with no rest, granted Headstrong darts be gone, save there wound, now and it is love vehicular independency of burning Eyes, and plaster the white turn’d the twilight, that sight. She is a warming Parties he before we must die of sorrow.

She live: running a hundredth part of these Eyes dejected in all the wrong. Earth shall still death befallen in the little ambition does crush’d, as pow’r, while Hermes empty of me, and three wild hills, and well its veil of late: o God, and the dying bed— that in: say I’m weary, the poor sprites shall see, vertue scarce all deflowers, o’er the glory. Which, who hold. At night himself, or so, and hustled many a heart such power than thunders grew dumb, for a burns with the Soyl been well of light flared, he calm unfit would forget her but disguises of life. His Fate of Life beat’s too far; but I?

Up her he did Joyn, for Ten to the lonely Deare: but they dwelling Bag he rest in my own child at dead and be this wonderful; it is all the Muezzin’s call’d simplified in no more have scamper’d, reach’d thyself upon this sad heart breathing by all she said. Give mercy scan, be stops under and pity;—I should wake her palm dissolve on the gutter. Good Heav’n Submitted Israelite complains over the others God, as on wire, and he hath befall to one Man’s Treasure, not acquainted in for love glorious Dye, the growing Gems unlovely eyes, embower’d by the truth thee virtue friend. Was call, oh blind, had eyes and greed, I know I choose to such a thousands,—sometime she will proceed, till disdains, and his Eyes; notwithstood to pretend a Call to one enormous should allow from Nature; and far off their Belinda still th’effect of misfortune and Coaches drip with sighs.

You know not, the window, and Heroins Shoulder, and life in luve o’ mine. A scent the scent off from Molwitz deigned towards the tree she seeds on Praise upon thy human headaches drip with a shade went out for loved; and two pretty sweet; from wood truth the brave Tartar. Came glimmering Pilot in lovers—who live i’ the answer This face by Dames to deck. And down with ease, are but that I would be: and, like Horace a distances of man’s gentle look’d back you there. She said, I fear that pastimes shall? Fish on Myrna Loy. Of what to my bosom hath say, already look look back! Sooner shall better side.

Go slow down, and babe for the tedious year were tedious year were faster he might be well the glow of some nine of Vertues Fools, who make the assaults consent suffering, as is all the Love is better or would at her but do not gall, is fancy’s casket of sorrow. And then might be carried by the turn Rebels, Kinsmen to thee as he Wrong’d to death of its conclude the early taint there were a Goose-Pye talked ere were enough yourselves in the meadow and the Sword outwears even thence to me had swept the Snuff-box open’d, and duty done with Care; some thrid this in his an infant.

Till as though now move in the merely fire. The wall who had been its Channels, bubbling how blubber’d in Power employs. The light. That Millions saved, but in the madness in loue. The grapes as Jove has sett they had never saw such transient trail’d, and for ever again I would demand thrice them, let Law teach Rebell, Moore, and believe! Force a parson: what else to brave boys no more; be wise Celestial brain that he has my own Important Card: first sight; betray; in two of grief unutterably held breath, while I go for the spirit descend, with blowe the sad, second self-same nail gripped out for Reign?

She dead! Perceiving Deeps resounded comrades;— then juan contented with houris, like a zebra, frecklings, at least Complexions are held out, alas, how she meeting; journeys end is also a patriot yet, but nothing, or beasts of gold, and love more. Said Margaret stones, war, as I rang’d the sweetness flushed with tort’ring I will show me the walk you are tree, ye’ll slip frae my Charming Griefs, and Midnight to the Godly Faction of truth: no placed it on many a dale with me! One in her than mortal stuff will happiness, and thy beauty new and drain’d our fingers, you shuddering he deny’d.

Even with many subtle snake, bright, thinks he knew it will be thy legs, they streames diseas’d, impatience tir’d, resign thy currents to the common Name to make the clouds of happy he who fought the happy as the gold for that he wished metals most words at thy sweet grace when the pavement, that seemed to shared to breathes unsway’d the days was a cheat and my commons tho their antique pen would find no less; i’m so entangl’d and safe enjoy! Desire, if he went to myself upon his future write a swimming new-found languid Tritons pours ere they grew less pliant and all above: o that kind?

Sad shall glow, mild as a gordian Angel- Pow’rs gave me, in indifferings. The Kozacks, or, if she sun and souls amazeth. And once burning till thy Sylphs, yet Comets rise from the sun was made for Empire, Whispering in water’s eye? Done, saying time for gore and be wisely free, let Honours shall not that so oft has my love, my dream I must once to Royal Youthful Kings wi’ the young bird’s flutter long Processions fly, was chill, and quiet be exalt their Corinth—O the blue crab from earth from men evenings harder to ask her, to make grief’s strength, to whose extend, some throng to him.

All Empire be rack and play, sat with a sickle, proving equally to daunce forbear too calm of all the for a bomb, and gone ere Robert come back into the fragrant our lips that leads. Let Wreaths for ever unexplained, a hazard. Or currants fierce that were once a body perpetrated framed; heav’nly Flower, but thou in a race. Suffer&become memory; as on all her Air bellies, and on my companions lie; peace the and stuck o’er who gave me once are far estranger, from TV and loves! Sat with no Sprindges were lost in the skeins of melting Maids turn’d the Crown?

Then give her, for fear, fantastick Fame, which long ere they were gone to endear to ashes of lurid beams of clusters hammering well beneath the strays about the loss was print of deep inward cast a glance to Jove, what none beside his leisure time before hardscrabble back his jest alike prolific of Dido’s alphabet; and as old self, but a blush and amber studs; and the Sylphs, of small rate? Born coughing, laughing peeps she sat in; time what hath blest, transit. This, resume his path th’ Aerial Whispered to our Father; coud heard me she told; or which the day has wreaths of woes.

And gay Koutousow, he were vulgar thief, who beside them hath his heel seized fast, am give me, she, or few, so high, bob, And the Jews, who had cease repeat; which, for another, if he spoke; then assum’d, can be there is love? Thou bring me, especial honour’d as their of Gloves; and to you, put her silken Wings unfold, with me and sip with Flavia’s Busk that seemed the surf biting for blood may serve and Children near, his very talent and shews what stake; but at her tatter’d now: his long, it might was his Enemies, in this my day by one of the Head, his Pow’r for Parents few, so he burning.

You gentle bosom’d the four and curses struck eight; in vain; there the worlds have that, in Dream! The problems mix with doubt which is polygamy was straight dare not acquainted to the word a twinborn sigh; and Peace sitting, to see his broken you laugh I shall hell is well, but where a women’s pride; then, my best thou, fair Lamia’s eager pace, as from his child of Natures. Arise, dart: with oaths, and cheap what it safe and she is departing, the bed, bodies chatter at their silent suffer more sugar’d to wish thou to soldier’s life melting for bare limbs and when movement—if it once, and oil besmear’d.

If you a white feet leave the Crystal brow, that maid whom for Loves. Ocean while I go for a minute woud by Law supplant my glorious Tasks assign’d, and groom of excess, of small leisure to blessing that poverty brought t’embroidered long, to seem yours alone, I marry the Victor crystal Wilds of blood.-Found and may move, that happy wilt satisfied. And the Merchandize pillow, and Redress of my will to her beauteous Mold; the lean, i’m thine eyes, and Innocence remember’d, Look upon each understanding Woe, wrapt in Night; that you’re will teach, spirits, and I will you the question.

We parted Patriot never more. And die rather I went the true loved thirty thousand frantic. The ballad in you, your Tears and Sprights remove, not a less rocks. His thing of love round us over thou bring her hands besides of unresistinguish. Thou hast in reason. Nancy, Nancy; is it Man or maps or where none but the coast, and incense thee; can’st thou shalt win much they had cease to me my wear. Chariots, when Monkeys breast amidst of flax that she words at home. Who can consecrates have what Virgin’s Cheek for Rebel’s Face is yet the long. Insistent will find no more, in case.

And will be snatch’d the same, his project reach doth but she is roll’d in a clandestined toward the good king: a little time to deck. But the rich when Florio speak, have sword, the ample on all, who fought that to me here is sing many love. At bold Homer’s Tribe were have on Death was in a country and four young flame; for when Fortune rolls of a Court and clear black mould, no two made old Pacha sits among some wee thing! For which, coupling breathed to numerous infidel, and drew behind. Home goes down that not, that I never known and adorning Star raged, fair seem’d to safely crossing sinner?

To look growing far in Masquerades, that I would brass wilds; her Babe and the Nations: the People while throne—though his heaven, they despair, as Thoughts: bryers nor foes—all nations slain, but still allowances of mother hands a Strain roar’d by the frets and gone ere Robert come frail gestures are in the waters with Skill commennd: there occur somewhere the base a virtuous blaze, which had been me, thought with Chagrin; that her love—does a lull in the enema. He rush’d eagerness, for this, e’re Phœbus rose, and kisse, opening me shows in cluster’d women’s pride of that hearts to death; such convergences.

He tools; but those extensive War; which opens a lane to slay, more the Tenement one murmurings, which began to sing’ or the vestry of the people have grief and soften claim, would kissing, so as not why, ador’d the savage mind, emasculated to believe me, or few, do hang upon the knew the rushing, a fever of Chasseurs, all sear, flash’d by a mossy stones to come. Did every Sheckle which once to the work for no one piece is little, merely trodden slime, he has slave and most most in the Furies issue, as more delight; as these thee virtue much better fair God!

But sorrow, that same painter and recollect a poem, knowing old, but praise and be, too late forests far away. The just, th’ event of love, temper’d in his steps down wi’ right guid will have I not love the Bride; on the hedgerows of this thing, she is, cease your tended to feel thought of Platonic shade more them honest, shoulder, these, the Skies, the dregs of October from her all his Principalities of a Patriots name of the ears, were might still keep, while faint breezy elms the Sea where enough for Ajax, Juan perhaps his column he least by heart, and blandishment drawn three Bands would say who begun. No sinking change Foundations, this chamber of the pride I boast she rough, we will disdain an older from the little carpet;—Troy saw nothing spouts up his laurels separated frame when she then Belinda yield ye, wherein he kick’d, and gentless to cry; for bending.

To One, in summer wings that kiosk at th’ instructive art in such they could, we knows what hapless you. I must part; and, and dinted Vesuvius loaded, beside the nice Trick depends he was lost. More ord’nary eyes serue him his corps, which hands, to eat&see the Furies a few last for her Hand, as pow’rful Fancy works of bitter- winged’ steed, I learning pangs, while he a Tyrants, and slowly mountain, the Russian army of ten years, but a Spark too much longer fly like the Breast the case he could wake town, ’ so Cowper says—and yet but who can be please, who in death-bed Alms are bad.

Proud Maisie is incompleenin’ frae my Chloris parentless to cry aloud: Help, help believe that I have hell. Saw no more, o’er each the worthiness was, now lord of sweet sounds alone, but Sanhedrins debate true to hide the bales stare, yet, in man’s mouth and Heav’n, made them a curse, the Wonders without touch became like a part; venus is a lo’esome wee thin Essence gave afresh the shuddering World a notion, he laid down wither’d, like a spaceship. His loaded, beside trance, in mysteric or Poetic Fit, on various as the lordly where late to be an hour; his Loyalty?

My fair Cloe, thinks that I did not to slay,— a human Passion you: and nowe implor’d promis’d land the tea-cup opens to the deep volcanian yellow guineas for the balancing fills, then the lived present to David draw, to pass the ships and weak. Black, we were slurring Maids turn’d—syllabling for thy old come and the cottage in blind eyes by Moonlight of a friendship bring, her golden hair, and alien to guide: of what caught aymes at the gain’d him in command, giv’n by Worthier Head. Light from off heads o’er the other come again who see the wet and best; unblam’d that guy wither’s Name!

As thought; no Pinions in the had behaved as from fields of purest look in the drive, you are slaves on a horror of heav’d Bosom of pity who doth mock the misty boundless to or lately your Hair, she break it must, and therefore, when the come up in my heart; wherein affection can a young Livonian. His food, he puff’d his young Jove suspends upon reflected, and let themselves eternally, besides in Garbs succeeding one with melancholy interposed; pleas’d, impart to Wives and Spoons is crown; that film so fine young bird’s flutter one Sheaf did bind, deeming Friends remove, company, have tried to save, and I said he go slow amenity, put here is simple throng, the Baron the border-tufts—daisy and Erin’s gore. I slept quiet thus for him. A moment, and Thrush sang loud, and groom whose everythings which oft divine: o soothing branches in Flame mounts of merit it.

Were he walls me, sweetness void of love moment’s ears of half a harvest. Creep to the senses balance will be found, that, as their Prince to Rebel: and I begin for to ashes before did Joyn, the bed, bodies half a fitting, resistance, but deed thee imparts not much like thee, that he was all his Brother smells, in the Jews Rebell, and me of straw and dying be the Adonian feast; where: and Self-defence it self in ever was sabred; and was gone and exquisite? Proclaim; his burning puclick Good, by secret, and stars, medals, and liberty; but in good deal more perhaps his Wit.

Limits, and thrice forbear, and prizes; o’er here had thought. Till these days, had joys of Lu, sad Chance! In darkness—I can set aside and in the sets himself to shield to be separate and the mind, how far I could not the poor hut, strike, and allows scope to take him poor: and even Heaven’s messenger has blessed shadows what weaves their chieftain—somehow would do if run stars. I feel so family of Hector, had perish all! In distress, in Courts ne’r sat an Eurydice; for let him midst the Sun, hero, harlot, lawyer— ward off each they supply each others plait the length of falsehood, in gentlemen.

Yon palace flies, when my left with this sweet: and bleed, yet with a stealthy trains, he rais’d, and its king, banishest so far unable to me! Slain sae bushy, O, aboon the misty river jumps over thought me most lucky, was necessary Gold, not a Moslems from birth were lost in the effort useless, at her in the Way; while this Morning’s at the Silver Bounds of this Post neglected with Jealousie shall the dead!—She is Christ was born of lightning from that I write, and I call my smart, and heroes, who thus in vain. Be she roses, with the rest: but Common-wealth; when all men, the mirrors.

And more tranquillity, so do I dreamed we both were only greeting for all things; so Stellaes face so well; tis but amaze in motion of these present to kisses All or ill come. Difference dread on parade. Thence around my pack of grief were fix’d, and Redress of snow, which rain’d: why am I Scanted in two longer Just. Cheat and its lullings smooth flowers the Godhead of spring upon that Boon lived through the hay-field is holy ground: they were visibly: he fared, a wretch to other Sun their secret Joy, hope, and steal from this the languish’d Pow’rs of that my Power to take your rivers.

Bad luck on my tendon which few who held dear, made my steps or wait the Sands, or his work till China’s Earth o’er here in the radio was love? Go, vntill breeding Vanities, and fallen some more the circling up my dream the things which little flower Sky; thy love. In the Breeze, or Priest hours within her faithful Kings are kept up in tune thy mettall many a lightning, and drinks already see you are would I the fields below the glowing through the basin contrived to her: the eavedrops silver moons, to makes the beachcomber in the worse, to live with Dians who base of the millions ashes of Lu, sad Chance! Under hie; depriv’d of Love. The cottage roof, at once. Darling of promised. And mend there many season to eat&see their clay for so new, and Beau’s pinn’d awry, e’er felt such a portal stroking his burning. They speak a Loyalty the intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?

Heart, and till, and all these flowers, the doors have time shall join its with the sweet, to whirr and heart be solved. She that he was loaded, besides enjoy two hours as the Crowds, but both. But while as is frozen in his heavenly Fire. Of Arbitrary Lord: and I maun cross-legg’d, with both wounds have said. Of blood, and as under stream to some drear, her Guard descend to get Preferment by murmurings, colours and fire was on the wanton strength seem strongly love. Propitious Aid has to Cheat his life and far, near and the finest words to tough—they shine or to save, and when Kings of her crescents, legs his face.

I found to words she whispered they wait, and starve, and murder’s flow’d from our photos anymore, but die from yours betray? First of love round from trivial Things, Roman so various Off’rings, to seek after one Visions, worn and on me, and best have a Right, and she was dizzy, busy, paying to me—come—this first,— I will bang our fair, on Earth, in pity joined us. To you I envy and that revolution’s Curse. While the wept faces thro’ Crystal Wilds of future Truths are ashes and Fears, the world of the nice yellow, who holds a part once Ulysses high hopes of love himself in mysteriously, impatient of the mind, I see the Rascall Rabble back in blood in long drives and call in reasoning youthful Friends in her Host of his name, and in them, or with Care; let Spades appealed to march; a greatest haps th’old Harp, on which inward looked Course this world of lost heart will to lead?

That single spot with bright, I meant to know. I’ll crack your Father; coud without the flying fatal Engines, the Russian officers of my bear or bright, I murmured my mother comes quick. Around busy spade, what perfum’d, as when with his camphor, storax, spikenard, galbanum; these, four naked of tranquil, yet stronger; but sure are and be gain, mix not melt! Death’s the bright but ye— our chill, and Noble Youth remain. Not soon his an hour was wasted. For ever change. All that happens to prey; he slays the Nymph, to all she knew lose what I had been — Not the steeple singular beautiful.

Let him midst the Force. The wore a Son! Transmit a scent they stand at the Spright, slips that you were guilty gates with all the lade of yore, were Jebusites: the earthy Vapours their movies, from the lightly muster to heroic stomachs. For Vice, Oppression, and Crabbe will happen’d in Lakes on roses fed, your friendless Skies. With intents, like to the bestow, to make him who loves, in two. And Amnon’s roar’d, had paid due adornings, and lassie, O.—For her feet which cut off in the Sisters are soon for with Armies in blood and threaded dancing Muse. By what it selfe in lovers. We wove our love.

Fearing then Betray, the heads were stood shyly near, more wore, and sharp submission, and when loud a Structure of Nature chose two look abroad lighted Skies. Was prepare it, he fell in rest. The savage; and no law deny’d. In Vials, and ears of Troy; steel and my Love’s sae meikle in Hate: resolv’d: Crete’s former lively taken, but deed nor pretty child of the wights, and the scrape of use or gardens palatine mulciber’s cot, from his quicker than Pow’rs, with Oaths around heroes and Crown. And sight but yet no more; be wisest flatter, troubles, thy physics to the Sword, which bright guid will bite.

Vermilion-spotted, golden lights my love. Thoughts, for Morning Star I saw a fair Godhead on parade.; His Memory, miraculously Enclind, blown downs in clear blacktailed him. Then, going: but lack tongue’s tuneful persons, that she sight on my Forgiving a language—enshaded in the other with, offer upwards burn and was no Caesar, but Seduc’d by a flame places by the times Counsels fit; sagacious, but still remember? Into a ditch, he had redden’d, and on the prettie deathlike the same moment rise. At once I saw the hart, hind, and Crabbe will but kind benign, our eyes had been well for Venus but this witnesse, loue, which hate nor my sad one; for the temper of rank. Let Earth receive, shall the tear be in luve o’ my very true Muse or Irish, or the raining into some hundred the lookes, who really lovingly pow’ring for thing, poised to human life, the king!

Sweet green fields, and Achitophel was too long the springs of Paris! I set my fill. Whose Sacred Lock to tell, for for Zinghis in her, read clear possessed shall her solitary soul in short-hand only give the last wave&we will be a watch. And cry’d insulting Force. Been our breath’d around? When the sufferings. But those curtains of Belial with the moon grows in each attack his skill, I am now behold when Nature, ’mid her, read the question. Of these loads and wonder, plunge their reasoning long: and more shabby fellows—true—but not upon such a joint is fidelity? And God the Tongue.

The promiscuous sin; when up at thing, she will notes we say at its matter’d by Truth Proclaim. So, several Meknop’s men with the sun, seeking the falling said she As I waste my tears of thy Name: short supplies: no Courts ne’r sat at my eye like women’s son doth call the grain—iness to crown, does it happens ev’ry Eye was well’s below, and bending Crowds, but little those what if every sight shall his bells. Silent&quakes, tongue’s tune delights appear’d—the first breath of snow, will believe, better or word acknowledge affords; indulge one or two—what’s strange flame should brass wi’ Geordie impression.

And babe and slowly dying of thrones. Than the air with him Return’d them thus, she plucks their Duty at a short-lived that thou see their Ear. Which doth sit, having to forgive the discontented to reasoning heads of one by, her Eyes this for trust that wall, by the moon, or Virgin’s Thou, who think. And near and wak’d his Brain, and the Sails descriptions, and I could see the fragrant his strange Motive, Goddesses, o’er thy Fate, the walls, thou first tis his Estate. So my father companions lay, listening, but that I broken into each attack on his Widow’s Gown: her house or two or the ocean.

Ere than leaving himself at every strife, and King understands displaced, who had not sullen Region know. It make me again, the groves, for Interest scholar, Lycius! She is a zero vector, had been hard by the sea. How careful was fixt on his Soul another to its forth of a song? Light for Agag’s murther, but represence like a mile, that whereof she will to utter in the self, and the bower of you are shield, who grew less for this trade, and takes the winter, reckless and worse, to Proculus along the Chief, a shutting air, how waited on truth miseries, she plague you!

Some, Orb in Orb, around us one tranquillity, so that blossomy flame of their sorrow after his sooty Pinions can move said, until their Principle here and saw more on this poor Remnants to prove, that Kings and turn me not what tho’ e’er sae faithfu’ heart escapes, maud their lives were growings, and trace there is, that vertue service and put it seems to lay, and Wits mountains; he meditates to my hear, dreamed of spikenard, galbanum; these musks, the wild hills alone cool hours with too quiet be exalt the touch’d the Southey! The Madness in spite of Air, in their thoughts repair, nor care.

Shriek forsooth, you might between freed from Cenchreas’ shore, through tress-lifting canopy the bonie white yowes. To discord, by atoms with a sigh. And their heap’d of amorous promised. Saw nothing of the Aid my present ease assume whatever’s careless Tartar. That evening ruins he sing, that she walks a moment. His beauty, blunt thee and various wave and where—for but the shadow of Fate, tO sell the Faction in. Day— no heavier wreath, what mind advancing in the chosen, at such familiar priviledge of our beauteous Grief contact, and late to travelling Babes are but one Trumps, shame.

And seem’d to cry; for Priests the sky with the hour their Arms may be ready see you are the Frown; she is Christ’s silver Bound, or hawks or how, a hell will finde no soon unite with controul. The venerable to thee up as well be snatch who can soul in your fame show your forty winter raiment that Shapes of light suffice the rings o’ joy, in vain Thalestries—so love me on my Fathers Mold. When Offers a Rival to the hour convey a melancholy eyes serue him he Suffer, the Moslem that if evolution alone discerning creative of all the Troian boy did excellent.

And we are to draw then? It makes some thrid this Curse. Yes; and glare of that were to look, looking weed, unto his Beautifully, most smote him for the Blood with a Lord? Empty craw, that powerless had reach’d to the demon’s self-folding, glowing, but as I forc’d, like thinks my life melt into the light. Love himself, I could not trusty guide: of the day whence draw? I mourning of other is coming in the plants go to—God know wants me to slay, more beset with near-smiling leave, hers could sit the deep; whose gentle reader! She took you are the same Designs, which she nurs’d her dry nor t’ others, whom King? We watch’d that I have live: running. Yet with full in rest. From trivial thing, she was a joy above speeds the God Bacchus drain’d. When six braw gentle read, hear, when man, within the first bridal year, blush’d, also to requisite? Northern dome, whose harness presented their faultless Tartar. Why so mute?

And gory cheek when they meant well? And, like spell, the Shrouds Aerial Race presence, with a hands besides love poem Mary never round where their Hearts of a motley to Arms, t’ assistance so loud thy infant terror find. A slender brutes warrior in shall rend what we are suppliant and stroll’d into the sun was they in the lie this way to—where to break it must play his goodly persons, the Nations—condescending small but Seduc’d by a shot; his Memory, thou gild’st unravel in them, let em take the woman, seeing only thoughtless birds long times, and Desire, empty Air.

And a look on his den, ae sweet, and groom whose lips, together hair: but Zeal to their Wings. And dig deep in the Baron the gaze the gilt Charioting Spark, the mother, if he with some more the Flock. There he is incomplexions are obligations do they draw the Cavalier, ’ just lie downward test which with an empty shok; and the wintry Main, or Virgins vision in these pretty— I never controlling me, especial Note, we now moved with thee, Achilles, some tenderneath thy sight. Shouts confus’d, that early pays for Gnats, and heroes and charms, o, gie me their Cant, and when hey, for the long.

Spread how to cut and still, I put on truth I’ve lost the plains a bleakness in sight cloth’d in Impenitence. Following hope to hide: in delay the things but Government. How carefull raign: and everywhere, from people of surrender’d o’er each other depart, an Earth receives his gold forget that they have kept their flocks by shall their Hearts; not scornes the Gods, and with some wee thinks my life, and the General Markow, whom I had know what a pious to Rule Jerusalem, of hand, never let him who had been, who that same to be a symphony& in a clear blackbirds in their plant my hell.

Of polish, liquid Gold, is Juster the din, I by another ear, touch’d without know I sate on that farther hearts from the same welcomnesse. Or all be a suffer’d him shiver of comfort shut our food we had led days had made his Son, wipe Thou the goose-berry tunes the lull’d weapons straight myself shall his pipe’s ambrosial, Pharisaic times; the brimstone lake. Ah, happy if from her all their treasures may be, myself of itself and so to bid good nightly of Heaven and restless, houses and comfort I expect you, kind of Son; got, which the Sprightly muster and he who stands intice.

Was, that in the Way; while my eye I ken brawlie my tongue silly pour’d by one, is the ewe have been piled up her side of the water- drops, the ground, which pye being battles, are taught the same blown—my dust with Years: and I do not gross; but like in forts quietly as blown downs in clear fortunate. Peace them back in the nail gripped out a Wind, nay, Poll sate to thee, to drinking Fan be secure his Evidence she place my absence and blue; stripp’d serpent continent case: up Johnson join’d a certainly enjoy! Mindful of glory to possess this unsighing on. Murmurs in vain. Yet forth was blows.

And mother hung over while earthly companies thunder; for there of present to see his loom in the Glance by fate to take; so Juan, follow him, up, the gazing Eyes, and thought he rent, with secret Joy, indulging latitude I find on the gold forget such a joint, station have claim his crisis up came token, to those me, or doubtless Kings; for the filmy Dew; dipt in pointing Oyle had in it find. He said, returned my eye was a pile of all foredoom of fortress might knowing hope from the value more easy, and now, the field, into amaze, to Plots, shall be thy self-approbation; for she with desire of Majesty rever’d, only my Countries but little birds singing joy of your are too was beauty’s a flight, in the Cretan isle; and the Crowns once Divine and feast a spectre of him. Nor Crowds, wi’ sangs o’er: so, several Sons by such a dirty rat.

Me down wi’ right guid willing it, in the sight cloth’d in White and all game and as morn, to that hapless in shade of clusters oh, you and could not. Out of Allah! Of ancient Muse shall hedges. As cheat and a Clouds do blot the travellers follow’d a water; for truth shot, her silken Wings, armies to sing in the child. The power to give fully distant. Dark smells sweet more thank him up. Either come to all are? Now posting, ogling, and there, when Kings came not all its glare of love show to a sin; when and he neither my left this shall I say? Proves the People are plant my heart be so severe, some twenty, you’llfind tender, midst of gain, mix not matter gall, in Heaven’s messenger has blessing through erst it hangs like an ancient Persona I’ve broken. Was now a time breath finds you send, less and secret hear a line—is no more clean; unbrib’d, unsought to be the pavement—if it or war?

Be love the way a wooden bowl; it is to bed you wilt their guard with rays or mermaid’s yellow guineas for postering weed, of jealousie shall bear alone: but Common case in a great Anna! For crystal polished his stranger, never sulphury reversion has give, so loves, anxieties, who had made new men and distant high he sounds of fortress of the Sex to Fifty from aught aymes at the first tis truth that to flutter long: and Mankind’s Eyes; at evening- moon. But he, the name for ioy could you best, the others on Egyptian scorn Two Pages and swear thought too may pass their Ear.

It seem Constrain your hair; sleeps in the van. —Within him as to win, hero, harlot, lawyer—ward of his neighbord by might had from their own, and wonder, and sang that seasons passions rage of Snuff the Statesman we trust th’ unequal Mirth maintain’d by the wide Common case. For whom this Russ retire a little time of war; ’—’t will and gave Consequence like their Zeal to rest nor bought of actresses held dear, and a Call to shakes his forest, and future fix’d upon the city burn. A think what Erin calls, we left, where must value of ladies, and what the fragrant me thy longing.

Being actual’ being. Till shot: a kind the city. Their guns were fewer houses are obliged to blend; and the Old men who cause for her not, or her than Ajax or Achilled hare: how the promised the passion is well’s beloved think! Lo! There Heroes who could raise; till serve where if men courage stagnates to win, he met, without discompose the fat, or as sailors stranger, left in my boldest Hope, with unhappily be hid, as if thou will not come near your weak lords its stems in search thee sitting green of Hearts are broke their Wings, pride and tameless thou can add infinity.

Nor had draw, to Corinth, who would disclose Recesses of the sets himself to show by the thou mayst be this golden hair, already you look in the meadows in flaming of the gutter. Called out upon my Fathers on Egyptian soldier, but only when who had no motion of its countries banish e’re Phœbus rose, flutter are made their pills like held out, mighty Hearts. And they despatch; and thought, indew’d by a flail, grew grey, now my epic poesy so rare and of Son; swift was drown’d, the meadows on the din of our helps to live with buckles of burning taken, and I had lost. To him.

Why should speak the Heroe’s Wits many-colour’d to the left me food he fellows,—o dreamt I saw the Sound out upon his eyes fondly love, and fragrance, see all men contents of Ismail’s ours. And that the troubles they Command, and burn blue. When the end in Tears, bellona, when thou dispossess, but by that we can judge of Snuff the hedges of Crete’s former day I met without malice: if he had been Greatness flushes, and Delude them go. Of men who blush’d out upon the vast speculation on earth’s the sun soon became to time, you how, hand on the enemy to run, form’d, within!

But none but fainter and stumble door with ease, bright guid will, to sing my Highland lay by, to wood, he frost, such scenes—thought in the pronounced most despair, and trembling, within that your own her cheating upward it another Head aside. Close that satisfied. Journey through the Lady’s lively tale of Dulness, to be; but Manly Force of grief were beneath thy brow, and out here a Goose- Pye talke; how happy laugh’d her hair, I shall not squeeze her evening round from the Sun, they courage stagnates to Water glide away, and all cut off without of their under to his Bride. Also the Stars in vain.

Break of the sweet grace and belie—even a sprights enjoys they crave; and nearest and made when I stretch, with a glorious grenadiers, where he might keep it on mankind, that grows in each couplet, or he was used to abstracting Force: but if she had falls betray’d. Nymph and Snakes describing Priam’s, Peleus’, or Jove’s Banquet lost the general noises; while this woman, like flies, and Momentilla, let him King: think what I do burn in tone: but like to the night, and not so pale? That sing my Highland lassie, O. In the close expos’d a place for blow, mild as a pile of a Pair of conquer Time.

The Sun them, and dances full but for mortality and water loue gaue the Spirits cannot find not such Magistrate Vulgar Sprightly blunder’d women’s pride of children climb the cries, she seem’d but more will affection prov’d his should not his Finger’s Ends, thy Eyes of our Good; enclin’d, of bronze, and Amnon’s Murther, too, shelter’d men, a yet we to pass’d the Combat, or as she adorn’d, by atoms move her with martiall love mean, magnetic soul to her life to various Toil, and burn and a sore be so paved—must no more so several Ends, to each sences crimson cross they steps of time.

Lest and decks the swart-complete, What else to the Rascall Rabble worst of notoriety, nor foe, though a Naiad of dearer air hast leaves to either smell of view she spake came, and the Crown’s defences crimson barr’d; and a name unto a sad time proue, but if thou thyself of what Relief in fashionably up the Board. Am weary Muse, for human being arrive wits nor merit in the expense and in Face. Do you I envy neither flowers to touch with this Numerous warmth did, various as the Great Wits are the Seraskier defend? No matter by man with a voice?

With thick’ning city’s paper says he stove. Who sought, if twas Natures Holy Land. Her lives, but first, one upon it, and dread the silent mad, and prize? Then, come, when Musick storm, when then he leant thou art free to take Physick to Proculus alone. Our hero on his armor would relight, but whether turn his an idle boy that I always the Fighting of the Lark is right guid will, to sing, welcome, sing the same—a mirror, that sleep has paid the snowie Neck. If not destroies. It is a goodness grows; a school of guile, a beasts of woman have a Ball, or Crowds, with a heat burnt from the night.

Of the Toilette Goddess with languid Tritons pouring honeysuckle for the other is as if their Enemies that in Desarts by the breast with a kind the scent and after me with his armor would be lovers Hearts, and what are shining and thews,— johnson too, waiting for all in the deep and depriv’d long my Highland lassie, what ev’n Belinda flew, breaking to his Overthrow, and Humane Laws, within him alone dismal Domes, anxious Cause by which thing all things to melt; the fragrant posies, a Beau. Would never companies the month of human tenant of Vapors and Passion.

Get the earth a broken-hearted, that a woman wert thought, if unseiz’d with the Lock, now without that shall guide: of what Virgins as before we contemplation is weaving— the column, thou art safe and bleed, as say true, as from aught they mean Rebells he front of life, and Record, but what we be one back at her heart has to see his pipe’s ambrosial gales, as the next she meets you, with Pride confined by this cups divine: o soothing which gathered; next looks of the bed. A wretch, there ye born sight reverence yet lies hid in darkness of those loose Carriers his Prey, fair Tresses, and exquisite?

By adding his burning hut on the Land. To wield to say what heaven, and the name heard no more, in Juan’s forest or by a flame my love. Not the Nazarene as from stain, that level Green, whose Motions weight, I murmuring rampart, ioying miraculously so. Volleys, groves, his aboad: but try your sleeps she sluttish, be she lingered lonely, vigorous, harmless circle of all meet; she sings. His persons, that I felt she told my loveliness wring and the sick of rustic ice chest; the lady is, doth breathes, and Echo then, light trail’d, and fire was small but she what’s the heading all the hills.

Let Honor seeing things; alas, why, what thing into an idle matter I took such as unfix’d as ice, or in shall view she playing would produce they may read, and she’s to me more. Two hours has his way beard with quilled heroes, which longer and farewell the Ill, for often gracious, but my Leave a shocking shadows seen our found, he would rais’d up like folks of bedding branches it holds an urn with life—O father threshold. And Chief. The wily Virgin could with a star in weird syrops, and her, less fragment the want of light, but one things of the men of Loyal BLood; what Woman, Greek or Turkish battery, parapet just in the Crown upon this is rare—when only the same small, I put on the charmed ocean is seldom in my way, each Band the mounted the streets, hearts—our voice that shine is to sing: for Life pursu’d the rugged tree who least to add his Eyes, hills where quintessence?

And such a n active art for him here ensure; but Johnson to sing: for Spirit, not skill enough of tastes unseen she sipp’d, there. Of their days about the post, tired of Friendship much into a new hoe. The varied of my ninetieth year, mix’d with puffing kisses brings of thine eye hath yield at least by th’Effects brings to me confined, no True Successors Reign? Three hundreds at last she found no occasion prompted, soon to publique lines, and see thee impart, an Earth receive your lips unchain’d; for because than the real woman, tired of my mother’s the last and run Popularly Mad?

For Life his usual greeting Power, on Earth, his lately pines this just as my own arm’d with something which filled with in atonement of lies, and writhed, and weep, to gain. So Fraud betray; for seeing to my use it is perfect it grows; which, who could ever crown’d in distress unto a forgot. Tell me, in a long since my steps of the idle boy that are love’s yoke is betwixt Nature leant to Slay by one by name: withdrawn apart. And Chiefs contrary COunsels fit; I do no less and guilde; if e’er sae faithful Kings are made their Land, thy festivals, and drinks and Tweezer-Cases.

The mean, magnetic soul to him who hold. Nothing me show to switch #1 with longer idly; for the just, they led then prov’d his Soul? Brutal yells toward his rapes, maud the ghastly pit long the false Achitophel, grown exceeding Ages Curse with lid-lashes they find when it slowly mounting questions from the Mall succeed the fame you are at faults of woes. And liberty. The din widows of the width the Moslem orphan we. Already familiar, could not Introduce, or Priests in my arms I hold the first her to those barren Praise; till this words. That delves, but with speed. The aisles should he adored.

May make a tender, and view she spreads his Headed East too much abounded Caesar, but slighted Hair! A woman open ground and bit the sounds strain, well knew it was taken— only part—and none of sighs a Jar, and drew nigh those precious destroy! A hands beside some distance from the same Law forth all sorts of a new one—then, my sense but if flame was gay. Into a flowers do not, when courage do I dread a mortal engines bent to any season guide with tapers combat on the coast, and death been the Press enrag’d it so well: and sentence at please. Don Juan perhaps his time and go.

That had forked no more! Hammer in the portrait in them: globes, penal course that fiends as wells; where Vertues way; and whom it so well; tis after one Visit last their Head. In praise alone, deaf to helpe to a weak senses in a moment moment to give the slays that had redden’d in her below him whose alone complete: and brighter Washes all their barely try’d, or somewhere his side, t’inclos’d in slender a broken worships of kindred legs. Rippled Mendicant in me, and wide, without more fit; I do not like. At this refulgent David’s mild; and the Tears; but only my Corinna’s eye?

My wrongs and despatch, with bright, then living only call, believers bore, resum’d the heart which last humanity—which oft divinely sprite; tho’ mark’d, on earth; the object while earth; the flock away& mine eyes she wall who leave that we would have tried to say, with his nose, rush’d, she end, but could not love, tho’ no Crime. But it’s me first,—I will never love—maybe not feel you prefiguring; fomented woods be Soldier’s art. And man that hour old Adam’s seed. I’ll lovers, your hair, collar. Of fault; once again, ’ and no lightnings from death-wound pour’d with her impels me with store they—now furious as the Turkish Cohorn’s ignorance to Reb ell. To length thee virtuous, that will never can be; for to the bastion, we received for water under to it. A nest faire worthies, in time forth, and Ariel plac’d; his things, what an Equipage throne, free and Trump and the morning city. And no more!

They turns of shatter’d much Grace? Childish escapes, only to tame, the memory, miraculously to the hand, one skin like Absalom, ambition set down. And that your adventurer sips that will she streaming in melody, war piled on the dust, her look that the Diadem he gives half full—already see you do, too, such sort that Johnson: Neither mesh: and far more canna hae luve I kept on the Danube’s flow. A tendencies of those white eye turn’d all the Throne of a mother, by a right your voice, expecting shine so brimful of gladness to be the Sheers, and what are left.

Is Juster the sweetner art; the hope nor mermaid’s yellow took you all walls me, sweetner art; and tumbles, are repeat; which though that crackle, that gave no mean Descent of the Pigmy Body to show? One went out its milking in the preside, trembling room in my speech, the front of the wild freakful chance, apt to that level stood undisturb’d, in gentle Hermes, come back to the world exactly what with thy delight&see with ardent Lover lurking a virgins as beguilded Mast, superior talus of our buried stretch to be of battles, awake! And this rude a Gale, nor ever!

Vent. Of a wood, ye’re like, what he spake a stranged. He ceased from wealths, and Pharaoh’s Pentions, ’ which crown the wheel of the Throne as requires. At once told me such Envy as thro’ the sweet more the temper of talent the sweet grace, which, for I have my love. But an end unto thee all. These love too may pass’d, she roses I there all thee, close will alloted, glide to shew his curious Dye, the grass sprang from Hebron bring heir, to where stirr’d while, with just Victim of him. The first, rob’d in his simple the Fights my mind may given a setled Throne. These Four when the Lunar Sphere, as say what shall desert sight.

If here the more increase to haue his side. Wits way, which form in two. To Physick the Pillars of joy. At least may no means can I the faces were gather dangled to snatch’d tempted my mind, which few will feel the south them not Good old Instruments hung upon the Prostrate Ace.—All conquer than Ajax or Achilled hare: how the gates, thy beauty is; that maid, hae I offered up. And Peace sitting shot the Glass appear to any shadow still close to offends. Sure scawled steps for then, come up in tune thy rest. Carole Lombard, Paulette ceased to be still pleasure, nor double post and roe, freed.

And the bare treason, and feast within this road in hand disturb’d, in Sion raign: and good- night? Afterwards burning pure loue, while many sense is one companions from hence, the street with Oaths affirm’d, without discriminations flitter’d o’er so acutely that once more the Sword outwears in these ruin’d choirs, who, by Lawless Mortals after a goodness in spring, he was left alone from trivial thing, head&to keep that has slave and bind, but first, the general Boon, but a Spark too late as golden lights opprest, save the wrote no feel of slaughter. Yet so dish’d: for him. My husband hairs of harvest wheat.

Consider that in no more the authority, how like an egg, every sigh fortune as from above are supplant my glorious Tempers act by various Hate against earth; a chariots, where Crimes. Shook the Heroes are for a woman ties at our long: but Common gender palaces, which I freeze once I cannon peal, o’ercast my speechless still believe the apprehensions proper to Lament we said, Tis not to escap’d from Learned Pride confest my mounts up, and exalt they go. Whom Kings where were he with Hannibal, and thought tinge with rage and the bone: what’s still the face of War!

She tools; but the days, for Morning; such a beares; makes the garden-gate reviewed that hide her train, she stolen light flared, her soil; tho’ mark’d by careful Though soldier’s road and unmoved, fills where if men courage does crush on the dark father, her faced upon thy physics to the rested Day, whose so fast? The venerably chaste;—they resistances finds now occur, thou fill’d; her eyes and son was such is victor’s may thy silver’d safe from so softest Bosom hung behind a name for killing in the should find on trivial Things, estranger in thy disembark’d, on those who after hoof he rain.

Innocence at please him from mortal can. How far I could keep one confin’d: why am I to the parallel with the Crown, form’d into the garden. And I could not rise. Having Sylla the mirror, and replied, You’re diverged. Drove their ration, take the Jews; for let him give no eloquent reply. His journey thrown high, what was an ear in weird syrops, and all the Visits shall I say? Those lookest wight move, with the bird, why, if we scan a couch I lie in various Day. On which descend, or currants his last: one sadness, ’ and the loved, love! And the despair, a thing, as, like a nurses.

Let the waterfall, the siller screams so pleasures of blue sky the crack in our soul! Than ever they willing pangs are the Fair ones feel a name at shrine with surprize, and heav’nly firing, and with a feeling shadow fleet came incessantly to deck. His old age in her return the post and must it take such Votes as things, at least I will sing, welcome on the phantasy was nothing in me be; and find the Pow’r continents, as it wears even in it self nor too hard press’d? Though their Posterity, how they whose Youth more be Absalon: what may be the Horizon is not its ray?

Swift on her husband sent the din of Gold. To my tocher; then, let his journey through my heart must you masters, when rich Repast. Song; now from my jewel tine, she is, crept too late inclos’d in her robes flaunt thee free. Conspiracy or coyn, in Corah, though in Cupids dart; ’tis the best disturbance thousand freaks the tower, because I’ve made new comfortless tenderneath the uneasy novelty he blest: his load. And I felt the wan, wonder to seek if thou hast then, for thing, she is always please; bankrupt of Life his Charge, and libertie is gone her her breasts his Arts. Much said he why not amiss.

A couching-place of all he setting sun. Not all the next bastion, for you are cheek, don Juan replies: th’Eternal.—For pizza with some disappointment always I loved, fill the honey-fly the Glebe dissolv’d: Crete’s form and my fingers doesn’t the Jews, and stemmerring tears a Pardon me be copartner of silver Token, blossom, in the loss was prepar’d the Pendants of hate, my lady is, doth blowe the Seat ascend: sharp Vengeance will nor could State, but wish you’d change. Bound under this Locks, what were they had his Wit. For that canst thou shalt be so few refuse; tis Apollonius sage, my hell.

On his an isle; and file by in languish, we chance every can do not looked out he can; for fact, while there and briefly the lost in the Dog-star had passenger has blessing them clustering tear. Light, and Secure bent it down a strangely: but, by his own himself is minds of God and that you may deem, too gentlemen that for fifty though to wield to seek if thou art for there melt in the sky. Which, the swooning yields; a honey- fly looking roar, for for life, and I should ask for her I’ll fight, old age should be. Of deep learned not; the ampersand, thy present case men of monarchs only give?

We trust; may make a flower is roar, and as, in the Diamond was no Caesar, but must part; and as the hut I fixed places by their Pinions in fear, sweet sake the Lock, this things. A sire who levell’d tree, it’s life she wild beast wave by, crying those fair Heart; ’twas none are wide Circle, but be gain, thou could not rest: but none of unresisted Course, thy youth’s sake, with weeds again I saw an aged, and Restrain roar’d from yonder what Virgin courage against the dregs of Pray’rs, form’d it, with half drown all the Tiller’s reign, do in commandant it happens next it grew that all men who held his vengefulness is a winsome wee things harder to complain how frank, how good, placid miss her friends retiring. Which, the self-folding the heard no motions, when they; now from ruin Kingship, pell-mell, and the better when Hells dire Agent found, he was dark, which made for me. Last hour who stands intice.

And David’s Government. Or that April weary, say I’m wearied features&above are purchased by a specious drops, till this vain Thalestris’ Arms accuse, he stone brave bands of pearls commiserable than prose I bend that for a little scorching seas of old did too late, either contrary laws! Old wives his was at breezy shade went struct the Whole. Let all the gaze what Virgin’s Cheek for new Brocade, for his debt to your tender, answering head, like the way whence to die. He has been whene’er weary tender, as being can make a blow, that I had seen: and whereon Johnson retiring.

Of the first to see his proper to concern, which few who had forgot, would never- changing they pass their flocks incurl’d gray beaten— though enemies, in Sanhedrins debate true that when shack. Peace is here is a fix. All the glen sae bushy, O, I set me by mysterious Toil attend. Against the bowl I offer’d men, a yet we to proof of dirt is to look, or Runic, swear the sweet-gard’n-nymph’s beautiful old rhymes, stopped: when no motions, with Cups prolong’d to themselves the fables at one to pant, since let loose,—it screeched! Thou hast in the glacier knock underneath the glen sae rashy, O!

How coud heart. I will fight too dearer, and drew within her veins than to listen and see each others: being destitute the very prettie death; such echoes, thou dost him good turns of sea and Ariel perch’d the lonely as allies, that her tower, because she’s to be gain’d your best can add infinity to infinities proves the Mists in there this Russ retir’d, the Small red stain a Flood: unfortune from a scheme that for me. Forgive! These would not change his specious of the tender feet! Said she whate’er the tomb, to battled overwhelms that rest in the ocean where your beauty may try.

Of rose an ass, half shut Eyes tis all made many anguish dreary pole so many, the other, come again. Now banks that soldiers going; but flank’d by his long row of a Court other distance dream unriddle, I told my lofty Mind discompose the brimming is to play a plait upon Olympus ring, not ancient Ladies as make ever minds of Riband botching, ogling, but like a spaceship. Here he would rested Day, misguided preached thus evince his who talk with choisest straight discontent to sounds Aeolian breathe uplands of Air; the time for lovely forms do flow from too rough or smooths.

Fifth, while hero of those who admires such the divert my heart lies plain sae bush, singing so sweetnesses imperial Kind. And when the roar of war: a happy had seen: and, from they light of mine shall sear, flash’d gainst their young flame my best hope they fight like raining Case, and mother the sea of yce: this Morning—the terrible at the coasts may go? Its sunny field of Murders of the red Vesuvius loaded with Cary Grace a twilight fading for a vast French, the radio was home, as I do swear the softly go, like a parson: what mind maybe that for Rebels to enjoy.

Nay, Poll sate mute, and clear himself shalt win much careless over the other’s Ball? Some Royal Peers and vales and some spot, where Mahler wrote no farce on the whirling valentine. I heard, and following hope they pass’d hardly splendour who came to destroy the used to seem to Curse, children—happiest among the Birth were than me. His Locks from people have never weary Muse, here are both high marble hung down an Oath to wield to seek if those who fought nowhere endless please their Choise, but by the languid feet&when you lost. Well, rough the tall hell is still we have your own despatch, for who from conceal’d.

Made my sad hearts abhor, but Desert. Silly poet, poet not rise. Into the huntsman tumbling, with white clouds, to boast his own. In tract it seemed she used to share those white bone. Thou could curdle o’er he had desire of two cotton stray; for having Hairs, as thou fair proposition, and few could not yet, but Savages we thus your witchcraft o’ Beauty’s field of the lack. He spoke, and be my love, how to choke. A power than the nick of the words grace, which has he Paus’d; then resume to reply to teach Rebellion made a vow to the Ground: yet loose Carriers his fair Nymph oppress’d.

Love doth much can hope of present, doubloon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, was neare torn: how strangled with the sun, the moon is the inverted triangle: gaped mouth that clear spring of immortals Levity may befallen in break, if not; his good and a Throne: Alike innocence and loud, sure though I shall I my jest: sad momentum, the Gnome! I could find a cold now the chimney-wall where hero trust this just two or the seems to my large society, where but never weary tenderness o’er: so, several Fate. New Stratagems, the grass under—right befall to Nature; and the sentence under and prove to lie on all accompany forges the angels went unrepentance so well again, thoughts and always was—a woman ties a knotless praise deserv’d too fortunes Ice prefer a fine thing which is still obey, dost some pitying Audience the explosion.

This erring trade, and charmed ocean is sweet breaks of my Plot. Of all that false Achitophel: thus, wicked Neighbour pain; desires, where Cupid with an oath, and the drive, you Draw; and there might by day; I kissed the World these ambrosial, Pharisaic times, with every heart has take those millions all the worm is on human being hazel bower betweene my time, vaguely life endure. Past, preserve when the heading for ever train, with Golden Calf, a States-Man, and wounded in could even to the lone Isle, or miss in long the disting. Thy lips daignd to the spake the soft and Slaves; And, will be done!

Now I will fight, or haply lies, a Beau reviv’d again. In the other distortional as an enemy but winters, and being grave. Which won it, shall cease— Belinda wears it not; his gracefull Succour heart droop’d, here shut; they go. Whom Foes; and, for half consequence, and made at least be best of you are left in some disappears; on her Earthy Moors. Serpent’s head! The unrabbits, seeing a line—as endlessly as hurls them a cursedly, confined by dint of pity aristocratic as warm in Black and with tenderness made, never more beautie be; the People strip with thine!

—I’m weary load, in her Cholerick was none knew them Mars, but on your are full in with this steps forth above, the gift we receiver ripped out, each things ignite and bound under to stamp’d by Nature, or distresses that I should pave heart to such a rate to tye thee, fell will love will shine so bravely brave Tartar khan—or a bomb, and many ceased to ramble attainted hast the more easy, and having very step their present the the beach, to that needs must give me, Sir; then each other’s naked walls, or the vain, such example on my girl as much determined scorners. So be thy louer?

One bent; the anger of beat back his poor cottages, and many an old man, wherein I am weary tender feelings of Paris! How frivolous a babe; the Powders, Patch they ministered to gentle Maud in our photos anymore, that, but noble langer pass that she sun was sermons, or their chill and go and the Tears, were the garden-gate and to pleasures in the spires and can be stop my Muse, forget such precedent warm pies to rise again, ’ and nail—sit on the heart’s core: not one Deed Enobles all that coastal hill. My most wretched day when Saul the fair Eliza!

I want of rest cou’d compassions, world of mossy stone breast and dost despise, which, ’mid the twilight. More virgins, and willing grabs me by toil, and robed in his face, and gazed on war: when it they want to sound thy assist the Sex to Fifty from his cries, a Beau demand, that it is a winsome wee thing, she see like the Rabble worse, alike it. One dying on the service and beautiful old rhyme in the ran away, like to mourn, my Corinth from fault, but pain my sorrow have taught the very number caught for thy remember, now let me bestow, to Proculus along their clay for love.

’Er who gave a faire-sweeter the other silent night, on that graceful Action, we shuttled overwhelms the fall sick of their Maker’s Images, but I can’t, but don’t know how time to ill that question’d night before him, and would not retrait of hell with languishing then he to yours. To your Chief. In Israels Courage done: mine ears withdrew, and in the sighs, and what Sexes and feeding therefore, without its coolly to pause nor the dishevel’d Lightning in her crescents, thou hast my spirit share the city’s resistinguishes me you soar too night and that our long my Highland lassie, O.

For oft, where she nick of impulse of the field at a glimpse of bitter seat��and t is the star appeared. The trouble hue, so be terror in liberty; but tis his heart had faced snubnosed rogue would be whispered traces on the insect host which fills and farewells. Triangle: gaped mouth figure and mov’d my way, fretted, for a full in requisite as Samuel used to get itself, to live to-morrow for me. But wide Circle of bliss destruction and Johnson: Neither eares that restrain, with no doubtfull Title grew like the Skies. Thy love, so dear object of all his bloody rest.

100

Would fain be still shou’d ever was near death, above the shoots his Birth, but for my wit to make David did his ragged January, as if upon the same Law the gazing Eyes, a cap of past thou lik’st not Faction prompts their Monarks, with blood and hustled to her Eyes dejected phrase of Lords to be infant animal awesome I would do if run stark mad; all the miserable me! To taste—indeed from a scholler of that sleeps in pleas’d pursutes of his own. What’s stream, and shafts so sure: some hundredth part of things were to rent her hair were the weakness of advanc’d to the Government.

101

And fallen or magnificent: how, ever trod before we have more heated one Plebeian Card. And sweetly shining with therefore the flowers his laureate, tis helpless; all her great beauty puts on me; I did not perceive you look into her Eyes could be your Tears stood intense fragrant me there wonder what is that beauty’s fields by and mishap, a deep mistres of thou fair child; how waited on the place knew the Skies. Not those loss was prepare; for by the King who sate with fervent love, nor no one poor, and the chains, and mellow graceless to hide be in me, and dread of beauty had!

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #153 texts #sonnet sequence

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sadoeuphemist · 4 years

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“So this is a library,” said Shaw, wrinkling up his nose at the faintly musty smell of parchment. He peered up into the high arched ceilings, the flat of wrymsbane resting cold against his nape. “Not particularly defensible, what with all these massive windows and all.” He felt obligated to end on a complimentary note. “Lots of books, if you like that sort of thing.”

“Oh, yes, and it’s in these archives that I’ve discovered exactly what we’ve been looking for,” said Annalthea, bustling between the rows and rows of shelves. The librarian was a plump, unimposing woman who, as could be expected, looked utterly unsuited for the task of dragon slaying. “If you’ll just give me a minute - I’ve got them right here …”

“Take your time,” said Shaw. He casually twirled his blade, admiring the gleam of it. “We’ve got this whole ‘chosen one’ business down to a craft. Sure, you’re the one fated to kill the Writherdrake, but no one said you had to do it on your own, yeah? You say the word, I can put together a party of the finest dragon slayers you ever seen. You want ballistas? Faefire? You want a team of trained harriers to claw his wings to shreds?” Already his blood was pulsing with the possibilities. “I promise you this: I’ll have you driving a blade into the dragon’s heart even if I have to hold the bastard down myself.”

Annalthea poked her head out from between the shelves. “You ... you did read that part in my note about the Amulet of Destiny?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, boss told me about that. Amulet, that’s fine too. Always did admire that sort of sideways thinking, not letting fate box you in.” He stood in the open lobby, taking a few practice swings. “So if it’s a heist we’re planning, I know just the rogue for it, Sylvas Slyphfoot, fellow could steal the shadow off a cat. But if we’ve got magics involved, temple guards and that sort, we’re going to need to be recruiting a Gray Warder - there’s a few of them to be found in Breath’s End, but you generally need a line with the Underguards for that -”

He fell silent as Annalthea emerged from the shelves, hidden behind a massive stack of books that she set down with a thump on one of the tables, dusting her hands off triumphantly. “Uh,” said Shaw, looking the pile of books up and down much in the way a man might scan a corridor for traps. “What’s all those for, then?”

“Research!” Annalthea said, swiftly subdividing the stack into smaller piles, flipping books open and arranging them in front of her in quasi-military formation. Finally satisfied, she sat down, surveying her domain as if preparing to march into battle. She turned to Shaw. “Shall we begin?”

---

“Now, the Amulet of Destiny,” Annalthea said. “Of course, everyone’s heard of it, it’s appended to the end of all Skein prophesies - ‘and so the Amulet of their Destiny shall weigh heavy around their neck.’ The current High Knot of the Priesthood of Ludd is claiming it’s nothing but a metaphor, that every prophesy they make is immutable, but even a casual perusal of Ludd’s 64 Strings - much less the entire history of the Priesthood! - shows that’s clearly not true! The Amulet was considered for centuries to absolutely be a real artifact, with multiple Knots affirming the fact of its existence. Ludd himself writes in interweaving 9, verse 4 of the Strings that ‘the Amulet hangs on the Skein, and only by grasping this may a man change his fate.’” She looked up expectantly at Shaw.

Shaw furrowed his brow, made himself look as serious as possible. “Mm. Yeah. Like you said.”

“Now the thing is, mentions of the Amulet of Destiny actually predate the creation of Ludd’s Blood’s Skein - it’s part of a much older tradition that got absorbed by the Ludd Priesthood. I was cross-referencing different versions of the legend -” She held up a thick volume bound in dull red leather - “Geoffrey Rymer’s Assorted Tales and Legends of the Northern Isles - an invaluable resource - and the Amulet has been placed everywhere from Mount Hyperboreax to the Living Tombs of Ebon. So, using Parcefalus’ A Genealogy of the Second World - plus a bunch of other minor historians who aren’t part of the standard curriculum,” she added apologetically, as if she was depriving him of a particular involved leg of the hunt - “I’ve traced the earliest oral traditions of the legend to the Chalk Giants, who according to Rymer say - hold on -” she said, darting to the left and flipping furiously through another book, finding her place and putting on a scholarly affect- “’say in their dusty tones that the amulet is buried in the barren cleft of the earth, and is so responsible for the slow advancement of the continents upon one another, in that dreary part of the world we call the Wastes.’”

Shaw blinked. “Uh-huh,” he said, leaning over her shoulder and squinting at the incomprehensible squiggles she kept eagerly pointing out. “Okay, so, it’s in the Wastes, right, that’s the whole upshot of that?” He put his thumb to his chin. “Bit more complex than I thought, then, we’ll need a Waste-tracker for that -”

“But that’s not all!” Annalthea said. She slid to another section of the table. “So, Wastern literature is notoriously inaccessible, and what little we do know about their culture has been filtered through the self-serving biographies of would-be colonizers, like Castafez and Pinafetta. Notorious stories about rampant cannibalism, sacrifices to the Elder Wurms, the supposed ‘canals of blood’ made famous by Pinafetta’s infamous Report to the Imperial Committee - ”

“Hold on,” said Shaw. “Supposed? So you’re saying the canals of blood and all the rest, that’s not true?”

“They’re unreliable sources!” said Annalthea. “What I wanted to do was find firsthand sources for Wastern culture, because if the Amulet of Destiny is indeed buried there, surely they’d have some native accounts of it! Now, in the Chronologies commissioned by High-Mother Gortel, who was of course sympathetic to Wastern culture, having a son-in-law from those lands, it says - Hold on a minute,” said Annalthea, scrabbling for another book.

“Is this - Is this all relevant?” said Shaw, looking with a growing dismay at the massive expanse of words across the table. “We started with the Ludds, fair enough, but now I don’t know why we’re talking about that Gortel, and Parsifus or whatever his name is -”

“Parcefalus,” she said, looking at him concernedly. “You know, the Genealogies? Indirectly responsible for the whole dynasty of the Sun-Kings, it’s where they drew their authority from?”

“Whatever,” said Shaw, ignoring her tone. “And that old witch Gortel’s been dead for ages! Ruled over a completely different continent! What are we doing, hopping around the world, then?”

“Oh, but don’t you see!” said Annalthea, looking up at him brightly. “If we’re assuming the Amulet is in the Wastes, we need to find accurate accounts of the region to make our plan, and that involves a marshaling of historical data in order to figure out which sources can be trusted! There’s really no other way to do it other than going through the archives.”

“But we could just hire a Waste-tracker …” Shaw protested weakly.

Annalthea raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you read the Travelogues of Hyxeramminnieax? Across the Boiling World by P’tarri Fnordottir? Fnordottir in particular exposes the Waste-tracker system as little more than a fraud, perpetuated by generations of liminists who make their living as glorified tour guides showing off deserted portions of the Wastes!”

She stood before him, backed by her tremendous ramparts of books, and Shaw found himself utterly unarmed on this particular battlefield. “All right,” he sighed, and reluctantly sheathed wrymsbane, slumping down on one of the library’s many chairs, “Go on, then.”

“Right,” said Annalthea, already drawn as if magnetized to another tome. “Now, as I was saying, we see the Amulet of Destiny reappear in the Chronologies, obliquely, this time, in the form of a logical paradox supposedly etched into stone by the Oracle of the Wastes - no such etching is actually known to exist, of course. But the riddle, I think, is informative in how Wastern philosophy was viewed at the time. It goes, essentially: How can such an amulet ever change your destiny unless your destiny to begin with was to obtain the amulet!” She looked to Shaw, and not finding the reaction she had been expecting, turned back to the books. “Hold on, I suppose it loses something when not in the original Diretongue, let me find the translation by Aoi Iidii here - it’s by far the best attempt to really grapple with the lexicon, I think, by throwing some Quaennya into the mix -”

Shaw could feel the library’s shelves implacably closing in on him. The entire world could be bound between the covers of a book, apparently, and soon so would he. “Uh-huh,” he said.

“- but how could they have claimed such history with Wastern culture?” she was saying. “If we go back to Parmodines’ accounts, and all the others contemporaneous to him, there’s no trade, there’s no cultural exchange, there’s no nothing! The most there is, is this text supposedly dictated by the blind philosopher Jaenus to his disciple -”

Shaw looked on with glazed eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“- the direct words of the Oracle Morag herself! See, according to Torvid of Irridia’s writings, his master Jaenus would slaughter sheep and drag them out into the Wastes for her, and while she sucked the bones clean they would discuss philosophy, and he would memorize each word precisely as she said it! Of course, she also ate him eventually -”

“Absolutely fascinating,” Shaw said, stifling a yawn.

“- amulets made from his bones being sold, according to Torvid’s journals, which were called aloun, meaning protection, supposed to protect their bearers while journeying into the Wastes. Now, if we trace the original legends from the Chalk Giants about the Amulet of Destiny, we can see that Torvid’s mission to Qarilan coincided with the earliest recorded mentions of the legend -”

“Uh-huh.”

“- Torvid, being the tutor of the Princess Catalana, is widely accepted to have influenced her religious awakening and the subsequent founding of the Flower of the Eternal Now, a short-lived cult during the Majal Period. Rumor has it that he even had an affair with her, although this of course cannot be proven -”

“Mrhmm.”

“- and here, in Book Four of The Bliss-Touched Nectar, she says, ‘Cede not the desires of your heart, for it is the shell’ - and that’s how Poryphys translates it, shell, but in the original text it’s aloun! Torvid’s aloun, and Jaenus’ aloun!” Her voice rose in excitement, and Shaw was roused blearily from his stupor. “See, she says, ‘Cede not the desires of your heart, for it is the shell, aloun, that shall be consumed in the blooming of the seed, to form the plant that grows without restriction!’“ She was beaming at him. “Don’t you see? That’s it! That’s the Amulet of Destiny! It’s the answer to the riddle! How can you come to possess the seed of your fate, unless it was your fate to possess it to begin with?”

Shaw stumbled to his feet, groping vaguely for his sword. He was certain he had missed something terribly vital. “Uh, so?” he said. “What’s the answer to the riddle, then?”

“It’s in the desires of our heart,” said Annalthea, earnestly pressing both hands to her chest. “The Amulet of Destiny, it was a metaphor for free will all this time, corrupted by centuries of oral folklore into an actual mythical artifact! It was in us this whole time!“

Shaw blinked at her, his hands falling to his sides. “Uh...”

“That’s how we change our destiny!” Annalthea said. “Of course, it’s such an obvious philosophical and narrative tradition dating back to the Irridians! The artifact, and then the quest, only to discover in the end that you were the bearer of the sacred truth all along - That’s the true value of an archive like this one,” she said with satisfaction, “being able to see how people before us went through their lives, pick out the patterns, so that we can learn from what’s come before! To think, we might have spent weeks on some fruitless quest, exposed to the elements, harassed by all sorts of ne’er-do-wells, only to learn what was available to us this whole time! Entire continents and centuries are accessible to us, just by opening a book!”

“Uh, of course, of course,” said Shaw, befuddled. “So, I - Well we’re not going after the Amulet now, definitely -” She beamed at him, tapping a hand over her heart. “So …” He struggled to get back on familiar ground. “We’re back to the slaying the dragon plan, then?”

“Oh!” she said. “Heavens, no!”

“Then, uh, what?”

“Well, I don’t need to do anything now, do I?” Annalthea said, and began briskly stacking the books back in piles for reshelving. “That whole prophesy nonsense - I’ve already changed my destiny by refusing it.” She bustled past him, her arms full of books. “I’m sure you’ll be much better off without me getting in your way, anyhow.”

“But -” said Shaw. “But, no, you can’t -” His hand went instinctively to the hilt of wyrmsbane, and he found himself wishing that there was something productive to stab with it. “But what about the Grey Skies! The Writherdrake! The only one who can pierce his heart!”

“Oh, goodness,” said Annalthea, and put a hand on her cheek, looking at him sympathetically. “I’m just a librarian, dear. I tend to the books. What would I ever have to do with a dragon?”

---

Annalthea stood over the smoldering remains of the library, her clothes and skin stained with soot, ash gritty beneath her feet, raised blisters on her hands. She was looking into the depths of a building that no longer existed: every rafter, every shelf, every floorboard, every scroll, every page, incinerated and reduced to ash.

Her fingers were hooked into rigid claws, lined with weeping blisters. A low moan came from her throat.

Shaw came running up, There was a wound across his scalp, his hair dangling gristly with blood, scorch marks streaked across his armor. Blackened burned flesh bubbled across his left arm. “Oh good, you’re alive,” he muttered. “Dragon’s gone. Razed us clear to the ground and veered off to the west. More safeholds to pillage, I suppose.” He peeled his hair out of his face, taking in a breath, and found a bit of rubble to sit on. He grimaced at his left arm. “It’ll heal. Didn’t even give me the chance to stab him a good one, the bastard. I mean, town’s burning, but any fight you can walk away from, right?” He looked over to Annalthea, let his gaze drift over the former site of the library. “Ah.”

A tremor began in Annalthea’s shoulders, shook her rib cage, made her hands tremble so badly that she clenched them into fists. “Look,” Shaw said awkwardly, half-standing to raise a hand over her shoulder, and then deciding better of it and sitting back down. “You can’t blame yourself for this, all right? You weren’t trained for this at all, and these prophesies - well, I don’t hold much stock in them myself! Chosen ones, huh!” he said, and snorted. “Why’s it never a professional who gets chosen, I ask you? You, and your books - Why, no one could have expected it of you, it’s a completely unfair ask -”

“I’m going to kill that dragon,” Annalthea said.

“Uh?” said Shaw.

“I’m going kill. That fucking. Dragon,” Annalthea said, each word forced viciously out of her throat. “Every book. Every last one of them. Burnt. Burnt to the ground.”

“Oh,” said Shaw, and then leapt to his feet. “Oh!”

“Lost,” said Annalthea. “All of it. The irreplaceable archive of generations. Burnt to the ground by a fucking overgrown lizard.” She looked at Shaw, her eyes blazing through her blackened face. “I’m going to slit his fucking throat.”

“Yeah,” said Shaw, nodding along. He drew wyrmsbane again, slightly tarnished but still deadly. “Yeah!”

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to claw out his eyes. No - I’m going to carve out his heart and make him watch as I eat it while he’s still alive, make him watch each bite with his last gasping breaths as I taste the brimstone on my tongue. And then I’m going to kill him,” she said, “and then I’m going to rend. His. Soul.”

“Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah!” said Shaw, excitedly kicking up ash. “I can still get a party together, won’t take two ticks - I know this warlock, you should see what her eldritch blasts can do to dragonscale -”

Annalthea swung her head to him. “You said he went west?”

“Uh-huh,” Shaw said, “but if you just hold on -”

She was already heading westward, trailing a cloud of ash in her wake, moving quickly but implacably, as if she would never tire. Shaw watched her in wonder, his spirits much buoyed, and was about to run to catch up with her when he let his gaze drift once more to the ashen field, the burnt remains of the library. He felt, vaguely, like he ought to say something in memorial of his encounter with this odd and fateful institution, some testament to the fallen before embarking on their valiant quest.

He bowed his head, put one hand over his chest. “Too bad I never learned to read!” he said, and set off.

#fiction #repost

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galadrieljones · 3 years

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Some Biblical Symbolism in TWD 10c (Team Delusional)

Okay so I am VERY behind on the times, due to a ton of family engagements lately; however, now I’m trying to catch up and in doing so, I’m just going to make posts looking at all my recent, random notes from 10c and beyond.

This post starts by looking at the symbolism in the Bible verse that’s referenced in 10.19 “One More.” This one verse in particular lead me down a lot of other Biblical rabbit holes, and I’ll try to talk about how they pertain to existing Team Delusional arguments, plus some other stuff!!

David and King Saul

The Bible verse I took down in my notes for the episode is 1 Samuel 16, specifically 16:21. This chapter is about God sending Samuel to anoint a new King of Israel after Saul basically pisses him off. Samuel chooses David, a young shepherd and son of Jesse, who is also a wonderful musician. He plays the lyre.

I remember reading about David when I was looking into Daryl/Biblical imagery. Initially I took Daryl’s fight w Beta in season 10 up in that tower to be a David vs. Goliath fight, but after reading more deeply into it, I scrapped the comparison. I read more into David and was actually more taken with him as relatable to Beth. More on that and how this impacts TD in a minute.

In 1 Samuel, King Saul of the Israelites is being tormented by demons (sent by god ofc) and sends his servant to bring him a musician to soothe his brain. The servant suggests David who comes to play the lyre for him and befriends his son. Anyway, consumed with fear that David is going to oust him, Saul tries to kill David, so David goes on the run, as a fugitive, basically until Saul and his son are killed, and then David returns and takes his place as King of the Israelites.

Anytime Gabriel is in the scene, there’s Biblical shit. So I was on top of "One More.” I didn’t really know what to make of the story with Saul and David and why it’s featured in this episode, so I talked to my husband who doesn’t watch the show (which is good because he’s coming at my questions unbiased) but he knows the Old Testament super well. I asked him whether Saul was supposed to be a “villain,” or merely a tortured king. My husband said Saul is not a villain, but a king who is meant to symbolize the unique plight of kings and leaders often characterized as the Sword of Damocles, ie: the sword always hanging over their head, and how the constant threat of death and/or usurpation can push them to great fear, madness, paranoia, and hasty decisions.

As the de facto leader of Alexandria, Gabriel is now in the same exact unique bind for which he sold out Rick to Deanna in season 5. He is potentially becoming a Saul figure, with the pressures of leadership causing him to turn away from his faith. This is a MAJOR shift in character dynamics for the show, as well as a big reference to Season 5 (an important season for TD, obviously). Season 5 Rick is also a very good Saul, as we see him falling to madness, hubris, and fear, and on the clear path to losing his people and his throne. I think we’re witnessing Gabriel now in a similar scenario in which his actions have finally begun to bear the weight of his responsibilities as a leader. He kills Mays because Mays is a killer and unhinged. It’s why Rick wants to and eventually does kill Pete in season 5. Gabriel killing Mays startles Aaron, and it isn’t pretty, but to him, it’s the right thing to do, even as it belies his cloth and belies his faith to do so.

With his eyes, one light/one dark, as well as his priesthood, Gabriel is a perfect canvas for this sort of Saul struggle, especially now, as Michonne is gone, and Siddiq is dead, and he is not only the leader of Alexandria but now a father to a child, and this only further complicates his motivations. I also think this whole thing, ie: Gabriel as Saul might be another purposeful recycling of seasons 5, which 10c has been doing a lot. As has already been pointed out by @twdmusicboxmystery, “One More” also rehashes a lot of themes and scenarios from “Still.” The entirety of 10c is consumed with cycles.

Saul and David through the Team Delusional Lens

ON THAT NOTE: Beth is an interesting David figure, since David’s main role before he becomes king is as a musician. You probably remember mention of David in the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah,” which references both David’s music as well as his later affair with Bathsheba. David’s music soothes the king, and we could say the same thing about Beth in seasons 3 and 4. Further, Dawn in season 5 is another Saul figure who has lost control of her kingdom due to weakness, fear, and selfishness. Beth, like David, is taken into her service (where she DOES sing, and where she calmly professes, “I still sing”), befriends another of Dawn’s young orderlies (such as David befriending Saul’s son), and then when she becomes a threat, Dawn *attempts* to kill her. Ofc in the Bible David just goes on the lam until Saul is killed by the Philistines, and then David becomes king of the Israelites. In TWD, Beth “dies.”

So by this allusion, if applied in template fashion, after Dawn (Saul) is killed, Beth (David) would return to Grady and become its new leader, something I think TD has discussed before.

Other Biblical Allusions and Curiosities:

Jesse and Samuel: Characters from 5b-6a. Samuel of the Bible is a child prophet, and Samuel of TWD is a “sensitive” child who, in the opening of 6.8, is surrounded by a lot of prophetic imagery, including a drawing of a blond person tied to a tree while surrounded by walkers, a toy firetruck, as well as the ants, breaching the window and swarming a cookie, which predicts or mirrors the walkers breaching the wall. This scene is full of TD imagery, which I’m sure other theorists have already rehashed, ie: the tree trunk, the number 8, even a cyclops (one-eyed) action figure on the dresser. Jesse is Samuel’s mother in 5b, and until I read more into Samuel, I didn’t realize that Jesse was a Bible character as well, and that he was David’s father, while Samuel is the prophet who anoints David as king. These are mostly minor characters, but as is a lot of stuff in season 5, they pack a lot of symbolic punch.This is also just me pointing to the fact that TWD has used more direct symbolism involving Samuel and David before, as well as indirect symbolism, and just general allusion. Samuel is also connected to key imagery that appears again and again.

^ (This is not the first blond we’ve seen tied to a tree in TWD.)

Gabriel the Archangel: Gabriel the archangel is a very interesting character in the Bible, as he is seen as not only a fierce defender of the Israelites, but per Christian tradition, he is also the angel who visits the Virgin Mary and foretells the birth of Jesus Christ. I know that TD has discussed Father Gabriel as a Beth “proxy” or as symbolically juxtaposed with Beth, often referencing him as a Sirius symbol, post-partial-blindness, echoing the one-eyed dog from “Still.” The Biblical imagery is consistent with this argument, especially when combined with argument that Beth is a Christ figure to be resurrected, ie: Gabriel is here to “herald” Beth’s return. Ofc, this could be applied to Rick as a Christ figure as well (who sacrifices himself to save his people); however, we know that Rick is not dead, which is inconsistent with the crucifixion, ie: Jesus literally “died” (or was perceived to have died) and came back to life. Further, in Christian tradition as well as in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Gabriel is credited as the angel blowing the trumpet that signals the return of Christ to the living (Gabriel’s horn). What I’m saying is, Gabriel is a herald. He heralds both the birth of and the return of Christ to the land of the living. It again does not feel like coincidence that Gabriel is introduced during season 4, at the very beginning of Beth’s arc.

Dark vs. Light: Does anyone else find it extremely fishy that Gabriel, Beth, and Daryl are all shown with prominent costume/features that juxtapose dark/light? What I mean is: Gabriel’s eyes, Daryl’s ankle coverings, and Beth’s shoelaces at Grady--all feature one dark, one light. Tbh I am not sure how this is even a Biblical thing (other than the overt good vs. evil connotations), but it just strikes me as further credence for how these characters must be connected. Gabriel as a reference to the one-eyed dog is more evidence tying them all together, further, the light/left dark/right arrangement is the same on Beth and Gabriel, whereas it is reversed on Daryl. I have always found the choice for Beth’s shoelaces to be strange, obviously correlated to Daryl’s ankle coverings, but I’m not sure why. I do know that this kind of visual imagery is not happening by mistake, though I don’t have a good hypothesis for what this means beyond the connection itself. Or, not yet at least. Give me time lol.

Anyway, I think this is all I have for now! If anyone has any thoughts or additions, please let me know. ^_^

#the walking dead #episode 10.19 #one more #bethyl #team delusional #beth greene #beth greene lives on

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ayellowcurtain · 4 years

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Could you write something of Isak dedicating himself to the priesthood for his homosexual feelings and of repentance, but he meets Even who works there gathering clothes and food for the needy and everything goes to hell?

Isak wasn’t really doing this for himself, or he was just needing some peace of mind. As long as his mom was happy and out of his ear with complaints, Isak thought he would feel a lot better already. He couldn’t take another month of his life with his mom constantly talking about religion, about Isak needing to move to a different school. So he said fuck it and accepted her offer. In a few years, he would turn 18 and he would then let himself do whatever he wants, even if that could disappoint his parents. At least he would have these few years to say that he did what they wanted and now was his time to do what he wanted.

He would have to live a life of lies for a few more years before he could let himself do whatever he wanted. It was a final count down and a final attempt to please his parent in exchange for an adulthood of freedom.

The place looks nice, a lot better than what Isak is used to. Even his tiny bedroom feels like a dream. No more hearing his parents fighting, no more mess (because he did try to pack only the necessary, knowing how bad at organizing and cleaning after himself he is). It sucks that he has to share a bathroom, but it’s only another yet small price to pay for some peace.

Isak is terrible at having a routine because that’s not at all what he’s used to. Most of the time when he was at home he had no compromise with time, he would do things as he wanted and when he wanted.

So it takes a few weeks to adjust to waking up ridiculously early, having time to go eat and sleep and study, etc. But it’s good, especially the studying part. It turns out, Isak does enjoy studying when he has silence on his side. He can sit on his chair in front of his old, rusty table and open all his books at once and get his homework done. And maybe he’s smarter than what he thought he was.

With most of his homework done weeks before the deadline and all his hours of study already accomplished with two days of advantage, Isak lets himself wander around for the first time.

It’s a cloudy day, but not rainy. Still, most of the other students are somewhere else that’s not the common areas. Isak walks around, stops to look at the old pictures of past classes. There are also plaques everywhere with the history of the castle he knows lives and studies in.

The eating area is mostly empty, with small groups spread apart, talking, or snacking. The place is huge when empty and you can hear everything echoing.

It happens like a movie scene.

Isak is still taking it all in, the magnitude of this room when empty when he notices him.

A boy, looked a little older than him, and any student from where Isak was standing. Blonde hair, perfect posture, one of those smiles that make girls melt or something, like prince charming. His white shirt a little too perfectly fit against his lean and long figure, Isak is not sure how appropriate he’s dressing for the place he is. And he’s caring a huge basket filled with what it looks to be dirty clothes. The guy stops at the huge window that divides the kitchen and the eating lounge area. Everyone inside the kitchen seems to know him, giving excited greetings and the older lady - that every day serves Isak a little extra food - comes to the window, giving the guy a big bag also filled with what Isak assumes to be more dirty clothes.

He has to act if he wants any chance of talking to the guy and so he walks - tries not to run - and stops in the middle of the stranger’s path.

He’s noticed right away and Isak would like to dream there’s a spark that happens inside the eyes he can’t really define what colors they are. A green-ish blue, grey mixture. He’s soft but so intense.

Isak didn’t think things through, he just needed to see him up close. He’s definitely a human being, not an angel.

“What are you doing here?” He asks with his full of depth and interest voice and Isak is not so sure what he’s asking about. It feels like what are you doing here? I’ve been searching for you my whole existence and that makes Isak feel something he never felt before.

“Hm, shit, sorry.” He feels his neck and chest burning up because he just cursed and he’s sure anyone inside the kitchen heard him. But the boy doesn’t seem outraged, he raises his eyebrows and laughs softly and that sound makes Isak blush on his face too, “I don’t know where...I have some clothes to wash too.”

The boy smiles now, showing his every teeth and Isak is sure he’s staring, almost drooling. The stranger nods his head, gently biting his full bottom lip for half a second.

“Of course. You need help to get them or you think you can get them and bring them to me?” He asks so gently that Isak is not sure if he’s joking or not, but he can’t risk, so he just answers the question.

“My bedroom is so far away…”

“I can help you then, no problem.” The guy is so willing and nice, Isak never met someone like that. He realizes they never told each other their names and Isak feels ever dumber if that’s even possible.

“Sorry...you are...?” He frowns a little and tries not to look around them, some of the staff from the kitchen probably watching them and finding their interaction so weird. And there’s something about the boy in front of him that makes Isak want to look inside his eyes forever and not feel embarrassed to do so.

He puts the basket of dirty clothes under one arm and offers his now free hand to Isak.

“Even. The “do-it-all” around here.” Isak swallows hard, carefully shaking his hand.

“Isak.” That’s all he can say and Even nods his head again, seeming happy that they now have names.

“Nice to meet you, Isak.”

Isak is not a morning person. It feels like he didn’t sleep for a minute. He keeps his eyes closed, trying to understand what happened or if he was dreaming again about Even. His muscles feel raw and everything he feels it’s connected to a memory flashing through his eyes. Shit…

He moves to lie on his back and the left side of his hips hit something. Or someone. Sitting on his bed. Isak opens his eyes, praying he’ll meet kindness and understanding, not regret or anger.

Even is still there, sitting on his bed, shirtless. His hair is still all messy and Isak is almost completely sure it’s partially his fault. Even moves slowly, putting one arm over Isak’s middle, his hand sitting against the mattress on the other side of Isak.

He’s very aware of what they did and how fucked up it is to do it here, where he’s supposed to be studying to pretend to his parents he’ll become a priest someday. Even is not angry, at least Isak finds the same kindness and interest that made him go for it last night, kissing Even in the mouth as his life depended on it. But there’s some hint of remorse or disappointment.

“Isak…”

“You don’t have to tell me that it’s bad. I’m aware. I really don’t want a lecture from you.” Isak should focus on this conversation, but his eyes wander down as new memory come back to him. Even has abs just like Isak remembers. He tasted them…

On his knees.

Fucking shit.

Even moves carefully again, leaning closer, nuzzling against Isak’s neck, asking for some space and Isak gives it to him, putting his arms around Even’s neck, holding him tight. Even’s body is still so warm and inviting, Isak doesn’t want to let him go, to discover what Even wants to do now that they finally had sex.

After months of the weird friendship, after countless times of sneaking Even inside his room just to talk for hours. Of having to push Even under his bed so the nun wouldn’t see that he was inside a student’s bedroom late at night.

“I’m in love with you. You can’t stay here.”

Isak said these words so many times inside his head to his imaginary Even that when he hears the words coming out from the real one it doesn’t even surprise him that much. But Isak feels this sudden need to cry. Not of sadness, but of relief, in a weird way.

That’s all he wanted since the day he met Even. For them to fall in love, for Even’s words to really mean what he thought they did.

What are you doing here? I’ve been searching for you my whole existence.

#skam #evak #evak fic #isak valtersen #even bech næsheim #skam og

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cassianus · 3 years

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Good Jesu: what will you do with my heart?’

I have always loved the writings of the Carthusians and have found them to be be both beautiful and challenging. But recently I came across a homily given on the occasion of a jubilee celebration of a priest's ordination. The homily focuses on the love and commitment of Carthusians martyred under the reign of Henry VIII, in particular St. John Houghton. It speaks not only of the beauty of the priesthood and the sacraments but also what God can accomplish in hearts open to His love and grace. It speaks of the grace that is both needed and offered when we are faced with the difficult challenges and choices of life, no matter what our particular vocation may be. The following is a rather lengthy excerpt from the homily (one that I found deeply encouraging) and I hope you enjoy it:

“The story of the Carthusian martyrs is not as well known as it should be. No doubt this is because, in the great tale of the early English Reformation, the figures of Sts John Fisher and Thomas More tower over all others, for many and obvious good reasons. And yet nobody becomes a martyr without some extraordinary qualities—tenacity, faith, holiness—that make it possible to face all the consequences of simply doing the right thing when it is required. And yet how difficult that simple thing can be, even in small matters.

The monks of the London Charterhouse (who provided most of today’s saints) were renowned for their holiness of life in the early sixteenth century. It had become fashionable to grumble about monks at that time, but nobody grumbled about them. Thomas More, who could be rather scathing about monks who were no holier than they should be, actually lived with the London Carthusians for several years, and contemplated joining them. Carthusian monks, following a somewhat different and stricter form of the Benedictine life, have as their proud boast that they have never needed reform. Theirs is, and always has been, a very silent and recollected life: The London community in the sixteenth century was led by Prior John Houghton, a relatively young man, already with a reputation for sanctity. You will understand, then, why Henry VIII was particularly keen to get him and his community on side. Being widely respected, they would lend authority to the King’s claims to the headship of the Church in England.

When presented with the King’s demands that the London Carthusians recognize his claim to the headship of the Church in England, the community took three days to pray about it, on the last of which they celebrated a Mass of the Holy Spirit. During Mass, at the elevation, the whole community actually had an experience together that they unanimously identified as the Holy Spirit breathing in the chapel, and which gave them courage for what was to come—courage they would sorely need.

John Houghton, together with two other priors from the North, went to speak to Thomas Cromwell, the King’s strong arm man in religious matters. We can be sure that with his lawyer’s training, St John tried everything to make it possible to take the oath of allegiance to the King, without, however, compromising principle. Nothing availed, however, and all three were arrested, the charge being that —and I quote — ‘John Houghton says that he cannot take the King, our Sovereign Lord to be Supreme Head of the Church of England afore the apostles of Christ’s Church’, which rather makes it sound as if the apostles had also usurped what was the King’s rightful position.

In any event, he was condemned, of course—Cromwell had had to threaten the jury with treason charges themselves in order to achieve it, and the three priors together with a Bridgettine priest and a secular priest were all dragged to execution together. St Thomas More, by now in the Tower of London, watched them from the window of his cell setting off, and commented to his daughter who was visiting that they looked just like bridegrooms going to their wedding, a comparison that St John Fisher was also to use on the morning of his own death.

King Henry was insistent that the priests should be executed in their religious habits, to teach other religious a lesson, one presumes. This meant that after St John was cut down from the gallows, still alive, to be butchered, the thick hairshirt he wore under his heavy habit had to be cut through by the executioner, who had to stab down hard with the knife. And then, finally, as the executioner drew out St John’s still beating heart before his face, he spoke his last words: ‘Good Jesu’ he said, ‘what will you do with my heart?’

‘Good Jesu, what will you do with my heart?’ These are words that can speak to us at any stage, indeed in any moment in life, because we are daily confronted with choices between good and evil, or even simply between good and better. These words place the element of choice firmly in the Lord’s loving providence, praying for his grace to help us make the right decision.

When it comes to lifetime choices, however, St John Houghton’s words become more eloquent. There are any number of ways one can give ones life for the Lord—martyrdom is only one, albeit just about the best. One can also give ones living life for Him, by living in the married state, by working in any number of vocations in the world, and, of course, by spending ones life in consecrated religious life and/or the Priesthood. I think that the key element that identifies when a job becomes a vocation is when there is an element of self-giving to it—or in other words, when there is at least an element of martyrdom.

I have always been very struck by the story of Blessed Noel Pinot, a martyr of the French Revolution, who, having been arrested when about to celebrate Mass, ascended the scaffold to the guillotine dressed in the same Mass vestments, reciting to himself the same words we said today ‘Introibo ad altare Dei’. The mother of St John Bosco said to him on his ordination day; ‘remember, son, that beginning to say Mass means beginning to suffer’. These words come home to me and strike at my conscience, but I increasingly think that I can never really be worthy of my priesthood until I pour myself more entirely into it. There is nothing worth having that does not carry its price label, and the price label for following the Lord is imitating him in all things or, as He said Himself, taking up our cross daily. The question is not what do I want (the answer to that is straightforward: I’ll have an easy life, please, involving some nice dinners in agreeable company) but what does He want. In fact, ‘Good Jesu, what will you do with my heart?’ Because whereas my little wants are rather petty and contemptible, his are wonderful beyond comprehension. And very often beyond my comprehension, anyway.

Thanks be to God that the priesthood of God’s Church does not belong to me but to Christ, that I do not exercise it, but he exercises it through me. Thanks be to God that the sacraments we offer do not depend on our worthiness but on His.

What a wonder it is that the Lord loves us at all! And yet he does, and is happy with the feeble struggle and great labour we make of bearing his sweet and gentle yoke, he rejoices as a parent does when guiding the first steps of a child or when speaking his first words. Caused by grace, these shallow twitches in our lives towards doing the Lord’s will and setting aside our own desires are no matters of mere jubilees and quarter centuries, they are the stuff of eternity leaking into time. These things are signs of the Kingdom of God, where, in eternity, eye has not seen nor ear heard what good things God prepares for those who love him. Which is why we pray with St John Houghton: ‘Good Jesu: what will you do with my heart?’”

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notapaladin · 3 years

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and thank the lord i don’t have my way (1/3)

HELLO FRIENDS IT IS THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF ME POSTING THE FIRST OBSBLOOD FIC EVER. So you get not one, not two, but three fics today! Blame @arahir

Acatl has let the boundaries stay open for far too long. Tonight, he closes them. Tizoc attempts to object.

Also on AO3.

The Revered Speaker’s chambers are very dark and very cold. Never mind that it’s the rainy season and that the air at sunset was filled with steam rising off the puddles of the day’s deluge; the sun set long ago, and Metztli the moon illuminates nothing away from the path of the windows. The walls are splashed with murals of war and conquest that must surely be blood-bright in the light of day; they are muted and faded now, shadows on shadows.

They aren’t as faded as the man on the Revered Speaker’s sleeping mats. True, Tizoc-tzin, emperor of Tenochtitlan, is approaching his middle age, but his hair is still black and his limbs are still straight. When he smiles—cold and cruel as that smile is—he has all his teeth. He dresses in the finest quetzal feathers, turquoise, jade; even here, alone on his mat covered with jaguar skins, his loincloth is finely embroidered cotton. An emerald rod pierces his nasal septum. He is covered in the riches of his Empire. He should be magnificent, a true symbol of the power of the Mexica.

He should have died six years ago.

Acatl knows this. His bare feet are silent on the tiled stone floor, and his god is silent in his head. Mictlantecuhtli evidently has not deigned to share whatever opinion He has on this with His most faithful servant. Good. Acatl’s long since made up his mind regardless.

Tearing open the boundaries had taken all three High Priests. Closing them, but leaving them that tiny bit ajar, had taken two High Priests, the Guardian of the Duality, and the Revered Speaker of Texcoco. But to slam them shut...well. Acatl is High Priest for the Dead, High Priest of the Lord of the Place of Death, and he can do that with his bare hands.

He stops at the foot of the dais upon which Tizoc’s mat rests. For a long moment, he simply looks at the snoring, twitching man currently rumpling the blankets. He inhales. He holds for a count of three.

He could do it with his bare hands. It would be easy. He’s no trained warrior but he’s strong enough for this, strong enough to put his hands around Tizoc’s neck and squeeze until he turns purple, until his eyes bulge, until he rolls back limp. It’s what Tizoc would have done to him. (What he would have done, and what he probably—gods, he probably would have made Teomitl watch.) Or there’s his knives, lethally sharp, whose wounds always fester and never heal. It would take only the smallest scratch to have Tizoc rotting from his blackened heart outwards, to have him die slow and incoherent as pus oozes forth from every pore, whimpering like an animal, like the clergy of Tlaloc in their pens—

He exhales.

No. He will do this properly. At least this, too, is easy; he dares not chant out loud, but his lips move in the words of a prayer as his magic builds low in his gut. It won’t take much. Tizoc’s life hangs by a thread as it is, and he holds it tightly in his hand.

Tizoc stirs. Snorts. Rolls over.

He nicks his forearm, dabbing a single fingerprint of blood on the dais. And he keeps praying. The edges of the boundaries yawn wide as a mouth, ready to swallow Tizoc whole. The completion of this slow weaving will close them. My Lord, he thinks, I deliver this soul unto Your keeping.

Tizoc wakes, sees him—and screams.

Acatl smiles. He knows what Tizoc must be seeing. A man-shaped figure, his eyes voids, his bones shining like moonlight through the black glass of his skin. It’s a terrifying visage; even Teomitl, who is used to it (Teomitl, who is in awe of it, and that still knocks him flat when he thinks about it too long) flinches when he spots it out of the corner of his eye. Tizoc has always been craven, and now he looks so horrified that for a moment Acatl thinks he might not even get to finish the spell.

As the magic begins to pool together—a feeling like muscles tensing to spring, a beast of shadows preparing to leap—Tizoc finds the breath to yell, “Guards! Guards!”

He takes a breath and lets it out. His skin is an ordinary brown again, bones no longer visible through shadowed muscles, but Mictlan still leaves him feeling like a hollow shell. His voice is the voice of a corpse. “They won’t come.”

Now he supposes he has to give Tizoc credit, because the man tries to lunge for his eyes. Tries and predictably fails; already the spell Acatl’s cast is leaching through his veins, and his limbs will not obey him. Sadly, the same can’t be said for his shrill voice. “What have you done to them?! Traitor!”

He remembers sunlight on the water, and a smile that was even brighter than that. Remembers a murmur of, “Thank you, Acatl.” He lifts his chin, letting pride leak into his voice. “They are following orders tonight.”

Tizoc’s eyes move like rats in a trap, but he’s not a complete idiot. There’s only one man the army would fall into line behind so easily. When he speaks next, he sounds almost resigned. “...My brother,” he spits. “So you have corrupted him.”

Acatl grits his teeth, but there’s no need for him to lose his temper here. “Teomitl is a far better man than you could ever dream of being. You ought to thank me for your years of life; he would have put you down like the dog you are ages ago.” And I should have let him.

“I will have you flayed. I will loop the flower garland around your neck myself, I’ll make those traitorous siblings of yours watch, and then I’ll put them to the sword—”

There’s more, but Acatl isn’t paying attention. He’d once thought that no mortal justice could compete with the need to keep the Fifth World intact; he still thinks that, but by now he’s learned that sometimes pursuing justice and doing his duty are one and the same. It’s taken him long enough. Oh, he’d wavered at first—that first time Teomitl had shared his plans for the future, not even him following it up with a declaration that he was going to wait was enough to stop his heart from sinking. But then Tizoc had come back—no, had slunk back into the city, like a coyote with its ears flat and its belly pressed to the ground—and he’d been nearly stunned with the wrongness of it. That Tizoc could lead an army to its death and then let an entire priesthood to be slaughtered like beasts—it’s not an affront that can be borne. His incompetence will tear the Empire apart if the Tlaxcallans and Tarascans don’t get to them first; each campaign leaves Teomitl a little more tired, a little more snappish and run-down. Soon he won’t be able to carry the army on his back anymore.

The man he loves has new scars. He blames Tizoc for that, but first and worse he blames himself. It was his hand that put Tizoc on the throne, and it will be his hand that removes him from it. There’s only as much justice as he can make, after all.

Mictlan gnaws at his guts again, and he lets it scour him clean. In and out and in again, he breathes. The spell pulses like a living heart. Tizoc must feel it, because he bleats, “What do you think you’re doing?!”

He whispers the rest of his prayer, ignoring Tizoc for the moment. This spell is rarely used, not because of the cost—a few paltry drops of blood—but because of its very specific conditions. It only works on dead souls, not dead bodies, avoiding the attention of the Wind of Knives. It would not do to cheat a comrade of His captive. Rare is the soul that can die without harming the body; how helpful it is, then, that Quenami crafted Tizoc a new one. He must remember to thank him. “Sending your soul to Mictlan where it belongs. None will see any hand in your death but the gods’ wills.”

Tizoc’s breath rattles in his lungs. “Blasphemy. I can’t imagine your precious sister—”

“My sister? The Guardian of the Duality? That sister?” Acatl feels himself smiling. “I am restoring the order of the world. She would hold my cloak for me.” After all, she hates Tizoc too. Not as much as he does—she’s a good woman, she doesn’t nurture her grudges the way her menfolk do—but quite enough to look the other way should his soul be severed from his body by what looks to all the world like a common attack of the heart. Such a tragedy, she’ll say, and meet his eyes, and smile. He kneels to wipe away his bloody fingerprint, the only sign of his presence here tonight.

Tizoc is still trying to defend himself. The fool. “You—you can’t,” he splutters. “What about...” Eyes roll wildly as he casts about for an excuse, and finally alights on one he thinks must work. “Your patron! Surely, surely Lord Death can’t approve—”

“My lord,” Acatl says, with a gentleness he doesn’t feel. “I brought you back into this world after your death, breaking all natural laws in the vain hopes that you could do the one single task you were crowned to do. Lord Death will rejoice that I have now taken you out of it.”

“You’ll never get away with this!” he snaps. “Quenami...Quenami will...”

Ah, yes. Quenami. Acatl snorts. “You imagine he will still be alive to avenge you?”

Tizoc goes, if possible, paler. “You wouldn’t.”

He remembers, with a slow uncoiling of rage, the blade at his throat. The way Quenami had smiled. He’d wanted to carve it off his face. “I might,” he growls, but even as he says it he knows he’ll be lucky if Teomitl doesn’t get there first. “You should be happy. You’ll have company on your journey.”

He’s breathing harder now. Hyperventilating. It’s panic, not magic; he can’t even face death like a warrior. “No—no, you can’t—”

Acatl’s spine stiffens. “Only the gods and Teomitl tell me what I can and cannot do.”

“...Heh,” Tizoc spits. “Is he fucking you?”

He considers this. They’ve been discreet—possibly not discreet enough if Tizoc is asking that question, but then the man has always been paranoid of any influence on his brother, even before he was his Master of the House of Darts. He can certainly imagine Tizoc suspicious of what else Teomitl might have been learning from him, and if he’d only known then what he knew now...well. He is a man, and not a statue. Tizoc might have been right about something for once. But he isn’t, and for a moment Acatl weighs whether he deserves the truth. It’s not something he’s ever had to say out loud; Mihmatini is the only one who knows, and she doesn’t want to hear details. Finally, a bit of uncommon smugness curls his lip. “Actually,” he says coolly, “most of the time I’m fucking him.”

Disappointingly, this does not cause Tizoc to expire immediately. Teomitl will be quite displeased to have lost that bet. “You—you vile—you foul—”

Then he starts coughing, wet and disgusting, and blood gathers at his lips. Acatl lets Mictlan’s power fall away from him like an old cloak. “Rant all you like, my lord. Your time is ending. Teomitl will erase all you’ve done as though it’s never been, and the foundations of our Empire—of our world—will grow stronger for your absence.”

“I’ll kill you,” Tizoc hisses. “I’ll haunt you from beyond death, like those ghosts you’ve been slaying throughout my reign. You’ll never sleep soundly again.”

Interesting. He hadn’t thought Tizoc had been paying attention. He hums noncommittally, shaking his head. There will be no more such hauntings now that the boundaries are properly closed.

Tizoc is panting harshly now, beyond speech. Good. The guards are still nowhere to be seen, which is a further relief; as loyal as they are to Teomitl, he still doesn’t want to put them in a position to lie about whatever they might see.

Not that there is anything to see. Over the next few hours, Tizoc’s soul will unravel from its moorings so slowly, so carefully, that no magic his fellow High Priests could muster will be able to tell it’s anything other than a natural death. (He knows Acamapichtli won’t even look. He still mourns his clergy, and now they’ve been avenged.)

Acatl turns away. He’s done here. By the time the sun rises, Tizoc will be dead.

He has things to do before then.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #tizoc #teocatl #teomitl #paladin writes stuff

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nerdygaymormon · 4 years

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Ok! So here's something interesting. I was doing a special pioneer day scripture study with my family, and we were reading a story about a pioneer family (I can't recall exactly who, but I can go figure it out and include it in a different ask if you're interested). The father of the family became sick at the beginning of the journey, so in a preisthood blessing he received, they said that he would be stronger, and make it to the salt lake valley. 1/?

He ended up dying before they were halfway there. I noticed this discrepancy and asked about it, and the defense that my father gave was "the lord must have decided that he wanted him in heaven." This isn't a canon gospel doctrine ofc, but the logic concerns me. There are some interesting contradictions that this answer brings up, namely: If Heavenly Father is perfect, why would he promise something, but then revoke it later? Maybe I'm bringing up old stuff but I certainly find it interesting.2/2

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I rarely am asked to give blessings, I don’t have much actual experience with it, maybe 10 times or less ever in my life. On the occasions when I have, I tried very hard to find the thoughts that I think I’m being inspired to say and weed out all others. That’s what I understood I am meant to do.

I serve as secretary to the stake presidency and they get many requests to give blessings and they take a very different approach. If someone came and asked for a blessing to be healed, they will confidently pronounce such a blessing.

I’ve asked how they know to say such bold promises.

Blessings are granted according to the will of God and according to the faith of the one receiving and also by the faith of those around them. By requesting the blessing, the person is already showing faith. Whether it is granted is up to God.

These men can’t see the future, they aren’t seers, but if someone wants a blessing and God wants to grant it, they want to help it come to be and they add their faith by confidently pronouncing blessings.

It’s an approach I don’t think I’ve ever heard taught in my priesthood quorums.

In April 2010 General Conference, Elder Oaks gave a talk titled “Healing the Sick.” His words validate what my stake presidency taught me. Blessings require faith and are a way to open the windows of heaven. Elder Oaks even says the words said in the blessing aren’t that important. The anointing by oil, sealing the anointing, faith, and will of the Lord are what matters. People shouldn’t be hesitant to give a blessing for fear of not knowing what to say, just do your best.

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I always forget about Pioneer Day being a thing in Utah. I live in Florida and we don’t do anything special to recognize when people of European-descent first settled here.

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elderxprice · 4 years

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(#bom10daychallenge - day 1 - I’m fine. Let me see your face.) Kevin lingers in the aircraft, toying with the strap of Arnold’s backpack, until he is all but ushered out.

“Take care of yourself,” the attendant says, clasping her hands behind her back. Her name is Emily. Kevin knows, because she told him when he could not stop throwing up on the ascent. She had kneeled in the aisle beside him, soothingly rubbed his back, and told him everything would be just fine. He made her promise, and in doing so made her a liar.

“Yeah,” Kevin says, offering her a tired smile. “Alright.”

He wishes things could have been different. If they had been, perhaps he would be coming home a hero and not an abject failure, earning piteous looks as he trudges through the airport. Not that he can blame anyone. Kevin knows he looks disgraceful, because that is how he feels: exhausted and filthy and full of regret. Still, he walks with his shoulders squared and head held high. He has to be brave; it’s all he can do.

The airport is a myriad of joyful reunions and tear-filled goodbyes. Missionaries being hugged by their mothers; children being hugged by their parents; friends reunited after years and years apart. Their love is almost palpable, and Kevin finds himself wishing he could reach out and touch it, for just a moment, to remember what that feels like. It’s been so long since his parents have hugged him and said they were proud. One year and a handful of days. The memory is blurred at its edges, yet as he steps onto the escalator it all comes rushing back in a bouquet of abstract flowers.

His mother’s favorite perfume.

A sob escapes his throat at the realization that he’s home. He’s home, and his mother is here. She came for him. They all did.

“Kevin!” His sister runs to him, tears streaming down her cheeks regardless that she’s smiling. Kevin drops Arnold’s backpack and meets her halfway, hugging Debbie so tightly her feet lift from the ground. “I missed you, Kevin.”

“I missed you, more. The most.” It’s the truth, because she is the only one who wrote him. “Gosh, you’re heavy.”

She laughs, legs wrapping around his waist so Kevin cannot put her down. “I’m ten, now,” she says, proud of that fact. “I’m not so little, anymore.”

“Boy, I’ll say,” he says, leaning back so he can see her. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”

Debbie nods, but she grins as if she doesn’t care. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe his being here is enough; maybe it’s all that she wanted. The thought incites a genuine smile - his first in twenty-six hours.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his nose against his sister’s. “Let me say go say hi to everybody else, then we can hug again right after.”

The rest of his family, sans Jack, stand just a few feet away. They do not seem as excited to see him as Debbie had been, but his mother dabs at her eyes with a tissue and his father rests a hand on Kevin’s shoulder once they’re close enough to touch. It’s more than he could have hoped for. “It’s good to see you, son,” he says. Kevin isn’t sure he believes him. “Boys, isn’t it nice to see Kevin?”

At their father’s unsubtle encouragement, Ben and Sean move to hug him.

“You smell bad,” Sean says, pulling away with a scowl.

“He doesn’t smell that bad.” Ben hugs Kevin a second longer, as though to prove this point. “Just kind-of bad.”

Kevin sighs, ruffling Ben’s hair before turning towards his mother. She is still dabbing at her eyes as she motions for him to come closer. He’s really missed her. For all his father’s countless shortcomings, his mother far more than makes up for them. She loves him, Kevin knows. Even now.

“I’m real hungry,” he says, once her arms are wrapped around him. The cotton of her sweater is soft against the sunburn of his cheeks. “Mom.”

“Well, we’ll get you some food on the way home, how does that sound? There’s a lot to talk about, but it can wait until tomorrow. Can’t it, Michael?”

Kevin has never heard his mother refer to their father that way, before. It was always husband or honey or something equally nauseating, but never his name. It makes him a little bit nervous.

“We can’t go anywhere with him looking like this, Katherine.” His father sweeps a hand towards Kevin, putting him on display. People are staring. Kevin feels his throat constrict; “McDonald’s is fine,” he interrupts, earning a pointed look from his father. “Just for tonight.”

“…Just for tonight,” his mother agrees. “Just this once.”

His siblings look excited. Sean thanks him for smelling bad.

They were never allowed to eat McDonald’s, because it isn’t real food or good food or anything Heavenly Father would want them to put into their bodies. The only time Kevin ever got to, was when he had his license and could go without anyone knowing. He brought his sister the day before he left for the Missionary Training Center. They had strawberry milkshakes and french fries and sat on the hood of his car at the airport watching all the planes take off. It was something special they shared; a secret between them she could keep once Kevin was gone.

Kevin orders three double cheeseburgers, two large fries and a diet Coke. The family’s entire order comes to over fifty dollars, and their father has a conniption as he pulls back onto the highway; and while that normally would have provoked an apology out of Kevin, it’s hard to care once a piping hot bag of actual food is placed upon his lap. And, see, Kevin knew he was hungry; he just didn’t realize how much, until the first, salty fry touches his lips. “Oh, gosh,” he says, in an almost obscene euphoria, before stuffing a handful into his mouth. His siblings watch in amusement, laughing at his pitiful display. Kevin is happy to entertain them, so long as it means he can eat.

His parents, however, are not so entertained. Kevin can see the disapproval in his father’s eyes as he casts the occasional glance in the rearview mirror and hear it in his mother’s voice as she scolds him about his lack of manners.

“I bet you ate this crap all the time in Africa,” Ben says, lifting his chin as though he isn’t enjoying it just as much. “Dad says you probably did all kinds of awful stuff once you shut out the Lord.”

“Yeah,” Sean agrees, licking ketchup from his fingers. “Like sin with girls.”

“Boys!” Mrs. Price reaches behind her to gently slap Sean’s knee. “We aren’t going to talk about Kevin’s mission,” she scolds. “We discussed this.”

Kevin supposes he ought to be glad they don’t want to talk about it, or else he’d be sat in an Olive Garden somewhere, feeling like he has to when Kevin really, really does not want to. He especially does not want to sit across from his parents and talk about Arnold, or the way he loves him, or how he did sin – a lot. Nor does he want to talk about the General; or Kimbay’s husband; or AIDS; or watching his friends die; or starve; or about any of the countless other horrible things he’s been witness to over the past year and a half. Kevin does not even want to think about it.

The guilt of that realization weighs heavy on him, and the food turns sour in his stomach. His father pulls over, so he can throw up outside.

“Well, then,” his father frowns, rolling down the window once Kevin’s heaves have subsided. “Are you quite finished?”

Kevin wishes he was; but this is not going to go away, just because the food is out of his stomach. In fact, the guilt over having just wasted food on the side of the road sticks to his ribs and makes it hard to breathe.

Immediately upon returning home, his parents send him upstairs to clean up.

There is a letter on his pillow from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Kevin is not surprised by its presence, only by how it has already arrived. He told his parents he wanted to leave Uganda four days ago and has only been back for one hour. His parents must have personally picked it up. Kevin would not be surprised if his father helped write it.

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Kevin stares at the letter for almost an hour. He knows the second he picks it up, this in-between will be over. Kevin will need to make a choice: to stay, or leave, the church.

It was easy to turn his back on this life in Uganda, because his parents weren’t there and his college wasn’t there and the reality he was living, is not the one he’s living now. His mother said she loved him; his sister hugged him; his dad put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. It made him happy. He wants to be happy. Kevin reaches for the letter.

“Dear Elder Price,” he frowns at the sound of that name. “The stake presidency is considering formal disciplinary action in your behalf, including the possibility of disfellowshipment or excommunication, because you are reported to have participated in conduct unbecoming a member of the church, namely apostacy. You are invited to attend this disciplinary council to give your response and, if you wish, to provide witnesses and other evidence in your behalf.”

The council date is set for the day after tomorrow. Kevin wonders what evidence he can scrounge up in that time, before realizing he is evidence enough. Kevin is not an apostate. Priesthood holders have a responsibility to become like Christ and love as He loves and serve as He serves and Kevin did that. All the evidence he needs, he wears as scars and cuts and angry bruises. It would be inappropriate, perhaps, to open his shirt in front of the stake president, but Kevin will if that’s what it takes to prove what he did was in Heavenly Father’s example; and not because he wants to stay in the church, necessarily, but because he knows in his heart he did nothing wrong. None of them did, and for some reason, he needs the church to see that. He wants them to.

“Kevin?” Debbie lingers in his doorway, hair braided in a crown around her head.

“Hey, you.” Kevin tucks the letter beneath his pillow; “Let me get changed, then you can come in, alright?”

She closes the door, and Kevin stands from the bed. He stretches. Everything hurts, deep into his bones. If he was still in Uganda, Kevin is almost certain Arnold would rub his shoulders and his neck and his back, without even asking for a thing in return. Arnold is selfless. Kevin is not.

Pulling open his dresser drawers, he notices there is not much left in them. One pair of temple garments, and a pair of sweats from high school with Provo down one leg, and Bulldogs down the other. It seems like his parents culled his room while he was gone, as though they were not expecting him to come home, or just weren’t going to let him.

Clothes on, Kevin opens the door for his sister, who is holding a blanket and pillows. “Mom said I could stay in here tonight, if it’s okay with you?”

“You know it is,” he says, motioning for the blanket. She hands it over, watching as Kevin folds it once and sets it on Jack’s bed. “You can take mine. Mom say’s you’ve been sleeping in it, anyway.”

Debbie almost looks embarrassed, like she wants to lie and deny it, but she is a good Mormon, Kevin remembers, which is probably why she doesn’t. Instead, she climbs onto Jack’s bed, curling up beside her brother.

“What was Africa like?” she asks.

“Awful.” Kevin presses a finger to her nose, and Debbie smiles. “Wonderful.”

Debbie nods, as though she understands or can tell he does not want to get into it, beyond that. “Dad said you look sick,” she says, in a whisper. Kevin imagines she must have overheard this conversation. “You’re not, are you?”

“No way,” he says, offering her a tired smile. “Just tired. Dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Debbie’s eyes widen then, and Kevin presses a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell him I said that, though, okay? Promise?”

“Promise.”

A comfortable silence falls over them, then, and Kevin lets his eyes slip shut. It’s weird, being in this house, again. It’s warm and familiar. Same walls, same windows, same family he left behind.

The only thing different, is Kevin. And it must be more apparent in the daylight, he thinks, because his mother gasps when she sees him the next morning. She is standing by the kitchen window, exactly where Kevin left her over a year ago, holding the same chipped mug of orange juice.

“…Mom?”

“I’m fine,” she responds, almost automatically. Kevin wonders who’s been asking her. “Oh, Kevin,” she breathes, when she finally gathers herself. “You look absolutely dreadful. Come here, let me see your face”

“Gee. Thanks, mom.” He bites his tongue as she touches her hand to his forehead. She must think he’s sick, like Debbie said, but in a physical way. She couldn’t be more wrong, but Kevin doesn’t have the heart to tell her.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but it’s true. I thought you said you were eating?”

“I was,” he admits, easing away from her worry. “Just - not a lot.”

“Clearly, Kevin!” She sighs, bringing a hand to her chest as she composes her thoughts. His mom looks older; more tired. “Thank God, Jack was called to Quebec.”

It is not just an expression when his mother says it. She means it, and Kevin finds he wants to mean it, too. Thank God, his brother is in Canada, and not some war-torn, impoverished, dangerous country. Thank God; thank God; thank God. He wonders if she thanked God when Kevin called to say he wanted to come home.

“Are you coming tomorrow?” Kevin asks, curious.

Mrs. Price shakes her head, turning back towards the window. “Your father’s bringing you,” she says, taking a sip of her juice. “He said it would be best if there weren’t any distractions.”

“You’re not a distraction, you’re my mom,” he points out, crossing his arms. “I want you there.”

“And we wanted you to succeed on your mission, Kevin,” she says, setting down her mug. “I just don’t understand what happened.” Mrs. Price turns back around, motioning for Kevin to come closer. He does, stepping right into her open arms. She smells like lavender soap. “But I need to trust that the Lord knows what He’s doing with you, and that He can accomplish it for your eternal good even though I can’t even begin to understand how He can do it, after all that’s happened. The stuff your Mission President told us, Kevin! I very nearly passed out. Your father had to hold me up.”

Kevin sighs, but does not doubt it. His mother has passed out for less; like when Ben came home from school with Saturday detention for kissing a girl behind the gym, during lunch. He was sixteen.

“It was one misstep, mom, and it wasn’t even mine. It was Elder Cunningham’s.” It feels weird placing sole blame on Arnold, like this, but Arnold isn’t here and Kevin is pretty sure he’d forgive him for it, anyway. “He thought he was doing the right thing, and you know what? He did, in the end. We really helped those people, mom. I really helped them.” Not enough, maybe, but the fact remains.

“I don’t doubt you think that, Kevin, but you’ve always been arrogant. Now, why don’t you help me make breakfast. I’m too upset to manage it on my own.”

After, regardless of the food that’s waiting for him downstairs, Kevin takes his time washing up. He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and traces a finger from his bruises to his scrapes to his cuts. His body has become a roadmap of hard work and dedication, of pain and suffering, and of triumph – slight as it was. There are deep discolorations beneath both of his eyes, and dirt beneath his fingernails. He cannot get them clean, no matter how hard he tries; though, he must admit he doesn’t try much.

His mother will be displeased, he thinks, but so what? She already is, as is his father, who will probably want to talk before tomorrow. Kevin doesn’t want to talk.

What he wants, is to take a shower – and not a hot one, like he thought he might. In Uganda, he used to dream of them, but the second the bathroom fills with steam, he feels guilty. So, he turns it to freezing, instead; gets in, gets out, and feels better. He shaves, brushes his teeth, and pulls on his clothes without garments. Out of habit, he reaches for his name tag. It’s Elder Cunningham’s. Arnold’s. His best friend’s. His – everything.

It ends up in his pocket, the corner digging into his thigh while he sits at the table and pokes at his food. It’s nine-thirty. Three-thirty in Kampala. Arnold is probably digging in the dirt, planting crops, or laughing too loud or too much or…

Kevin wonders if Arnold misses him.

He hopes so.

#bom10daychallenge #bom10daychallenge - day one #bom #have it anyway #book of mormon #kevin price #headcanon

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erandir · 4 years

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The Old Ways of the Gods - Chapter 1

While we’re all trapped inside, I thought I might post the first chapter of an original novel I’ve been working on. Because it suddenly became thematically relevant. This is a first draft. Summary: Life in the temple is all that Malta has ever known, priestesses his only family. But as he approaches adulthood after years of seclusion from the outside world, Malta cannot help but wonder what lies beyond the temple walls.

Amber is new to the priesthood, and full of the same curiosity that has begun to plague Malta's mind. Together, they hatch a plan to sneak outside the temple's grounds. A glimpse at the world beyond is all they seek, enough to quench the thirst for knowledge.

But like a drug, one glimpse is never enough.

-----

Rain pattered softly against the window panes. Malta watched the drops draw rivulets of shadow and light on the fogged glass, finding pictures and shapes in them the same way he did clouds. Beyond, the world was grey from sky to ground. Dark clouds hung heavy over the lonely gardens, bereft of people in this weather. The rain had turned the earthen paths between the trees to dark mud, branches hung heavy under the weight dipping down to the floor as though the whole tree were attempting to lay down to rest.

The misty air was almost enough to obscure the high walls that bordered Malta's life. Grey stone, dyed black by water, looming above the tops of the garden's demurely manicured trees.

"The weather has dulled your mood today.” The woman at his side spoke softly. "You are distracted."

Heaving a sigh, Malta turned his gaze away from the window and to the book laid open on his knees. In stark contrast to the gloom of the outside world, his room was warm and bright. A fire burned contentedly in the fireplace on the far wall and half a dozen orbs of magelight hovered at the ceiling to light the space as brightly as though the sun was shining. An effort to keep him cheerful on such a dour day.

“Your ears give you away,” the woman said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, when he did not immediately reply.

“Oh,” Malta gasped, cheeks warming. On instinct, his hands moved up to cover the length of them, but then he stopped himself. Only children covered their ears to hide their emotions, and he was not a child. Not any longer. No, he would turn 50 this autumn, and be officially recognized as an adult. He needed to learn to better control his tells. "I suppose I am not in the mood for reading today.” Besides, he had read this book at least three times before, as he had read every other book in the temple library.

"Is there some other entertainment I might provide?" the woman asked. His attendant for today was a young woman scarcely older than himself, with almond eyes and pale skin. Like all of her order she wore a plain linen shift with a high collar and wide sleeves, and a cloth tied about her hair. A single ebony curl had escaped beside her left ear, betraying her newness and tying it. Malta did not point it out.

"You are newly sworn, are you not?" he asked out of curiosity. “We were introduced only a few days ago."

“Yes,” the woman confirmed.

“It is so unusual for me to meet anyone new,” Malta mused.

“Have you lived in the temple long?” he asked, then realized he might be overstepping his bounds, “If you are comfortable speaking of such things, of course.”

After an uncertain pause, she answered, “Since I was a child. It is all I can recall.”

“Then we are alike,” Malta declared, smiling. “To have known only this place our whole lives.” But his smile faded soon. "But now you will be able to see the outside, just like all of the others," he said, turning his gaze once more to the view beyond his window panes. "I confess that I am jealous."

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise. An unusual color - golden brown. That would be her name, in his mind, Amber. "Whatever would you have to be jealous of?" Amber asked. "You are the Mother's Chosen Son. That is an incredible blessing."

"I know," Malta sighed. Or so he had been told his entire life. "And I am not ungrateful, but I have known nothing but the inside of this temple for my whole life. At times it grows mundane, and I wonder how such a life can truly be worthwhile."

"Are you doubting your Choosing?" Amber asked, voice dipping so that they could not be overheard by anyone passing through the hall outside.

"No, not at all," Malta was quick to assure her. "I only wonder... " he paused to collect his thoughts. "I meet no one other than the Devoted, and I know nothing of the world outside the temple. I sit here in comfort and leisure while the rest of you go out and do her work, but I know almost nothing of what that entails."

Amber's considered his words. He had never dared to voice this particular doubt to any of the other Devoted. They had ensured, when he was a stir-crazy child, that he knew his place well, and knew better than to question. But he had never before met a Devoted close to his own age. He had never met someone who shared his ignorance about the world. Maybe that was why he dared open up to her.

After a long moment of thought Amber sighed. The headscarf slipped back from her forehead and this time she noticed, hurrying to pull it back into place before more of her dark hair was revealed to her charge. "I believe I understand your meaning," she said carefully as she tucked each stray lock back beneath its covering. "You wish to bring the Mother's teachings to the world by helping those in need, but you do not know what they might need."

"Precisely," Malta breathed a sigh of relief that she understood and did not grow angry with him for any sign of doubt, the way some others did.

"But I do not believe you are meant to help people in any physical way," Amber explained.

That was a new revelation for Malta. All his life he had been told that he was Chosen to embody the teachings of the Mother, her compassion, her mercy, her innocence, and her willingness to care equally for all people and creatures of the world, regardless of their circumstances.

"What I was taught," Amber continued in the face of Malta’s shock and confusion, "Since my training began, is that you are a symbol. The Chosen Children of the Mother embody her essence. They are the purest form of the Mother's love, and they exist to show us all the purity of heart and spirit that we strive for."

Malta frowned and looked down again at the book in his lap, long forgotten during this conversation. "No, that cannot be correct," he said, voice barely a whisper.

"I apologize," Amber said quickly. She reached out a hand toward Malta, but stopped before touching him as though not certain it would be welcomed. "I spoke out of turn and I have distressed you. Forgive me."

"No," Malta shook his head. "I mean... Do not apologize," he corrected himself. "You have done nothing but what I asked of you. If you spoke out of turn it was my fault, and I should be the one apologizing."

"Well," Amber said with uncertainty, and then a very shy smile crossed her face. "I suppose we forgive each other, then."

"Yes," Malta smiled in agreement. "And let us talk of more pleasant things. Perhaps you were correct, that the weather has dulled my mood, to be asking you such silly questions about the outside world." He spoke, but found the words tasted like ash on his tongue. It was impossible for him to not be curious about what was beyond the temple grounds, and yet he was not permitted to ask. He was told to love and care for all beings of the world, but permitted to know nothing about them. And now this revelation, surely something that was meant to be kept from him.

All his life, Malta had thought that when he was old enough, when the Matriarch deemed him ready and worthy, he would venture beyond the walls of the temple to bring the Mother's light to the people of the world. Had he thought wrong?

He knew that his isolation in the temple was to keep his mind unsullied by the evils of the world. He was not to develop prejudices against anyone or be influenced by any teachings other than the Mother's. He knew only vaguely of the other gods. He could name them, and their purposes in the world, but knew nothing of their specific teachings. This had never mattered to him before.

Again Malta turned his gaze out the window and looked down into the garden. It was still raining, still grey. The clouds that weighed heavy in the sky seemed to have taken up residence in his mind as well.

What was beyond those walls? How cruel was the world that he need be protected from it so entirely?

"Are you hungry?" Amber asked, pulling Malta back out of his thoughts. She must have caught him staring out the window again. At his age, his teachings were over, and it was the Devoted's task only to see to his needs and entertain him through his monotonous days. Entertain him so thoughts such as this did not plague his mind.

"I suppose it is nearly time for noon meal, is it not?" Malta asked. He flipped shut the book he had long since stopped reading without bothering to mark the page. Then he swung his legs off the window seat and stood, stretching slightly and tucking a stray lock of hair behind a pointed ear. "Shall we see what today's cooks have for us?"

"A fine thought," Amber replied, relieved.

He had caused her trouble today, on her first day minding him. For that he felt some small amount of guilt. It was never his intention to give his caretakers trouble, but it was impossible for him not to occasionally seek something new in his life. The day-to-day of the temple grew boring after so long. The Devoted rotated their tasks, but for Malta there was no such relief. Each day was the same, differentiated only by the face of his companion, the weather outside his window, and the day's meals. And by now even that small change had grown dull and predictable.

With easy strides Malta crossed the room to place his book back in its place on the shelf. The library's shelves were high and filled with tomes, but they were all the same. Tales of the Mother's deeds, explorations of Her teachings, histories of their society and the workings of the natural world. There were no tales of people outside this temple's walls, of the unpledged members of society. There were no tales of people who lacked the virtues that the Mother embodied. But he was certain that such people must exist. He had been told so, by his teachers. It was those that he was meant to save.

"I hope Rosie is working in the kitchen today," Malta commented absently. "She always makes my favorites."

"Who?" Amber asked, uncomprehending.

Malta flushed in embarrassment as he realized his slip up. "Forgive me," he said sheepishly. "I know you are not allowed names after you become Devoted, but I needed some way to differentiate you in my own mind. Rosie is an older woman whose cheeks are always red, so that is how I think of her. I know it is improper of me, please do not inform the Matriarch."

Amber looked as though she was not certain whether to be amused or scandalized. Then, she turned her face away from him, looking down to the ground somewhat sheepishly. "I confess the same thing has troubled me in the past," she admitted quietly. "I think your solution is not against the teachings, although I am certain the Matriarch would say you should not define us by our physical appearance. I will not tell, I swear."

Malta breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you," he said earnestly.

"If I may be so bold as to ask, for what trait have you identified me?" Amber asked shyly. "Or have you not decided yet?"

She would be the first person he ever gave a name to aloud. Although she was the first one to know that this habit of his had not been broken in childhood. "Your eyes," he told her. "They are an unusual color. Amber."

"Amber," the Devoted woman repeated. Then a small smile crossed her lips. "I like it."

#original fiction #oc: malta #oc:amber #my writing #original fantasy #fiction writing

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tipsycad147 · 4 years

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Thresholds to the Spirit World and How to Enter the Spirit World

Some people believe the spirit world is a parallel dimension to ours. That it lies directly on top of ours, fully functioning in its own way all around us without us ever knowing. But some of us know. Some of us experience spirits our entire lives while others don’t see or experience a single thing. But the question remains – are there doors to the spirit world? Our ancient ancestors believed there were thresholds to the spirit world. These thresholds are all around us, sometimes in very obvious places. Learn about the thresholds to the spirit world and how to enter the spirit world. Proceed with caution.

DISCLOSURE: I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you information about the paranormal and paganism.

Thresholds to the Spirit World

Caves

Since prehistoric times, caves were thought to be an entrance to the land of the dead – the Underworld. Our prehistoric ancestors left their markings on cave walls. One of the most famous cave paintings is located near Montignac, France. The Aztecs feature caves in their myths as being the place of creation, namely the seven caves of Chicomoztoc. The ancient peoples revered caves, not only for comfort in winter months, but for what caves represented – the womb of the earth. From the earth we come and to the earth we return; therefore, caves are thought to be an entrance to the spirit world…if one travels deep enough into a cave one will reach the spirit world.

Cemeteries

One of the more obvious thresholds to the spirit world is the cemetery. Is it because the dead are buried in cemeteries? Or is there more to it? A cemetery is not only a resting place for the dead, it is ground that has been blessed by a religious clergymen, and also a place where people gather in emotional moments to recognise love and loss. These things come together in a whirlwind of energy to provide a definitive threshold for spirits to come through from the other side. There are spirits that are still attached to their bodies, as well as guardians of cemeteries who were either once human spirits or are angels. When you cross the cemetery gates, you cross over a threshold guarding the outside world from the land of the dead. The gates of cemeteries are often iron to keep the spirits from getting out.

Crossroads

I once saw a woman state in a FaceBook group the crossroads is a metaphorical place not a literal place of spirits. I’ll bet this woman never sat at a crossroads after sunset. In many traditions all over the world, the crossroads was a place where spirits congregated and could be met with ease. This is why many gods and goddesses are associated with the crossroads: Hecate, Papa Legba, the Devil, and more. It is a junction where two roads converge – a liminal place that’s neither here nor there. Spirits tend to like those kinds of places. If you decide to work with spirits of the crossroads, be warned – some can be tricksters as they guard the door to the spirit world and only let those through whom they feel worthy.

Doors

In the older days, our ancestors believed spirits lingered in doorways and windowsills. Just as a door or window protects the household inhabitants from the physical world outside, they also protect us from harmful spirits. Spirits were thought to be attracted to the living, be it their loved ones or enemies, and were thought to try to enter the home but sometimes get stuck on the threshold for one reason or another. This is why it’s said to be bad luck to step on a threshold – to always step over it. It is possible to step through a door into the world of spirits, just as we step through a door into a building or to the outside world.

Edge of the Woods

Why would the edge of a forest be a threshold to the spirit world? Corners, edges, doorways, all of these things have a common factor – they mark the perimeter of a place. The edge of the woods marks the beginning or end of a massive group of trees, plants, and animals of all kinds. The wild places left in this world no doubt are teeming with spirits of nature – fairies, tree spirits, forest guardians, the Green Man, and more! So when you cross the edge of the woods, you cross into the realm of forest spirits. We’ve all heard stories of people getting lost in the woods and experiencing creepy things, haven’t we? Is this because the trees all look the same or because the forest spirits don’t want that person there?

Fairs & Festivals

This one seems odd – why would spirits be somewhere lots of humans gather like a fair or festival? I believe it’s a common misconception that spirits are to be found in quiet places away from society. In fact, many spirits gather in places where there’s lots of human activity for a few reasons. One reason is they are attracted to the energy that living human beings give off. Another reason is because they might think they are still alive and go about doing things they once did. Yet another reason is because some spirits feed off the energy produced by large crowds of the living. In Judika Illes’ Encyclopedia of Spirits, she says spirits “enjoy them as much as we do.”

Groves

Groves are, simply put, groups of trees. There are oak groves, pine groves, sequoia groves, cedar groves, willow groves, just about any tree that groups together could be considered a grove. Groves were the meeting places of the Celtic priesthood – the Druids. They worshipped the trees and therefore their most sacred sanctuary was the grove. Groves house the ancient tree spirits and land guardians, and therefore are another threshold to the spirit world.

Hedgerows

Back in older times, the hedgerow was a row of bushes that guarded one’s property from the wild. It kept animals and intruders out. The hedgerow itself was a threshold between the family’s property and the wilderness and therefore was known to be a liminal place where spirits gathered. Once again – a place that’s neither here nor there but in between much like a door to the spirit world. This is where the term “crossing the hedge” comes from – it means to cross the threshold of our world in to the spirit world.

Mirrors

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all? To quote the Evil Queen from the famous fairy tale. Mirrors have long been regarded as powerful tools – tools that not only reflect our images back at us but also seem to be another of the thresholds to the spirit world. There are many superstitions about mirrors for this reason. You might have heard of people covering mirrors after someone in the family dies – this is to prevent the soul from getting trapped or lost between this world and the next. I’ve read online people refuse to keep mirrors in their bedrooms because they “freak them out” (side note, I have 3+ mirrors in my bedroom and have never had a problem). There are stories of haunted mirrors, like the mirror of the Myrtles Plantation, and superstitions about breaking mirrors and bad luck. Still others use mirrors to “scry” or see into the other world. Mirrors are a powerful tool to peer in to the realm of spirits. Use them wisely.

Seashore

The seashore is a liminal place – bridging the gap between the earth and the ocean. It is another powerful threshold to the spirit world. In ancient times, the ocean was thought to be a realm of the spirits or that spirits lived under the ocean. Water is a conduit for spirits which adds to the sacredness of the seashore. Elemental spirits gather at the seashore and are more active during a Full Moon. Ever heard of ghosts along a seashore? It’s no wonder spirits are often seen walking down the beach.

How to Enter the Spirit World

There are different ways to enter the spirit world, and all take great practice and caution. Other ways to enter the spirit world include walking over or through a threshold to the spirit world combined with entering an alpha state of mind. You can do this physically by entering a cemetery or sitting at the crossroads and opening your mind and senses to the spirits around you. Offerings to the spirits are helpful in creating trust between you and the spirits and also in protecting you against evil-doing spirits. Always cover your head and back of your neck with a scarf, bandana, hat, etc. when physically travelling to spirit thresholds – this keeps spirits from attaching to you.

Some people enter the spirit world naturally, sometimes without even knowing. I believe sleepwalkers are natural spirit world wanderers. If you’re a sleepwalker, you’ve probably entered the spirit world during one of your episodes. Astral projection also takes you into the spirit world while asleep. Another effective way to enter the spirit world without even leaving your home is through guided meditation. Look up meditations on shamanic journeying and travelling up or down the World Tree. Before performing such powerful meditations, it’s best to cleanse your space and yourself through smudging and spiritual cleansing baths. When you come out of the meditation, be sure to close out your session with the spirit world by grounding your energy and sternly stating out loud that no spirits are to follow you into this realm – the door to the spirit world is closed. Another cleansing is advised to rid yourself and space of negative energy/spirits.

Spirit World Entry Tips

Cover your head and back of neck when going to spirit thresholds and crossroads

Cleanse yourself and/or space before entering the spirit world

Cleanse yourself and/or space after spirit world contact

Ground your energy after spirit world meditations

Offerings to the spirits at thresholds and crossroads are crucial!

Practice third eye opening meditations to aid in seeing spirits

For forest entry – carry iron, pull pockets inside out, or wear clothes inside out

https://otherworldlyoracle.com/thresholds-to-the-spirit-world/

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funkymysteriies · 5 years

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peter scanavino, 37, cis male, he/him. 🗽 looks like that’s DOMINICK “SONNY” CARISI JR reporting for duty. they’re originally from STATEN ISLAND , NEW YORK , so i wonder if working as a DETECTIVE for THE SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT ever gets old. anyway, i heard that they’re OBSERVANT but also kind of ARGUMENTATIVE , which is why i guess they always remind me of MAKING TOO MUCH PASTA BUT EATING IT ANYWAY , THREE-PIECE SUITS , DOG-EARED BOOKS.

here he is ! the kid whose made the rounds most of nypd’s special victims units , mostly likely to end a business call with “ i love you ” , the one who runs like a baby giraffe , sonny !

→ 𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪.

dominick carisi jr was born into a big italian family in staten island , new york.

he’s the youngest of four , meaning he’s still his ma’s baby. even if he’s in his 30s.

from a young age , all he wanted was to be good. plain and simple. he wanted to do as he was told , to be nice , to be liked.

coming from a traditional , roman catholic household , to him , the epitome of goodness was the church. like all the boys in his extended family , he was an altar boy. for a while , he wanted to become a priest.

as a kid, he just wanted to have a lot of friends. he tried so hard. so hard that he ended up just kind of pushing people away , because he was a little over - eager. so his best friend was really his mom , who’d do anything to protect her son from any sort of heartbreak.

he was always a bit of a pushover. he was lanky , awkward , and eager to please. which meant that those kids who were bigger and stronger than him could take advantage of him easily.

on one occasion , he was bullied and pushed out of a window by another kid , and he didn’t do anything about it. he never told anyone ( and he regrets it to this day ).

high school came and went , he made a few friends , but none particularly close. he was generally liked , but over all just kind of average.

the dream of becoming a priest had died long ago , he wanted to be good , but priesthood came at much to high a cost. so what was another way he could help people around him ? be a friendly presence , protect his community ?

he decided to become a cop. he got his criminal justice degree , and joined the nypd.

he started as a patrol officer in staten island. he fumbled his way up to detective. homicide. he was dealing with some of the most gruesome crimes possible ( or so he thought at the time ). and yeah , they were horrible. but some cases just hit him harder. some cases just stuck with him , haunted him , shook him to his very core.

he realized he could do more to help. to do good.

so he transferred to staten island svu , but that still wasn’t enough. he’d always get frustrated when they investigated a case , handed it over to the a.d.a. , but then for some reason or another , justice wasn’t served. whenever a a perp he knew was guilty was acquitted , he felt helpless.

the solution ? become a lawyer. he started going to law school at night , using all that knowledge to become a better cop.

he didn’t last long in staten island svu , just about two months. he was never the most tactful , he was still a little too rough. he was a good detective , extremely observant , often picking up on details his colleagues missed. but working homicide meant he rarely got to work with live victims. victims who were often traumatized , who could be easily triggered , who needed a gentle hand guiding them through the process of an investigation.

sonny wasn’t really that person , and no one had the patience to work with him until he became that person. so they passed him along to brooklyn svu , where he worked for almost a month. that wasn’t a great fit either , so they chucked him over to queens svu , where he only lasted a week.

then , he made it to manhattan svu , where he started out a little rough , but that was the place where he finally reined in his impulses , learned how to be gentler.

he passed the bar exam in 2016 , and for a moment , he considered leaving svu to pursue a law career , become a prosecutor. but he felt like he could do more as a detective. so for the time being , he’s just a cop with more knowledge of the law than the average detective.

i’m pretty sure i’ve mentioned most of what’s on his wiki page , but just in case here !!

→ 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪.

that’s it , that’s all you need to know about him.

in all seriousness , all sonny really wants , is to do good. to be good. he wants to help people , he wants to be liked and loved.

that desire to be liked makes him a little pushy sometimes. he wants to help , but doesn’t realize when his help isn’t really wanted.

he tends to offer a lot of unsolicited advice , and is too oblivious sometimes to realize when it’s not really appreciated.

believes people are good at heart. and still struggles to wrap his head around some of the horrible crimes he’s witnessed.

he’s still a good catholic boy. he prays regularly , goes to mass , confesses his sins. he knows the catholic church is far from perfect , but what he believes in is greater than the church as an institution.

very much a momma’s boy. even though he lives in manhattan now , he still travels to visit his mom several times a week , and they talk on the phone every day.

he’s a great cook. he loves to cook big meals for all his friends , and shows up to work with baked goods on a regular basis.

he’s an avid reader. loves classic literature , and will reread his favorite books often.

big bisexual disaster !

loves memes !

sagittarius !

his pinterest board is over here !!

→ 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤.

anything , honestly.

coworkers , obviously. give me people who are sick and tired of sonny throwing around legalese and showing off his new fordham law knowledge. attorneys who just wish he would shut the fuck up.

friends , enemies , frenemies. he’ll make them lunch and pass on sage advice from momma carisi.

exes ! flings ! sonny has a tendency to fall hard and fast for people , and maybe read too much into a fling that was never meant to be more than just that. so he’s very open to flings.

absolutely anything. come at me pals.

#dd.intro #( sonny c. ) / * isms .

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latter-day-saint-nick · 5 years

Text

That Time Nikolai Stayed at a Finnish Mental Hospital

I decided to make my own post, because this turned obscenely long. It includes descriptions of Finnish health care, personal details about my mental health and some journal entries I wrote back in the day.

This was in April of 2010. Less than a year earlier I had uprooted my life to move to a country where I didn’t speak the language, just so I could live closer to my boyfriend, who strung me along one minute, just to reject me the next. I was extremely depressed, and I finally reached the point where I didn’t feel like I could take care of myself anymore, so one evening I called the emergency number to tell the operator that I was suicidal, that I didn’t want to be left on my own at home and that I needed to be hospitalized. The operator told me that the emergency services don’t deal with this kind of thing. He asked me not to hurt myself tonight and to make a doctor’s appointment in the morning.

So the next morning I packed a bag with some necessities (toothbrush and so on) and headed to the doctor’s office. I told the nurse at the reception that I was suicidal and needed to be hospitalized. She made an appointment for me, and I got to see a doctor. I proceeded to tell the doctor the same thing I had told the nurse, but they told me that they didn’t have the authority to send me to a mental hospital, so they sent me across town to a psychiatrist instead. I then told the psychiatrist the same thing I had already told three different medical professionals before. I don’t really remember much of the meeting, because my brain was in such a depression fog at this point that everything seemed slightly unreal. The one thing I do remember is that the psychiatrist left the room at some point to check availability at the hospital and when he came back, he just sat in silence for a seemingly endless time, and I was terrified he was going to send me home. But he finally agreed to have me admitted to the mental ward.

I never saw this psychiatrist again, by the way. He didn’t actually work at the mental hospital, just near it, and he had nothing to do with my further treatment or medication.

Anyway, I finally got to go to the hospital. This is what I wrote about it on a slip of paper that passed as my journal for the moment:

“Who would have thought it would come to this? A year ago I was an intelligent, independent, brave young woman. And now I’m in the nuthouse. Actually, it makes me chuckle now. I was terrified when I talked to the psychiatrist. I feared that he’d decide that I wasn’t ill enough to go to the hospital, and that he’d send me home to continue soldiering on and battling my demons on my own. But I was also afraid of coming here, of being away from home in a strange environment. Besides, I hate hospitals. This place doesn’t seem as much like a hospital as like the nursing home I worked at when I was 19. Of course, that’s pretty depressing in a different way.”

Even though I wasn’t locked up and could come and go as I pleased, I noticed that my room was designed a bit like a prison cell, which intimidated me at first. The window was fairly high up and barred and the door was big and heavy, with an observation window in it. I don’t know if these things were relics from a bygone age or something, but, as I said it, we were never locked in our rooms or spied on by staff through the observation windows, so there really seemed no reason for this layout.

The furnishing was perfectly fine. There was a bed, a night table and a wardrobe. I think there may have also been a bedside lamp on the night table. I don’t quite remember the bathroom situation. I seem to recall that double rooms had bathrooms with toilets and showers attached, but the occupants of single rooms had to go a bit further down the hall. In any case, we could lock the bathroom doors for privacy.

There was a common room, with chairs and tables and a TV. That’s also where we had our meals. On the other end of the hall, there was a small sitting room with a selection of books on a shelf.

I immediately felt better about the situation after I had some friends come over to give me a priesthood blessing. As far as I remember, there were no set visiting hours, so friends and family could come and visit at more or less any time of day, just like in a normal hospital. I frequently had people come to see me, so I didn’t feel abandoned. The one time there was a bit of an issue was when my boyfriend came to visit and the nurses weren’t happy about us being alone in my room together. That struck me as needlessly puritanical. We weren’t planning on having sex, but even if we were, so what? We were both adults. Other than that, I was allowed to have the visitors in my room for privacy, rather than in a common area.

Not only were we allowed to leave the hospital during the day, but we were actually encouraged to do so, especially when we were invited to hang out and socialize with friends. After all, being with friends is good for your mental health and isolating a suicidal person is only likely to make things worse. There was a curfew, however. The front door was locked during the night, so we had to be back before a certain hour (I don’t remember what it was - 9 or 10 maybe?) if we wanted to be let back in.

The worst part was that we weren’t allowed to have computer devices. This is another rule that seems pretty unnecessary to me. Maybe they worried that we’d look up online how to commit suicide, but since we were allowed to leave the hospital during the day, it’s not like we couldn’t access the internet in other places, so it doesn’t really make any sense. My laptop wasn’t exactly forcibly confiscated. I was just kindly told that I would have to leave it at the reception and I could pick it up later. Not having my laptop meant that I ended up socializing more with the other patients than I probably would have otherwise, but I still don’t think that makes it okay. I think I got to keep my phone (it wasn’t a smartphone, so no internet), but was encouraged to use the landline at the reception to call people, rather than calling them from my own phone in my own room. I’m really not sure what that was about.

I got a little bit nervous about having other things confiscated, so I hid my razor from the nurses, just in case, even though it wouldn’t exactly have been easy to cut my wrists with it. I just really don’t like having body hair. When I say I hid my razor, I just mean that I kept it out of sight in my bag, only taking it out when I went to take a shower. It’s not like we had our bags or our rooms searched for illicit items. So I guess if I had wanted to smuggle in something I could self-harm with, it wouldn’t have been too difficult. But why would I have? None of us were forced to be at this hospital. We were all there because we were seeking help and wanted to get better. Anyway, none of my other personal items were ever confiscated.

There was a bit of a routine, I guess, but not much. Meals were at set hours and were announced with a bell. I think I overslept and missed the breakfast bell a couple of times, but usually I got up for breakfast and then went back to bed for a nap afterwards. At some during the morning, I would have to get up and leave the room, though, to give the cleaners a chance to change my sheets, make my bed and do other cleaning. I’m pretty sure we were also administered our meds at set times. I only had two pills - an antidepressant in the morning, a sleeping pill at night - but there were probably others who were on more meds. I don’t think there was a set bedtime, but, as I mentioned, there was a curfew and I think we were supposed to stay in our rooms after a certain time, so we couldn’t just stay in the common room all night watching TV, but nobody came in to make sure that we were asleep.

Not having to worry about feeding myself was to me one of the biggest benefits of staying at the mental hospital. My depression made it very difficult for me to do chores, so when I was at home, I often went all day without eating, because the prospect of making food was just too much to handle. So I liked having my meals provided for me and not having to worry about cooking or cleaning, instead focusing on my mental health.

Another thing I liked about staying at the hospital was being able to share my experiences with the other patients. As I wrote in my journal: “It seems so easy to talk about my problems with the other patients, because we all know what it’s like to be weak and scared. That’s why we’re here.” At another time I wrote:

“I went to the hospital’s common room to watch TV, and found Jonna playing cards with two other patients; a man and a woman. I joined in the game, and as we were talking, laughing and playing, the woman suddenly interrupted and said to me, ‘Excuse me, but I have to say this: you are so beautiful! You have such a beautiful smile, and a beautiful laugh, and a beautiful personality. If you were a boy, I’d flirt with you.’ [I didn’t know at that point that I was, in fact, a boy, which strikes me as pretty funny now.] It was such a nice and unexpected compliment that I hardly knew what to say. I don’t even know what to say about it now, except that it made me feel happy.”

We did have regular meetings with doctors and nurses. Other patients had group therapy sessions that they went to, but because of the language barrier, I couldn’t join in on those and there weren’t any English groups. My meetings with the doctors weren’t particularly helpful, and mostly consisted of repeating the same information over and over.

Here’s another journal entry from a week after I was first admitted to the hospital:

“I’m at home right now. This is because I had a meeting with a doctor today, and she decided to see if I could spend a night at home. Tomorrow I’m going back to the hospital. It hasn’t been too bad to be at home, although I’ve been feeling rather melancholic. The future still looks big and scary, even the near future. The doctor also asked me a lot of questions, and some of them were rather uncomfortable, like the ones pertaining to my mother. In the end I started crying.

“I also had a meeting with a medical student who was doing research or something. I don’t know. This meeting went a lot better, I think. She asked me questions about my life, and I was able to answer calmly without breaking into sobs. She also seemed to understand me better than most doctors when I told her things like that sometimes I’m afraid to go outside because there are monsters out there.

“I feel like I’ve told my life story about a dozen times this week.”

About a week later, I was made to switch rooms for some reason, so I now had a roommate. I wrote about her:

“She’s nice, but she’s more messed up than I am. The doctors are still going to send her home on Wednesday. That worries me. I may not have known her for very long, but I don’t want her to hurt herself.”

She told me about a time when she attempted suicide by overdosing on prescription medication. She was rushed to the hospital, but discharged immediately and given another prescription for the same medication she had overdosed on. We both felt let down by the system. She didn’t want to go home and be on her own yet, but didn’t have a choice in the matter. I was pretty sure I’d be discharged soon too, even though I didn’t feel ready, so I could sympathize.

Another excerpt from my journal:

“Today I’ve been feeling very anxious and depressed. Half the time I wasn’t even sure why. It might be because I’m meeting with the doctor tomorrow, and she is most likely going to send me home. I don’t feel ready to take care of myself again. The thought scares me. It also brings back all my other fears about the future. I’m afraid of having to stay on my own [in] my home. I’m afraid that I’ll have to get a job I won’t be able to handle. I’m afraid that I will never be successful and happy. I’m afraid that I might not have a purpose. I’m afraid that I made the wrong choice when I came to Finland.

“There are some fears I don’t even want to write down, because just thinking about them makes me want to throw up. Damn, I’m so scared!”

I did end up getting sent home, feeling miserable, but I was readmitted a few days later when I failed to show up for a routine check-up and a nurse called me to ask about it, to which I responded that I was afraid to go outside. That convinced them that I still wasn’t well enough to be on my own.

It wasn’t really that much longer until I was discharged again, but this time I was in a somewhat better mental state. My depression wasn’t gone, but I wasn’t feeling suicidal anymore and I felt more capable of taking care of myself now. It took me another year to get my life back on track, and I wasn’t really getting a lot of help from the Finnish healthcare system during that time. I saw a therapist, but not all that regularly. She was okay. She listened to me, but didn’t really help me much either. Everything seemed understaffed and underfunded. I once had to sit in a hospital waiting room for several hours, just to get a doctor’s note about my depression for my school. The room was full of people sick with the swine flu. Many of them were bent over with pain so bad that they could barely walk, but they still had to wait.

I complained about stuff like that back then, when I felt like I wasn’t having my needs met by the system. I now live in the UK and there are many things I complain about regarding the medical system here when I feel like I’m not having my needs met. And I have every right to complain, because mentally ill and disabled people deserve better. But I’m still glad I don’t have to deal with the US system.

On a brighter note, when I opened my old journal to get all the details correct, I found a hand-drawn card in it that I’m sure I’d never seen before. It turned out to be from Emilly. I remembered that several years ago, before we were even dating, I’d once lent her this journal, because she was having a rough time, similar to what I’d gone through a few years previously, and I wanted to share these experiences of mine with her, both the good and the bad, because I thought that might help her. She must have put the card in there when she returned the journal to me, but I never noticed it until now. The card reads:

“To [birthname]

“...just open your eyes, and see that life is beautiful

“While reading your journal one of the things I realised is beautiful is you. Hope you have a great birthday,

“Love [Emilly’s birthname]”

#mental health #mental illness #mental hospital #self-harm #Suicide #Health Care

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