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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 703311" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>The part of Nomad's post about this was too difficult and painful for me to think about and more difficult still to comment upon.</p><p></p><p>While I never had specific and spoken expectations for my son--except the elephant in the living room, which of course, is a huge and presumptuous expectation. But I had defined myself entirely through college (looking back, a crime against myself, really--because at the core of me, I had talents in art and dance--but did not have the confidence to embrace and live from and through this, that is, to define myself.</p><p></p><p>And now that I think about it, what my son is doing here through his travails is defining himself...and I am hysterical with fear, not faith, that he will work through eventually his false steps and his own limits, to find and to be in the world who he is.</p><p></p><p>Something that I am only now really, in the past decade having the confidence and knowledge of reality, to do.</p><p></p><p>So I will say now, after writing this post, that the bearing of what we bear, and the coping with it, in retrospective is largely for me now, a spiritual endeavor to learn to live from the core of me, my true life and self, whatever that will come to be manifested, and to express that and work from that.</p><p></p><p>Back to the difficult question, the reality of the man compared to the baby boy. My own child was an angel in appearance and in his soul. An exquisitely beautiful and kind-hearted child. Honey blonde curls. He could have been in a fresco. And into adulthood he was gorgeous.</p><p></p><p>Now he walks our city face and head covered with a hoody well over his eyes. He is consumed with hatred of how he looks and who he is at his core.</p><p></p><p>While appearance is not the important thing, it is something concrete and always there--cannot be hidden, really. But my own son has the need to obliterate himself, to some extent or another.</p><p></p><p>Words I used earlier in the post: to manifest, to live from the core self, to express g-dliness, through g-d given talents and an intrinsic love and ardor--and played out by my son as self-hatred and self-negation.</p><p></p><p>So, there I said the worst of it. The hardest kernel inside of it. I heard a word the other day, in relation to my own struggle. The word: containership.</p><p></p><p>That my struggle now was something about the persona that is big enough and powerful enough to take in what I may now be. That my own suffering and struggle now, was one not so much of the manifesting but one more of packaging.</p><p></p><p>I am assuming here, because the conversation in which the word containership was used, was cut short, but I will continue musing what might have been the conversation, had it continued.</p><p></p><p>Each of us has an essence, a spirit, a soul--each with highly personal meanings, whether we use those words or not. Me? Almost never did I conceive of myself in such a way, except tangentially, like "no spirit" or "high spirits." </p><p></p><p>But our exterior personas and our appearances are containers for our spirits, souls, personalities, temperaments, essences, etc.</p><p></p><p>And those latter things are who we are. The elements that are contained by our names, and our physiques and our faces, and our styles, and our personas--which change throughout our lives, until they are put to rest, through death.</p><p></p><p>So what I am getting at here is those babies were really souls, spirits, on their life journeys, even then. While it can be said by others (not me) that they were never really ours (just loaners, from G-d), that is not the case for me. My baby and child was my own true love. And is still that.</p><p></p><p>What has shifted is his own ability and right to determine containership. And he has made such very, very limited and very, very marked, in the sense of stigmatizing. And while I focus on what this mean, why, how come, who's responsibility, what can be done, changed, stopped...what is happening here in my and by him is a working out of a life on his own terms. He is literally living by working out in the depths of him, who he is spiritually, the quality of his soul, the essential struggle and meaning that defines his life and will define him with purpose and integrity.</p><p></p><p>This is soul work. And if I write it out like this, I respect it. </p><p></p><p>Those photos captured a moment of time, and a moment of the heart. The baby photos. On the way to a life lived. There was never the presumption by any of us that we could define a spirit or a soul of an adult person.</p><p></p><p>When written like that we recoil from this.</p><p></p><p>Ladies and gentleman. More and more I realize that our work on CD is a way to talk about our own deepest yearnings and our own deepest sense of who we are and have been and want to be.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 703311, member: 18958"] The part of Nomad's post about this was too difficult and painful for me to think about and more difficult still to comment upon. While I never had specific and spoken expectations for my son--except the elephant in the living room, which of course, is a huge and presumptuous expectation. But I had defined myself entirely through college (looking back, a crime against myself, really--because at the core of me, I had talents in art and dance--but did not have the confidence to embrace and live from and through this, that is, to define myself. And now that I think about it, what my son is doing here through his travails is defining himself...and I am hysterical with fear, not faith, that he will work through eventually his false steps and his own limits, to find and to be in the world who he is. Something that I am only now really, in the past decade having the confidence and knowledge of reality, to do. So I will say now, after writing this post, that the bearing of what we bear, and the coping with it, in retrospective is largely for me now, a spiritual endeavor to learn to live from the core of me, my true life and self, whatever that will come to be manifested, and to express that and work from that. Back to the difficult question, the reality of the man compared to the baby boy. My own child was an angel in appearance and in his soul. An exquisitely beautiful and kind-hearted child. Honey blonde curls. He could have been in a fresco. And into adulthood he was gorgeous. Now he walks our city face and head covered with a hoody well over his eyes. He is consumed with hatred of how he looks and who he is at his core. While appearance is not the important thing, it is something concrete and always there--cannot be hidden, really. But my own son has the need to obliterate himself, to some extent or another. Words I used earlier in the post: to manifest, to live from the core self, to express g-dliness, through g-d given talents and an intrinsic love and ardor--and played out by my son as self-hatred and self-negation. So, there I said the worst of it. The hardest kernel inside of it. I heard a word the other day, in relation to my own struggle. The word: containership. That my struggle now was something about the persona that is big enough and powerful enough to take in what I may now be. That my own suffering and struggle now, was one not so much of the manifesting but one more of packaging. I am assuming here, because the conversation in which the word containership was used, was cut short, but I will continue musing what might have been the conversation, had it continued. Each of us has an essence, a spirit, a soul--each with highly personal meanings, whether we use those words or not. Me? Almost never did I conceive of myself in such a way, except tangentially, like "no spirit" or "high spirits." But our exterior personas and our appearances are containers for our spirits, souls, personalities, temperaments, essences, etc. And those latter things are who we are. The elements that are contained by our names, and our physiques and our faces, and our styles, and our personas--which change throughout our lives, until they are put to rest, through death. So what I am getting at here is those babies were really souls, spirits, on their life journeys, even then. While it can be said by others (not me) that they were never really ours (just loaners, from G-d), that is not the case for me. My baby and child was my own true love. And is still that. What has shifted is his own ability and right to determine containership. And he has made such very, very limited and very, very marked, in the sense of stigmatizing. And while I focus on what this mean, why, how come, who's responsibility, what can be done, changed, stopped...what is happening here in my and by him is a working out of a life on his own terms. He is literally living by working out in the depths of him, who he is spiritually, the quality of his soul, the essential struggle and meaning that defines his life and will define him with purpose and integrity. This is soul work. And if I write it out like this, I respect it. Those photos captured a moment of time, and a moment of the heart. The baby photos. On the way to a life lived. There was never the presumption by any of us that we could define a spirit or a soul of an adult person. When written like that we recoil from this. Ladies and gentleman. More and more I realize that our work on CD is a way to talk about our own deepest yearnings and our own deepest sense of who we are and have been and want to be. [/QUOTE]
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