This is amazing. Found on Tumblr.

Loki Look-Alike. Model: Alvir

Pandora’s Box
~ Eva Mae Hamilton

You were born
and
the box opened
and
they would not go back in
and
it was not just one thing
but
everything—
a seam rip-
per rending
right up the
middle, a lit-
tle tear down
the side,
another
spot worn to
translucence,
the fabric woven so
carefully
over a life-
time tattered,
you think you
can never
repair it
you think ev-
eryone
will see the
patches are
ugly the
darning a
weakness that
it will be
forever
unrecog-
nizable.

Weave that dark thread
through the warp, find
in the shadows
the glitter of
scissors needle thread thimble,
double stitch that
hole with golden
thread, add some lace
across that seam
there cross stitch this
patch with rainbow
joy and plaid patched love
until you have
a crazy quilt
a grand tapestry
tight with the story of you

Jaipur Handloom Work

Image credit: Jaipur Handloom

Witness
~ Denise Levertov

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

The Northern Traditions are filled with tales of brave adventurers sailing forth for raid and trade, while the stalwart homesteaders courageously defend the land for the return of the adventurers. Everyone is stout, hearty, bold, and brave!

Um, yeah.

It does take a particular strength of character to say “sure, I’m going to leave everyone and everything I know, and get into this boat, and sail across the sea, let’s see what happens!”

It also takes a particular strength of character to defend your home and loved ones from attack—whether it’s a storm that shakes the house, or invaders coming to plunder and kidnap.

If you are reading this post, you probably don’t face these exact challenges on a day-to-day basis.

But you do face situations that require personal strength and some amount of courage to deal with. Sometimes it’s a major event, and sometimes it’s the daily grind of keeping yourself and your loved ones sheltered, fed, and in one piece.

When I was young (and by that I mean, like, until I was about 35 years old), I was more or less fearless. I didn’t worry that things would go wrong, or what I would do if something didn’t work out. I had complete confidence in my ability to land on my feet, no matter what happened.

Being fearless made it easy to live life as an adventure, making changes at will (not just little things, like hair color, but quitting my job without any savings, and without another job lined up, and going traveling with no obvious means of support and no real plan for what I would do when I returned), and not worrying about what would happen, because I knew it would all work out.

Then I had a some real-life problems that didn’t work out quite so easily, and I learned to worry. I began creating scenarios of “what would I do if X happened?”, where X was something negative and beyond my control (losing my job, losing my home, losing my significant other).

I learned to be brave. To muster the courage to look at the thing I feared, and then do what I needed to do in spite of the fear. To say, “well, X might happen, and if it does, I will do Z”. To feel the fear and do it anyway.

That the advice to “feel the fear and do it anyway” is almost a cliche makes it no less useful. We do things because of, or in spite of, our reasons. I do it because I want to, and I do it in spite of my fear.

I miss being fearless. I miss stepping off the cliff with total faith that I would fly, that feeling of the right things happening at the right time being all positive things.

But I have learned the depths of my own courage, and that brings great satisfaction as well.

Originally posted on One Sentence Poems:

Adult Yiddish
~ Maia Evrona

Language I taught myself with a textbook
that my ancestors learned in the womb.