Maori mythology explains creation in three major cycles. This first, Te Kore, is the stage of nothingness, the void. The second, Te Po, encompasses the night, or phase of darkness. Then, finally, comes Te Ao-marama, the phase of light and emergence.
One night about a month ago, while skyping my boyfriend, he excitedly related this aspect of Maori mythology after a day of exploring islands off of the coast of New Zealand. He had only just landed in the country to study at the University of Auckland for the semester and so was a stranger to the land and culture. Since he and I had begun dating, we hadn't spent more than two consecutive nights apart. Despite the excitement of exploring a new country and the promise of my own trip there to meet him in May, the expansive three months apart felt like a death sentence. The night he told me about these cycles - no more than four or five days in - was the first night that this trial seemed... manageable. Surmountable. It gave him a beacon.
"You are my light, my love," he said with a serenity that I hadn't heard in few weeks before he left. "You are what I'm working towards. My marama."
I love that he calls me this, that I provide such meaning to him, but at the same time I can't help but wonder how he has found such a light in me when I haven't quite found it in myself. I've seen glimpses. I know it's there... hell... I know more or less where it is, but laziness, apathy, and/or stubbornness have all prevented me from living in accordance with the truths I have discovered within myself - what I know I want to be. That means being accountable again. That means no longer living like I'm avoiding to do so.
So. Firstly, this means going raw - as in the raw food diet. Also what I call "extreme veganism," going raw means that you don't heat anything you eat (at any point of its existence) over 110 degrees. No meat, no processed foods, no cooked foods. Though I initially intended to form this blog on the day that I began the diet - partly as a motivator to stick with it and log its duration - this entry got postponed by school work. I am now on my second full day raw. And now you are all caught up.
Movement, choice, reading yourself and knowing that thoughts, feelings of sorrow and hopelessness, guilt and stagnation are all phantoms of the mind. That without your acceptance of them, they hold nothing against you, can stand no where and fall easily. You're strong; I see that strength, I know that strength and it saves me every day. I love you. I'm with you.
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