working the bellows

The hundred days are passing quickly, and I realize I am never going to be a daily blogger. Phew.

I am, however, deep in the work of processing my separation, trying to be clear with myself and others about my boundaries and needs, and making plans for the (short-term) future.

Big picture is a little too big for me right now. I do relish the thought of getting back to dreaming, though, and have a couple of dear friends, as well as the lovely SARK, to thank for any movement in that direction.

Until then, another quote from Thomas Moore's Dark Night of the Soul (though he is in turn quoting Seamus Heaney's poem, "The Forge"):

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immovable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose, 
He leans out on a jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.