I Breathe, And Therefore I Love

[syncategorematic]

Strangely, I returned to reading that book on Neuro-Linguistic Programming that I kept starting and stopping. Last time I stopped approximately when it spoke of lost neurotic engineers. Now I went on.

It spoke of the endless human capacity for self-hypnosis. Of how we can build an entire set of emotions and feelings, and anchor it to a touch (thus, you should not actually hug people who are in distress, for the next time they are hugged, they will remember the distress). It spoke of thus re-programming yourself, associating good feelings with another touch, or sound, or sensation.

I realized that this was what I was doing. I remembered feelings of intense joy --- call it love, if you will --- and anchored them to the sensation of a deep abdominal breath. Thus, when I am down, I breathe in, down to the belly, to the navel, to my womb --- and I feel joy and love again. No matter what is happening.

Is it self-deceit? Is it self-denial? In my ethics, no. It is self-deceit to mislead yourself about the facts of reality. But how you feel about them is your own choice. In the trivia night, I chose to feel good. And although the world seemed chaotic, things were good. If I choose to feel happy about anything, that is my choice. And thus no one can take the mental health benefits of love from me, as long as I breathe.

I remembered VV's song about it, written in 1975. I looked it up, on YouTube.

And this is now the sixth time of my life that a video made me weep.

Not from regret, or anything. From power.

When the floodwaters of the Great Flood rolled
Back to their borders, twixt their shores to sink,
Out of the stream's receding foam crawled
Love, quietly crawled out onto the brink
And before its time, dissolved into the air
And forty years times forty was the time there...

And there are still such fey ones as would do 
Inhale this mix and breathe it deeply through,
Neither reward nor punishment awaiting ---
They, thinking that they are merely breathing,
Unknowingly catch onto the rhythm
Of another breath, uneven, hesitating...

 To spread beds for lovers to the fields I go
 --- Awake and dreaming, let them sing more!
 I breathe, and therefore I love, I know.
 I love, and I live, therefore.

And there shall be many wanderings and quests
For the land of Love is a great land!
And from her knights, for more and more tests,
Harsher and harsher things she will demand,
Rid them of air, sleep and peaceful rest,
And ask for partings they cannot understand.

But you can't turn them back from their mad way
Already they are all prepared to pay
--- Risk their lives, even, any price that's been ---
So as to keep and not allow to tear
That magical invisible thread of theirs
That has already been stretched between...
And the wind drove the chosen drunk again,
Knocked them down, and raised them up from death,
For, if you have never loved, then 
You have never lived, nor drawn a breath! 
But, though you shout at many in love drowned,
They cannot hear you, however you call.
Gossip and empty chatter keep their count
But blood is mixed in counting them all
And we'll respectfully stand candles round
The beds of those who died for love ne'er seen at all.

Their souls are given wandering mid flowers
Their voices blending in one harmony
And breathing on one breath for eternity
And to meet --- though on their lips be sighs
On fragile bridges, boats and other ties
Of narrow crossroads in this world's infinity.
To spread beds for lovers to the fields I go
 --- Awake and dreaming, let them sing more!
 I breathe, and therefore I love, I know.
 I love, and I live, therefore.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/]

If I choose to feel happy about anything, that is my choice. And thus no one can take the mental health benefits of love from me, as long as I breathe.

Yes, I agree.

[indicolite.livejournal.com]

It was really cool how powerful self-hypnosis was, the way they've told it. I've done it before, convincing myself to spite the Dark Lord that I like and enjoy math homework...and look where that got me...